Lazy Sunday

and I am deciding to switch to a WordPress weblog. Yes, friends, it's true. Really, the main reason is that I have no real graphic design skills, and WP let's me do more and has better themes. After two years of agonizing over how second-grade my blog looks, I'm making the switch. So keep reading here.

See ya!

Why I went back to school

Or, there but for the grace of [major institution] go I.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

It's So Hot I Can't Think of a Title, or Beefy Cheesy Glory + Cardiac Surgery.

Did anyone ever mention to you that Chicago gets hot in the summer?

Well, IT DOES! And I come from a pretty hot place myself, people. The San Gabriel Valley is known for punishing long-ass summers. This is arguably WORSE. (I know I've been experiencing it for approximately 2.5 days now, but I think that is a sufficiently long enough time to pass a blanket judgment on a region's weather patterns.) It's humid. You walk into the kitchen--BAM! hot. You walk into the bedroom--BAM! so hot. How did you sleep in there last night, it was so hot? You wake up sweaty and pouty, you sit down and get up with a sweaty back, the idea of cooking makes you think you don't really even need to eat anything but fresh fruit, salad, cold tofu or anything else that has come straight from the refrigerator. The only relief is standing literally right in front of the fan, or (as we are planning to do) going to enjoy the AC in the library.

We went to the lake yesterday, which was really nice. Just like California beaches minus bone-crushing waves and saltiness. I miss the bone-crushing waves though. Made you feel like wading was an X-treme sport. X-treme waders! Tonight at 10 pm. Will Joey leave the team??? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion. (I'm so out of touch with TV I can't even imitate a commercial.)

We also went to Target yesterday, a singularly (and surprisingly for me) depressing experience. Maybe it's that this Target is so hard to get to compared to the Target in Pasadena that makes it such a drag. You're standing there under the fluorescent lights thinking, "I came all this way...for this? I mean, I guess it's a good deal, but then I have to take it aaallllllll the way back home...forget it." We did get speakers though, and a (now laughably gratuitous) cotton blanket for the bed. It's weird, but the nostalgia i've been feeling for California lately has been coming to me via memories of that Target in Pasadena. WTF???!!! Why do I feel so emotional about that place?? Oh well. I guess I spent a lot of time there. It was like, "Oh you need lotion? Condoms? a shirt? notebooks? batteries? Listen, whatever it is, I bet it'll be at Target and I bet it'll be cheap there." Now it's like, "Oh man, we have to drag our cookies all the way to Target? FORGET IT, let's just go to the 7-Eleven down the street." Same thing with Trader Joe's, unfortunately.

And now a note on pets: One of our cats is semi-sociopathic, starts and jumps if you make any sudden moves, sometimes looks at you wide-eyed with terror when you walk towards her. The other one will sit on your lap and drool and knead your stomach for as long as you will let her, throws herself in your path and rolls over on her back to have her stomach petted, and generally is an attention-craving slobbery cuddler. These cats are sisters, have had the exact same upbringing, and have never been separated in their lives. EVIDENCE FOR PERSONALITY IN ANIMALS? I think so!

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

"Everyone is a reporter now because everyone has a camera on their phone, the face of reporting in general has changed. There is very little difference now between journalism and gossip. I truly feel that unless the media goes back to unbiased reporting they are going to do a disservice to the youth of this country."
--Cindy Speaks, Interview of Cindy McCain by Meghan McCain, thedailybeast.com, Jan. 19, 2009

It may be true that everyone is a reporter now because of the cheapness and ubiquity of technology like cameras, word processors and internet access, but I think Mrs. McCain is being a tad disingenuous, or just plain isn't thinking about, the second part of her statement. First of all, can we finally lay to rest the old lie about an "unbiased media" and some prior age when such a thing existed? Nobody really expects the media to be unbiased, or we would want bullet-point lists of events rather than articles in our news sources. And even then, to include every single thing about an event would take reams of paper and so much time that it wouldn't be news by the time it was reported. The selection of the knowledge we pass on is what we might call our innate bias. Everyone has one, and the news source a person prefers usually depends on whether it lines up with his or her innate bias or not. And I'm sure if Cindy thought back to the kinds of articles written about politicians in, say, the '70s or '80s, she might remember that they were no kinder or "unbiased" than they are today.*

In fact, as anyone who troubles to read political accounts of elections in 18th-century England, like Gerogiana: Duchess of Devonshire, knows, newspapers never really have existed in some golden age of pure reportage, with God and Blind Justice as editors in chief. As for the difference between "journalism" and "gossip" becoming blurred in recent times, I urge Mrs. McCain to reread society reports from two hundred years ago or so. The real truth about newspapers is that paper + printing + professional reporters + building space + electricity = lots of money, and that means that somebody or bodies with a lot of money are behind any publication. They may not insist on censoring, but they are there, and you always want to keep the person whose benevolence gives you a job happy. That's the big dilemma for journalists, and also why the internet was (and is) hailed as a huge boon for investigative reporting; DIY publishing for cheap (like blogs cough cough) reaching worldwide audiences is really only possible on the internet.

Now I know poor Cindy McCain probably didn't think about any of this stuff before she blurted out these words, safely she thought, to her journalist daughter. (She follows the above quote with a small rant about how we have to be "good stewards of information and truth" and lists as an example of the media's utter perdition that a NY Times profile about her is now being used as an "example of media bias" at Meghan's alma mater, Columbia University, to which Meghan apparently makes no reply but to ask the next hard-hitting question: "Are there any outfits you wish you wouldn't have worn on the trail?" which is really a sad commentary on how easy it must be to get through J-school without feeling the least bit of duty to be a hard-ass, serious reporter, or even to know one's recent history [see Meghan on Bill Maher's show literally getting schooled by Paul Begala].) But whether she thought about them or not, they illustrate an important stumbling block, in my view, towards progress. We tend to idealize the past, and remember things as better than they were, perhaps because we have control over them in our memories once they are finished. Trying to go backwards to a better time is not the answer. Things weren't "better" in the past. It's just that they're finished--discrete, analyzable blocks or information in your head, and that feels safer than the chaos of the moment. To blame the crumbling of the media, which is a vital part of any democracy, on the reporters is like blaming the closing of a factory on the workers: it's not really their fault,in the end: it's the owner's fault. Reporters, by and large, are no heroes. They do what they are paid to do, and if that means writing fluffy snide articles about politicians' wives, then that's what they'll do. In short, as The Nation said a few months ago, let's keep the "news" and lose the "business."**

(And please let's not forget, as this article and my discovery of Meghan McCain as a journalist made clear, that being a Senator's daughter is a better ticket to reporting than being a good writer ever was.)




*IMPORTANT CAVEAT: While I don't buy the line that journalism is somehow becoming more biased as time wears on, it is demonstrably true that major newspapers and devoting more and more space to advertisements and "soft" stories, and less and less space to "hard" news. This is due to corporate ownership of the newspaper business itself and not to more "biased" reporters, and is one instance in which "everybody" being a reporter is actually good for the national discourse, promoting stories unbiased at least by corporate pressure.

**IMPORTANT CAVEAT II: Of course I realize, all you socialism-sniffing hounds out there, that newspapers must turn a profit operating under our current system, but I mean to say that 1) their owners should be more diverse and there should be more of them period, and 2) there should be some philanthropic organizations devoted to news (are there? Unlike Meghan McCain, I don't get paid to do this, and so decided not to take the time to research that point right now.)

Also, thanks Leigh--your new job sounds intriguing:

Things To Do That I Probably Won't Do Today:

--Get a bustier/corset/girdle/strapless number
--Take my wedding dress to an alterer
--Write thank you card to Aunt Bill
--Make hummus
--Resolve to be a better citizen/person

The scary thing about Dick Cheney (when you image search him on Google) is that he looks like he could be my grandfather or something. Not to say he looks particularly cuddly or nice or grandfatherly, just that he looks old and white, I guess. Remember W.? That movie was so depressing. The whole phenomenon of GWB even coming "to power" here is sort of creepy evidence for conspiracy theorists that democracy is dead. Shudder.

No classes yet...no established patterns yet...homebodyish ways...these can be bad combinations. I am beginning to question whether I am really a "city person" since, though I appreciate that so much is going on at any given time, it takes a big effort for me to get myself to go to anything. Am I lazy? Is it normal? I just know having a garden seems very important, and lots of bars in the vicinity, not so important. Either way, I need to get used to structuring my own time again. No jobs for me! At least for a little while.

I read this book I found in the laundry room called I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. It is a "coming of age" story about a young girl from the Blue Rodge Mountains going to "Dupont University" (ficitonal equivalent of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc=Ivy League school). It was problematic for me on several levels. First, there's the problem of an old man writing from th perspective a young woman--which I don't think is impossible, but sometimes you get the feeling that the girl speaking is just this old guy dressed in drag, which means it is not very convincing. Second, there is this Updikean preoccupation with sex--and to be fair, undergrads are obsessed with sex--that I found distracting and weird. Also, the word "lubricious," which Wolfe uses with abandon, also conjures up cheap porn writing for me. (I wish I had the book right next to me, so I could find a representative passage and write it out.) Anyway, in my opinion, the sex emphasis sort of takes away from the character development. Oh, and the cattiness! The girl doesn't make ONE female friend at college, mainly because nobody can stop concentrating on boys and gossip long enough to consider another girl as a human being rather than a rival. I realize I may sound prudish here, but I just feel like it would have been a better book if it had been I Am Charles Simmons. On the other hand, it was totally consuming, plot-wise. I read it through in a couple days. It's a thick book, y'alls. I think I read so voraciously because I was waiting for the characters to become more real, but unfortunately, I finished reading before that happened.

Tom Wolfe--I don't know what to say. Good job writing a book. I'm sorry I didn't find your female characters convincing.

Also: Diva Cups! ANyone have an opinion?

Well

We made it. We're here. It's officially been one week since we left the fair land of oranges and bankruptcy (I'm talking on the state and personal level) for Chicago. And man is it great! Well, I do miss my friends and family. And I am a little scared of the winter. But there is so much Chicago's got going for it that it sounds downright whiny to waste time pining for "home."

Coming home to my own place is indescribably nice. And our place is so cute! I'll let some photos do the talking here:


cute room (ps does anyone know how to make an '06 Mac iPhoto permanently rotate a photo?)









cute porch

Because It's Been Too Long Since I Posted A Poem

Even though I do find the whole process of posting another's work on one's own page sort of sentimental and overdone, especially in retrospect, I am going to put this Mary oliver up because it is too too beautiful and I have been thinking literary thoughts for weeks (thank you Hermione Lee's wonderful comprehensive biography of Virginia Woolf).


In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Cereal-Eating Dog

This morning, I was 45 minutes late to work because: a) I got up late; b) I read articles on line about swine flu for 15 minutes or so, and c) I lingered with Jerry in the yard by my bike trying to decide if I should go to work or not. While thus lingering, Filipina grandma came out of the house holding a tumbler full of Lucky Charms and milk. It had a spoon, and I thought she was going to eat it herself, perhaps while taking a turn around the yard, but instead she dumped it into the puppy's food bowl. After a beat, Jerry whispered, "Do they know they make dog food specifically for dogs?" I shrugged. It does seem strange that the dog should get a helping of $5 per 13-ounce-box cereal every morning. Whatever. Life with the Salazars! We should make an awful stereotypical sitcom pilot.

And yes, I did end up going to work thank you very much. And yes I realize that my exposure to swine flu is potentially exponentially increased by boarding public transport and sitting in an air-conditioned building with people some of whom have been recently in Mexico. The only upside I see is that if I get a non-fatal strain of it, I will get a week off of work. Not paid of course, but still, no guilty feelings. I (obviously) hope I don't catch it, and really--I think it has been hyped pretty far out of proportion. Nobody in LA has been diagnosed with it yet, and only one poor little baby has died from it (and he caught it in Mexico). Supposedly, there is "no danger" from eating pork during this phase, as it's a "respiratory illness" in pigs. Shit man. Have we come to the pass where our lust for daily meat means that we will eat even sick animals as long as some talking head tells us it's OK? Oh wait, we have been at that pass for quite some time now. Antibiotics with your meat and milk, anyone? For the many pig farmers who read my blog, I urge you to take up a new profession. Come live with me. I'll put you up till you get on your feet. I just think you should really reconsider the whole factory-farm thing.

I also found out a particularly disturbing thing about a new student of mine: he lies to me in order to leave class early. (Apparently he's been at this little game for a while. He was transferred from another class because the teacher there couldn't stand his flagrant tardiness and leaving-earliness.) At any rate, he told me that he needed to leave class early because he works at the 99 Cents Store down the street at 12 every day (class ends at 1). I told him to ask his manager to change his schedule; today he told me his manager said no. I decided to drop by this store on my way to the train station, just to check in and pick up some creamer for class tomorrow (yes I do have grave reservations about powdered creamer from the 99 cents store, but it makes the students feel loved), and GUESS WHAT?? You won't believe it--he wasn't there! He doesn't even work at 12 most days! He comes in in the afternoon! Among this man's other endearing qualities (I mean, besides lying and assuming I am an idiot (this 99 cents store is so close to the school)):
--sexual harrassment of other students
--refusal to participate in class
--reported "bad smell"
--interrupts me after asking me a question (I did put a stop to that).

He's a real winner, this guy. And so is the school, for having a policy that virtually winks at such shenanigans and transfers problem students from class to class instead of taking them to task and saying things like, "Sexual harrassment is not acceptable in this school" or "If you feel sick and have recently been in Mexico, you MUST stay home for a few days."

Also, some woman was hacking up a lung and blowing her nose in the bathroom today!!! DOES SHE HAVE SWINE FLU??!?! I guess we won't know until the WHOLE SCHOOL has it!

Speaking of Moving...

Some things you know immediately are destined for the goodwill, but you hang on to them for a little while, just because somebody took the trouble to actually give this weird, tasteless thing to you, which to that person probably seemed cute, pretty, or festive. Case in point -->
This weird "moss" covered rabbit, apparently representative of Easter, given to me by the teacher I was working with at PCC. Kind of her, thoughtful, but so so useless to me. I'm not one to have a lot of knick-knacks anyway (wait, is that even true? At least I don't put up different knick-knacks according to the holiday), especially when the knick-knack has no functional value (can't hold anything, can't hang anything on it).

And, I'm not making any promises, I'm just saying--we might set our date for the end of THIS summer. Holy shit! But you have to plan the wedding sometime, you might as well do it now.

My Kind of Town!

Chicago is! Myyy kind of town, Chicago is! My kind of

Razzmatazz!

And it has!

Allll That Jazz! And eeeeaaaach time I roam, Chicago is

Calling me home!....

Anyway, it's official (among many other "official" things lately)--we're moving to Chicago on May 28!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!

And I'm going to ------------- with funding! Ahhhhhhh!

And I quit my IA job! Ahhhhhhh!

And I'm quitting DLI on May 22! Ahhhhhh!

And Jerry cut his dreads!!!! Ahhhhhhhh!

I actually feel ambivalent about quitting the IA job. But I do think I did the right thing, especially for myself (as in, the students may not necessarily be better off because I quit, but I will be.)

I just wanted to let you all know. Bedtime!

One I apprently forgot to post:

(saved as draft from 4/28/08, prompted, as I recall, by a "women's safety" chain mail from my brother)

They're Coming To Get Us, Girls

You've probably received one yourself. Ever since you got your first email address, polorox!85@aol.com, there have been passive aggressive chain letters forwarded to you by people you know wouldn't normally threaten the happiness of the next ten years of your life if it weren't for the voodoo threat hanging over their own felicity.

The variation on this classic is the Tone of Authority chain letter. This is the one where the semi-hysterical writer bolsters her argument by assuring you that she knows the information is true because her uncle/brother/father is a police officer/fireman/judge/doctor, but is not, alas, as internet savvy as his niece, and so asked her to pass it on to the world at large, which she has faithfully done.

Besides the paranoia that the Tone of Authority chain mail usually propagates (by misrepresenting the number of people who are abducted/raped, or emphasizing that certian common-sense behaivors are ESSENTIAL to your SAFETY!!! <-- Like that), I find myself irritated by the subtle sexism in them.

First of all, they're always for "women problems." Don't take the elevator alone, because The Rapist will get in with you; don't take the stairs alone because your stalker will follow you into the stairwell and attack you. In fact, avoid moving alone, if at all possible, ladies.

Then there's the occasionally smarmy tone. For example (and I quote), "Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON'T DO THIS!)The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE."

Sheesh. OK, OK, I won't hang out in the parking lot. But tell me, why "women"? Only women have a tendency to make lists, or hesitate slightly before gunning the engline and peeling out of all those dangerous open spaces peopled by malevolent strangers?

Another little jewel: "As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed."

"As women?" Why not "as people"? Or why not leave room for unsympathetic women and sympathetic men and just begin the sentence with

(and that's where I left it and saved it for nearly a year. Why didn't I post it earlier?)

Dang.

I know I'm having my own adventures here and my own life, but damned if reading Leigh's blog and all the wonderful links it leads me to doesn't make me wish I hadn't wanted to see Jerry so bad...or had come back to Chile...or somehow convinced Jerry to come back...or was heading back there right now. I spent the first two and a half months of 2008 there and now IT'S 2009!!! 2009 suckas! Can you believe that?

But let's not pretend that Los Angeles is without its mystery and weirdness and dirt. Por ejemplo, yesterday Jerry and I were riding to PCC. Now, my bike is equipped with a large metal bell that tings! at the slightest provocation, and the road to PCC is ridiculously bumpy and awful for biking on. So, my bell kept ting! ting! tinging, even as I approached a bicyclist in front of me. He glanced back at me a couple times, and rather than try to shout an explanation, I figured that he could probably figure out the situation on his own, as he was bouncing along over the same road.

Eventually the guy pulled into a left turn lane, and as I passed him, waiting there to turn, he honked this ridiculous Sesame Street-style horn at me ("WOCKA WOCKA") and jiggled his eyebrows up and down and grinned. I was going to fast to give him a proper reaction, but the man must have been disappointed since he thought I had been flirting with him for the past mile. I shit you not, friends. He actually did this, and it practically made my day, it was so ridiculous.

Another thing about which I am not shitting you: a biker this morning, bringing his bike on the train platform (which, I might add, is forbidden during rush hour), passed me as I took a sip from my metal KleenKanteen bottle and quipped, "We just regress as we get older, huh? Drinking out of bottles like a little baby." Again, I just rolled my eyes and let him wander on, but as usual, this unsolicited comment from some public transport-riding dumbass steamed me up for a while. As though drinking from a bottle is at all strange or noteworthy in today's world. It's not like my water bottle had a nipple on it. Sigh. Why is everyone on public transport in L.A. conspiring to drive me mad? (Actually, this wasn't even that bad. But I still resent his intrusion into my daily life just because we are both waiting for the same train. Does that make me a misanthropic bitch? Perhaps. Mostly it means I am insisting on my right to personal autonomy as much as the unattractive, the "scary" looking, the male riders of trains. Oh feminism, how relevant you still are to me!)

Another thing: the dog may have worms. We may got to Chicago earlier than planned. I may have to take out my contacts soon.

It's been a long day, on top of a long emo weekend and no doubt I will regret this latte-fueled stay-up-till-Jerry's-home wine and blog fest in the morning, but damned if I haven't been accidentally planning a blog all day long. Now let's see if I can get it out alright.

First of all, a little ambience. The mysterious pregnant woman (mysterious because I still haven't figured out her relationship to the family and have not been introduced to her) is watching a movie, as she often does, at an ear-splitting decibel level. It's Sandra Bullock and Sly Stallone, if you care, the original Italian Stallion.

First, the emo level. There's this girl I barely knew in high school, but who has befriended me on facebook--you know how it goes. Either she posts a lot of status updates, or I happen to get hers in my feed a lot, or both, but the point is that for some time now she has been updating every hour or so with variations on "i FAIL FAIL FAILure life!!! Why fail try so again now" theme. But I sort of have felt like that for the past few days. FAILURE as an ESL teacher, FAILURE as a PhD applicant with funding (remains to be seen actually), FAILURE as...a person without anxiety issues? I don't know. One thing blackens the whole thing, so I didn't really need more than one aspect of failure to set me off. The instructor I work with at PCC seemed dissatisfied with my performance (as she should have been; I am figuring this out as I go along, eep!) and my students at good ol' DLI were near mutinous on Friday (it appears we've hit a wall and need to take a few days to slow down, review, and make sure we REALLY know the difference between was and were and where). Also, I may get funding from ----------, but I may not, and I am currently waiting to find out which it will be.

One beautiful awkward weird English prof has helped me through a lot of this grad school process, and I just read an email from him that came at just the right time, basically saying, don't feel pressured to do one thing. Live your life whether it includes grad school or not. Also my pea of a fiancé looked up an article for me that was very calming, and is himself as calming as a smooth draught of Madeira after supper. I talked with my boss, and my instructor, and things seem to be better. I am also more inspired to be a better IA, now that I sort of know how. And at DLI, slow and steady paycheck life-force-sucking-but-sometimes-giving institution that it is, we slowed down and did a lot of practice today, which everybody seemed to enjoy. Even Miguel!

Speaking of my sweet pea fiancé, it's true! We're engaged!

See? This is the picture from two weeks ago or so. Now, notice my hair. Limp, blah, boring, right? But look at it now! (I mean, look up at the first picture.) Spunky! Vibrant! This is hair that says, Watch out, world! Ok, maybe I'm getting a little drunk. So what? Jeez.

Is it Wicked to Feel This Self-Satisfied?

There are people in this city, and probably in this world, who believe firmly that paying their fare for a ride on public transportation, whether it be bus, train, or light rail, entitles them to the free use of that space without regard to the comfort, nerves, or feelings of their fellow passengers. I'm talking here about those bullies of the bus, those tyrants of the train, those miscreants of mass transportation, the headphone-less music listeners.

Oh sure, there are worse things. (The guy who urinated on the floor, for example, was worse.) But worse things are far less common than the music-listeners, and so the aggregate annoyance at the end of the week from the music people is MUCH higher than that caused by the random disgusting/frightening/weird act or person.

The problem here is that there is usually absolutely nothing redeeming about these people. Because they are listening to music, they're not talking, so I can't eavesdrop on them and laugh at their funnies or save up their dialogue for later use. Nor can I concentrate on whatever reading material I have at hand, as the tinny beats pouring out of their smart phones (and it's always such awful music) make focus impossible. And the worst part is THERE IS NO ESCAPE UNTIL THAT PERSON LEAVES.

I assume I'm preaching to the choir here, so I won't go into too much detail about how utterly annoying this habit is to me. At any rate, today I saw the SAME GUY on the Red Line engaging in this endearing pasttime that I saw on the Gold Line a couple weeks ago, doing the same thing. He listened at a particularly high volume, and on the Gold Line, I had made a point of shooting him dirty looks and shaking my head. I was on the verge of asking him to turn it down, but my courage failed me that time.

Today, though, I thought No More!

No more putting up with his shitty music for the 10 minutes I had planned to ride in peace!

No more passive dirty looks when what I really want to do is ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing!

No more Ms. Nice Commuter!

Actually, I didn't do anything but fume into my magazine until we were almost at Union Station and everyone was at the door, waiting. He looked at me as though he meant to say something, so I beat him to the punch:

"You never heard of headphones?" (the most diplomatic yet disapproving opening I could come up with. Remember, I've been thinking about this for weeks.)

"Oh...yeah, but I don't got 'em." And smiled in a really dopey way.

"Well," I said, "why don't you turn it down, because we all don't want to listen to your music."

"Oh yeah, that's true," he said. And turned it down.

"Thanks," I muttered. And then I ran off that train with my heart pounding because I felt really nervous that he would follow me and want to talk.

BOO YAH!

Kate Winslet Smokes and So Should You!

“[For] actresses older than 40…strategic nakedness can be part of a re-branding effort to remind viewers, and Hollywood executives, that the actress is still alluring… ‘She’s aging,’ said [UCLA film professor Vivian] Sobchack [of Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler]… ‘Apart from the fact that it’s a great role, she was able to show off this incredible body and say, “Hey, I’m still here.”’” --“When Their Careers Take Off”, L.A. Times, Thursday February 19, 2009.

It is hard to articulate what exactly about this article made me feel so exasperated. I tried to isolate it in the quote above, but I don’t think that I quite succeeded. It’s more than its assumption that female actresses have no careers after 40 unless they remain looking like 20-year-olds—that may very well be, and probably is, factual. It’s not even that such a thing is unfair, or clearly values appearance over talent, that bothers me. Those are, after all, the rules of the game, and everyone seems to know them going in.

My frustration may have to do with the author’s blithely unmeditative stance on the issues she raises, a stance that I see a lot these days from print journalism. She defines strippers as “kissing cousins” to prostitutes but makes no connection between acting itself and stripping, which are both performances, and both apparently require that the older performer appear younger than she really is. Marisa Tomei apparently interviewed real-life prostitutes for her role, and she herself is quoted in the article as saying that they seemed to wear “masks,” to detach themselves from their profession in order to practice it. And the author draws absolutely no parallels. (Now from a journalism perspective, that’s a slow underhand pitch that this writer just lets sail over the plate.)

Please don’t misunderstand: I’m not complaining about sloppy journalism. Mostly, I am saying that I. Am. Tired. Of. This.

I don’t want women to participate in their own devaluation anymore, and I don’t want men to do it either. I can hear people claiming that I am blowing this article out of proportion, that I’m reading extra meaning into it, but I don’t think this is true. Members of dominant groups, and those who have internalized to a great extent the message of the dominant group, always trivialize the claim that prejudice and discrimination are a “big deal.” Not recognizing this sort of thing for what it is only guarantees that it will continue to be normal. Male actors can be frumpy, fat, the equivalent of what in a woman would be called “ugly” (and not take-away-the-glasses-and-I’m-sexy ugly, either) and still be considered successful and even have sex appeal, whereas women are scrutinized and critiqued for every flaw, as well as any natural variation from what is considered the ideal female—for example, a hooked nose or frizzy hair. The effects of this on the female psyche are well-documented: studies almost universally show that women and girls who internalize this message are more likely to suffer from depression, eating disorders, low self-esteem, and a host of other negative consequences.

And this sort of message is everywhere once you let yourself see it, even if it is a little more polished than that LA Times article. A recent issue of Vanity Fair featured an interview with Kate Winslet, written by a woman, which began by describing the actress’s “one flaw” as smoking. It went on to emphasize that Winslet used to be a “fat kid,” and has been described as having a “Rubenesque” figure, but now, after having two children, her body has “settled into itself,” presumably as the slender woman posing nude on the facing page. Evidently we are to assume that, contrary to most women’s lived experience, childbirth should actually enhance your girlish figure, not ruin it. There is no mention of a personal trainer, a cook, a nanny, or even Winslet's own thoughts on her body, beyond the oft-repeated quote about having once been plump.

The overall tone of the article is at once disturbing and comforting: Winslet is just like us, it says. “Anyone can commit to 20 minutes [of cardiovascular exercise] a day,” says the actress in the interview, “especially if there is a glass of chardonnay at the end.” Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean that Winslet’s dependence upon her looks for her career and her above-average wealth don’t give her an advantage over most women, as far as controlling a “Rubenesque figure” is concerned. And let’s not pretend that smoking, one of the most widely (if indirectly) touted appetite suppressants in America, might not have something to do with it. (Even if it doesn’t, the fact is that the association is already there for anyone living in the modern world, and reinforces cigarettes’ cachet and sexiness.) Again, however, the author of the article simply ignores these potential points of departure for some real analysis, not just of movie plots and actress biography, but of the way our culture defines womanhood and femininity, and decides instead to happily build up Winslet’s two recent movies and her “normal life.”

We know that “nobody” believes that women are useless unless they are beautiful and young. Sometimes, though, “nobody” ends up looking a lot like “everybody”. The logical end of our treatment of women, and the microcosm of what we see in the treatment of female celebrities, is that we do in fact value women more, or only, when they are beautiful. We trust ourselves to continue to give at least nominal value to women as “people” (as a male-identified society, it is men we think of first as “people”) but this is a trust that historically has not proved wise. Unfortunately, nobody’s personhood is guaranteed—not women, Jews, blacks or any other minority or perceived Other. We are still becoming the people we want to be, and this requires scrupulous attention. Unfortunately, print media is less and less a place to see scrupulous attention paid to issues of the day, and more and more a place to find mindless lauding of celebrities, politicians, and social norms.



*Note: the title of this post is utterly, horribly sarcastic.