Whatever You Do, Lindy West, Don't Read "Madame Bovary" Or -- Jeepers! -- "Crime And Punishment"
Raskolnikov, the main character in "Crime and Punishment," is not much of a role model.
But not to worry, because nobody whines about how literature has led them into ax-murdering or body dysmorphia or about how poorly the page represents reality.
They save those accusations for movies and TV.
For example, feminist hysteric Lindy West, in The New York Times, mourns that movies are not enough like real life -- or real life as she thinks it should be:
From makeover shows, I learned that I was ugly. From romantic comedies, I learned that stalking means he loves you and persistence means he earned you -- and also that I was ugly. From Disney movies, I learned that if I made my waist small enough (maybe with the help of a witch), a man or large hog-bear might marry me, and that's where my story would end. "The Smurfs" taught me that boys can have distinct personalities, like being smart or grumpy, and girls can have only one (that personality is "high heels"). From "The Breakfast Club," I learned that rage and degradation are the selling points of an alluring bad boy, not the red flags of an abuser. From pretty much all media, I learned that complicated women are "crazy" and complicated men are geniuses.
If Ms. West has this much trouble understanding the difference between real life and fiction, perhaps she should have her media consumption supervised by a responsible adult.
Also, Cathy Young has a good point:
It's nice when you can just make blanket pronouncements about movies without giving a single example https://t.co/qdOSUKJtla
— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) March 4, 2018
West huffs on:
We need new work that actively challenges and counterbalances old assumptions, that offers radical models for how to conceive of ourselves and how to treat each other. We need artists and studios fighting for diverse work made by diverse creators for diverse audiences because it's the right thing to do, not just because "Black Panther" is hurtling toward a possible billion-dollar worldwide box-office take. Capitalism won't germinate that kind of pure morality on its own, but we can choose it. If we really want to have this #MeToo reckoning -- if we want to fix what's broken -- those choices are part of it. The movement can't just disrupt the culture; it has to become the culture.
Movies do not make bank by extruding social justice themes into the world, and nobody wants to pay to be scolded.
Also, people are aspirational -- they want to see the extraordinarily beautiful girl in the movies and not the ordinary girl with a bit of a muffin top.
Additionally, this notion that there needs to be some "#MeToo reckoning" across the board is just ridiculous.
In Hollywood, there's enormous power and wealth to be had and a great deal of abuse of power and selling of everything from bodies to souls (not that I believe in souls, but whatever's just short of souls).
The widget industry is not bursting with Harvey Weinsteins. But observing that does not make for a full-length huffypants New York Times op-ed.
West goes full-on hysterical at the end:
Art didn't invent oppressive gender roles, racial stereotyping or rape culture, but it reflects, polishes and sells them back to us every moment of our waking lives. We make art, and it simultaneously makes us. Shouldn't it follow, then, that we can change ourselves by changing the art we make?
First, we don't have "rape culture." Only monsters in this country think rape is okay.
"Oppressive gender roles"? I spent the day reading intense science and pounding a keyboard. Gregg spent the day working on my website and then made me a gourmet dinner. (As I believe I've mentioned a number of times, "I don't cook; I heat.")
You get what you go for; you get what you put up with. And this is America, a place where people are freer to transform themselves than in any other country in the world.
If you are living in an "oppressive gender role," that's on you.
By the way, countries with what West would find less "oppressive gender role(s)" do not have the results West, who wouldn't know the science on sex differences if it crawled up her ass and yodeled, expects. As evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart Williams puts it:
@SteveStuWill
Does culture help to shape sex differences in #STEM? Yep! But the effect of culture is roughly the opposite of what most people think it will be...
He continues:
@SteveStuWill
Nations with greater gender equality have a *lower* percentage of female STEM graduatesMore economic security → greater scope to express personal preferences → larger sex differences in educational and occupational choices.
The study he links to.
And finally, getting back to West's use of the term "art": "art" is what people make in lonely garrets after they come home from their joe-job in the factory or their 9-to-5 thing in the accounting department.
Movies, on the other hand, are commerce.
That's why they cast, say, Natalie Portman or Salma Hayek in the lead role -- and not a reasonably attractive girl with a bit of a belly from a pool of the most ordinary women you can find in a midwestern high school.
Disney movies taught me I didnt have to accept my lot in life, that I could live the life I wanted.
RomComs taught me what I didnt want.
The Smurfs taught me women can have all the personalities, not just one facet.
Ive never seen the breakfast club.
Liberals are the most sexist and racist people on the planet. You have some interests that are more common in men? You cant be female, you must really be a man. Pump yourself full of hormones and lose the tits.
White libs here in TX just got a gorilla statue removed from a park because it was "racially indensitive". Anyone who sees a gorilla and thinks "black person" needs to get to sewing a white robe because they belong in the kkk, theyre as racist as its possible to be.
Momof4 at March 4, 2018 5:22 AM
This is instructive! And I'll delete the duplicates!
https://twitter.com/MattsOurSemite/status/969972115381383169
Amy Alkon at March 4, 2018 5:37 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2018/03/whatever-you-do.html#comment-6641809">comment from Momof4Love your comment, Momof4.
@BretWeinstein rightly pointed out that we are all related to gorillas. Every one of us.
https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/969326706128445443
Amy Alkon at March 4, 2018 5:40 AM
Looks like Im going to see a movie this week!]
Momof4 at March 4, 2018 5:51 AM
Looks like Im going to see a movie this week!]
Momof4 at March 4, 2018 5:51 AM
"From makeover shows, I learned that I was ugly. From romantic comedies, I learned that stalking means he loves you and persistence means he earned you -- and also that I was ugly."
And from scifi movies I learned I could travel faster than light and makeout with hot scantily clad alien babes with no worries about having kids. I also leaned that anything that is half intelligent looks like me but with a funny forehead or skin color. Also, if you have a beard you are evil and from an alternate dimension (the land that gillette forgot).
Somehow despite all I learned I still don't have a spaceship.
Ben at March 4, 2018 6:26 AM
> we are all related to gorillas
You have a common ancestor with the cockroach too. Let's not get carried away with this....
Crid at March 4, 2018 6:39 AM
From Better Off Dead, I learned that I can build my own, if I have a genius little brother.
From that movie, I also learned that skiing is easy, that suburbia is weird, and that you really don't want to piss off the paperboy.
Conan the Grammarian at March 4, 2018 7:02 AM
"We need new work that actively challenges and counterbalances old assumptions"
Yes, go right ahead! No one - and I mean no one - is stopping her from doing so.
Let her spend her time, her money, and her effort into creating these new works to counterbalance old assumptions.
charles at March 4, 2018 8:00 AM
It's up to parents to screen movies and shows. Of course these things influence us. There's a lot of positive content out there. And Disney princess are getting more interesting.
NicoleK at March 4, 2018 8:04 AM
It's up to parents to screen movies and shows. Of course these things influence us. There's a lot of positive content out there. And Disney princess are getting more interesting.
NicoleK at March 4, 2018 8:04 AM
Sorry for the double post.
NicoleK at March 4, 2018 8:06 AM
Clearly, she didn't watch The Breakfast Club to the end. If she had, she would have heard this:
"We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain… …and an athlete… …and a basket case… …a princess… …and a criminal."
(emphasis mine)
NorthGoingZax at March 4, 2018 11:13 AM
When anyone states that, "We" should do this or that, what they really mean is someone else should actually do it.
Jay at March 4, 2018 12:22 PM
Uh.. If girls do this, they're told they are lesbians, and in the chance that they're pretty.. Well.. They're pretty much ignored altogether.
Now if a boy dares to grab mom's lipstick even by accident? He's trans and it's time to cut those nuts.
Sixclaws at March 4, 2018 3:31 PM
Smurfs arent male, they are neuter
Smurfette was created by Gargemel
She was a soulless golem created to destroy the Smurfs
Women who get pissed off about magically created sexless golems because of its comparison to a race a neuters have serious mental and emotional issues
lujlp at March 4, 2018 3:37 PM
"Shouldn't it follow, then, that we can change ourselves by changing the art we make?"
In Marxism, the only legitimate purpose of art is to propagandize on behalf of the Party and the State. All else is bourgeois, and must be suppressed. And by "ourselves", she doesn't mean herself; she means you. One of the hallmarks of totalitarianism is attempting to impose a culture upon society in top-down fashion.
And, hey, Lindy: about "Breakfast Club"? It is not meant for the likes of you. It's an X thing; you wouldn't understand. Leave it alone.
Cousin Dave at March 5, 2018 6:45 AM
What this woman wants is propaganda. She is free to make such a movie, but it will be a money loser. You can find Soviet Propaganda on Youtube I am sure and it is dreadful. Christians make Christian movies every year, and a few of them even make some money. Movie makers do in fact make "woke" movies that are anti-war (Saving Private Ryan) etc.
Let's look at the recent "woke" Stars Wars with the female jedi (no women could be jedi in the old ones)--note that she is the strongest ever, without any training, and does the right thing not because of her membership in a society of jedi with a code and teachings, but just out of organic goodness for no reason at all. I stopped watching them. It is easier to believe in faster than light travel (for the sake of a story) than a character who is just good for no reason. Remember that in the original star wars all the characters had to go through a personal struggle to be noble. Luke was impulsive and immature. Hans was selfish and violent. None of them understood what was going on.
Amy's point about who we want to watch in the movies is spot on. We want the larger than life stuff. Ordinary life we can observe daily and it is boring. By the way, female leads can be odd looking (Geena (sp) Davis) and male leads postively ugly (Danny DiVito, Paul Giamatti (sp again), Andre the Giant, hell even Will Smith is funny looking).
cc at March 5, 2018 9:25 AM
Well, Lindy, you are fat and you are ugly -- inside and out. You are also stupid. You are a self-righteous, self-pitying, solipsistic sexist bigot. A shit-sniffing feminist dung beetle.
Make all the revolutionary "art" you want, darlin'. But for the love of God, SHUT UP.
Jay R at March 5, 2018 12:01 PM
There's a thread in modern feminism that seems to believe that skills or areas of endeavor in which more men than women excel don't require training, study, or years of hard work, that the skills just come naturally. And, therefore, women not excelling in those fields in equal numbers must be solely due to discrimination and discouragement, not an unwillingness on the part of young women to do the hard work required to lay a strong foundation in the field.
Conan the Grammarian at March 5, 2018 1:47 PM
Anyone with half a brain who's heard a kid scream when the TV gets turned off or the Smartphone gets yanked out of its hands should know that the REAL problem is letting a kid have more than one or two hours a day of screen time anyway, regardless of how "educational" screen time might be.
The more addictive something is, the more likely it is to be bad for you. Period. Besides, the inconvenient truth about schoolwork and leisure reading is that both take time away from exercise AND from many social skills (though not all), which is why it's crucial to put strict limits on screen time.
Forcing kids to do more healthful things can be tricky - you can order kids to exercise as much as YOU'RE willing to exercise, but not more than that. The reason organized youth sports exist is largely because too many kids would refuse to go outdoors at all if the parents didn't make them play sports. Modern kids don't necessarily LIKE playing sports compared to video games, with or without adult interference.
Also, while you can read aloud TO kids and with their participation, making them read when alone is even trickier than making them exercise, since the benefits of reading may not become obvious to them for years - especially if their friends never read books at THEIR grade level for fun. In such a situation, one could easily get mocked, regularly, for reading.
From a 2015 thread here:
...just this morning, I got a call - before 9, I think, which is not very polite for a stranger - from an alleged non-robot asking about whether I thought parents should have the right to keep nasty movies and games away from kids.
I said: "I think kids should read more."
Since I admitted I don't have small kids or grandkids, the call was terminated.
It came from Life Giving Moments. At the site, under "Why," it says:
"To block and monitor media by focusing on age appropriate media, blocking predators and violent media and creating involved families so that media use does not translate into anti-social behavior or cyber-bullying."
The "caller" was Amanda.
However, here's some interesting stuff on the org:
http://museumfatigue.org/2014/01/14/amanda-computerized-telemarketer/
I have to admit, if she really was a computer, I might never have guessed. But again, the call was short.
The whole thing reminds me of a similar org called D.O.V.E., who also called me years ago, maybe in 2005.
More on D.O.V.E., from the childfree newsgroup:
Excerpt:
Bob: "I got the same call. I told him I wanted more gay and lesbian programing. He promptly hung up on me."
lenona at March 7, 2018 9:35 AM
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