The Happy Feminist

DISCUSSION THREAD: MOST MISOGYNIST OR FEMINIST MOVIE YOU HAVE EVER SEEN?

Annie Hunter suggests that I open some threads up for discussion while I get back on my feet.  And in response to my last post on the Wicker Man, Aideen asks:  What is the most misogynist movie you have ever seen? (and why?)

I'll also ask the reverse question, what is the most feminist movie you have ever seen?  Marc at Punkass Blog makes a case on behalf of Rosemary's Baby, notwithstanding the fact that it was produced by Roman Polanski.  Thoughts?

THE WICKER MAN: A MISOGYNIST ROMP (WARNING: POST CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Oh the irony -- I am just getting back on track as a feminist blogger (Typepad finally reactivated my account today after I updated my credit card information a week ago) when my husband decides to rent The Wicker Man, starring Nicholas Cage and Ellen Burstyn. This movie was so absurd and poorly done that its rampant misogyny is actually unintentionally funny.  (SPOILER ALERT:  THE REST OF THIS POST GIVES AWAYS THE ENTIRE PLOT)

Cage, a noble self-sacrificing cop, runs to the rescue of Willow, his ex-fiancee, who has gone to live in a pagan matriarchy where the women run things and the men serve only as mute laborers. 

It doesn't take long for the movie to start taking swipes at both feminism and femininity in general.  Cage walks in on an all-girl classroom in time to see the teacher ask the students to identify the male-essence in its purest form.  "Phal-lic Sym-bol! Phal-lic Sym-bol!" chant the girls in unison.  Later, Cage finds himself in the laboratory of the island's woman doctor-- chock full of jars containing highly developed dead fetuses, natch.  And, of course, it turns out that the little girl for whom he is searching is actually his child, a fact that his ex-fiancee, Willow, had concealed from him for years -- because women do that, you know, i.e. use our greater natural control over human reproduction to keep men out of the loop.

What was striking to me was Cage's "masculine" instinct for protecting women-and-children as contrasted with the portrayal of the women-and-children as all, without exception,  ungrateful bitches who use his protective instinct against him -- even the little girls.  In the very first scene, before Cage travels to the matriarchal island, Cage picks up a doll on the highway after it has flown out of a car window.  He pulls the car over and hands the doll to the little girl sitting in the back seat.  But the little bitch just looks at him stonily and hurls the doll back onto the road.  Notwithstanding her ingratitude, Cate risks his life to try to save her moments later when a truck smashes into the car causing it to go up in flames. This incident is utterly irrelevant to the rest of the movie except, I guess, to demonstrate Cage's masculine nobility and the eee-vil inherent in the female half of the species.

Cage's courage and self-sacrifice are more than matched by the cruelty and deviousness of the women he encounters on the island.  The little girls in the schoolroom lie to him outright.  They also confine a bird inside a desk "to see how long he can stand it."  But, despite being met with a universal lack of cooperation in his quest for his daughter, Cage doggedly continues the search, suspecting that his daughter is intended as a human sacrifice for an upcoming harvest festival.

At the denoument, however, it turns out that the ex-fiancee has cruelly tricked Cage yet again.  The daughter is not to be the human sacrifice.  The "missing daughter" was an elaborate ruse to lure Cage to the island so that he can be the human sacrifice.  And he is. He is surrounded by murderous bitches, who break his knees and put a cage of bees over his head, before having his own little girl light him on fire as the women scream, "KILL THE DRONE! KILL THE DRONE!"

Again, despite betraying a pretty foul view of powerful women and women in general, the movie is so campy that it's actually kind of fun to watch if you can make it to the very end (it drags a lot, due to poor pacing and pointless flashbacks to the irrelevant opening car scene).  The commenters at the Internet Movie Database (linked at the beginning of this post) have a fine ol' time mocking Cage whose character, at the climax of the flick, impotently screams, "YOU BITCHES!!! YOU BITCHES!!!!"  They also got a kick out of the fact that Cage couldn't even keep up with the little girl as she runs ahead of him, luring him to the place where he is to be surrounded by a mob and killed.

I vaguely remember some bad TV dramas from the '70s involving evil man-hating matriarchies, in which the noble men always outwit or overpower the evil women.  One consolation of "The Wicker Man," I suppose is that the women, while murderously cruel, are not incompetent. None of Cage's masculine weapons are of any use in the face of the women of the island -- not his police badge, not his bravado, not his fists (he beats up Leelee Sobieski and a couple of other women too), and not his technology. I can see why a number of highly respected actresses, like Ellen Burstyn, were drawn to the opportunity to play women who are both powerful and successful.  Alas, the movie portrays female power as wholly evil, but far from being a successful anti-feminist screed, it is more effective as a window into the worst fears of your typical misogynist. 

Here are some other reviews:

The Village Voice: Old Familiar Misogyny Poisons Neil LaBute's Cult-Thriller Remake

Wicker Man does to Women what William Hung Does to Singing

WINDTALKERS

Last night, my husband and I watched the film "Windtalkers" on the History Channel.   It is a fictionalized account of young Navajo men who were trained in the one World War II code the Japanese never figured out.  After the Japanese cracked code after code after code, the Americans came up with a double code:  have Navajo code talkers speak in code words that are also in the Navajo language.  Anyone who wanted to break the code would not only have to figure out what the code words referred to but also translate them first from Navajo.  About four hundred Navajo code talkers played a crucial part in the success of numerous battles in the Pacific. 

The film was a great way to draw attention to a facet of World War II history that I doubt is widely known and to bring much deserved honor to the Navajo people for their compatriots' work.  I particularly appreciated the battle scenes that illustrated why being able to communicate in code was so crucial for winning battles and saving lives.

On the negative side, as film critic Leah Rozen observed during her televised commentary, the film focused too much on the main hero, played by Nicholas Cage.  The movie would have been more interesting if the central Navajo character (Ben Yahzee, played by Adam Beach) had been the protagonist.  The movie seemed to fall into the Atticus Finch syndrome -- the syndrome of telling the story about a minority people from the point of view of a white hero.  This movie is an even more egregious example of the Atticus Finch syndrome than "To Kill a Mocking bird."  "Windtalkers" presents itself as a movie  that is primarily about celebrating the Navajo, whereas "To Kill a Mockingbird" is about a lot of other things besides the unjust persecution of a black man. 

The other problem with the movie was its central source of dramatic tension.  The premise was that the Nicholas Cage character had orders to kill Ben Yahzee if he was in danger of falling into enemy hands in order to prevent him from being tortured into revealing the Navajo code to the Japanese.  For the first part of the movie, however, Yahzee believed that Nicholas Cage was only there to protect him.  The problem is that the alleged order to kill the Navajo code talkers in the event of their capture has no basis in historical fact, according to the commentary that accompanied the movie.  It was merely a dramatic device the filmmakers invented. 

This is most unfortunate.  I am a firm believer that even fictionalized accounts of historical events should not include facts that are known to be historically false, much less make such falsities the focal point of the story.  While I imagine that racism was a real part of the Navajo code talkers' experience in the military, it was simply not true that there was as little value placed on their lives and their services as the plot of the film would suggest.  I love dramatized and fictionalized accounts of history, but historical accuracy can yield just as compelling a story without resorting to cheap made-up facts.

All in all, I am glad I saw this movie because the underlying historical reality is so compelling.  But Leah Rozen summed up my feelings when she said that she was left the movie wishing she had seen the documentary instead. 

NEW LIFE LESSON

I think I knew this already, but tonight it was really brought home to me that it is impossible to row on an ergometer when you are laughing.  It is also impossible to to do push ups, sit ups, or anything with a dumb bell while laughing.  In fact, you could narrowly miss dropping the dumb bell on your own head.

Why all this merriment?  I somehow wound up watching an hour of Kathy Griffin's stand up routine on Bravo.  I don't even like stand up.  Usually the most a stand up routine gets out of me is at best a wry smile. 

But you gotta love a woman comic who is ballsy enough to pull down her pants during her routine and make it funny -- and keep going for like a solid three minutes before pulling them back up. 

KILLING A MOCKINGBIRD

I spent most of my weekend either working or immersed in one of the birthday DVDs my husband got me- the DVD of "To Kill a Mockingbird" along with all the cool bonus documentaries.  I have to say I am not one of those lawyers who went into law because of this movie, but I did like the Atticus Finch character a lot when I watched the movie growing up. (How can you not like him, after all?)  I hadn't seen the movie since I was a teenager and I have to confess myself a teensy bit disappointed, in that it didn't quite live up to my memory of it. 

In particular, I found myself squirming a bit during the latter parts of the Tom Robinson saga, the story of how Atticus Finch, in the face of his community's disapproval, gave his all in defending a wrongfully accused black man.  The part that got me was the scene in which the black spectators at the trial, segregated to the upper balcony, all stand up for Atticus as he leaves the courtroom, and the Reverend tells Scout to stand up because her father is passing.  On the one hand, it is awfully satisfying to see so plainly how Atticus has won the respect of the people in the community whose respect is most worth having-- and that's how I always viewed the scene before (usually I am embarrassed to admit with a little snurf).  On the other hand, with a bit more maturity I guess, I find myself wishing that this film, which is about a terrible atrocity perpetrated on a black man because of his race, hadn't been quite so white-centric.   

Afterwards, as I was surfing the net to see what others thought about the movie, I learned that Roger Ebert had had the same discomfort I had, even with regard to the moving show of respect for Atticus: "The problem here, for me, is that the conviction of Tom Robinson is not the point of the scene, which looks right past him to focus on the nobility of Atticus Finch."  He goes on to describe a later scene in which Atticus goes to the house of Tom Robinson's wife to report that Tom Robinson had been killed trying to escape after his conviction, noting: "The black people in this scene are not treated as characters, but as props, and kept entirely in long shot. The close-ups are reserved for the white hero and villain."  Imagine if the recent film "North Country," featuring Charlize Theron as the woman who courageously stood up to her sexist employer had instead focused on the male attorney who represented Theron's character in the sexual harassment suit she brought!   

Of course, this is not an entirely fair criticism, because the story of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is told from the point of view of Atticus's six-year old daughter, Scout.  It is natural that Atticus's little girl would be most focused on the events as they pertain to him.  It should also be noted that this story is, in part, about how Scout is only just starting to learn about the plight of African-Americans in her community and, more broadly, she is only just starting to learn about empathy with other people differently situated from herself.  I think it's not really the story itself that bothers me or the movie.  There is room for humanitarian accounts of atrocities against black people in this country from perspectives of both white and black characters.  What bothers me though is the way "To Kill a Mockingbird" is still, two decades after "The Color Purple," often treated like the definitive film about segregation and discrimination.  Maybe it's because for so long it was probably the only film to expose the dreadful reality of these issues-- but still, it is important to remember that the story is primarily a story of a white family, the story of a wonderful father's relationship with his children. 

I should also note that it is certainly not a bad thing to laud the courage of privileged members of society who put themselves on the line for those who are oppressed.  After all, when I think of the Holocaust, I think of Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel, but I also think of Miep Gies and Corrie Ten Boom, courageous Christian women who risked themselves in order to shelter Jews from the Nazis.

And the character of Atticus Finch is wonderful.  Someone has even written a book for lawyers about how to be more like Atticus!  He embodies fairness and empathy.  I appreciate this because I am big on the idea of empathy as a key virtue.  He also concentrates on what is important.  While he appears to be awfully permissive with his kids, he is in fact helping them to truly internalize his values by both explaining them and modeling them, rather than teaching his children merely to obey out of fear of external censure. 

I have got more to say on the rape angle and the courtroom scenes, but will have to save those thoughts for another day.  Meanwhile, if you like the movie, I do recommend the DVD with the documentary called "Fearful Symmetry" about the making of the film, and interview with the actress who played Scout -- all grown up! -- and a documentary about Gregory Peck, who was by all accounts, a lovely man not unlike Atticus. 

A LITMUS TEST?

While I strive to be fair-minded and rational in all areas of my life, I will admit that I do have a litmus test for judging men. I am profoundly suspicious of men who dislike Katharine Hepburn. 

My grandfather nurtured a passionate dislike for Hepburn and refused to see any of her movies.  When asked why, he said she was arrogant and that her manner grated on him. 

My Deeply Sexist Ex-boyfriend was just as passionate in his dislike for Hepburn.  He used to mock her "arrogance" too, especially upon the release of her autobiography, entitled "Me."  He would trill, "Meeeeeeeeee!  It's all  about Meeeeeeeeeee!"  He would follow up this mockery with a charming comment like, "I can't stand that bitch."  I was always puzzled and disturbed by his feelings on the matter because I couldn't see that Hepburn was any more self-centered than any other major celebrity.

I can't help but see this dislike for Hepburn, particularly in its intensity, as a rejection of her persona as an independent, outspoken woman.  That's what Hepburn is famous for -- her persona as a woman who does and says what she wants without pandering to men.  In short, I believe to this day that my grandfather and ex-boyfriend hated her because she was too "uppity." 

Early on in my relationship with my husband, I insisted on renting a Hepburn movie just so I could judge his reaction.  If he had refused or said anything derogatory about her, our relationship would have been over immediately. 

MOVIES TO WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN

My discussion of The Godfather and the recent production of Pride & Prejudice has gotten me thinking of my very favorite movies.  There are only a very few movies that I like to watch over and over again.  For me, and probably for most people, a really great movie has to get it all right, every element-- music, costuming, casting, plot, acting, authenticity of time and place, and visual beauty.  Authenticity is a biggie for me.  If a movie strikes a false note, it's like a terrible scratch on a record.  In Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley for example, I was in agony when Mr. Bingley dropped into Jane Bennet's bedroom because I really don't think that during that era a man would have gone into a woman's bedroom when she was sick and in bed.  The exception to the authenticity requirement, however, is in the area of musicals, which can have a little bit more theatrical leeway. 

So without further ado, here are the movies that I can (and do) watch over and over again.

1.   The Godfather.  Ah, but of course.  Every scene is pretty much perfect, all the characters are wonderful and interesting, and there is authenticity galore.  And great music!  And the scenes in Sicily are just gorgeous!  I could rave on for hours!  Best line: "Don't forget the canoli."

2.   The Godfather II.  I am a little less into Michael in this one, since he has already undergone the transformation which was so fascinating during the first Godfather.  My favorite scenes are the Senate hearings and the flashbacks.  Also, one can't forget the fabulously romantic moment when the young Vito Corleone (played by Robert DeNiro) leaves a pear on the dining room table as a gift for his wife.  (Swoon.)  I also love it when Frankie Pantangeli disavows his previous statement to the FBI. 

3.  The Godfather III.  OK, I know, I know.  I usually don't watch the whole thing.  But I will watch the first party scene and then the ending as the family is leaving the opera.  The middle is useless, and as we all know, the problems with this movie are manifold.   Sofia Coppola's acting was the least of it.  She at least had the right ethnic look for the part (which was important and which Winona Ryder is lacking), and she conveyed the basic idea of the good daughter/Italian-American Princess.  A far more serious flaw was that the the whole plot involving the Vatican was just silly. Second, it seems completely unrealistic for Talia Shire's character (Connie) to suddenly be involved in the family business and killing people. (I really don't think a woman of her generation from a traditionalist Italian family would act like this.  It's a pity because the first two movies charted a very believable course for her from Daddy's girl to patronized pawn of the men's machinations to embittered but still powerless middle-aged "floozie.")  Third, there is absolutely no reason for Bridget Fonda's character.

Nonetheless, I still watch this movie over and over again because the first two Godfathers leave you wanting more, wanting to know what becomes of this family.  It is very satisfying to see all the characters back again many years later, even minor characters like the Sicilian bodyguards from the first Godfather, or the bridesmaid Sonny was having sex with at Connie's wedding. 

4.   Scarface.  No, I am not generally into tough guy/shoot 'em up movies, but this one and The Godfather trilogy are so incredibly good.  Obviously, I think Al Pacino is fantabulous, but this movie also meets my requirements of apparent authenticity and great music and great ensemble cast.  Great script, great sense of time and place, great plot.  It has all the elements of a classic story of the American Dream gone terribly awry-- and what a window into the psychology of an overprotective, controlling brother obsessed with his sister's sexual "purity."

My whole family loves this movie in fact.  My mother's favorite line is, "Don't get high on your own supply." My husband likes, "This is what a bad guy looks like.  Take a look at the bad guy." (Al Pacino making a scene after Michelle Phieffer throws a drink in his face at the hoity-toity restaurant.) 

5.  Howard's End.  I think I saw this four times in the movie theater when it first came out.  It was perfect, especially Anthony Hopkins as the somewhat bigoted and obtuse Edwardian robber baron type.  And the scene when Emma Thompson breaks down!

6.  Jesus Christ Superstar.  This is one I have loved all my life, ever since I first saw it in a theater with my parents when I was about four.  This movie was in fact my introduction to the Gospels and my main source of information about Christianity for a very long time! While it may look light and silly on the surface, it actually does get the main points across and conveys the complexities of the story rather well. My poor mother was stuck answering constant barrages of questions from me at the time as I puzzled over the story. ("But why did they want to kill him? Why didn't he try to escape? Why wouldn't he let the others fight for him?  Why did Judas turn him in? Why why why?")  Because it tells the story rather well, I don't actually think that the movie/musical is disrespectful, aside from the passing suggestion that the Apostles may have gotten stoned at the Last Supper (and I suppose the "heretical" suggestion that Jesus may have wanted Judas to betray him). 

7.   Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968).  People have said the acting isn't that great.  But I don't care because this version seems to perfectly capture the essence of the play, that springtime feeling of being extremely young and extremely excited about sex and romance.  I am glad that Zeffirelli chose actors who were actually the same age as Romeo and Juliet.  And as always, he did a bang up job with the costuming and the sets and the casting.  Oh, and Michael York was quite good looking back in the day. 

8.  The Last of the Mohicans.   As I think Daniel Day-Lewis observed in an interview, this movie has a melodramatic, pulp fiction feel to it.  That's what makes it fun. The one weak moment is when some of the raggedy Militia members start fluently spouting ideas about Natural Law and the rights of man. 

9.  Chicago.  I am sure the MRAs love this movie, since it is all about female murderers skating because of their sex.  But it is a good reminder that some of these people whom we think of as "just celebrities" are incredibly talented.  Who knew that Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger had this mastery of musical theater?  And how many musicals raise such interesting historical questions about the treatment of women defendants in jazz age Chicago?   

A WHITE BREAD PROSCIUTTO SANDWICH: THOUGHTS ON ITALIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPES AND THE SOPRANOS

When I was in college, my friends referred to any lounge-lizard type with too much chest hair showing and too many gold chains as a "Guido" -- as in, "Look out! Guido approaching at three o'clock! Scatter!" This was during an era when sensitivities ran so high that an on-campus party entitled "Jamaica Me Crazy" was canceled because it was deemed to be offensive to Jamaicans.  But no one ever blinked twice at insensitive characterizations of Italian-American men as lounge-lizards or mobsters. 

I have to admit to finding the Guido thing kind of funny.  Despite walking around my entire life with an Italian surname, I am not even remotely touchy about Italian-American ethnic stereotypes.  Maybe I should be.  Maybe I am missing something.  Maybe as a non-Catholic who is only a quarter Italian, I am too removed from the Italian-American community to appreciate the damage that such stereotypes may cause.  But from where I sit, being of Italian descent simply does not seem like a liability in this culture today and therefore I don't have the same visceral negative reaction to jokes or stereotypes about Italians as I do to jokes and stereotypes about other groups.

Sure, my grandfather has stories about having been ineligible to join a college fraternity during the 1920s because of his ethnicity or not being allowed to date the WASPy girl for whom he pined.  After he joined the State Department, someone once made a patronizing comment to him in a meeting that he should "keep a rein on his hot Italian temper."  But, even for him back in the day, his birth did not pose a barrier to his advancement in society to nearly the degree that being a woman, or being black, or being Jewish might have.  Nor did his ethnicity ever inspire the hatred that was and is directed towards women and blacks and Jews.  And for me and my father, our Italian last name has had absolutely no bearing on our ability to be integrated into whatever group we have wished to join, be it a particular school or law firm or any club or social group.  I have never come across anyone who actually believes that all Italians are mobsters, whereas I have met plenty of people who believe that women are flighty, that Jews are grasping and that blacks are lazy. 

I bring this all up because the new season of "The Sopranos" has started and I am a big fan (although I don't actually get HBO and I've only watched the first two seasons on DVD).  In the past, however, a number of Italian-American individuals and organizations have vehemently criticized this show as promoting negative images of Italian-American culture.  "[All the characters] act like Joey Buttafuoco. It's a travesty," says Camille Paglia. "It is a debased characterization of Italians."

As I have explained, I am not especially sensitive about how Italians are characterized but also I don't really see the negativity in the show.   Not everyone in "The Sopranos" acts like Joey Buttafuoco.  The show has plenty of Italian-American doctors, and priests, and law enforcement officials and people of all stripes.  Besides, Joey Buttafuoco was a real guy.  (For those of you who don't recall he was the be-chained autobody shop owner whose teenaged lover, Amy Fisher, shot his wife in a famous case in the early '90s.) He may not be representative of the Italian-American community but he is a type of guy who actually exists, and I don't see anything wrong with building a show around that particular type of guy and his community.    Do we really have to pretend that all Italian-Americans are upper-middle class people who are nothing like Joey Buttafuoco?

I am also not offended by the fact that the Tony Soprano character is a mobster. I might feel differently if the show implied that all Italians are mobsters or if I sensed that Italians faced a real societal prejudice in this regard.  But that's not the case.  Mob life is useful to the show because it is inherently dramatic and makes a good foil to the larger point of the show about the process of integration into white bread American life.  As the product of people who have made the transition from a vibrant ethnicity to a more subdued bourgeois approach to life, I thoroughly enjoy watching Tony Soprano wrestle with the contradictions of ordering a mob hit while touring New England colleges with his daughter.  If that makes me the Italian version of an oreo, so be it.

(What is the Italian version of an oreo anyway? A white bread prosciutto sandwich?  No that's white on the outside, Italian on the inside.  I need something that's the other way around. Maybe prosciutto wrapped around white bread?  But why would anyone wrap prosciutto around white bread? Ugh-- having trouble with this metaphor.)

HUSTLE & FLOW

I was so brain dead from exhaustion this weekend that all I was really good for yesterday was sitting around and watching DVDs, even though I had meant to go into the office.  I am really glad I stayed home though, because I managed to catch one of the best movies I have seen in recent years:  Hustle & Flow starring Terrence Howard, Anthony Anderson, Taraji P. Henson, Taryn Manning, DJ Qualls, and Paula Jai Parker. 

My husband and I had passed it over in the past during various trips to Blockbuster because it appeared to us as though it were just going to be a glorified rap video of the bling-and-hos variety.  Oh how wrong and misguided we were. 

Hustle & Flow is the story of Djay, an impoverished two-bit pimp from Memphis whose old dream of become a rapper is rekindled when a famous rapper, Skinny Black, from the neighborhood plans a trip home for the Fourth of July.  Djay is barely staying afloat financially, and he is not really doing anything with his life except chauffering his hos to their jobs (Nola, a prostitute, played by Taryn Manning and Lexus, a stripper played by Paula Jai Parker) and dealing pot.  Djay runs into an old friend from high school, Clyde, (Anthony Anderson) who knows how to record music.  Clyde is living a bourgeois life with a nice house, a steady job, a respectable wife, and membership in a local church, but slowly Djay persuades Clyde to help him record a rap demo to give to Skinny Black.

It all sounds formulaic, but it's not.  First, the movie provides an incredible level of detail about the lifestyle Djay lives and it seems authentic. You find yourself sucked into this alternative world of poverty, prostitution, and drug dealing and, by the end of the movie, you feel as though you know this world and have lived in it yourself.  It does not in any way glorify the thug life, which is portrayed as a dead end way of living which the characters either desperately want to escape or to which they feel resigned because they think they have no choice.  At the same time, while I kept waiting for someone to exhibit really bad or awful or violent behavior, all the characters acted like fundamentally decent people who just happened to be stuck at the bottom of the barrel.  Second, the performances by all the actors I have named are amazing and the  characters all have a great deal of depth.  Although the movie is about Terrence Howard's character Djay, the women characters all have their own struggles and hopes and dreams, even if they have trouble defining what those hopes and dreams might be or how to realize them.  As they watch Djay working his heart out to record this demo, they slowly become infused with their own sense of wanting to do or be something more than what they are.  Third, in terms of plot, the movie did not wind up in quite the direction I expected-- there was neither a feel-good, nor a feel-bad ending.  But in any case, the plot was less important than getting to know the lifestyle and the characters and then watching them change. 

In one of the DVD bonus segments, one of the producers said that this movie is about "the lowest of the low being exalted by creativity."  For that reason, it is a profoundly  moral movie in that it is all about pointing out the humanity -- as expressed in ambition and creativity -- of people that many of us would be all too willing to write off as "trash" good only for a life of petty crime.   

COLLIE BLOGGING AND A MOVIE RECOMMENDATION

I am all out of corgi pictures on my computer at the moment, so I thought I would share some old collie pictures instead.  This is my parents' collie, but I have a special bond with her.  You see, I lived with my parents for about six weeks right before law school when their collie was still just a puppy.  I was her primary caretaker during that period.  She seems to still remember and appreciate me, even though I don't see her so often anymore.  As Odysseus learned in the Odyssey, when you take care of a dog, the dog will always love you even if twenty years go by.

Anyway here are some old, old photographs from my loving collie's puppyhood and adolescence.  Click on them to enlarge:

In other news, my husband and I had a lovely time watching "The Constant Gardener" starring the compelling Rachel Weisz and the yummy Ralph Fiennes.  I have always loved John Le Carre (who wrote the novel and the screenplay) and now I love him even more.  I loved that the book was set in Kenya,  one of my favorite places on the planet.  In fact, the movie was filmed on location in Kenya, and many of the scenes were filmed in an actual Nairobi slum called Kibera. (I find there are all too few movies set in Africa, and since I doubt I will have occasion to travel there again in the foreseeable future, I long for books and movies that evoke a sense of Africa.) I loved that there was not one moment in the movie to jar one's feminist sensibilities.  I loved that I was sniffling and crying during the last three scenes.  Go. Watch. This. Movie.