Why does every journalist under the sun continue to perpetuate the idea that Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson are the smartest young women in Hollywood. I get it, Natalie went to Harvard and Woody Allen loves ScarJo; but how does any of this make them any smarter than Angelina Jolie, Jodie Foster, or even Britney or Lindsay?
Natalie's on the cover of Elle's "Intelligent Issue", in which, like all her interviews, she vainly pushes that she swears she is smart! The Other Boleyn Girl was raped because she was a capitalist! Duh! But truthfully, I stopped paying attention to NP when I saw Where The Heart Is in 8th grade. I was, however fascinated by Scarlett when she first hit the scene as the new classic Hollywood beauty; but she let me down too in her Esquire interview where she pretended to by smart by staring at a statue of the Beatles, not recognizing them, then saying they looked like the Princes of Luxembourg (which they don't)...she also insisted she likes older men better because they just get her...
First of all, liking older men is inherently immature and purely driven by horniness. As a woman I can honestly say that when I imagine older men I imagine a man who has experience with truly pleasing a woman: and it's true, men are less mature than women and thus an older man might seem to be right on par with a younger woman, but the way I see it, I prove my maturity by being able to tolerate a man my own age, accepting his immaturity as he accepts my invariable culture, intelligence and power. But truly, I only ever got into older men when I realized they were into me...A woman's maturity blossoms when she can go after what she wants, not what is wanted from her.
Second of all, ok, it's cool that you know about the Princes of Luxembourg, but you're not an actual Boleyn sister, Scar: there's no reason to know about them. Would you be impressed if I knew about Kim Kardashian and you didn't? And more importantly, the Beatles do not look like the Princes of Luxembourg! You obviously just found an excuse to bring up the Princes of Luxembourg thinking it would thrust you into hyper-cultured status.
Why can't we just accept ScarJo and Natalie for what they are: the hot girls that don't fit in with other hot girls? On top of it all, they are in fact the hottest girls; and now, the hottest consorts in the history of movie consorts. And they were really really good. In fact, they were the perfect matches for Eric Bana who not only follows suit with Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a confoundingly hot Henry Tudor (the in-real-life-ugly king must have put it in his will that any dramatic portrayal of him must be done by only fine motherfuckers) but also happens to be the hottest possible Henry IIIV. Him and Viggo Mortensen, like Natalie and Scarlett, represent another minority in Hollywood: the non-douchebag hot old guy.
Between Viggo's naked knife fight in Eastern Promises and Mr. Bana's sexy assassin ass in Munich, I have enough deposits in my masturbatory bank to serve daily withdrawals for two lifetimes. Viggo and Eric quietly but surely annihilate George Clooney and Brad Pitt as the hot old guys in the same way Nat and Scar took over the world of the classy hot lady; and minus all the douchebag gimmicks of boy movies like Ocean's Eleven. They not only redefined the hot old guy, they redefined the boy movie. Eastern Promises, History of Violence, Munich...these movies lack the hokeyness of those other boy movies before it: they represent the end of the rat pack, officially. Dreamboys are now sensitive, manly, strong, and family-oriented. And they don't sing. And now, NOW! our hero likes the flat chested demanding chick over the busty subservient one! Besides the pathetic rape scene which was so obviously unnecessary and a vain attempt to show disfunction in their superhot affair, The Other Boleyn Girl is the ultimate projection of the hot whore consort into the history of women and power.
Critics criticize the movie for not being sexed up enough: they had the same problem Henry had. To me, it was the sexiest; when Natalie painfully rejects the king at her bedroom door I almost came in my pants...through porn and general modern impatience, we've forgotten the sexiness of the almost tantric buildup. Henry could have anyone he wants, but he goes along with the buildup: unconsciously, he knows its better that way. I'm not advocating waiting because of it's supposed morality, but rather to encourage better sex. Critics went in thinking the movie would be sex, perhaps it would have served them better if it ended on a Like Water For Chocolate-like, final, explosive lovemaking session that killed them all; or a cleansing, all-exposing fuckfest like in Sex, Lies & Videotape (The Other Boleyn Girl of the 90's); but this was not the purpose of the movie. The buildup followed by the rape was ludicrous; as it implied men rape because they're horny and not because they're inhumanely violent, but it staunchly ended the fantasy of sex throughout the movie in the familiar vane of Elizabeth and Beowulf (they both started out sexy and ended cold and political). But pre-rape, there were important lessons of sex and womanhood to be learned from The Other Boleyn Girl.
Unlikely Rapes & Naked Knife Fights
I know I said "Fuck Photography" but these are cool...
I love this picture from the New York Times' "Pictures of the Day", mostly because the tightened forehead of the boy reminds me exactly of my school picture from preschool when I was three in which I similarly clenched every single muscle in my face. What made us (me at age 3 and this kid) so nervous? Maybe that's how children react at big ass camera's in their faces, or maybe it's just that they have yet to figure out how to appear happy/normal/well-adjusted and still can't hide discomfort. That's probably what makes photos of happy children all the more heartwarming.
And yeah, I know it's possible that he's freaking out cuz his whole half of town BURNED DOWN and his (maybe) dad is wading through garbage water to find their things; but that doesn't explain my shocked eyes and steadfastly clamped hands (it was a full body shot of me leaning against a tree in front of the school). I feel seriously connected to this picture because everytime I walked past my old fireplace and saw that frightful pic of myself I shuddered, at once wondering what I was so worried about and how the shadow of my leg could fall against the tree so perfectly as to look like a distinct third leg under my plaid frock, woolen tights and red maryjanes (fashionista since birth).
While looking at him now, along with his "American" shirt with the flashy zipper, zipped to the very top so his collar can classily frame his face, hair neatly combed, I'm shuddering again. Whenever I see pics of tragedies from abroad, it's never the downtrodden, seemingly immobile people from those pics you remember from the Depression; it's always just people doing what they have to do: which juxtaposes uncomfortably with the pic of a serially bullied kid from a good school district whose problem has neither any apparent reason for existing or any viable solution. 
Again, the subject is not the point; his mom, who's expression is possibly the exact opposite of the little boy above is staring unpretentiously as her boy, like the grown man above, goes about his business. While the man above may be in his worst moment though still strong, Billy savors a rare moment of youthful half-grinning peace; and while the little boy above grows frantic in a moment of unease, the mom is somehow clearly in the same broken down expression she always has. The little boy can only be described as youthfully worried, but the mom is jaded, but you can tell she has vainly attempted a smile on her left side, but failed as her pain has unlearned one of those childhood lessons of looking the way you're supposed to look for a camera.
Monday, March 24, 2008
If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down...
Ok, in refernce to the aforementioned question: WHAT THE FUCK ELSE IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT?!; I have definitely been here before. I used to frequently put limits on myself like in relation to such thoughts: no more looking at facebook until I can manage to think about something other than facebook, no more talking to him until I can manage to think about something other than him, no more talking to friends who do drugs until I can manage to think about something other than drugs, no more partying/whoring about until I can manage to think about something other than these things, no more reading gossip blogs until I can manage to think about something other than gossip, etc. Truthfully, many of these "thinking" qualms became noticeably obnoxious even to myself when I couldn't stop talking about these things, thus proving my lameness to others. Historically, I have always intuitively had too much time to think, and the rare moments others actually spoke to me were thus overcome with my inherent inability to understand normalcy. I never did cool things, let alone anything, and I basically have no skills or hobby now to show for my years of putting myself in a think tank of loneliness. I've thought entirely too much about thinking and grown to resent those who do not think as I do. So now, I approach the final frontier: the aversion of any thinking whatsoever. I want to be in a walking coma, where I only have a schedule to follow, knowledge to absorb and regurgitate, and friends to make inane banter with on a daily, but not too often, basis.
Monday, March 10, 2008
I should have just made my own version of "The Aristocrats"
It's already been established that I can't write, and I have a lot of trouble focusing...what is happening, every year things get worse: should I return to and old way of life, pull an anti-Nietzchian sentiment and just shut everything that is so NOW out and only do what used to work? Well, what used to work was masses and masses of caffeine + any other stimulant. That's not working now. What used to work was watching TV...nope, that's not working now. What about getting away from it all? NO! Still not working...having more confidence about my looks? NOT WORKING!! Drinking...not working. Talking to a doctor? Not working! Can I tell you the truth about my left arm? I'm not exactly sure what numbness feels like, and I don't exactly know what shooting pains are...if you want to know exactly how my left arm feels, well, it feels like I'm stretching it...and like it's a mile longer than my right arm: which all concludes that reading things on the internet isn't working, as well as going to a doctor isn't working.
Today was a tremendous day in losses for me: I lost my whole day in bed, frozen. I lost the heat because a roommate tore down the thermostat. I lost the winning proposal of my passive aggressive note with a 5th grader witticism, which I dignified with an answer. I lost my composure with too much caffeine. I lost my seriousness by showing up at the computer lab hoping to be forced by social pressure to just sit down and do my fucking work, but instead, freaking the fuck out. I lost my ability to make a point. I lost having a place to go when I'm freaked the fuck out. I lost having anyone who can make a difference when I'm losing, but I know I shouldn't be. I just keep thinking "anxiety is anger directed inwards". But I know who I'm angry at...why would I direct this inwards. That episode of Law & Order: SVU where Dr. Wong explains that people who once abused certain drugs are destined to have life long anxiety problems keeps interrupting my thoughts...I can't get anything done. I was fooling myself all along. Or am I just that much of a follower, that every doubt anyone has ever had about me, I jump through painful hoops to prove TRUE. I follow directions that well. "Neeraja, you can't stay in school like this". "Neeraja, you need to RELAX."
I feel like my life is one of those TV shows (who am I kidding, I mean "That's so Raven") where people see the future, try to stop it, and in trying to do so only allow it to happen. My fear of failure makes me fail, my fear of anxiety makes me anxious, my fear that others will be right and I'll never be able to prove them wrong make others right and me unable to prove them wrong. Instead of just trying, I've created a series of elaborate obstacles progressively more and more intrinsically inclined so as to sow them into my own body. Nietzche talks a lot about how the ascetics try to explain away the physical problems as a problem or a punishment of the soul...but who will address the issues of the problem of the soul creating a problem for the body, which in turn create problems for the soul and so forth in an endless see saw of non-productive misery? No, I don't believe in the soul in any religious sense, and I never think of God as the beholder of the soul; by soul, I mean psyche. It is being more and more comprehensively proven with every panic attack that nothing physical is triggering my physical reactions. Nothing. Physical. That means soul to me. My soul is troubled, I am sickened, just like Nietzche. He could focus, he could write, so I know he didn't have what I have, and yet they tell me he was in constant pain. Why do they keep telling me this? Is this supposed to mean something? Am I supposed to be impressed? Or jealous that someone in pain can actually fucking get something done?
Someone explain to me, since I can't concentrate enough to finish this fucking book, what I should do to while trying not to look to the past, or fatalistically break down while looking to what seems to be no future for me. What can I possibly think of if now beginning or end? It reminds me of that joke "The Aristocrats", where the beginning and end stay the same unwaveringly but the middle is what makes the joke a joke. Truly all life begins and ends the same, no matter whose it is: with birth and death. So why continue to dissect every moment of anxiety or pain in the past to understand how to deal with it, and why continue to freak the fuck out over what will happen in the future since I can't get anything done cuz my past remedies aren't working NOW? Why?! Cuz there's nothing fucking else to think about. Goddamn. Everyone thinks it's soooo fucking obvious. WHAT THE FUCK ELSE IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT?!
Women Are Dumb, Bitchy
I normally love jezebel.com, but something about this bothered me. Marion Cotillard is called possibly "brain-dead" for believing that 9/11 may not have been a terrorist attack, and attests to believing the conspiracy theory. I don't want to dispute the legitimacy of 9/11, but I think it's fair to say that the irony of an article criticizing a self-hating woman while calling a gorgeous, talented woman brain-dead is not lost on me. She probably just likes conspiracy theories and just watching that movie on Google Videos, like the rest of us who watched that movie on Google Videos, cuz she was fucking bored and it was interesting.
At least this piece of propaganda had evidence that was, on some everyday level, believable. Do we call people who still follow thousands-of-years-old "sacred texts" brain-dead for believing things that, even on face value make NO SENSE?! Come on Jezebel writers, this cannot be the stupidest thing you've ever heard a woman believe. Even though you hardly elaborate, that one line is caustic enough as you've quickly compared an Oscar winner to a woman who says "I can't add 2 and 2 (well I can, but then what?)". This is not a fair comparison. In fact, I would venture to say that a woman who doesn't believe that the government, amongst other things, is lying to everyone, is brain-dead.
I don't know what the government is lying about, I'm sure the producers of Loose Change don't either. But you, jezebel.com don't rank any higher than us...why should anyone believe you or any other media outlet over our own crazy conspiracy theories? There are Democrats and Republicans in the actual government who argue over what actually happens in the actual government. If they can't even agree what's going on, why should we? I began reading you because I believed in your causes and opinions, but now I see that no matter how unconventional and righteous a media outlet can be it will still always be the media, meaning that it will still always allow the generic American opinion permeate their own unique and informed opinions.
I first noticed this when you published the ubiquitous clip of Barack mocking Hillary and John Edwards for their answers of the "what's your worst quality" question in one of the debate. While it was funny, I noticed that you, like every other media outlet which openly and unwaveringly supported Obama since day one, never published any of his errors and embarrassing moments during the debates, though this clip clearly highlightes Clinton and Edwards' mistakes. The few debates I watched, I noticed several embarrassing moments for Obama which were lost in time after the debates, though his moments of outshining his colleagues beleaguered the media. At one point Obama said he didn't vote in either direction on a bill which would make the maximum a credit card can charge for interest 30% because he thought that percentage was too high...even though not voting could clearly allow the percentage to be much higher. No one ever brought this up after the debate, nor did they ever praise John Edwards for calling out both Barack and Hillary non-stop, whil never being caught off gaurd himself.
But besides jezebel.com blindly following in the rest of the media's footsteps in Barack-related issues, I know they have been vocal in their Hillary support and other offbeat calling-out of media whores. What shocks me the most about this whole thing is that I thought that overzealous, unnecessary American nationalism was replaced by overzealous, unnecessary Obama followerism, as expressed by the media and all those ever-fainting fans. A couple years ago, when John Kerry said that if students didn't work hard at school they would end up in Iraq, the media HATED him, liberal and conservative. They said that his statement was basically calling the troops idiots, which truly offends more people that just troops (John Kerry said students who don't go to college are more likely to end up in Iraq, which is a fact. The media made the offensive judgment that not going to college=being an idiot.) At an anti-war protest at Rutgers last year, all the haters showed up yelling about how the students had no respect for the troops and didn't "support them". 1) This statement is stupid. How are we to support them? By having pro-war sentiments, so they can stay there longer increasing their risk of dying? I actually support them LIVING, not dying. If you support the war, then you support their death and the deaths of random Iraqi civilians. How brain-dead do you have to be to not see that? 2) If you really want to support them and still be pro-war, drop out of school and go to Iraq! Prove John Kerry wrong! 3) If you still believe that support=death sentence, then you're brain-dead. Consult a physician ASAP.
However, when Michelle Obama said she had never been proud her country, the media tried to make it a big deal, but no one cared. Don't get me wrong, I don't care either, but when the brain-dead weren't pissed as hell, I began to see that Barack support had healed over the wounds of arbitrary and inappropriate America-lovin'-in-the-form-of-hate. Dr. King was right, only love can drive out hate. Love of Obama can drive out arbitrary and inappropriate America-lovin'-in-the-form-of-hate. Alas, jezebel.com liked Hillary, so maybe they, being in the media but not blinded by Obama, still knee-jerk it when someone says something "wrong". But still, Jez, why so harsh?