Cowardly Lions Vs Roaring Jezebels: The Bish Plz Edition

It is mind-boggling to me that on the same day that I am mourning the loss of one who still had so much to contribute, I feel compelled to write about those that offer gurnischt. Hell, make that a whole plate of gurnischt mit gurnischt with a side order of extra-gurnischt. It's what the kids these days called Haterade.

Or what a blog I know and love once defined as a Mean Girl Syndrome, not at all loosely based on a Lindsay Lohan vehicle of the same name.

To those of you who don't spend too much of your life trawling the interwebz, you may still be aware of an undercurrent in our culture that is directly linked to snark - the desire to rip to shred mainly female targets, but anyone'll do! There are hate sites devoted to all manner of people and things. Who the feck are these losers that bitch and spew bile behind the safety of their screens?

Well, we know one ...

I'm not a big believer in corporal punishment but Perez Hilton? Draw enough crudely imagined cocks and stick them in the mouths of babes, slut-shame women, pay lipservice to anti-homophobic politics but then vilify lesbians (SaMANtha R, anyone?) -- dude, you're lucky you don't have to abide my my natural justice - waterboarding would be too soft on you. STFU Perez Hilton.

But please don't tell the Jezebels to STFU (whoever is behind STFU Jezebel, not Perez). What an idiotic target for all your vitriol? Why not Ahmadinejad? Even Speidi, if you're so loserishly inclined you need to "hate" on anyone? Why don't you just log off and go outside? Plant a tree? Volunteer somewhere? You are clearly not unintelligent, why invest yourself in such an ultimately futile and kinda very pathetic venture? Seriously. Seriously!

It's not what you're saying that is all that off-the-mark. It's just why the need to say it? You say you were on Jezebel from the outset so you're clearly simpatico and saw how much misogynist crap they called out so you ... decided to add to it? And by calling out individuals you claim not to know BY NAME? I'm not being glib, but you may want to consider therapy. CBT is good but you probably need to go with something more psychoanalytic; perhaps go back to the womb for the source of your idiocy?

Unless the problem is that you're not long out of the womb (ie, twelve). Which would explain so much. So turn off your TUMBLR, young lady! And take care. Really. I'm not being bitch for bitch's sake but because your site has actually unnerved me.

Dr. P

Wedding List = Wedding Pissed

I may be smug, middle class and a Guardian reader but there is little I rally against more in life than Wedding Lists or Bridal Registries or whatever you call that socially ordained entitlement whereby couples in love skip merrily across department store floors, furnishing out their little nests in the hope that the mint green sushi bowls and 1200 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets muffle the sound of their inner ids screeching "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!"

I know all the arguments. I come fully equipped with counter-arguments.

"You'll get ten toasters!"
Um ... we've been living together for five years. I doubt anyone would give us a toaster. Besides - we dig the toast! The toast gets eaten almost daily.

"You'll need things"
We've got things. Anything else is a bonus, an upgrade, a luxury, a gift! But under no circumstances is it a need.

"But you get to kit out a whole place"
Uh ... yeah. At the expense of all our friends and family.

Throw some at me, bitches! This is my area de expertise: gifts, my friends, are my forte. I give them, I receive them, hell, I even sell them! The whole essence of the gift, in my way informed opinion, is the manifestation of feelings between people and about shared experience. What's the "perfect" gift? One given that recalls a private joke or a previous conversation, one sparked by a shared interest or motivated by the interest to share one. And if you don't want to put in that much thought, fine. Buy me a toaster. Buy me forty blenders. Buy me nothing! But money can't buy me love and weddings shouldn't be about fecking things. I have been called idealistic about this, immature. Been told "You can't live on love alone". Duh! Like I didn't know that. Everyone these days knows you must, absolutely, live on champagne and fucking.

Once upon a time (almost) everyone squeezed themselves into the confines of coupledom but not everyone gets married these days. Some people are single by choice. Many are denied the right to marriage on the basis of the sex of the person with whom they share their lives. The world has, thankfuckfully, evolved beyond the married/leper dichotomy that characterised much of recent Western social history. As my dad would say, not always in a complimentary way, our generation, inspired by Seinfeld and Friends, were led to believe that friends were the new family and family were just comic peripheral characters on the side (Estelle Harris, Jerry Stiller, Elliot Gould ... a theme, d'you (jew) think? That's for you, G!). But at least broader thinking about family/ relationships leads to more inclusive policies that concern themselves with affording equal civil rights to all people regardless of whether they find a romantic partner, a platonic best friend or a group of like-minded citizens.

So until those groups, or indeed singles, get to have weddings, those of us who do should use ours as platforms for the demands for equal rights for all! Down to heteronormativity and the really ridiculously reductive Gay/Straight, Couple/Single Binary! Until every last polymorphously perverse intersex collective can swan around John Lewis/David Jones/JC Penneys and kvell about china patterns and DVD stands, this lady behind these words is happy with whatever she gets and whatever she doesn't get. He and I have a million times more than my parents ever had. A trillion times more than Nana and Zaida. Getting married is so so so not about things. And if it is for you, well, I feel so sorry for you.

Keeping Up With The Stereotypes

I watched this today, for research purposes only, expecting to hate it. Not only did I find it oddly moving (and cry) but it was also one of the only "Jewish" movies that comes to mind where someone is asked "What do you like about being Jewish?". "Jewish" in this context is not just a punchline, shorthand for signifying "wealthy" or "greedy" or whatever ("Choose Your Own Assumption!") but an actual, lived identity explored as deeply as possible within the limitations of a little comedy, which is very sweet, if not a bit too obviously chasing the Little Miss Sunshine mantle.

And although the stereotypes are there and women are paid scant attention, there is a warmth in large part due to its phenomenal cast: Cheryl Hines, Larry Miller, Jami Gertz (yay! childhood girlcrush! so pretty!), Garry Marshall and Doris Roberts (who both play very convincing Jews), Jeremy Piven. I do like the Pivs onscreen, in spite of the anti-himness on the interwebz -- but who ever knows anything really, right? It's so childish, this hegemonic consensus on who it's cool to like and who it's cool to bag. It sometimes shocks me how much hostility and anger people direct at strangers, especially in the case of one blog I read where a bunch of otherwise savvy, intelligent commentators who seem to GET the role of the media in creating these false contrived personae, weigh in so vehemently on people and relationships we know nothing really about.

So, yeah. For defying expectations:

Keeping Up With The Steins (2006) *** (3 Plogs)

Bitched Out By Bacall

Growing up I had pictures of her on my wall, Betty Jane Perske that was, a fatherless child with a smouldering stare: "The Look".



Years later I spent approximately a week's wages to attend a function at the Dorchester Hotel in London to hear her speak. I approached her at an appropriate moment, then timidly said "Ms. Bacall, I don't mean to bother you ...", to which she retorted "Well, DON'T then!" before imperiously sweeping past me. Which sounds all rather grand in retrospect but I was in tears. (That said, I was younger than anyone there by about half a century and she had just bitched in her address about "the younger generation" AND it was just after that panel at Cannes where she objected to Nicole Kidman being deemed a legend, so maybe it was all just down to unfortunate timing!) But still, Lauren?!? Oh, how I loved you! You hurt me more than any man ever has!

Have you ever been dissed by someone you've adored from afar?