Margot at the Wedding

Margot at the Wedding is a movie I watched while on my vacation. I don't know that I actually enjoyed this movie but I liked a few of the points it made and the way it connects to writing and Truth and connecting to intimate others.

I liked the scene especially well when Margot and her sister Pauline are in a hotel room. Margot who is a writer of books and magazine stories is sitting on the bed with her journal before her writing. Pauline accuses her of writing about her and the situation they are currently in. Apparently in the past Margot has written about Pauline's life and it ended up in tragedy. She rips the journal from Margot's hands and says, "The rights to this are not for sale."

I thought this made some great connections between writing biography, ethnography, autobiography and what are the ethical lines and limitations of writing about people we are intimately connected with. How as researchers should we be committed to ethically representing the people we are working with. I think we must be held to an utmost standard not of portraying accuracy, honesty, and the truth but of being fair, empathetic, and accountable. This means showing care and thinking about the way we
would like to be represented if the research were about us and even better talking about ourselves (the self) in the research so as to make one even more accountable to the process.

This also made me recall a conversation had in my qualitative methods II class about the woman who supposedly wrote a memoir about her life in a gang. It was later found that all of the things she wrote about were fabrications, that she had been dishonest about her past with just about everyone and written a book about it. I would never advocate that this is an ethical position to hold to premeditate fabrications and falsify stories but I also think we have to reconceptualize the Truth. Was it ethical-no but if it helped someone and served a larger purpose might the outcome be worth it? I don't know but these are questions I have to ask. Is the greater good of helping someone, calling people to action/social justice more important than complete and utter honesty which can never actually be achieved anyway? I think it might.

This reminds me of Testimonios written about mainly women in Central and South America. The women in these testimonies reveal their stories about having loved ones disappear in countries facing political turmoil. These women risk their lives to join activist groups in order to stand against the the government in solidarity. The testimonios are mainly written for an American audience so that they will be called to action to ask the U.S. government to send support to stop funding for corrupt governments that harm and torture Central and South American people. These testimonios are calls to action for people in the U.S. to realize what happens in other countries and how the U.S. contributes to these problems. However, what was later found was that the stories in the testimonios were sometimes part of a collective consciousness made because the society's of which these women took part were collective society's so what happened to a neighbor or relative felt like it was directly tied to the woman telling her story to the translator and using it though it were her own tragedy to tell-in a way it was. But is this being dishonest, using a clever strategy, or simply an act of story-telling? It is hard to say but I can't help but think that without these testimonios the words of these women might never be heard and if it can call one person's attentions (and it did because it drew mine)so even if it is not completely factual-it served a greater purpose.

This doesn't mean advocating lies or thinking it is ethical to falsify a complete story but in this sense the author of the gang memoir is villanized for not being truthful but stories like Into the Wild are valorized because they are supposed insights into the truth-but the story serves no purpose but to illustrate a white privileged kid deciding to give it all up to disconnect from society in the wilderness. What good does supposedly piecing his story together do for humanity? What does the attempt to retrace his steps, talk to people he knew, go to the place his body was found? This is not Truth, this is Krakauer's interpretation of truth as he figured it out. And he portrays McCandless as a hero and Krakauer is a hero for finding this uncovered story. Although I liked the movie, I think it failed to focus on the real culprit, mental and social dis-ease. No one knows what McCandless's story really is and the book even if it had been written by him himself would not be the accurate and real story behind his life.

So why do we value some stories, valorize them and glorify the writers and subjects and others we condemn and villianize. I understand the situations and circumstances are different-but not so much that no comparisons can be drawn. In the end I think it comes down to the bodies that are being represented and the narratives being told in each of these types of story. Into the Wild's main character is an upper-class white privileged kid from Virginia or something who goes Emory University and is on a quest "to Find Himself." This is a story I bet a lot of white middle class white men could relate to-not wanting to deal with life, wanting to be free from societal expectations etc and I say men not because women do not feel the same but the manifestations because of society tend to be different. Men are supposed to be removed nature (more feminine characteristic) and primal nature which is no longer socially acceptable o the ultimate release is for them to become in touch with these things. I know these are large sweeping generalizations but being raised by a step father who obviously wished for this life as well as an uncle who is still trying to live it I think it might be somewhat fair. In opposition In Love and Consequence is written by a white woman also middle class but supposedly about herself as a multi-racial Native American and white girl in and out of foster care. This is telling a harrowing tale of interacting with black people and dealing with gang violence. This is an unpleasant story to hear and tell and one that she should have probably prefaced as being a compilation of truth, fiction, and other people's stories but didn't. While the theory might not hold up in court I can't help but think it definitely has something to do with it. I am not on her side but I think things are always more complex then we would like to make them-boil everything down to black and white-Truth and lies. But everything is a representation and interpretation and those are all subjective. We can never get to the truth of experience no matter how hard we try so the point is to maybe think of the bigger picture, the purpose of the work. This is a challenge because most people in this society want real definitive answers or are only open to discourses of the unknown as they relate to Jesus and God. I would hope people would be open to empathy and accountability...I think I will be working on that for awhile


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MARGOT AT THE WEDDING Trailer

finally...they made a movie about me

Yesterday I received the movie Puccini for Beginners from Netflix. I had been avoiding this movie like the plague because it seemed like it was going to be something ridiculous-all about music I could care less about, with a straight couple falling in love and doing it to opera in the end (BORING!). Then I opened the description and it is actually about a commitment-phobic lesbian who goes through a break-up ends up falling for a guy one night and girl the next and trying to deal with the chaos this can bring up in ones life. Of course the girl and the guy she falls for end up being ex-lovers and it brings to the forefront how small of a place Manhattan really is.

This movie is delightfully funny and brings poignant issues to the forefront of the world, such as what is man, woman, masculinity, femininity, can you be a lesbian and date a man, does the label lesbian (or any other) even matter when it comes to love? And what about marriage and the, "Are we going anywhere" factor-and I don' mean where do you want to eat dinner-although I often find that question complicated enough as it is. And at one point she delivers an amazing speech about marriage being just a patriarchal assumption of the straight people and that of course gay people want to get married because they can't (and although I do not believe in anyone's concept of marriage) I think that she has a point. If someone was telling you you couldn't do something based on who you are (or who you choose to spend time with) you might be more inclined to fight to want to do it too. And that in some way this process of fighting for it is in some way transformative. Don't know if I buy it-but I see her point.

Plus I think I am Alegra-we dress alike, think a like, speak sort of similarly, are self-obsessed and think quite highly of ourselves. And like Bette from the L Word I tend to think my things are more important than anyone else's-I know right-just the kind of thing you want people reading about you to know. But i'm working on it-it's a process and we can only become better right...well lets hope!

enjoy the trailer-fun times!

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Kimya Dawson, Juno

So I am so excited about the movie Juno and even more excited about Kimya Dawson and the fact that she did a significant portion of the music. Finally one of "those" movies that finally features the quirky girl as the main character instead of some stupid side kick that helps the straight white guy solve all of his problems (read Eternal Sunshine, Garden State etc...) So hopefully these vids work!

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What should we give up for someone else...or for love

"Because it is Christmas and at Christmas you tell the truth..." Love Actually, my all time favorite Christmas movie along with the Family Stone...

So I am watching Love Actually and as most of my thoughts usually stem from some piece of media these thoughts stem from this one. My Christmas champagne is bubbling over in the glass and the movie has just began, the opening lines coming from Hugh Grant, "Love actually is all around..." cut to music.

Why this movie...because it is bittersweet. It is real. Maybe not realistic but the emotions it inspires and elicits are both joyous and yet melancholy at the same time, making it real. It seems to bring up the images of lone trees that my mother collects which are hopeful for their survival and yet lonely because they are well alone in the wilderness...and this is often how people feel on holidays. This is the most wonderful time of the year, but not for everyone. Not for the poor who have commercialism thrown down their throats, not those who have recently lost family/friends/pets and have a constant reminder that that entity will not be present for the festivities, nor those who have been through rough break-ups, divorces, periods of growth, transition, and change. For those people the holidays are bittersweet, we are supposed to be happy, but are we supposed to push away our normal everyday feelings in order to make merry during the holiday season? We can't and so we push forth into the holidays with glass of cheap bubbly in hand hoping to combat our angst, guilt, and fear by gorging ourselves on overcooked food, and burying ourselves in holiday cheer.

Back to the movie...why I love it so much. This movie is about people who some get what they want and some don't, but in the end things work out the way they are supposed to or at least for the best at the present time. And it speaks to me because some of them do not do what is best for themselves but what is best for the situation or because they feel immense duty before their own happiness.

The art gallery director who is love with Juliet (Keira Knightley) is able to tell her how he really feels but knows that he isn't going to hurt his best friend or break up their marriage (not yet anyway...). But he gives up his love for her for the best of the situation-he is willing to do that and it is admirable. He doesn't do what makes him happy, he does what appeases his emotions by telling her in the cutest way possible.

Second example Laura Linny's character who when given the chance to sleep with the hot guy in her office decides that she can't because she has to answer the phone from her brother and be there for him in the way he needs. It is sad to see the sacrifice happen-but I think that is a truth that happens. People give up their own desires for happiness in order to do what they see as obligation and duty and I also think that is admirable-sad yes-but admirable also...

So what should we give up or not for someone else or for love-even if that love is platonic or familial and should we give up our own happiness for the well-being of someone else. In certain situations I honestly think we should to an extent. In this society of "do what makes you happy," "do what's best for YOU" it is surprising to find the antithesis of this. And I think it is this melancholia that really describes what the holidays mean for some people...

Blades of Glory and other stupid white straight men's attempts at comedy...

Since most of my friends are currently gallivanting around the Midwest with their hometown friends and families I am happily stuck at home watching ridiculously stupid movies and some surprisingly good ones too. So here's a movie I hated and a movie I loved both in the same vein of "Guy Flick" featuring straight, white, guys and their attempts at humor.

Blades of Glory
No surprise here, this movie is in the negative range as far as stars go. So why did I expect more, well as a avid Will Ferrell fan and one who laughed through pretty much all of Napolean Dynamite I was excited that this comic duo were involved in a movie together. But this movie is not at all in the same vein as say Anchor Man, or Old School-which have decent story lines amid the pot smoking, cussing, and nudey shots. However, not only is the plot line of Blades of Glory stupid and ridiculous (two guys get in a fight at a men's figure skating championship and are banned from the sport for life, thus, leaving them with the only reasonable solution: to become partners in the pairs figure skating competition), The sad thing is the entire movie relies on homophobic notions to be even remotely funny. The only reason a person could find it funny is that they think it is awkward to see two men in provocative bodily positions with one another. As a person who does not think two men holding hands, embracing, or putting their genitalia in each other's faces is anything to write home about, let alone laugh at I did not think the movie was funny at all and made me question my love for Ferrell as an actor. I mean I don't think he and the other straight white guys (Vince Vaughn, Steve Carrel, Ben Stiller, the Owen Brothers etc...) are as actively racist, homophobic, and sexist as they appear on camera. I think these movies are social commentary on "guy" culture, but at the same time they completely reaffirm everything it means to be male while being complete pigs to their female movie co-stars. In say for example Wedding Crashers-the guys who crash weddings in order to get laid make themselves look very good while making the women they sleep with appear crazy, incompetent, and often not worth their time. It bugs me that in order to get laughs these guys rely on such sexist, racist, and homophobic humor, when the simple stoned/drunk jokes about penis size can suffice quite nicely. Thus we turn to...

Knocked Up
Now much of the same stuff I just wrote about Blades of Glory could be applied to Knocked Up but it steps ahead because at least it has a good plot line, and the guy stops being a complete idiot by the end of the movie giving it that slightly more romanticized notion of guy-ness and "guy" culture. Much in the way that the 40-Year-Old Virgin starts as guys getting stoned and wasted and searching for hot chicks to hook up with and turns into a kind of revealing story about one guy who just hasn't wanted to give it up that easily and is actually searching for not just a hook-up but someone he actually cares about so is Knocked Up.

Basic plot line-Ben(goofball from Canada, not the most good looking, definite huge stoner, doesn't have a job but thinks that he and his friends have struck it rich in developing a website that tells when nude scenes happen in movies) meets Alison (a successful, attractive, woman working at E! ) one night at a bar. The two are an unlikely pair, however, Ben's charming demeanor and smooth lines kind of get Alison interested and eventually the end up dancing and then going back to her place for one-night-standville. A miscommunication keeps Ben from putting on the condom and they have completely unprotected sex, which I find unlikely, but without it the plot would die right then and there. They end up pregnant but instead of just deciding to keep the baby and their separate lives, they try to make a go of it. It of course doesn't work out immediately because they are really different and can't always communicate with one another, but after Ben decides to move out of his house (with his equally disgusting roommates), get a real job at a website developer, and "read the baby books," he is able to help Alison cope with her pregnancy and really just steps up his game like 10 fold! In the end they wind up together with their baby and everything is kind of la la la la la.

I really liked this movie because Ben realizes the errors of his ways in "guyville" and decides to make a change. It also shows that opposite people with opposite personalities can make things work but they have to compromise and communicate. And sometimes when a baby is involved there is more at stake than just a failed relationship. I like this movie because it takes a nonchalant guy who is just busy doin his thing and gives him a real life mini crisis to work through and figure out. It also shows how guys like this can get to the pretty, smart, successful woman who is "never attracted to guys like that" and shows how she deals with that. And there are some really funny scenes too-dancing at the club, Vegas, the bath tub, several to pick from. And they make it in the end which, is the true test of comedy. I give this movie four stars for pure entertainment value without relying solely on degrading humor to make the movie funny!