Friday, May 23, 2008 - Posts
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XXer Rosa Brooks sends this one in:
I think we know exactly what Hillary meant:
"Nice nominee you got there ... sure would be a shame if anything happened to him."
Awfully big-hearted of her to be willing to stick around through August, just in case ...
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I'm not saying she literally hopes he dies soon. (Plus, she's apologized, so case closed, right?) But Hillary didn't mean what she said this time just like she wasn't exactly shouting out to hardworking white people, and Bill didn't quite say Jesse equals Barack, and her surrogates never meant to push the whole image of him as a druggie in the 'hood, and she never meant to reanimate the whole highly racial Jeremiah Wright hoo-ha by saying—gosh darn the timing, just as things were dying down—that he woulda never been her pick for pastor. But either Hillary Clinton is one smart, savvy, and occasionally even on-message politician—in which case she is well aware of what it means to reference the possible assassination of a black leader in this country—or she isn't and doesn't. It can't be both.
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I admit I watched Sex and the City, the series, pretty religiously. I missed the beginning. And after watching my first episode, I hated it. I hated the way they talked: the faux fabulousness. But it was oddly addictive. It was like a train wreck I couldn't stop staring at.
And then I started to genuinely like it. While still hating it. Sort of.
But the end, the end, it drove me mad.
I was never a fan of Mr. Big. I thought he was miscast. I thought he was downright abusive to Carrie. I have dated men like this. They want to spend time with you, on their terms, only in private, and will never acknowledge their relationship with you in public. For years, they might introduce you as their "friend." They come and go as they please. Then suddenly they marry someone else. Yet they still call you. They string you along with scant moments of tenderness.
Anyway, it seemed a relationship for a 20-year-old, not a wise, powerful thirtysomething woman.
And this was my main gripe with the show. It promised to be about wise, powerful, independent women. Women who can fuck around like men, but at the end of the week, they always show up for brunch with their girlfiriends. But in the end, it was just about four single women who wanted to find Prince Charming.
Jane Austen with fornication!
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Melinda,
I admit this is a new one for me, defending Hillary, but I don't think that's quite what she meant. My take on it (and some of our Slate colleagues seem to concur) is that she was referring to the fact that it's only May, so it's too soon for her to think about dropping out (which ignores the reality that she can't possibly get enough delegates to pass Obama).
It's unfortunate and a little odd that she chose to cite RFK's assassination as an example of primaries that last past May, especially given all the uncomfortable attention given to the idea that Obama, as an African-American, is at risk for being assassinated himself.
It's interesting, though, that you raise the idea of Hillary becoming vice president, as there's a lot of discussion about that today in the blogosphere, and her chief fundraiser is making veiled threats about the consequences of not putting her on the ticket.
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Sorry to get distracted from sex and HBO for a minute, but just when I thought Hillary Clinton could no longer surprise me, did she really just say hey, he could always get shot? Which raises the question: In the unlikely event of a "dream ticket,'' who do we see for White House taster?
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Oh gosh. Can I hide in a closet for the next two weeks, until, like a bad skin peel, this movie flakes off and goes away? For the first five or six or 20 seasons that it was on, I avoided the show, out of principal. What principal, I'm not sure—just the commercials about it on HBO made me twitchy with disdain. Then I realized that it was hardly fair to judge a show without ever having actually watched it. So I did, catching maybe six or eight episodes in a row. It was, I admit, oddly addictive. Still, I stopped when I realized I was missing half the scenes because my eyes were rolling so hard in my head. Also, I got a headache. I disliked much about the show, including the blatant, smug narcissism of all the characters. (The last show I watched was the one in which none of them even knew where they were supposed to vote, because they never bothered. After that, I was done.) I realize that was the point, in part; I just didn't like it. But my major problem was the total and complete absence of black, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. etc. etc., people in that fairy-tale New York. Not just in starring roles— because, let's face it, most people in America, even in urban areas, lead fairly segregated lives—but even in background scenes! Except, of course, for Blair Underwood, Hollywood's designated black man. It was as if a plague had descended on the NYC that I know and love, wiping out only the dark-skinned and unfabulous. Someone must have painted the blood of a lamb over Underwood's door so that he alone was spared.
I preferred Girlfriends. Equally ridiculous in many ways, but five times funnier.
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I was going to say I watched that show sort of like I used to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom as a kid. But that's wrong, because on the other side of the earth, there really are wildebeests leaving the herd. Whereas nowhere in nature are there women who talk (and walk around NYC in 4-inch heels) like Carrie and her crew, who, except for Miranda, I could never see her being friends with. It seemed like sexed-up Disney to me, still all about the prince and the shoes. Mr. Big was appealing, though, I thought. And when I saw his portrayer once, flirting with a plus-size cashier in an airport, that made me like him even more.
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As every mom and single woman in my corner of the universe knows, Sex and the City opens as a movie next weekend. So, with the critical distance born of many years of reruns, are you lovers or haters? Me, I only really discovered the show last summer, after I had a car accident and my sister sent me a season to keep me company while I recuperated in the hospital. (Yes, once I am out of date, I like to be a good decade out of date.) Against my instincts, I was hooked. I loved the relationships between the women, and that counted for more than my annoyance with flibberty gibbet Mr. Big. I thought the writing got sharper and wittier as the show progressed. And I felt like certain episodes (like the one in which Carrie loses her shoes at a baby shower and the mom host is ogre-ish about it) made me sit up and think about how annoying all the kid and baby obsession I've come to take for granted is to women my age and younger who aren't mothers. Plenty of flaws, too, I realize—jump in?
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Tim and Ellen, the few married women I know who've come right out and said they were having affairs all wound up divorcing the hubby and marrying the "other man.'' Only, those are just the ones who talked about it. One of my most gorgeous married friends once complained she wouldn't even know how to get something new started, so that one in three still seems high to me. But then, I am someone who missed her own fling: One night maybe 10 years ago, I get home from work and my husband says nonchalantly, oh, nearly forgot, there's a message for you I saved. (Which should have been a red flag right there, because how many times in our marriage has he said that?) OK, who was it? Dunno, cough, cough, didn't listen. Turns out, the message is from some guy I never heard of saying hey Melinda, LOVED our super-great time together in Chicago and just found out I'm going to be in D.C. on such-and-such a date and sure would like to see you again, pant, pant; call me! So not only did somebody pretending to be me have a big old night out—but she was enough of a woman with a plan to use my name from the get-go, and hand out my unlisted home number, too. I half suspected a certain bony, bitter (see, it is never a nice word) officemate—who I'd bet my life believes Hillary wuz robbed. But I still don't know how (whether?) this love story began or ended—or maybe it's still going on.
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