My Fave Is Problematic

I have tried at least nine different ways to start this post and have abandoned them because this one is rough. But here goes. (Warning: this one may not be PG-rated.)

My Fave is Problematic.

I'm not going to go into the meme at length here (I have, in one of the nine different ways of writing this post), but suffice it to say that if you want to know what it means, Google is your friend.

I'm referring in this post, obviously, to Kevin Spacey.

Kevin Spacey. 

The Babeahwah. 

Most of you know that for more years than I care to recount (because that would prove that I’m that old), I have loved Spacey. I have connected to this bastard. 

And now, this. 

I’d heard about the Anthony Rapp story. I had heard that Rapp was a teenager, and I always assumed that he was in his late teens when it occurred, and that while “nothing happened”, Spacey had “made a pass” at Rapp. Having had a compromise in that area once in my life, I can understand poor judgment. I let it go, because I LOVED that bastard. 

Until October 30th. 

I was alerted to Mr. Rapp’s story by Starfleet’s newest captain, Jason Isaacs, on his Twitter feed. Isaacs is apparently a very amiable man in person, but behind a computer and with 140 (I guess now 280) characters, he can be withering as hell. He showed strong support for Rapp (and rightfully so), and I clicked through to read what was in the article he linked. 

And then I cried a lot. 

I’m hearing a lot on all sides about this whole “Spacey problem”. How Kevin chose to handle this is sickening, to be truthful. “I don’t remember, perhaps I owe him an apology, and oh yeah I’m gay.” 

“Well, I did it because I’m gay”?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? No wonder the entire gay community wants to be done with you. As Theresa points out, at least half the world conflates homosexuality and pedophilia—erroneously so. That’s like conflating homosexuality and lactose intolerance—there are probably the same proportion in the subset AB as the general population, but one does not become a homosexual through lactose intolerance or vice-versa. 

And it’s like you’re saying that being gay excuses the behavior—seriously, please let me play with a machete near your nether regions. 

Kevin, a little lesson. That’s not how you start. 

First you say: I’m so sorry I did that. 

I don’t want any excuses. If a brain damaged moron (Louis C.K.) can manage it, everyone can. 

We stick our heads in the sand about those we love because it makes life easier. We try to pretend that it's okay because we love them. Sarah Silverman has talked about it regarding Louis C.K. The Louis C.K. thing is disappointing, but the Spacey thing is heart-wrenching. Because there's a lot about him that I just love and adore and I hate that with all of those amazing things comes a secret that keeps getting bigger, and deeper, and darker, and I hate him so much for all of it. 

Kevin went to get "treatment" at the same place that Weinstein went to get "treatment". I get that we need to be able to find forgiveness, but I'm learning that there are some lessons that people don't want to learn, don't want to take in.

Like me with this one. 

I will say that I'm dubious about Kevin getting "treatment" because what he needs is an attitude adjustment that would also likely coincide with a severe reduction in his scrotum. 

I could go on. But I stop here on the ride with Kevin. I no longer investigate, because it hurts. I no longer look at headlines, because each one sends a glass dagger into my organs. 

I believe in forgiveness. I believe in the power of understanding that we need God because NONE of us can honestly achieve our own standards, because ALL of us need help from the darkness that resides in all of us. Some of us have more than others, but it's there in all of us, and it keeps getting dragged out into the light--and we act like the Pharisees about it (oh no! I would never!--say men who have. See: Trump, Donald). (That's a blog post for another day.)

Maybe today, the lesson is to forgive myself. But it comes at a price, and that price is my hope. 

I'm never going on this ride again with you, Kevin. And I'm so sorry. You were my beloved Babeahwah for nearly 2 decades. But now you're a sorry, sad man I have to say goodbye to and move forward. 

Maybe someday I get my hope back.  

Why P!nk is the Icon We Need Right Now

When I heard the new song written by Keith Urban, called “Female”, that Stephen Colbert referred to as "the first song ever written by dumping out a bin full of inspirational throw pillows,” my first thought was, P!nk needs to write a chick-power anthem immediately.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she, more than any other single female icon right now in the Entertainment Industry, is the standard we need right now. 

As I explained in one reply on Facebook, I can imagine how a meeting between P!nk and Harvey Weinstein would have gone down. Weinstein coyly moves their meeting to his hotel room and has his assistant maneuver P!nk into the right place while he takes a shower. P!nk, being both book smart AND street smart, sees where this is heading, and makes sure that 1. the concealed weapons in her boots are still intact and 2. all her recording devices (which she made operational before walking into the hotel) are still functioning before entering the bathroom. 

Once there, she sits demurely (as demurely as a woman who is such a badass can sit) and listens to Weinstein cajole her to join him in the shower, to ask if she likes what she sees, if she’s willing to put it all on the line for her career. So, with recording devices on, she proceeds to throw open the shower curtain…and laugh her ass off at Harvey Weinstein. Literally, look at his manhood and HOWL with laughter, before retrieving the switchblade from her right boot. 

“You called me in here in hopes that I would deign to DO something to your pecker? Well, how about I remove it and put it on my trophy wall? I think that sounds good for starters.” When Weinstein crows that she’ll never work in this town again, she’d say, “I have you on tape, you lying sack of shit. See in you court unless hell gets you first.” 

And then the first person she would subpoena would be Weinstein’s assistant, whom she has on tape. 

That is how P!nk would have schooled Weinstein. I think Weinstein was afraid to touch her because he, too, likely saw the above scenario coming.

That is not the only way, however, that P!nk embodies the female standard we need right now. Yes, she appears very unafraid—her stage name alludes to her strong personality and her survivor attitude (Mr. Pink is the only one who survives the shootout in Reservoir Dogs).  And I am sure that somewhere in her life, the woman born Alecia Beth Moore was afraid. (I will admit that, reading her mini-biography, she seems pretty strong from the outset.)

But women need more than an icon who is not afraid. Madonna was not afraid of very much, and she is not the icon we need right now. P!nk is more than just strength wrapped in a gorgeous package. P!nk is also…us. 

She’s had trouble in her relationships. She’s also worked through that trouble instead of just walking away. She is now the Mom to two children. 

And she’s been honest about it. 

But the best reason I can think for P!nk being the icon we need right now is simple: she’s not into the shame game. 

When P!nk decided to start doing the wire work/aerial work, did any of you out there think: well, drat. Now I have to go be that strong to fit in.

I didn’t. 

I don’t know anyone who did. 

I know a lot of people, myself included, who were and are in complete awe of what she did and is still doing (SCALING A BUILDING WHILE SINGING? Sure, raise the performance bar a little high, why don’t you?). 

P!nk isn’t saying what so many women in the performance industries are saying, which has to do with looking the right way and having a thigh gap and being thin to fit in. 

When P!nk scaled a building during a performance, the world went “Holy guacamole, she’s STRONG.” 

And if she encourages women to be strong—which is a very different thing than being thin—then I’m all for it. 

I don’t think P!nk scaled a building to shame anyone. Okay, maybe just a little to shame the autotune-crowd, but that’s a very different idea than shaming the average woman for being a person and not a brand. P!nk isn’t saying to our young girls, “You have to be this to fit in.”

She’s saying, “You can be this.” 

P!nk is not ashamed of who she is, warts and all. 

And that is exactly the icon we need right now. 

 

P!nk, I know it’s unlikely that you will ever read this. But if this somehow gets to you, then I beg of you: write our anthem. Write it for all women. Write it for our girls. Make it completely singable by the average person and yet so indelible that the anthem will soar for generations to come. 

Write about what it means to be a woman. 

Write about a world without shame. 

And why it’s important to be strong. 

We Know

If you think Meryl Streep didn't know about Harvey Weinstein, WAKE UP. Because here's reality: anyone who followed anything in H'wood knew about Harvey.

I'm pretty sure every dog I've ever had knew about Harvey.

I will grant that the women probably didn't know the extent. I, too, did not know exactly the extent. But I've seen frequent jokes about all kinds of things ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar (common theme: "I hope he got some serious tail from her for buying her that Oscar") to Gretchen Mol's career (common theme: "She was such a slut for putting out for Harvey too much that she became tainted"). And I've seen them since the Internet was still in training wheels.

EVERYBODY KNEW.

I would submit that we all know, to a certain extent, about the men we're around. I'm going to pick on a couple by name that I've worked with, because I'd say this to their faces (and have).

I may never have known a man MORE married than Dare Dutter, except possibly Mike Netto. I worked with both of these men at Nottingham. I don't think any of us at 'Ham were worried about harassment from these men, even though they outweighed most of us. Because we all knew. Dare would actually throw himself in front of an oncoming train before he did anything to betray his wife. Netto spends so much time focused on talking to Tammy in his downtime that it would be sickening if it weren't also cute.

I picked on those two because I know them well. But I could just as easily talk about a dozen others with whom I had the pleasure of working at Ham.

We know about the character of the men we're around. At Ham,  we knew who was having an affair with whom and why we didn't necessarily blame anybody in the situation. We knew who was a hound dog in his earlier days but was a stand-up guy now. We knew who would have your back at work and would never cross that line but who was a freak on the weekends.

We knew.

Conversely, every woman has worked with a man she wouldn't be alone with. I cannot even bring to mind more than a few names personally, but we all know who not to be alone with. We all know the reputations that come with those men once we've been around them for a while.

We know.

I know locker room talk happens, even with the decent men I have worked with. I know that the kind of locker room talk that occurs is normally not about domination but rather "Did you see that woman in that dress today? Holy Toledo! What a pair of..." I don't think there's a woman alive who doesn't know that this happens. We have our own version, dudes. It goes like this: "Did you see that guy in the suit today? Holy Toledo! What a fantastic..." And yet, when we do these things, somehow we convey this lack of personal respect. We are objectifying so that we can feel free to talk this way, to achieve the camaraderie that comes from understanding that more than one of us has these feelings...but they do come at a price.

In a culture that fosters sexuality at its fore more and more, this kind of verbiage is unsurprising. But "we all do it" may or may not be license to do it. We all break the speed limit while driving, but that doesn't mean we don't have to suffer the consequences of those actions, either. Most of the time we don't, but if you choose to go 80 in a 55 and you run into Ms. State Trooper...well, you made that choice. We choose to allow this kind of talking, and we've chosen greater and greater permissiveness in the name of openness, which is not the same thing.

Did this culture also allow Weinstein to become the absolute scum of the earth that he is? I honestly don't know. I do remember reading in Premiere magazine (God, I miss it) nearly 30 years ago about the Weinsteins, about Miramax, and wouldn't you know it, innuendos regarding both brothers were there in the magazine. As someone who incredibly naive even by my culture's standards, I didn't necessarily believe it--but it was there, in black and white, that no sane man would ever trust his daughters with these guys. And yet, nobody reined him in. Not even the mother that he worshipped, whose death a year ago may have inadvertently triggered all of this going down.

At the end of the day, I still think it's all about power.

Why do we give certain people power? Harvey was given the kind of latitude in H'wood normally reserved for Saudi Arabian Princes--but maybe that's the point: we let you do this because we love money. Money is something Harvey and his family apparently had a lot of, and people wanted it and let him run rough shod over women in the name of that money. Some women allowed him to run over them in the name of that money, a fact both tragic and appalling to think about.

I can personally name several other Harvey Weinsteins in H'wood--maybe not nearly the volume of power, but certainly men who laud their power over women, who have subjected women to inappropriate behavior or inappropriate demands, and who believe they can get away with it (and who have been decked by at least one leading man in their careers). And I'm not talking about men from the Roman Polanski era, either. I'm talking about men currently in the primes of their careers who have been nominated for Oscars or Emmys (or have won them).

We do have to be open enough to talk about these things, to drag them into the light of day, and not to tolerate that kind of behavior. But I fear this may only lead to greater permissiveness in discussion, which may lead to greater personal disrespect...which is very much how we got here in the first place.

Your mileage may vary.