Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, and their son at Tiananmen Square
I’m very impressed by how much Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn were able to accomplish together. Not only did they co-write Half the Sky, they were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting from Beijing about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Not only are they at each other’s sides nearly 24/7 raising awareness of gender inequality worldwide, they also have three children, and are apparently still not sick of each other. If their day jobs don’t work out, they might want to consider becoming marriage counselors.
Cool fact: Sheryl also got her undergraduate degree at Cornell University. Deborah Streeter, one of my past professors/current mentor/all-around amazing person interviewed Sheryl for Cornell eClips.
I watched this speech exactly a year ago and had no idea what in the world she was talking about. Now that I spend a good chunk of my free time doing creative writing myself, find that I relate to what she is saying about 100%. Most storylines, dialogue, anything truly creative, hits me at the most random times throughout the day. I snatch them instantly so I don’t forget and will later cull from this list when I sit down to write.
“I have had work or ideas come through me from a source that I honestly cannot identify. And what is that thing? And how are we to relate to it in a way that will not make us lose our minds, but, in fact, might actually keep us sane?”
Favorite part of her speech:
I happen to remember that over 20 years ago, when I first started telling people — when I was a teenager — that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this sort of fear-based reaction. And people would say, “Aren’t you afraid you’re never going to have any success? Aren’t you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you? Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing’s ever going to come of it and you’re GOING TO DIE ON A SCRAP HEAP OF BROKEN DREAMS WITH YOUR MOUTH FILLED WITH THE BITTER ASH OF FAILURE?”
… The answer — the short answer to all those questions is, “Yes.” Yes, I’m afraid of all those things. And I always have been … When it comes to writing the thing that I’ve been thinking about lately, and wondering about lately, is why? You know, is it rational? Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do? You know, and what is it specifically about creative ventures that seems to make us really nervous about each other’s mental health in a way that other careers don’t do?
Like my dad, for example, was a chemical engineer and I don’t recall once in his 40 years of chemical engineering anybody asking him if he was afraid to be a chemical engineer. Like, “Got chemical engineering block John, how’s it going?” It just didn’t come up like that. But to be fair, chemical engineers as a group haven’t really earned a reputation over the centuries for being alcoholic manic-depressives.
It’s rather unfortunate that most self-proclaimed “serious” movie buffs hate on Paul W. S. Anderson movies. I find them very entertaining (not everyone wants to see a super-serious movie that most directors make just to try to win an Oscar) and I think it’s great that most of Anderson’s films feature a strong female character who can take care of herself.
I came across the most beautiful picture ever the other day. It’s actress Julianne Moore in an Alexander McQueen gown holding her baby daughter Liv Helen set across a backdrop of autumn leaves.
That got me thinking of Julianne Moore and the movies I had seen her in. I eventually came to the conclusion that she was one of the bravest and most raw actresses I had ever seen on screen, engaging in everything from taboo subject matter (incest, cannibalism) to “rated-R” sex and nudity. (Let’s just say you wouldn’t be comfortable watching most of Moore’s movies with your parents). Despite how distasteful that may sound, Moore manages to bring grace and elegance to every role. (And despite how much that sentence may have sounded like an oxymoron, I swear it’s true). Many of the films Moore has starred in have elements of darkness, and such explicit content only makes the performances more powerful and real. It doesn’t matter how you may personally feel about such material – I think we all have to agree that Moore is one brave lady.
When I think of an actress that’s the exact opposite of Moore, I think of Julia Roberts. Here’s a perky, beautiful actress who’s hardly ever appeared in a movie that made you do a double take. She’s America’s Sweetheart, an actress manufactured to appeal to the common masses. She’s a Disney character for adults, a woman who appears in movies you never have to think too deeply about because they’re simply not that important. You watch Julia Roberts in movies like Pretty Woman or Eat, Pray, Love. You watch Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights and Hannibal. Which one would you prefer? I thought so.
Julia Roberts is obviously not really like that in real life. She’s a hell of a lot more interesting. It’s just unfortunate that she doesn’t act in movies which require you to think too deeply. That’s a brand she’s fine with being labeled as, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it unfortunately makes most of her movies terribly dull to watch.
I just personally like feeling uncomfortable or unsettled after watching a movie. Because by that very definition, it affected me in some way. It made me think about what I saw, long after the film has concluded. There wasn’t a clean-cut ending. And I can count on that whenever I watch a Julianne Moore movie. Her fearlessness is refreshing. Don’t mistake that for some twisted call for attention. Moore just doesn’t like to play it safe, and for that I have to salute her.
I remember watching Gilmore Girls when it premiered back in 2000. I had just started seventh grade and thought it was relatively decent – the daughter Rory, played by Alexis Bledel, reminded me of myself. She worked hard in school and wanted to go to Harvard. Except she was much prettier and smarter than I was. And I don’t think my academic aspirations were that high when I was 12.
I watched some episodes from the first season this past weekend and was amazed by how good the writing and performances were on that show. Lauren Graham, in particular, really stands out. Graham was 32 when they began filming and plays the 32-year-old mother of a 16-year-old daughter perfectly. Her character, Lorelai Gilmore, is witty, thinks fast, talks fast, has excellent comic timing and delivery skills, and is very pretty.
In short, she reminds me of myself now. What can I say, I grew out of my awkward and ugly phase (or so I keep telling myself), am hilarious (ask any of my co-workers), and also talk incredibly fast (I’m guessing that’s because the neurons in my brain are racing at a billion miles/nanosecond and my mouth is trying it’s gosh darn hardest to keep up).
Lorelei and Rory in Action:
SCENE:
Rory: I’mgoing to a serious school now, I need serious paper.
Lorelei: Paper’s paper.
Rory: Not at Chilton.
Lorelai: Alright, fine. Here is your serious paper.
Rory: Thank you.
Lorelai: Ooh and here are your somber highlighters, your maudlin pencils, your manic-depressive pens.
Rory: Mom.
Lorelai: Now these erasers are on lithium so they may seem cheerful but we actually caught them trying to shove themselves in the pencil sharpener earlier.
SCENE:
Lorelai: What’s that?
Emily: It’s dessert.
Lorelai: It’s pudding.
Emily: Well if you knew what it was why did you ask?
Lorelai: You don’t like pudding.
Emily: Yes, but you like pudding.
Lorelai: Oh, I love pudding. I worship it. I have a bowl up on the mantel at home with the Virgin Mary, a glass of wine, and a dollar bill next to it.
SCENE
Lorelai: It was a mistake.
Emily: A mistake?! You call that a mistake!?
Lorelai: Well, I tried calling it “Al”, but it would only answer to “mistake”.
Other than how brilliantly the characters Rory and Lorelai have portrayed me throughout the different phases of my (still short) life, I think that show was very positive for young girls. Rory was very concerned about doing well in school and getting into a great college. She loved her family and friends and was generally a goody two-shoes – but not in an annoying way. Yes, she had a boyfriend but their relationship was a very positive one. Even though she loved him to death, she was still very much her own person with her own goals.
And even though Lorelai was a young mother, she loved Rory and worked hard so that they could have a great life. She was a very positive role model, and was a major reason why Rory turned out the way she did.
I remember all the shows I watched during that time (Buffy, Charmed, etc) dealt with supernatural elements or beings of some sort, and Gilmore Girls was one of the first family-friendly, “normal” shows I watched. They featured realistic characters and a great relationship between a mother and daughter. Rory was very much an idol of mine at the time – I also wanted to be loved by everyone, smart, pretty, and go to Harvard. Now, I find myself resembling Lorelai more and more. Amy Sherman-Palladino (the creator of the show) definitely had a strong sense of how to portray a woman, and did an amazing job bringing these two characters to life.
I just watched Angelina Jolie’sSalt the other day and have to say - it was better than I expected. Of course, in my case, it wasn’t really going to see the movie because I like Jolie, it was because I wanted to see a movie where a female lead wasn’t dependent on anyone else.
I mean, I watched Inception as well and thought – is it just me or has Marion Cotillard played a “beautiful but long-suffering housewife/girlfriend” in nearly all the movies she’s done after La vie en Rose? (Inception, Nine, Public Enemies, A Good Year). Talk about typecasting.
Anyway, back to Salt and Jolie – despite how ridiculous the action scenes in the movie were, I liked how intense and visceral the fight scene between Jolie and Liev Schreiber was at the end – “Forget about guns, let’s just beat each other up to a bloody pulp with our bare hands.”
I also thought the ending shot of Jolie – bloodied and exhausted, running through the snow-filled woods in DC wearing next to nothing after jumping into a lake from a helicopter and escaping – was interesting. We don’t know what will happen to her, but by god, she’ll be back with a vengeance. She’s Angelina Jolie.
You may know that Angelina’s part in Salt was written for Tom Cruise. But as As Jay A. Fernandez writes: “No actress in Hollywood history has been able to chisel out the supremacy Jolie has in a male-dominated genre.”
“She’s too strong, she’s too forceful,” says Hollywood historian David Thomson (“Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles”). “And that’s not just her screen character. It’s her public character, too. She’s not got that sort of availability for romance. She isn’t really sentimentally appealing. She needs to be doing strong things — crazy things, sometimes — to work on screen.”
“It’s definitely unusual that a female has become an action star,” “Salt” producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says. “But it’s a funny thing. She’s not a female action star; she’s an action star. She’s really the first female to transcend gender. I don’t think it’s occurred before.”
Raina Kelly from Newsweek writes, “I don’t think we have any idea how much media we consume where the woman is the hapless ingenue waiting for her prince. I’m sick of adorably, clumsy cutie-pies: the Katherine Heigels, the Kate Hudsons, the Jennifer Anistons—I could die. I think that simpering sexist sickness, Sex and the City 2, was the last straw.”
Even though Jolie stars in some of the most unrealistic, outlandish action films I’ve ever seen – she’s more relatable to me than the typical rom-com women on screen. Because at least Jolie stars in movies where she doesn’t depend on someone else to save the day – she does it herself.
Hello there. I'm Star Li, a marketing analyst at Revolution Money (an American Express company). I recently graduated from Cornell University, and am psyched about being a "real adult."
I've always been fascinated by women (both real and fictional) who have made a difference in the world and decided that I should start a blog about this.
About once a week (twice if you're lucky), I'll write a piece focusing on a female-related issue I find from the news, media, or whatever happens to leap into my brain.
