Life imitates art (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in "Before Sunset")

I was in Manhattan this past Labor Day Weekend and met with some friends from Cornell. Now that we’ve all graduated from college and are “real” adults, I decided to ask them what their observations about post-grad life were so far, and talked about some situations I had encountered myself in Florida.

One of the things I noticed was how quickly time would zoom by with each person and how there was never a lull in the conversation, something I hadn’t experienced in a while. While I would like to attribute it to the fact that I am an amazing conversationalist, I’m pretty sure it’s also because I purposely seeked out people who I knew would have interesting things to say. (And also because I’m hilarious and witty and really, just perfect in general, let’s not forget that).

I realized later while flying back to Tampa that everyone had two things in common:

1) We are all highly independent people in one form or the other

2) We all have specific goals we’re working toward

One wants to be a stand-up comedian and work in the entertainment industry writing comedy. He is genuinely talented and very, Very funny so it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. He’s currently working at a musical theater company and learning the ins and outs of how to produce live shows. He’s taking classes at the famous Upright Citizens Brigade to work on his improv skills. Whenever I’m working on a comedy piece of my own, he is always very generous with his time and spends several hours with me over Skype discussing what I’ve written and giving me valuable notes.

One is currently a Masters student in Atmospheric Science at SUNY Albany (this school is well-known for its graduate program in that field) and is working diligently on his research. He supported himself completely through college and received a full ride at Albany. I lived with him in Clara Dickson 2-5 freshman year and he is one of the hardest-working, most genuine people I know. He’s very similar to Losmeiya in a lot of ways – I can’t wait until the two of them meet each other. They’ll probably discover they were separated at birth.

One is doing investment banking in the city and ultimately wants to work at a hedge fund or a start-up focusing on microfinance. He hitchhiked through Cambodia and Thailand by himself when he was 16 and spent a month in the Congo rainforest with his brother (who works full-time in the Congo at a non-profit that saves chimpanzees) last winter break. Because he’s spent so much time overseas (hitchhiking in countries most people wouldn’t feel comfortable hitchhiking in, among other things), he seems quite a bit more mature and open-minded than most people I know in terms of his philosophies and viewpoints toward life. I was very surprised to discover how much we had in common in regards to our thoughts toward feminism, careers, and marriage, especially since guys my age typically don’t think too deeply about these issues or have somewhat superficial thoughts.

One is working on his feature-length screenplay and is one of the best writers I know. I already know he’s going to win an Oscar someday or write the next great American novel. I submit every piece of my writing to him for feedback and he’s enormously generous with his time and advice. He’s the other one I have on speed-dial on Skype.

One is starting his second company and what I would consider a “real-life” entrepreneur. We have a ridiculous number of things in common – he is also an only child, a latchkey kid, won the Big Idea Competition in 2008, does creative writing in his spare time (he’s currently working on a novel about life in Long Island), and is always asked by people why it sounds like he’s interviewing them.

I used to feel kind of bad because I get asked ALL the time, “Why are you always asking me about my life goals? Why does it always sound like you’re interviewing me? Why are you always talking about big life issues? Why can’t you ever talk about something normal? Why can’t you ever just settle down??”

Glad to know I’m not alone.

I used to think being as independent as I am was a bad thing. I’m pretty sure it had to do with the fact that I had been staying home alone since second grade and pretty much raised myself up. I still remember the conversation I had with my mom about this –

Me: But MOTHER, I’m seven years old! What if I let a stranger in and get kidnapped? Stick my finger in an electric socket? Stick my head in the oven? Drink Drano thinking it’s soda? Fall into the pool and drown? Run around outside and get eaten by a coyote? Play with matches and set the house on fire?

My mother: The mere fact that you’re even aware of all that tells me you’re not going to get in trouble and that you’re more capable than you think you are.

And she was right. I wasn’t as dumb as I thought young kids were supposed to be. That’s probably why I turned out the way I did.

That’s probably why the friends I met this weekend turned out the way they did – our parents didn’t hover over us and we grew up with a belief in self-sufficiency and actively pursuing our own goals.

I feel pretty lucky to know them.

It reminds me of this exchange in the movie Before Sunset about keeping in touch with the people who stand out to you -

Jesse: Oh, God, why didn’t we exchange phone numbers and stuff? Why didn’t we do that?
Celine: Because we were young and stupid.
Jesse: Do you think we still are?
Celine: I guess when you’re young, you just believe there’ll be many people with whom you’ll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in "Before Sunset"

I really loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk at TED about nurturing creativity.

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.

"Time passes in moments. Moments which rushing past, define the path of a life just as surely as they lead towards its end." -Dana Scully in "all things"

I think I may be having a slight “fifth” life crisis. I’m 22 years old, three months out of college, and the thought that I have 80+ years left on this giant blue/green marble we call Planet Earth seems almost incomprehensible. I didn’t become who I am today until around two years ago (it took me 20 years to grow up – I was a really slow beginner), so I tend to think of my life really starting my junior year of college.

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry about life in Florida after graduation, I really love my job and my co-workers. However, the realization that I’m not in school anymore, that there isn’t a set path for me to follow, is a little frightening. In college, you tend to have an idea of what to work toward every year:

Get good grades + participate in extracurricular activities + do well in your summer internship + (probably most important) schmooze with the right people = Get a job after graduation that will make you lots of money and/or happy.

I guess you could say there is a path I could follow post-college given my background. The next ten years of my life seem almost planned out – I’d spend 3-4 years at my current job, go to business school, work for another company at a higher position with a higher salary, and get married.

The fact that there is a template I’m supposed to follow makes me not want to follow it. I don’t even think that’s the path I want to take. (But given how naïve I probably am now about what I want, it’s best to regard whatever I say next with a huge pound of salt. In fact, I’ll probably look back at what I wrote a year from now and laugh my ass off).

My goals (at this point in time anyway) include starting my own payments company and becoming a billionaire so that I can start my own movie studio and bankroll/produce huge event spectacle films – ones with budgets of $50 million plus. I want to make movies that people are excited to see, not ones I have to beg people to watch. I’d also like to marry Conan O’Brien but that might be a bit of a stretch. Check back with me in 20 years and see how I’m doing.

Just last week, I decided to start on a small scale with that goal and bankroll short films with budgets of $1000-$5000. Any dollar not going toward my rent, food, or 401K is going toward my “movie-making” fund. I decided to stop talking about “building my dream movie studio” and actually do it. The stories that would be brought to the screen are ones I’ve created.

One that my friend Stephen Guilbert and I are currently working on is about a college girl on the verge of graduation who has an emotional affair with an older married friend (not autobiographical, I swear). I see it being shot Before Sunrise/Before Sunset style.   The second one I’m writing now is more of a TV pilot-style 21 minute screenplay about two people getting used to life after college. Given what a big fan I am of sexual tension, this screenplay is positively drenched in it. It’ll be like Scully and Mulder for the young adult set. The dialogue veers on Gilmore Girls territory, and the acting infringes upon Arrested Development.

I never thought three months ago that I’d be spending almost all my time outside of work writing creative stories. Once I got into the work force, I started to notice a lot of things about life and people that I unwittingly began putting down on paper. After a while, I realized that I could create stories and funny dialogue out of my observations and began to write.

I just have to say one thing about creative writing – it’s REALLY HARD. Lines and dialogue will often fly into of my head at random times during the day (the best ones often leap into my brain right as I’m about to fall asleep – I guess that’s when I’m most meditative), and I usually collect those thoughts instantly so I don’t forget later. Sometimes, I can’t think of anything novel or interesting (ironically enough, this usually happens when I sit down with the intent of writing) and I just want to cry because the writer’s block is so maddeningly intense.

It’s usually at those points when I wonder how the hell Mitch Hurwitz was able to write his Arrested Development scripts, how he was able to create such a great flow between his dialogue (Hurwitz is the king of wordplay), characters, and situations, how he was able to make everything make sense. I’ve come to the conclusion that he must be some kind of genius.

Although I usually spend my free time writing, I’ve begun to notice the exact number of weeks that have been passing me by, and wondering what I have to show for it. I sometimes get restless and stir-crazy on the weekends, wondering if my writing or what I do outside of work is going to produce anything of value, if I’ll have anything to show for myself a year from now. This feeling of uneasiness is hard to get rid of. No wonder so many writers drink or, in Elizabeth Gilbert’s words, are “alcoholic manic-depressives.”

I’ve begun to notice the minutes ticking away on my life. I read a lot of movie reviews and one of the things people write if they hated the film is, “That’s two hours of my life I’m never getting back.” Given what I’ve noticed about how most people spend their life, that’s the least of their concerns. They should be more concerned about not wasting their life on the trivial matters we burden ourselves with everyday.

People at work will often mention something relating to time that highlight the gravitas of it. Someone will mention that her 22-year-marriage anniversary is coming up and I’ll suddenly realize that’s how long I’ve been alive. I mentioned one day that I was born in ’88, that I was a child of the ‘90s, and one of my older co-workers looked at me in shock, “Holy COW!”

I think that I’m lucky to have some semblance of an idea of what it is I’d like to accomplish in my life. I may not know how exactly I’ll get there (in my mind, I see a dusty, never-ending road, something out of a Jack Kerouac novel) but I know I’m not getting any younger. Time may be a very abstract concept but it can sneak up and whack me in the head with a frying pan without warning. I really, REALLY hope I’m utilizing my time well so it doesn’t.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs

Lauren Graham and I both talk really fast

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’m going 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.

La Femme Nikita

I watched Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita last month and came to the conclusion that that was the most realistic assassin movie ever made. It’s about Nikita, a teenage girl/street thug who is imprisoned for life after a robbery goes awry and she shoots a police officer dead. While in jail, the French intelligence agency is impressed with her brutality and decides to fake her death and train her to be an assassin. It takes them several years to get Nikita to settle down and take orders but she gets eventually emerges as a talented killer.

After leaving the agency, Nikita lives a relatively normal life with her supermarket cashier boyfriend while assassinating people on the side whenever contacted by the Agency. After a while, however, Nikita grows tired of the lifestyle. Her boyfriend is getting suspicious of her random disappearances and Nikita begins to regret the brutality of her actions. Even though all she does is shoot people from a distance (that’s pretty simple compared to all the other Hollywood assassin movies we’ve seen, am I right?), Nikita begins to hate her imprisonment by the Agency. The fact of the matter is – they own her. They spared her life in jail but made it clear that she was either going to be an assassin or they were going to kill her. At the end of the movie after an assassination gone wrong, (one which requires the ruthless participation of a “cleaner” in destroying the mission’s evidence and all the corpses), Nikita is shell-shocked and runs away from Paris, the Agency, and her supermarket cashier boyfriend.

That’s not an ending I think most of us are used to seeing. Why did she give up? That’s not what the “hero” of the movie is supposed to do. There’s always a clean conclusion in which he redeems himself and destroys his enemies. But there is no out for Nikita  – rather than live a life which will probably kill her (if not physically then mentally), Nikita runs away from her captors to live a new life without violence. That makes her admirable in a way – she refuses to conform to this destructive lifestyle, and decides to take matters into her own hands. Running away is not the most valiant of efforts, but Nikita is strong enough to realize this is wrong and do something about it.

Nikita and Bob - sexual tension personified

What interested me most about the film, however, was the underlying sexual tension between Nikita and her older mentor, Bob. He advises her right from the very beginning, and watches her grow from a street thief to a femme fatale. Throughout the film, you can tell that Bob likes Nikita, something that Nikita picks up on. While she doesn’t do anything about it, you can tell she’s flattered. After a while, however, Nikita realizes her relationship with Bob is not healthy, especially since she now has a boyfriend and Bob interrupts her with assassination assignments at the most inopportune times.

During their last meeting near the end of the second act, Nikita begins to defy him –

Nikita: Interested in my vacation?   I know you and your sadistic games. You’re sick, Bob. I need to tell you that. Your job’s a sewer for you.

Bob:  I’m happy to see you. I miss the time when I had you to myself every day ….. An ambassador, leaving in five months. Get him before he goes. It’s your mission. Choose your team. You’ve got five months. The boss wants a clean, smooth job. I thought of you.

Nikita:  Always on two jobs at once?

Bob: It’s to show I love you.

“I miss the time when I had you to myself every day” would have been such a lovely phrase if it weren’t uttered under such circumstances. At this point, Nikita is sick of being chained to the Agency, and Bob only further serves to hold her down. Although we want Bob and Nikita to get together, it just wouldn’t be right. The sexual tension in this film is perfect – it exists to complicate matters between two characters who are inappropriate for one another but feels oddly right. That feeling is hard to shoot, and Besson pulls it off.

Chelsea Lately

I recently caught some episodes of Chelsea Lately hosted by female comedian Chelsea Handler and absolutely LOVE HER AND HER SHOW.

I think Chelsea is hysterical and love how she doesn’t hold back on anything – she’ll say whatever’s on her mind, no matter how un-PC it may be. She does a great job pointing out the absurdities in celebrity culture and isn’t afraid to make fun at herself and what she does for a living. I also think it’s great that she’s thriving in the “late night television” world, an industry typically dominated by male hosts.

I’m not surprised she’s a success – Chelsea has a ton of energy, is naturally hilarious, and very fast on her feet. She reminds me of myself so I think it’s only natural that E! gives me a talk show next.

Check out some of her interviews below:

On Letterman – I get the feeling Letterman is impressed by how sharp she is

Chelsea interviewing Adam Lambert – Lambert seems like such a sweet guy!

Chelsea spoofing Living Lohan – Ha, “Cody, just get out of the room okay, until I can figure out how to make some money off of you”

Katie Holmes and Zooey Deschanel at a career fair

Smart, well-spoken, beautiful students at a top university - a recruiter's dream

Several years ago, I watched a Stephen Gaghan film called “Abandon” starring Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt. The reviews for this film were very negative and the trailer is absolutely ridiculous – it makes the film look like a straight-up action thriller.

Despite the criticism, I really liked this film because of the character Katie Holmes portrays – she’s a college senior on the verge of graduating from a top university and has to simultaneously complete her thesis, ace her exams, and go through a grueling interview process to land a top job. Despite the fact that Katie (SPOILER ALERT!) doesn’t turn out to be who we think she is, her character is very smart, well-spoken, and possesses an inner strength that will no doubt propel her to the top career-wise. I really liked watching the scenes where she was interacting with recruiters, interviewing, or focusing on her studies because it’s an ideal image of  “collegial success.”

My favorite scene from the film was an interview she did with McKinsey & Company. Roger Ebert liked it as well – “Watch the way Katie Holmes handles that interview with the high-powered corporate recruiters. It could be used as a training film.” I couldn’t find a video clip of the interview so here is the dialogue below:

Interviewer: Tell us about a problem you’ve encountered.

Katie: My guidance counselor tried to keep me from applying to good schools. I thought she was my friend. She said she understood me and that I would be happier staying close to home, junior college or secretarial school. She hated me.

Interviewer: What action did you take?

Katie: I invited a senator who attended college here to speak at our school.

Interviewer: And what was the result?

Katie: I got a strong letter of recommendation from a U.S. Senator, was accepted early decision and they gave me lots of financial aid.

Interviewer: And what did you learn from this experience?

Katie: Truthfully?

Interviewer: Of course.

Katie: Mrs. Castleman was a sneaky bitch. It was the first time I was betrayed by someone I trusted. I looked up to her. I didn’t come close to understanding the depth to which she resented me. I learned that people who help me, who invest in me become my partners, and my success is their success; that relationships are symbiotic. I learned responsibility based on others’ faith in me. I hope to be able to pay some dividends to those investors.

LATER ON, A CONVERSATION BETWEEN KATIE AND A FRIEND REGARDING THE INTERVIEW:

Amanda: Did you really call some lady a bitch?

Katie: Slight exaggeration.

Amanda: They saw sixty people and liked exactly two – you and that North Korean girl who speaks 8 languages.

Katie: They said that?

Sandra Bullock in The Proposal

I really liked The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. And not just because it was hilarious, well-paced, and looked fantastic. I liked it because I thought it touched upon some issues career women face and was, dare I say it, a somewhat feminist film. Sandra Bullock plays a Type A boss with an aggressive and dominant attitude who always expects the best from everyone. She’s not doing anything wrong, but because she is a woman (and that type of behavior sure isn’t expected in a woman), it doesn’t go over so well at times.

There was one scene where she fires an employee for not doing his job that I found really interesting due to his explosive reaction and how she responds. I unfortunately couldn’t find a clip of this so I’ve written out the dialogue below:

Margaret: Bob, I’m letting you go.

Bob: Pardon?

Margaret: I asked you over a dozen times to get Frank to do Oprah and you didn’t do it. You’re fired.

Bob: I told you that is impossible. Frank hasn’t done an interview in over 20 years.

Margaret: Well that is interesting, because I just got off the phone with him, and he is in.

Bob: Excuse me?

Margaret: You didn’t even call him, did you?

Bob: But…

Margaret: I know, I know. Frank can be a little scary to deal with. For you. Now, I will give you two months to find another job. And you can tell everyone you resigned, okay?

Bob: You poisonous bitch! You can’t fire me! You don’t think I see what you’re doing here? Sandbagging me on this Oprah thing just so you can look good to the board? You are threatened by me! And you are a monster.

Margaret: Bob, stop.

Bob: Just because you have no semblance of a life outside of this office you think you can treat all of us like your own personal slaves? You know what? I feel sorry for you. Because you know what you’re gonna have on your deathbed? Nothing and no one.

Margaret: Listen carefully Bob. I didn’t fire you because I felt threatened. No. I fired you because you’re lazy, entitled, incompetent and you spend more time cheating on your wife than you do in your office. And if you say another word Andrew here is going to have you thrown out on your ass – O.K.?

Throughout the altercation, Margaret stays cool and collected. She clearly doesn’t think much of Bob by the tone of her voice when she says, “I know, I know. Frank can be a little scary to deal with. For you.” If Bob can’t do something that Margaret can get done easily, he doesn’t deserve to work with her.

There’s a later scene in the film where Margaret tells Andrew that she went into the bathroom and cried after Bob called her  a “poisonous bitch.” Despite her hardened exterior, Margaret still has feelings and being called something so degrading in front of the entire office was embarassing. Bob was clearly out of line, but there was nothing Margaret could do about it. I sometimes wonder what the outcome would have been in this exact scene if Margaret were a man and Bob was a woman.

I came across an interesting blog post “The Proposal as a Feminist Statement” by the Third Estate Sunday Review. There was a roundtable about The Proposal and feminism, and some of the stuff people had to say about that scene with Bob was pretty interesting.

Rebecca: …. Some men and masculine women insist The Proposal is sexist. They say Sandra’s playing a backlash role in a backlash film because, yet again, the career woman’s a bitch.

Ava: …. She’s playing a woman with a job and I love how everyone says “career woman” as if it’s bad thing. But I don’t see her as a bitch … Where is she a bitch in the film?

Rebecca: She fires a man, Bob, because he didn’t get an author to go on Oprah. Everyone in the office is scared of her.

C.I.: Her character, Margaret Tate, wants everyone to live up to a professional standard. Is she a bitch? I don’t see how and the film plays with this, it plays with this perception and attempts to implode it. But Bob’s fired for lying. He’s under Margaret, that’s why she can fire him. She told him to get an author to go on Oprah. He told her the author said no. She called the author, talked him into it and found out that he’d never been asked by Bob about it. She confronted Bob with that. That is grounds for dismissal. She gave Bob a direct order. He not only blew her off, he lied to her and told her that he’d tried and the author wasn’t interested. Bob gets to then call her a bitch and everything else while the office that hates her watches with glee. But why do they hate her? Because she won’t play Mommy? A man with the same standards, would he be so hated? He’d be feared but he wouldn’t be so hated. I’m tossing to Mike because he wants to say something.

Mike: Yeah. When she enters the office, her first scene, you’ve got people surfing on the net, joking around, making personal calls. She’s coming down the aisles and all the sudden, they’re freaking out and trying to avoid getting called out by her. Called out for what? For not doing their job. Why weren’t they doing their job to begin with? Where is she a bitch? She’s got standards and she’s the boss. If you don’t like the standards, get another job. But she’s called a bitch and she’s called a witch, and she’s supposedly on her broom, and you name it. And, at the end of the day, their big problem in the office appears to be that despite having a female boss they can’t do what ever they want. In other words, the female boss doesn’t let them push her around and that appears to be why they hate her and call her a bitch.

The Proposal was not meant to be a heavy film – it was marketed as a summer comedy, after all. But I really liked how they gave so much more dimension to Sandra’s character than was necessary. If you haven’t seen this film yet, you really should!

Very addicting trailer – song is Katy Perry’s “Hot N’ Cold”

The remake starring Nicole Kidman

I rewatched the remake of The Stepford Wives by Frank Oz last night and was so surprised by how much I LOVED the movie.

The actors were hilarious, the set design was beautiful, and the film touched upon some heavy themes concerning the power structure between men and women despite the somewhat slapstick nature.

In the remake, the main character Joanna Eberhart (played by Nicole Kidman) has it all – she’s president of a major television network AND married with two children.

However, she never sees her family and after getting fired because of some bad television picks, has a nervous breakdown. Her husband Walter decides to move the family to Stepford, an ultra-rich, exclusive community in Connecticut.

While there, Joanna realizes that not everything is right in the town and SPOILER ALERT the men are turning the women into robots. (The remake is inconsistent about whether the women are robots or just have chips in their heads but that’s not important. All you need to know is that the men make the women completely submissive to them).

After Joanna discovers this, she understandably freaks out and demands an explanation. Below is an excerpt from the script with Walter and the other men explaining why they do this.

Joanna: How could you do this?

Walter: Ever since we’ve met, you’ve beaten me at everything. You’re better educated. You’re stronger, you’re faster. You’re a better dancer, a better tennis player. You’ve always earned at least fix figures more than I could ever dream of. You’re a better speaker, a better executive. You’re even better at sex. Don’t deny it!

Joanna: I wasn’t going to.

Walter: Well, don’t I get anything?

Joanna: You got me.

Walter: No, I got to hold your purse. I got to tell the kids you’d be late again. I got to tell the press that you had no comment. I got to work for you.

Joanna: With me.

Walter: Under you. All of us. We married wonder women. (Hey that’s the name of my blog!) Supergirls. Amazon queens. Well, you know what that makes us?

Joanna: Smart, worthy, lucky.

Walter: We’re the wuss. The wind beneath your wings. Your support system. We’re the girl.

Other men: And we don’t like it. No, we don’t!

Joanna: And this is your answer, to kill us?

Mike: Oh no. Nothing like that. We help you. We perfect you.

Joanna: By turning us into robots? Does any fraction of these women still exist?

Walter is clearly miffed that he’s taken a back seat to Joanna all these years and she was the one wearing the pants in the relationship. He has never explicitly stated that he was unhappy with this arrangement but after being surrounded by men in the Stepford Men’s Association for several weeks, they’ve convinced him to come out and say so. Even more, they’ve convinced him to change his wife so that he will finally be the one in power.

Frank Oz stated in the DVD commentary that Walter has obviously gone insane by agreeing to essentially murder his wife but says that this decision unfortunately didn’t seem unusual to Walter because he is surrounded by men – “the pack” – who convince Walter that he’s correct.

The original starring Katharine Ross

The remake ends differently than the original, 1975 version that adapts faithfully to the Ira Levin novel, but I felt like I (and most women today) could relate more to the remake. The original was done at a time when the majority of women were still housewives and beginning to question their roles in life – “Am I going to spend the rest of my life cleaning, looking after my children, and helping my husband to advance in his career?” Most women today would object to that lifestyle because we’ve been brought up to believe that we can achieve just as much as a man.

Trailer for the original 1975 film – it was much darker than the remake and took itself seriously, which was perhaps why the film was so effective and why people hated the comedic remake:

The original is definitely dated – Joanna is a typical housewife but she happens to have a photography habit that Walter disapproves of. All the (unchanged) women in the original film don’t have jobs but don’t really do much work around the house which prompts the husbands to change them. I had trouble accepting that – Walter essentially has his wife killed and replaced with a robot just because she wasn’t a completely subservient wife. They had a pretty good relationship and she was a decent housewife, but he didn’t like the fact that she would sometimes argue back and spent time taking photos as an amateur photographer. Clearly, turning her into a robot was the right thing to do. But then again, this was back in 1975.

I relate more to the remake because in this version, the men change their wives because they are threatened by their wives’ success. They are threatened by how their wives completely overshadow them in every capacity. I’m not saying that’s a better reason to change their wives, but it does make more sense as to why they would do something so horrific. Or perhaps it signifies the changing of the times. In 1975, if your wife spoke back to you, that was unacceptable. In 2004 (when the remake was released), if your wife was more successful career-wise than you, that was unacceptable. Either way, their egos are bruised and they have some fixin’ to do.

The Stepford Wives is clearly not meant to be taken seriously – it is “a sort of chauvinistic dystopia … the depiction of subservient, robotic women is intended as a satirical statement against traditional gender roles.” But the story does touch upon concrete issues that come up between men and women – who has the power and how does the other party really feel about being in the background?

We can perhaps also view the film as a warning since the human robots depicted in the story will be completely realistic one day. Let’s just hope we don’t use these robots in the manner depicted in the films.

TIME featuring Sarah Palin

I’ve never been into politics and therefore wasn’t one of those people who made fun of Sarah Palin. But even I was aware of her being mocked relentlessly in just about every media outlet.

This sentiment apparently runs heavily among students as well – I was at Uris Library yesterday on Cornell’s campus and someone wrote “Skank” on an old TIME magazine issue featuring Palin on the front cover.

Palin may not know what she’s talking about at times, but I think these jeers are more than a bit cruel.

In a recent TIME article with Palin, she said, “Don’t let anyone ever tell you to sit down and shut up.” Even if you don’t agree with anything she does or says, I think we’d all have to admit that that statement is one we can all get behind.