I recorded this film off of HBO after reading a favorable preview in the Boston Globe several weeks ago, Iron-Jawed Angels dramatizes the final decade of the woman's suffrage movement, but in particular, the story of the young Alice Paul (played by Hillary Swank) who split the campaign in two with her aggressive tactics.
The raw material here is fabulous because the years leading up to the amendment were a time of heroism and real suffering. This film took a slightly unorthodox approach by including modern music as well as dialogue that doesn't ring true to 1912. This didn't bother me. I can accept anachronism in movies if it serves any purpose at all other than laziness. There is a fantastic message in the woman's suffrage movement and if we need Lilith Fair and Lauryn Hill to trick young people into absorbing a Civics lesson, we should go for it.
Up to a point I was able to enjoy the film for what it was. I could accept a dramatized love interest for Alice Paul. I could even accept the romantic "teach me to dance" scene in the meadow.
But HBO, dear HBO. Was it necessary to intercut a scene of Alice Paul in the bathtub, sliding a hand down into the bubbles to discreetly pleasure herself to thoughts of her boyfriend? Did we really need to see her lean her head back against the tub, close her eyes, and grin while steam rose from the water?
Is no one safe from these conventions?
I like to use conversations with my mother as a kind of rough-estimate indicator for how the mythical "average American" sees political issues. She's probably not the best representative for that group, but she's certainly not the worst, and she's a hell of a lot closer than anyone else I talk to regularly.
Tracking the Mom Index through the primaries has been pretty interesting. She's a lifelong Republican voter, wants lower taxes, uninterested in having the government provide social services, generally socially conservative (but not dogmatically so), that kind of thing. It became clear some time last fall that she also hates Bush, and that she'd be willing to vote for a Democrat in the general election next fall, but only if it was the right Democrat. The last time I checked in with her on this was about two months ago. She'd take Kerry over Bush, and Edwards over Bush, but Bush over Dean. "That Dean," she said, "he's just like your father, with that temper, and he keeps raising his voice." Edwards, on the other hand, was very handsome, and she liked that.
I checked the Mom Index yesterday. She thinks Kerry's going to win in November. "Who's going to vote for Bush? That idiot. Do you know he hasn't created a single new job since he took office?" She, however, isn't going to vote in November, because she's decided she hates both parties. They're the same as each other, she says, and they both want to take her social security away--she's been paying in to social security since she was twelve, and she's just a couple of years away from starting to collect, and she thinks they're going to take it away, the bastards.
I tried telling her that no one is actually planning on takng away her social security, but she wouldn't listen. That's just how these conversations work sometimes.
This is where it gets frustrating. I've got my coffee, I've got my computer, I've got a clear schedule for the day, I've got a world of ideas. I have an outline now for the first few chapters of my dissertation, and I feel good about it and really ready to write it. I've got a series of commentary essays I want to write, one an extended articulation of the gay marriage issues, one about depression and advice columns, one about feminism and relationships, that kind of thing. It's the first time in months that I've had anything like creative energy. Do I get to do anything really good with it? No, no, I do not. What I get to do with it is spend several days in a row on an eight-billion-part grant application in the hopes of taking Strange Horizons one step closer to financial self-sufficiency.
And I'm travelling again soon, to somewhere else that's cold and far away and distinctly un-glamorous. There was this great United Airlines commercial during the Oscars, ink-sketch animation with "Rhapsody in Blue", and it reminded me of being a kid and going on trips. Frequent-flier incentives made us a very brand-loyal family, and I've got this whole mess of sense impressions from childhood, "Rhapsody in Blue" and scratchy blue seatcovers and that big underground neon-lit tunnel in Chicago and this enormous sense of excitement that came from getting on airplanes. When I was eight and nine years old, airplanes were the best. Now they just feel like temporary prisons, and travel-days wasted days.
In any event, while I'm stuck here with the grant application and the coffee, there's excitement out in the world. The PETA director, four PETA staffers, and one Harvard sophomore. Sounds like a party, especially given who the sophomore was.
It's only just beginning to sink in, in that bellyfeel kind of way, that we're watching something of real historical significance unfolding here. Whatever the ultimate legal standing of the San Francisco marriages turns out to be, Gavin Newsom is going to be remembered as a civil rights pioneer, and the same-sex couples who are rushing to get married now will be able to tell their grandchildren that they were there, and we'll all listen to them with the same intent awe we give to those who heard Martin Luther King Jr preach on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
And now it's like there's a new town joining the fray every day. Portland, then Nyack, then who knows where?
It's like watching a tiny flame leaping from branch to branch until, before you know it, the whole forest is ablaze.
It's startling. Sometimes I can't hardly catch my breath.
TBogg has dug up some choice words from Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute on how homosexuality is a threat because of how hot, hot, hot! the sex is. So hot, in fact, that straight sex is in danger of being outcompeted into extinction! The source is apparently a Rolling Stone article from 1999, and some of the things he says are pretty convincing: "It's pure sexuality. It's almost like pure heroin. It's such a rush." The article continues:
He says that for married men and women, gay sex would be irresistible. "Martial sex tends toward the boring end," he points out. "Generally, it doesn't deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does"
The song is pretty great, and I think The Triplets of Belleville was robbed -- robbed! -- for Best Animated (but then, I never seem to like the film that wins that category - cf Shrek); the performance featured a man (apparently the composer) playing a bicycle, so I don't have any complaints. It wouldn't have stood out if not for the vast terribleness of the rest of the show.
The inability of Joe Roth and company to prepare for Return of the King's onslaught boggles the mind. The film was basically a lock for 7 or so categories, and the favorite for many of the rest -- it would seem intuitive to prepare at least a little something to keep the show from becoming monotonous. Only the fruits of a trip to Mall Discount Liquors earlier in the afternoon stood between me and complete despair, and by the end of evening, I was still shouting at the television in hopes that something, anything, would happen. Peter Jackson shaving off his beard. Charlize Theron thanking her mom for shooting her dad. Robert Macnamara rushing the stage, hitting Errol Morris with a folding chair, and taking the Oscar. More rocket-powered wheelchairs.
And less Billy Crystal, so much less Billy Crystal, clothed or not. Disregarding Morris, a clip of Bob Hope saying, "They've all got their Oscars. But are they happy?" may have been the edgiest line of the night, and that is a sorry state of affairs. Network television is in some sort of OMG! OMG! paranoid tailspin post-Janet, and this fiasco is a clear example of its sterile, goat-faced progeny.
I keep thinking that there's got to be something to say about the Oscars, but you know, there just isn't. The dresses weren't even interesting--when Uma's little dirndl thing is the worst dress at the Oscars, you're dealing with a year when no one's taking a lot of risks. Gwenda, representing the small contingent of people I know who have actually seen Triplets of Belleville, hated the musical number; people (like myself) who haven't managed to see the movie yet tended to see that musical number as the highlight of the show. (As Ms Fu put it, "they're the only people all night who've looked like they're having any goddamn fun."
And I have to vote today, and I still don't know who I'm voting for. Or how I'm voting on the propositions. Matt's leaving his copy of the sample ballot for me, I'll read it on the bus on the way in to campus and vote when I come home. I am uninformed on the issues and must vote on large bond measures! Welcome to the democratic process!