"The Proposal" that will never come

Yesterday I went to see The Proposal. I had not desire to see it when it first came out. What can I say? I'm a fan of Ryan Reynolds but not of his co-star. Where had the Sandra Bullock gone that once had me envious of her kissing Jack Traven? Where had the Sandy gone from While You Were Sleeping? She went to the land of Miss Congeniality 2 and a slew of other tired formulaic films that did nothing for us, but certainly did much for her bank account. And I'm not going to lie, I thought it was a bit cheap that her husband Jesse James never did get a donation from her for The Celebrity Apprentice. Sure, is Donald Trump bad television, if not even a worse stereotype of New York sleaze and infidelity? Yep. But donating to charity, no matter through which means, is a bad thing.

I digress.

I saw that larger than life poster of the two of them and was disgusted by her. "That's not Sandra Bullock," I said to myself. "She's not that thin." Apparently she is... I went to the film after friends told me it wasn't a normal Sandra Bullock romantic comedy (read mediocre). So, I went and gave over to breaking the funk that I'm in with a lighthearted movie.

I did enjoy the film. It wasn't the typical Sandra Bullock romantic comedy (read mediocre). It did have something there. But I hate to tell S.B. that she was the weakest part of the film. She was a caricature of herself, her film-self that we've come to expect, the commodity that she is. Ryan Reynolds and Betty White... who could ask for anything more? Sincere, funny, worth every minute.

As I sat in that darkened room, directed toward the gorgeous New England scenery (because this is Hollywood after all, not Sitka, Alaska) I was struck by my lot, or what appears to be my lot in life. As Drew Paxton comes back for Margaret Tate I was telling myself, "That would never happen. THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!" A man would never come back to tell a crowded room that he loves the woman before him. This is the bullshit that Hollywood has been selling for 100 years and the fantasy fiction we've been dining on and ruminating on for just as long. Men are not good creatures. They don't care about themselves, let alone anyone else, to put hubris aside for love. Men are awful beings.

And yet, I want them to be Drew Paxton. I want them to yell at the woman they love, to listen to them, to hear their plea of love. I want them to so fucking badly.

In the middle of these swirling contradictions I heard the song "But Not For Me." By Ira and George Gershwin, the song was first written for the musical Girl Crazy in 1930. It's been sung by music's best. But depending on the version, you can either be ebullient or forlorn. Dinah Washington's swing version belies the pain that Rosemary Clooney's version, all too effectively, highlights. As I watched Drew and Margaret (Ryan and Sandy) kiss I knew that they write songs, books, and films for everyone else but me. "They're writing songs of love,/But not for me;/A lucky star's above,/But not for me. With Love to Lead the Way,/I've found more skies of Gray/Than any Russian play/Could Guarantee," wrote those brothers. Indeed, they are writing songs and movies of love but not for me.

Noone writes a song or movie of love about the big girl. Big girl is, of course, a euphemism for fat. We don't like fat folks. We really don't. And we especially hate the fat girl. She doesn't fit into our society's stereotyped performance of gender. How can I be cute if my ass is too big? How can I transfix a man into a mediated-kerfuffle that would lead him to do such an unmanly thing as profess his love in public when I wear clothes in double digit numbers? I can't. Never have. Never will. I realized yesterday just how alone I am, and will always be. Yes, the evil shrew that was Margaret Tate's character for the first hour of the film is more desirable than me. She may be a bitch, but she's thin. Learn the lesson-- Thin Wins. Always.

I knew I shouldn't have gone to that fucking movie.

Music and My Man

I've been in a funk for a while. But tonight... the clouds parted and my mood lifted. Thank you Foreigner. Thank you Mick Jones, Ian McDonald, Lou Gramm, Dennis Elliott, Al Greenwood, and Ed Gagliardi. Thank you.

Growing up I heard your songs from my brothers car stereos and record players. But I must say that my love for you was solidified with the album Records. It was almost more than a person could take... every song was a gem. I had forgotten about our love until a friend with a crush on you, as well, reminded me of your delicious ear candy.

I literally felt the blues vanish as I was listening to "Long, Long Way From Home" tonight. The anticipation of listening to "Dirty White Boy" has me in a tizzy. But when I was dancing to you all tonight I realized that it's going to be so much fun to belt out "Blue Morning, Blue Day" and some "Turn Me Loose" by Loverboy, for good measure, with my husband Keanu. We're going to have a hot-blooded time....

From the Archives... Celebu-tide

Baby Pictures and Fair Compensation
-- originally written March 29th, 2008

This week I read that Jennifer Lopez and her husband, Marc Anthony, were paid $6,000,000.00 for photos of their newborn twins Max and Emme. Six million dollars. I am aghast and disgusted and numb, all at the same time, at the news. According to People, the magazine paid the amount for exclusive North American rights to the photos. Now, this amount of $6 million is much more than the $1.5 million Christina Aquilera and her husband, Jordan Bratman, earned for photos of their son Max (clearly the name of the moment). No word on how much Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubrey will or have received for photographs of baby girl Nahla. But of course, the real coup was in 2006 when Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt was born in Namibia and Getty Images paid $4 million dollars for North American rights. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt reportedly were to donate all proceeds to charity. At the time it was rumored that the deal was also about safety, so that a bounty, literally, wasn’t put on anyone’s head for the photos.

So, what’s the big deal about $6 million for some photos?

I can’t help but think of my friend John, who when I asked if he knew anything about the rampant rumors that a colleague of mine was having an affair, said “I don’t know. They’re both hot, so I say go for it!” I was so shocked. I kept thinking, they’re being ‘hot’ doesn’t absolve them of an extra-marital affair. And I can’t help but think of similar things with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony.

How do you arrive at the decision to sell photographs of your infants to a national magazine? How do you navigate your moral compass? How do you remotely explain the decision to sell your infants for $6 million? Oh sure, they didn’t actually sell the children, but being a visual communication researcher and teacher, yeah, I can spout enough philosophical writing to say that, indeed, Lopez and Anthony actually did sell their children.

And what do you do with that money? Buy another house? Put it aside for the children themselves, telling them with a glint in your eye and a rock in your chair, Sweethearts, when you were just days old, Mommy and Daddy sold your pictures for a lot of money. If Max and Emme know they’re getting thatcash, will that make it all better? Or will they feel violated, years after the click of the camera? Or will these children have to make their own way like the majority of humankind vs. the anointing of the celebrity offspring? Granted some have had it hard– Tori Spelling didn’t even receive a full million from her father’s estate; and Paris Hilton will only inherit about $5 million, after taxes, according to The Telegraph, after her grandfather Barron decided to donate 97% of his +$1 billion fortune to charity.

And what about us? The buying, consuming public who buy the magazines and consume the images, and likewise, buy and consume the people in those photos. This morning as I was buying donuts, I had to walk buy (pun intended) the gauntlet of magazines beckoning me into the “Wedding of the Century” about Brad and Angelina and onto the beach with a bevy of beauties with bikinis. Are Lopez and Anthony, Aquilera and Bratman, Jolie and Pitt, just great financial minds, thinking of how they can build their own ‘brands,’ specifically, the newest expansion of the brand name? Isn’t this just one more form of entertainment they’re providing for us?

Maybe Max and Emme are the luckiest babes in the world. Luckiest until Angelina and Brad’s newest edition joins us all. Imdb.com reports that if the Jolie-Pitts have twins, themselves, their babies will be worth $10 million.

Wow.

We’ve had it all wrong all these years. Instead of a photo being worth a thousand words, it’s clearly worth a million dollars per shutter snap.

And I thought my family photos were worth the world….