In her 2014 TED Talk “Success, failure and the drive to keep creating,” author Elizabeth Gilbert shares with her audience the ultimate key to success in life: not giving up. Even though she says had a lot of success with her book Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert felt that she would never become successful again and would fail with her next work. However, even though she at many times felt like she wanted to just quit writing and do other things, she realized that what she considered her home, her sanctuary, the thing that made her the woman she was, was writing. She tells the audience that she has been writing since she was a child and would often send her work to established publishers. She busted her butt as a waitress at a diner and got rejected multiple times by publishers. Nevertheless, she kept writing and writing even if it wasn’t perfect to the publishers who rejected her because she loved writing more than anything else, even more than herself. Gilbert has made me understand that writing is not a selfish pursuit and you’ve got to not only create your own work, but read and learn from others. Gilbert, like many writers, read a lot growing up. According to her biography, she worked several different jobs at bars, diners and ranches and used these experiences from her life to inspire her fictional works.
In the TED talk she reveals that even as a successful woman she still worried about feeling like a failure, and points out that too often we associate failure with feelings of shame and success with money, prosperity and recognition. However, she says that no matter what, you cannot be swayed by failure and just have to keep getting yourself to work. And she didn’t even need to quit her day job as a waitress to write full-time because if you don’t have a lot of money, it’s okay to work a day job to pay the bills while getting yourself out there as a creative. Many creatives do it, and unless their financial circumstances are perfect and somehow they can just spend their lives just pursuing their passion, they have to just keep doing it no matter what the inner critic tells them in their head. In an earlier TED talk on creative genius, she talks about how people would tell her she was going to fail after being so successful after Eat, Pray, Love as an adult, but realized that people had been telling her this ever since she was a teenager and declared she wanted to become a writer. She admitted to being afraid of failure among other things, but understood the deep-rooted stigma around creative careers.
Often creatives do struggle with mental health issues, but not all creatives do so, and yet the media has constantly associated being a creative with suffering and having all sorts of mental health issues. Mental health can affect one whatever career they find themselves in, whether it be as a chemist, a businessperson, waiter, you name it. However, even as artists it’s okay for us to take care of ourselves and not feel like we should fit society’s misconceptions of what an artist truly is. Even as a musician and writer, I need to take care of my mental health, whether that’s continuing to work at my day job or eating dinner or reading a book for fun. As an artist I realized I need to transcend my own ego to create value from my work. In the TED Talk on genius, Gilbert explains how notions of creativity changed over time; she says that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed creativity came to human beings from daemons, or an external entity, like an outside muse who would help shape the artist’s work and provide them inspiration. They did not believe in human creatives taking all the credit for their genius, but then the Renaissance came and people started replacing muses and daemons with a more “rational” artist philosophy centered on the human individual as the ultimate creator of art. Gilbert says that this shift from daemons to an ego-centered art philosophy has forced a lot of artists to place enormous pressure on themselves to the point where it becomes emotionally destructive for them to produce such high-quality art (we clearly saw this in the film Black Swan, where Nina places enormous pressure on herself to succeed as a dancer and ends up destroying herself in the process.)
Indeed, when she was writing Eat, Pray and Love she hit an impasse and thought that her work was doomed to fail and that she should just stop writing. However, she sought inspiration from the poet Ruth Stone and the musician Tom Waits, because both of these artists heard inspiration from outside themselves and caught it before it disappeared. She says that Ruth Stone would literally envision a poem running after her and so she ran to her house and furiously “grabbed” the poem by writing it on the page as fast as she could before it went flying off looking for another poet. Tom Waits, as he got older, heard a melody in his head while driving his car, and instead of worrying whether he’d lose that idea, literally looked up at the sky and said for the idea to let him drive and come back to him later. So what Gilbert did was actually look up from her manuscript at an empty spot in a wall and tell that spot that it needed to help her find inspiration instead of letting her do all the work, and that if it doesn’t show up, then she’s going to keep writing because that’s what she loves.
I really like what she said in both of these TED Talks because I think as creatives we tend to get really hard on ourselves. We consume a lot of other people’s work and while that’s good for inspiration, if we use it to compare ourselves to these other artists, we won’t really get a chance to bring our brilliant ideas to the table. In my spare time, I sought out fodder I could use for my blog, in the form of news articles, pieces on personal finance, YouTube videos. However, I came to a standstill and realized that I was consuming a lot of material and not really forming my own opinion on that material. So that’s why it helps me to get off the computer, get off my phone for a while, so that I can think without too much external stimuli. Looking up from my work or taking a break from practicing my instrument to just walk around has helped me find inspiration that I didn’t think I had before. I went the other day to a garden store and even just being outside with nice-smelling plants and fresh air helped me get out of my head and come back to why I was doing all this creative work in the first place. I really like how Gilbert talks about the history of creative philosophy because I didn’t understand why I felt so selfish pursuing writing or music, and understood that there was, along the course of history, a development of thought that began to emphasize a more self-focused approach to creativity, one where the artist takes all the credit. However, I think it’s hard to take all the credit because as artists we constantly influence one another. Lady Gaga influenced the music styles of several artists, just as Lady Gaga herself had numerous musical influences growing up. When we approach the works of others with a healthy mindset that we are going to learn from their works and then critically think about their work from our point of view, and how these works can inspire us in some way to create our own work, then we can each let our muses work at their finest and contribute to our creativity in life-changing ways.
To seek inspiration from Gilbert’s two incredibly inspirational TED Talks these videos are below.
Honestly, I tried to take notes during this film, but this film reminds me of A Ghost Story in the sense that you miss a lot of important details if you take notes during the film. When I just put my pencil down and quit taking notes on every detail like I do for a lot of movies, I was able to appreciate the silences and the dialogues so much more, and just as I did at the end of A Ghost Story I found myself in a river of tears, wiping away snot from my face and sniffling these melodramatic sobs. If you haven’t seen A Ghost Story, it’s a film about how a young woman (Rooney Mara) must grapple with the death of her husband (Casey Affleck) after he passes away in a car accident, and how her husband, as a ghost, grapples with how his death has impacted his wife. The film doesn’t have a ton of actiony stimuli so for me I really liked this film since I don’t like films with tons of blood or frenetic action (unless it’s a chosen few Marvel and DC films. Or Get Out.) It did require me to sit and reflect rather than write too much during the film about the plot because the film’s power relies on its silences and these silences force us to grapple with our own memories of loved ones we might have lost.
To be honest, I’ve been wanting to see Paterson for a really long time, ever since it came out. But I didn’t know if I’d like it. Then I saw Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 96 percent rating, and then I knew I’d be missing out if I hadn’t seen it. Although if you’ve seen Adam Driver’s other films (The Rise of Skywalker, While We’re Young, Frances Ha, What If, BlacKkKlansman, The Last Jedi) this is a very different role than I was used to seeing him in. His roles usually involve a lot of dialogue; this role he didn’t say much, and spoke mostly through facial expressions and eyes.
Although there is not a ton of dialogue in Paterson, that’s what makes it so powerful. Paterson, the main character (also the name of city where he resides) is an introspective quiet person, and listens in on the conversations that people have on the bus he drives every day. He is also a good listener when other people are talking to him; his coworker, Donny, who always makes sure he is ready to get the bus going, opens up to him about his problems at home and Paterson, without making any kind of judgment beforehand, listens with the utmost attention to Donny. He also listens when his wife talks to him. He reminded me a lot of Richard Loving in the film Loving. Of course, the storyline for that film is different and took place during a different time, but Paterson and Richard are both introverted men who, even though they do kind things for people, wish to not be in the spotlight. Honestly, I found myself relating to Paterson in that sense; I’m an introvert and tend to like listening and writing rather than talking a lot. Paterson is also polite; he always thanks his wife for dinner and for treating him to the movies. People have told me I say “thank you” a lot (I even got pulled into a counselor’s office for being too polite to other people. I guess she thought I would become a pushover or something, which I did become, but have since learned to balance with assertiveness), so when Paterson thanked his wife for dinner in one scene and treated her to the movies to celebrate her making money from her bake sale, I couldn’t help but feel like I found a kindred soul in Paterson.
I also found myself relating to Paterson because he loves writing. Although I do not write poetry as frequently as he does, I love writing in general and also have finished some poems for a poem I book I plan to publish at some point. In the film Laura, Paterson’s wife, reminds him that he needs to make copies of his poems and publish them someday, but he never gets around to it. When his dog rips up his notebook when they are out and about, Paterson dismisses it, saying that they were just a bunch of words that didn’t mean much. However, his wife, disagrees, and tells him she wishes he kept some of the poems. I’m the same way. After I read my poems for my poetry book I couldn’t help but cringe because I’m a tough critic on myself, and I even felt I couldn’t write poetry. But I don’t think many poets or writers or really any artist in general have ever felt that their work is the best from the get-go. In real life, Adam Driver has said that he is uncomfortable watching himself onscreen and walked out of an NPRinterview with Terry Gross because they played a clip of him singing in his recent film Marriage Story. Maybe I would have walked out on an interview if people played a clip of me performing my music, maybe I wouldn’t have, but at any rate I could kind of relate to Adam and Paterson’s feelings towards their own work. People say it’s helpful as a musician to go back and listen to yourself play, and sometimes I have done that, but when I hear myself play I always sound either really out of tune or choppy or look bored, angry, constipated, or a mixture of all three when I play, even though I’m trying to show my passion for the music. Maybe if I stop listening to my insecure ego so much I can listen to recordings of myself with less judgment, but then again even the most successful people who are awesome at what they do don’t enjoy looking at their work when they are finished, mostly because the process of making the finished product is draining and when you’re finished with the product you don’t even want to deal with it anymore. Some actors have said on the contrary, they enjoy the process of making the product; they just don’t watch it when finished. Maybe it’s just part of being an artist; few if any artists are totally satisfied with what they do. Then again, you don’t see me going back and reading these blog posts because frankly, they are long and boring to read, even to myself who wrote the darn pieces. Same with my music; I rarely go back and listen to recordings of myself because I know I can always be improving on my performance, and it just doesn’t sound like me when I go back and listen to it, more like my doppelganger or an impersonator of me. It probably comes from years of having cello instructors and orchestra teachers who pushed me to never settle and to always be improving; that in and of itself is a huge ego-buster, and I’m pretty grateful for that.
Also, I love the movie because it reminded me of a book I read called Peace, Justice, and the Poetic Mind: Conversations on the Path of Nonviolence by Stuart Rees, professor emeritus at the University of Sydney and former director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, and Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and humanist philosopher. In their dialogue, Mr. Ikeda and Dr. Rees discuss the importance of culture and education in creating a more peaceful society, and in particular, the power of poetry as a means to do so. Dr. Rees says to Mr. Ikeda that he constantly uses poetry in his lectures and talks about social justice issues because poetry isn’t just for students taking Western literature classes. Whether you’re a biochemistry major, a religious studies major, or undecided about your major, all students should be given exposure to poetry. Dr. Rees also uses poetry in his lectures because in many parts of the world, poets write about conflicts and use their work to spark a dialogue about how to resolve those conflicts and foster peaceful communities. According to author and Civil Rights activist Vincent Harding, with whom Mr. Ikeda has spoken in a book called America Will Be!, “the arts should be at the heart of an education that helps us to become more human. Poetry, especially, gives us some creative ways to think about the story of our lives. This is because poets are constantly trying to reach into the depths of our reality… Poetry can remind us that we have the capacity to create–the capacity of telling and understanding our stories.” (Quoted from page 125 of Peace, Justice and the Poetic Mind. Original source: Harding and Ikeda, America Will Be! p 209)
In the film, Paterson’s poems seem simple and unremarkable, but looking at it from a Buddhist perspective, his poetry served as a way to communicate his life story, his lived experience. Even if the sights he observed and the people he listened to seemed like everyday things, there is this precious beauty in the way that Paterson takes the ordinary and finds some way to create value from these everyday things. He also makes it a habit of writing every day, and that reminds me of President Ikeda, who wrote his serialized novel The New Human Revolution every day even if he was tired, so that he could leave a record of his travels around the world and his dialogues with world leaders and his mentor, Josei Toda. He has also published The Sun of Youth, a series of poems he wrote calling for young people to stand up against injustice and awaken to their inherent potential, or Buddhahood, in their own lives as well as help others to awaken to their inner Buddhahood, too. The poems are all incredibly beautiful, and they all champion everyday people like you and me. And people like Paterson who live ordinary lives as human beings. There is one poignant scene toward the end when Paterson is sitting on the bench with a man he just met who traveled to Paterson and is flying back to Japan the next day. They have a short but deep dialogue about their shared love for William Carlos Williams and Frank O’Hara, both American poets. Even though Paterson tells the man he is not a poet, the man gives him a blank poetry notebook, implying that because of their shared connection through poetry that Paterson has another chance to write poetry after his dog ripped up his old poetry notebook. It was this dialogue where Paterson and the gentleman saw each others’ Buddha nature, or humanity, and this interaction was a sign from the universe that Paterson needs to, hopefully, listen to his wife, write those poems and then publish them so that people can be moved by his poetry.
I remember studying poetry in high school and college English classes (and a course in Afro-American Studies) but there was a lot of analysis and dissection of the poems required for classwork and homework that I lost my love of poetry for a while. This movie reminded me that one can appreciate poetry even in a non-classroom setting. Paterson works a full-time job, but he still makes time to write. I think the key to his creating this habit is that he lives in the moment when he writes and isn’t so caught up in the perfection of the poem or how it might sound to other people. There’s this idea that one has to quit their day job in order to follow their passion so they can make the “best art,” but this film served as a beautiful, down-to-earth reminder that you don’t have to, and really shouldn’t, quit your day job in order to make art. I think a lot of films and media tend to perpetuate this idea, like the film La La Land. Mia thinks she needs to quit her day job in order to make more time for her acting career, but in reality she works hard at staging a play and no one attends it, so she has to move back home because she’s broke and cannot pay her bills without a job. I, too, once thought I needed to quit my various day jobs in order to be a full-time musician, but turns out a lot of artists, such as Paterson, have some sort of day job because, like, #people out here gotta pay bills and eat (7/28/21: and as time goes on, I also realize that it’s not just about paying bills. Day jobs give you new sets of useful skills that can be used in any creative field you pursue.) Paterson’s poems are actually quite beautiful because they are inspired by his everyday experiences: him waking up next to his wife, him riding through the city every day, him sitting outside in nature. He just takes this everyday and runs with it in his writing. Also, he reads other writers, so that helps with his creative process.
I think because he has this appreciation for the everyday and the written word he was able to appreciate the small moments, such as when he encounters a man rapping a spoken word while waiting for his clothes to finish washing and drying at the laundromat. When Paterson asks him if the laundromat is his laboratory for his poetry creation, the man tells him wherever inspiration strikes is where he is going to create the lyrics. This spoke to me because as I said earlier, the only time I was really encouraged to study poetry was in the classroom, but too often we don’t think of song lyrics as constituting poetry, but after watching this movie, I appreciate rap as a form of poetry now. In an old article I read about the evolution of rap (I think it was National Geographic’s 2005 issue on Africa) and it has its roots in West African traditions. Griots in West African traditions play a variety of roles: storyteller, poet, historian, musician, and they communicate narratives through their voices, and so this tradition has continued today in rap music.
Before watching the film I barely knew anything about Paterson, New Jersey, other than when I read a Wikipedia article on it that was linked to the Wikipedia page on the film Paterson. The film helped me appreciate the city more, and while of course it wasn’t overtly a documentary about the city, Paterson drives past and discusses many sites with the people he encounters. He and Doc, the owner of the bar Paterson frequents, talk about famous people who lived in Paterson, such as the comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and the rapper Fetty Wap. It says a lot that Paterson is able to take in his surroundings, and part of the reason I think he is able to do this is because he doesn’t have a phone in which he can bury his eyes and not make eye contact with anyone or anything. After Doc’s wife comes into the bar and yells at Doc for using the money she needed to get her hair done for his niece’s wedding, Doc pulls out his smartphone and starts looking at it. When Paterson asks Doc if he is okay, Doc asks him point-blank why he still doesn’t have a cell phone. Paterson tells him he lives just fine without one, and when Doc asks if his wife also doesn’t have a cell phone, Paterson says that on the contrary, she has a phone, a tablet and other gadgets but she’s fine with him not using a cell phone. What I like about this film is that it weighs the pros and cons of Paterson choosing to not have a cell phone. The con is that when his bus breaks down toward the middle of the film, he doesn’t have a cell phone to call the transit authorities right away to get a new bus (but one of the passengers, a young girl, lets him use her cell phone to call the transit authorities after he says he doesn’t have a phone.) Doc and Laura (Paterson’s wife) tell him that the bus could have exploded and why he should have gotten a cell phone so he could communicate that the bus broke down without making anyone wait on him. Also, if he had his own cell phone he could have called or texted Laura to tell her about the bus breaking down and that he would probably be coming home late.
However, the pro is that Paterson is one of the few people who doesn’t sit and look down at his phone during a conversation, which many people do nowadays because the people who designed our phones meant for them to be a distraction in our daily lives. Like Paterson, I didn’t have a cell phone for a long time, and by the time I got my flip phone everyone else was using smartphones. In middle school I didn’t have a cell phone so I always called using the landline school phone that sat on my English teacher’s desk. Even when I used my flip phone it didn’t have the tools or apps that my smartphone has: now I can sit for hours on that thing and not look up at anyone or anything, which I why I try not to look at it all the time even during this time when we can’t go outside and technology is the only thing we can use to stay connected with one another. It’s why I got a little sappy and teary-eyed during the film because while I appreciate the use of technology during this time, I miss being able to have physical face-to-face conversations with others just as Paterson did in the movie. I did notice one moment where Paterson gave the guy at the laundromat an elbow bump to say his farewells; this is telling because the CDC encouraged us to give each other elbow bumps instead of hugging or shaking hands with people.
But bottom line is, it might be hard for Paterson to live without a cell phone nowadays because technology is the only way we can communicate to our friends without going outside, or even if we are going outside, it’s hard to communicate nowadays without a smartphone because there’s so much rapid information and it’s hard to keep up with it if one doesn’t have a phone, especially since now tech companies are doing coronavirus tracing through cell phones to track the virus. But even that has its downsides, namely because these companies are collecting all your information even though it may help slow the spread of coronavirus, and if you don’t want your personal info collected, then you’re toast. Also, there are still places in the U.S. with limited access to Internet and I don’t want to assume that everyone has a texting plan or even has a smartphone. Yes, most people do, but I am sure out of all the people on the planet, there are still folks without a cell phone or internet. Then again, the little girl wouldn’t have been able to give Paterson her cell phone to use because if she did, they wouldn’t be observing social distancing rules. In that case, he’d probably be in trouble and the new bus wouldn’t have come in time.
This film also really made me think about why it’s so important to express appreciation for bus drivers, delivery staff, hotel staff and other people who work in blue-collar jobs. There are still a lot of people who cannot afford to work from home because their jobs do not allow them to do that, and for those of us who get to stay at home, knowing this is all the more important. Recently, Jason Hargrove, a bus driver in Detroit, died from complications of Covid-19, but before his death he released a video on Facebook talking about how dangerous it is for transit employees like him to be driving people during this time because people on the buses cough and sneeze without covering their mouths and thus expose the drivers to coronavirus. He’s not alone: many bus drivers have contracted Covid-19, and the numbers only keep growing as people on buses and other modes of transportation refuse to take social distancing rules seriously and assume their cough or sneeze won’t get drivers sick. I know Paterson probably didn’t want thanks for what he did because he seemed to like his job, but I’m sure a lot of folks today would express appreciation for transit employees like him because their job is so risky now with the spread of COVID-19.
Overall, I really loved this film. Like I said, it brought tears to my eyes by the end (also because the music was incredibly sweet) and still has me thinking about the importance of poetry and appreciation of the everyday.
It took me a while to finish this book because 1. I was reading five other books at the same time as reading this one and 2. the violence was pretty graphic. Not in a bad way, it was just hard to stomach for many of the scenes.
But just to give a brief summary of this novel. It is told in the third person narrative, but each chapter switches back and forth between different characters in the novel. It is about a power that all women and girls–not men and boys–possess, and Naomi Alderman, the author of the novel, illustrates the effects–whether good, bad, or in-between–of having this power on society and the girls and women themselves. A year ago I read a book called Vox by Christina Dalcher. That book takes place in a society where lab agents put trackers on all women and girls so that they don’t say more than 100 words per day. If they say any more than that, they get electric shocks. It gave me goosebumps because in reality, many girls and women have faced this silencing at work, in school, in the government, and elsewhere. The Power took that narrative and turned it on its head by having women and girls rule society and men as the oppressed group. The novel also shows how bad toxic masculinity can be because several men’s rights groups are trying to get back at the girls and women and kill them so they can take their power from them (I thought about meninism and how it wants to push back against feminism.)
The power that the women and girls have in the book is a skein that each of them have on their hands. If they touch someone, even lightly, the other person will feel the power rise up from the girls’ palms. If the girl or woman presses their palm with great force, it can burn skin, send intense shockwaves throughout the other person’s body, and cause other injuries. Alderman shows that while on the surface having a society where women have this power sounds so empowering, this power must be used wisely and if it gets in the wrong hands it can wreak serious havoc (later in the book, one of the dudes tries to kill one of the girls and ends up getting the skein of power in his hand. He doesn’t stand a chance against the women who also have the power.)
The end of the book gave me chills, but I think that was what the author intended because it shows you to never underestimate the strength of women and their power to unite. Overall, excellent read.
This was a really good movie. A friend recommended it to me, and I thought Ok, sure, but when I actually saw it I just remember thinking afterwards, Wow, this is a movie that makes you think! In fact, I’ll need to watch it again because there were some key points in the film that went over my head.
While I won’t go into great plot detail I will just say that this movie is still relevant today not just because we studied the Cold War in world history/ geography class, but because of the current political climate. Now, normally on this blog, I try to stay away from discussing anything related to political parties, but with the current political climate and the Russia-U.S. issue regarding elections, it just made sense to watch this movie. The film Bridge of Spies takes place during the Cold War, and is about a lawyer who represents Rudolf, a Russian spy being held captive in the U.S. Tom Hanks’s character, James, decides to help him through the trial so that he can become free again, and also so that the U.S. pilot being held captive in the Soviet Union, Francis Gary Powers, can gain his freedom again. Even though James wants to have dialogue with Rudolf, everyone thinks he is supporting “the enemy,” but James insists on a mutual relationship between the U.S. and Russia. Meanwhile, the Berlin Wall is dividing East and West Berlin, separating families and loved ones from one another and forcing people to flee their homes. Even with all this going on, James insists on having dialogue with the German and Russian leaders so that the American and Russian prisoners can return to their respective countries.
While I personally don’t have extensive experience or research on the Cold War, I remember reading a volume of The New Human Revolution, by educator and humanist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda. He met with the Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin, and even with leaders in the Soviet Union who didn’t agree with everything Mr. Ikeda said. Mr. Ikeda, like James, came to the Soviet Union as a way for the countries to facilitate dialogue with one another rather than always using armed force as the answer to every diplomatic problem. He asked the leaders of the Soviet Union and China if they were planning on going to war with one another, and each leader told him to communicate to the other side that they did not have plans to go to war with one another.
Communication is a powerful tool in our society, and it always has been. When leaders do not communicate with one another because they are worried that the other is going to blow the other leader’s country up, people make assumptions and shut off future ties or diplomacy. It can also have an impact on children: in one powerful scene of Bridge of Spies, James’s son is sitting in class and the teacher shows them one of the ads during the time that encouraged kids to “duck and cover” so that they wouldn’t get radiation poisoning from any bomb that the Soviet army could potentially throw at the U.S. Then James finds his son sitting on the bathroom floor and reading a book about bomb shelter preparedness because he thinks the Russians are going to bomb the Americans any minute. This is why communication is important because without face to face dialogue about what needs to be said, propaganda can continue to propagate and brainwash people, and moreover cause people to have this irrational fear about other people in other countries. I think in terms of politics and international diplomacy today, talking to one another face to face is needed more than ever if we want to bring about world peace.
Bridge of Spies. 2015. 2 hr 22 min. Rated PG-13 for some violence and brief strong language.
Today I went and saw The Farewell, a beautiful film from the film company A24, and I must say, my eyes are still worn from all the crying I did during this movie. It truly is a tearjerker, and for a good reason. The film, which is the work of director Lulu Wang, is based on a true story in which Lulu’s grandmother died without knowing she had late-stage cancer because her family kept it a secret from her. Billi, played by rapper and actress Awkwafina, is living in New York City and struggling with her career and paying her rent, so she visits her parents, who know she doesn’t have her life together. One night she notices something is going on and her parents are stressed out, and when she asks what is wrong, they tell her that her grandmother is dying of cancer. The film opens with Billi calling her grandmother and asking how she is doing. Even though her grandmother, Nai-Nai, says she is doing well, we see Nai-Nai going through an ultrasound machine to see if she has cancer, and her friend telling her in the waiting room that the cancer isn’t harmful, when in reality the doctors said the cancer is harmful and she won’t have long to live. When Billi’s parents tell her they are going to China for her cousin’s wedding, she finds out that while the wedding is still going to happen, it is also an occasion for the family to spend time with Nai-Nai before she passes away. When Billi tells her parents that they need to tell Nai-Nai about her cancer diagnosis, they say no because it is customary in Chinese culture to not tell a loved one they are dying of cancer. Billi tells her parents she wants to go to China with them not just to see her cousin get married but also spend time with Nai-Nai since she doesn’t have long to live. Her parents tell her to stay since they do not think she would be of much use going back to China with them.
But Billi doesn’t give up. She goes to China to see Nai-Nai and runs into her parents at the house. They are disappointed in her throughout their stay, but they let her stay at Nai-Nai’s with them anyway since she insists on staying. During this time, Billie and Nai-Nai develop an incredibly beautiful bond that stands the test of time even when, in reality, Nai-Nai doesn’t have much time to live (one of the best scenes is when Nai-Nai teaches Billi tai-chi.) The film deals a lot with the issue of communication and how a lack of communication and honesty impacts not just the individual but everyone around them. Everyone is impacted by the decision to not tell Nai-Nai that she is dying of cancer, and at Billi’s cousin’s wedding, after a joyous game of drinking, he breaks down because he knows that he’s not just at the wedding to celebrate getting married but also there to celebrate the short time that he has with Nai-Nai. Not being allowed to tell Nai-Nai she has cancer also negatively impacts Billi, because she wants to have an open honest relationship with her grandmother but cannot because her parents and their parents frown on getting emotional or expressing grief. One of the most powerful scenes is the dialogue between Billi and her mother in the hotel room. Billi’s mother criticizes her for being too emotional and thinks that she shouldn’t be in China with them because she would get too emotional over Nai-Nai’s deteriorating health, and reveals that her own parents frowned on her for being emotional so she doesn’t want her daughter to face the same kind of criticism. She even says that there are professional cryers at the memorial service so that people don’t have to cry when their loved ones pass, and at the graveyard where Billi’s grandfather is buried, there is a woman who cries for everyone so that they do not have to express grief themselves. This made me reflect on how different cultures face death and handle grief. Some communities treat death by celebrating the person’s life with song and dance and merry-making, while other communities commemorate the person’s life with a serious ceremony. And other cultures encourage people to express their grief through physical gut-wrenching means. My ethnic culture encourages people to grieve, but my spiritual culture encourages people to celebrate the person’s life. My spiritual culture encourages people to shed tears but to also not let grief prevent them from living their lives and celebrating the memories of the deceased person.
But the question I was left with was this: is it bad that the family didn’t tell Nai-Nai about her cancer diagnosis since it was a cultural tradition to not talk about illness and death? How would Nai-Nai have reacted if she knew earlier that she had a cancer diagnosis? Sometimes when people learn early on that they have an illness, they do what they can to make the most of life, while other people suffer in grief and sometimes even end their lives before their illness can end life for them. In the film Billi’s mother says that in Chinese culture, people die not from the cancer itself, but from the fear that comes when they find out they have cancer. These are all important questions that we must deal with at every stage of life. I am rather young, but this film taught me to love the ones closest to me. When I read Nick Hornby’s novel How to Be Good, the main character, Katie, talked about how her husband and his spiritual doctor tried to do good things for humanity, and yet couldn’t treasure the people closest to them, and Katie mentions that it is easier to be kind to people that we are less familiar with than people than it is for people in our immediate environment. But The Farewell showed me, through Billi’s relationship with her grandma, that we cannot take people’s time for granted and that we must treasure people while they are still alive. Billi found out a lot about her grandmother, such as her time in the military. At first she encourages Billi to get married, but then later understands that Billi wants to focus on her career. When Billi tells her she didn’t get the fellowship at the Guggenheim she applied for, she confesses that she was worried about telling her grandmother because she didn’t want her to worry about Billi, but Nai-Nai says that it is not necessarily what you do in life that matters, but how you live your life that is important. Nai-Nai wants Billi to embrace her independence because she understands that is what makes Billi happy.
I was searching for articles about the film to better understand for myself the cultural significance of illness in Chinese culture since I personally cannot relate to what Lulu Wang and her family went through, and I found this touching thoughtful piece in The Washington Post by Marian Liu about how The Farewell touched her own life. Liu says that just like Billi’s parents, her dad didn’t let Liu know her grandmother was dying of cancer. This of course impacted Liu tremendously because she never got to have a deeper relationship with her grandmother, and she never got to say goodbye because her family didn’t tell her about her grandmother’s cancer diagnosis until it was too late. Liu later had an honest conversation about this matter with her father, and he tearfully revealed that if he was dying of illness he would want her to let him know of his diagnosis instead of keeping it concealed from him for the sake of preserving family peace. Her father also told Liu that when he found out she had pancreatic cancer and only had six months to live, he told his mother that she had a sickness rather than saying she had a terminal illness, and went to great lengths to get the doctors to give her traditional medicine and other treatments. According to Liu’s article, much of Eastern culture has a holistic approach to illness, one that considers not just physical health, but also one’s emotional and mental state, and is also rooted in community, so one’s diagnosis doesn’t just affect the person with the illness, it affects everyone in the family as well. When someone feels stressed or sad after finding out they have cancer, this emotional response affects everyone in the family, and so a lot of Asian students, according to Asian American Psychological Association president Helen Hsu, do not learn about their relatives’ deaths because their parents want them to focus on their studies and not get caught up in the complex emotions surrounding the relative’s death. However, not knowing about her grandmother’s diagnosis hurt Liu and her family down the road even though it was tradition to not tell her grandmother, and Liu, in the piece, reflects on the fact that she never got to ask her grandmother for advice on marriage and having children, or even taste her recipes, or even talk about her journey as an immigrant to the U.S. When Liu saw The Farewell, she saw her life onscreen, and says in the piece that while she normally doesn’t cry during movies, she cried during this one because it is something that she and many other Asian American youths have had to struggle with in their families.
Even though I do not come from the same ethnic culture as Liu, or Lulu Wang or Billi, I could not stop crying during the film. This is why I love A24’s drama films so stinking much. Moonlight made me cry. A Ghost Story made me cry. Lady Bird definitely made me cry, bringing back memories of my teenage self even though I didn’t have all of the same experiences as the lead protagonist. And even though The Spectacular Now and The Lobster didn’t make me cry, they made me think long after the movie was over. A24 is good at making films that make you think and reflect on what it means to live as a human being, and illustrates how, even during the toughest struggles, individuals can find this indescribable beauty in life whatever age they are at. Combined with the incredibly beautiful combination of string quartet and voice for the score, and the deeply contemplative subject matter, as well as the trademark silences of A24 films (those moments where the characters don’t have to say anything and are free to express their pain, happiness, mixed feelings solely through their body language), I had used up my entire wad of tissues and my eyes were puffy and red, so much I think I got an eyelash in them from crying so much. I convulsed with so many tears throughout the film because I knew the grandmother was dying, and even though I understand it was cultural tradition to not have open discussions about illness and death in front of dying relatives, it was still sad to know that this young woman’s grandmother, who helped her understand her roots and her place in the world, is dying and this young woman cannot tell her because no one wants her to. Even though some reviewers dismissed it as ridiculous that the family didn’t tell the grandmother about her diagnosis (instead of opening with the cliché “based on a true story,” the film caption is “based on an actual lie), it’s not ridiculous, and as Marian Liu illustrated in her piece, is quite common in real life. Speaking from my own life, even though I am not from the same ethnic background as Lulu or Marian, I have noticed that when people find out they have illness they get depressed, and people spend money trying to cure them of their illness through all kinds of pills and treatments. Some people, famous or not, have killed themselves when they find out they have a physical illness; their depression from having the illness, not just their cancer or Parkinson’s, killed them (a lot of people say that Robin Williams’s diagnosis of Lewy body disease played a significant role in his depression and his subsequent suicide.) While I am not saying these treatments are bad, death is going to come whether we want it to or not, and while it is a hard truth to confront, it is inevitable and we need to feel okay talking about illness and death with each other so that people with the illness don’t have to wonder why everyone around them is so tense and won’t tell them what is really wrong. I used to get very stressed out when it came to illness and death with my loved ones (7/20: to be honest I still get stressed when it comes to illness and death), but as I have gotten older, I have come to understand that the only constant in life is change. We cannot bring out physical accomplishments with us when we die; even Aretha, the Queen of Soul, is buried under a heap in the ground even with her super successful career. We are all going to die at some point, so it’s not enough to say you are going to live life to the fullest, but how you and your family are going to confront the inevitability of illness. In Buddhism, we believe that there are four stages of human life: birth, aging, sickness and death, and no one, not even the most successful, most youthful looking people, can escape death. The only thing we can do is change our attitude towards illness and death and how we cope with them.
I admit I was rather apathetic at first about seeing The Farewell. I love Awkwafina in her roles in Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians, as well as her music videos, including her video for “Green Tea” where she is rapping with comedian Margaret Cho. But this is the first film I have seen where Awkwafina acts in a lead role, let alone a powerful drama. In one interview, Lulu Wang said she was at first hesitant about casting Awkwafina in The Farewell because even though she loved her rap videos (this was before Awkwafina starred in Crazy Rich Asians, another excellent film) she didn’t think Awkwafina could play a serious role, but then Awkwafina sent in her audition tape with a couple of scenes from the script and Wang immediately then knew she would be the fit for the part of Billi. It kind of reminds me of Melissa McCarthy because many people didn’t think she could act in dramas because she has usually starred in films where she plays goofy characters who fall on stairs, curse and hit people in the groin. But after seeing her in Can You Forgive Me? She nailed that role so hard, and even now I wouldn’t mind seeing it a second time because her acting is out-of-this-world amazing and she played the writer Lee Israel so well it made me want to see more dramas with her in them (she’s going to be in a new film called The Kitchen, although I probably won’t have the stomach to see it since it is supposed to be a violent film about crime during the 1970s.) Likewise, I would love to see Awkwafina in more drama films. I love her in comedies, but in this film her acting is so powerful and moved me to tears. In short, girlfriend can act.
The Farewell. 2019. 1 hr 38 min. Rated PG for thematic material, brief language and some smoking.
After watching the emotionally heavy film Jackie, I had to watch something funny, and the only funny movie I had checked out from the library was Uncle Drew. I saw the trailer for it a long time ago, but didn’t know if it would interest me. But after watching it, I was sorely mistaken: it was so funny and also had a beautiful message.
It’s about this basketball coach named Dax Winslow who is struggling with encouraging his team, as well as trying to please his girlfriend, Jess, by buying nice things for her. He also has a rival named Mookie Bass who puts Dax down and even gets Dax’s team to turn on him when Dax buys them all the latest shoes when working his shift at Foot Locker. Dax loses all hope in coaching the team, until he finds a retired basketball player named Uncle Drew who proves a group of young basketball players wrong when he beats them at their game (they think that just because he walks slower than they do and has grey hair that he is a grandpa and thus cannot play basketball.) Dax catches up with Uncle Drew after the game and asks if Uncle Drew can join his team since Dax is short on players (Mookie Bass stole his teammates from him.) At first Uncle Drew is reluctant but agrees to join if Dax lets him also recruit Drew’s old teammates.
Everyone else on the team is a retired basketball player, and at first Dax is having a hard time convincing them to come back to playing, but in encouraging them to get back in the game, Dax also comes to terms with his own past struggles. He stopped playing basketball after he missed a shot during a game and his teammates felt he let them down, but after seeing Uncle Drew and his teammates show their stuff during games, Dax realizes he must overcome his fear of getting back on the court.
It was also a really cool movie because toward the middle of the film, Shaquille O’Neal’s character, Big Fella, has his headphones in, and when he takes them off, we hear the words “Nam myoho renge kyo.” As a Nichiren Buddhist, this was such a cool scene because the only other times I’ve heard Nam myoho renge kyo used in films and movies is What’s Love Got to Do With It? (I still have yet to see it, but that’s how most people I encounter have heard of NMRK) and one episode of The Simpsons (the clip is below, it happens around 0:33.)
The movie also has a message that very much resonates with Nichiren Buddhism. There’s a concept in Nichiren Buddhism called fundamental darkness, which means that we cannot see the potential inside of us. When we do what is called our human revolution, or self transformation, we awaken to the reality that we each have innate courage, wisdom and compassion and this gives us the strength to face our problems head on and overcome them. Dax’s fundamental darkness in this context is that he can’t see his potential to win at basketball and encourage his team, but when he overcomes his fear, he awakens to his potential and even his girlfriend is impressed (it’s also his chance to prove Mookie Bass wrong since Mookie thought Dax never had a chance.)
Even though I don’t know much about basketball and have only played a few times (although more often than not just shooting hoops by myself at the gym), I really loved this film and thought it was cool to see these influential people like Lisa Leslie and Kyrie Irving in this heartwarming fun film. The only people in basketball I knew before seeing this film were Shaquille O’Neal and Lisa Leslie (sad but true.)
Even though Nick Kroll plays a jerk in this film, I still love him in The Kroll Show. Also, he has a nice smile. And I also love seeing Lil Rel Howery (who plays Dax) because he was in Get Out and I love that movie. His role in that film made watching the film less stressful because he was the voice of reason to Daniel Kaluuya’s character, Chris. Chris was convinced his girlfriend’s parents were okay even though there was something fishy about the town they were in, and it took Lil Rel Howery, who plays Chris’s friend Rod, to tell him to get the hell out of that town and leave the girlfriend and her family since they were planning to kill him.
Uncle Drew. 2018. Rated PG-13 for suggestive material, language and brief nudity.
I cannot remember the last time I checked this book out from the library. All I know is that it was a long time ago and I never finished it. But this time, I was browsing the shelves for a new read, and somehow this inner craving spoke to me, told me, “If you run out of ideas, check out a Margaret Atwood work.” I remember reading The Handmaid’s Tale some time when I was in high school, but I cannot remember the plot of the book other than the fact that these women lived in this oppressive dystopian society where the only purpose they served for men was to bear them children. I was also rather young when I read it and so I couldn’t really get why such a society would exist (I still have yet to see the TV adaptation of the novel.) Because I sped through The Handmaid’s Tale, I cannot remember whether or not I liked it.
The Blind Assassin took me some time to get through, but I guess that is why I need to re-read The Handmaid’s Tale because I didn’t approach it with the same care as I did (or at least tried to, anyway) for The Blind Assassin. As I have found out by reading even just two of her works, Atwood’s books are not quick reads; they take quite a bit of time to digest, and for a good reason. It isn’t easy to talk about abortion or anything related to sexism or reproductive rights, and Atwood wants readers to sit with these topics for as long as possible. The Blind Assassin is a little over 500 pages (for the hardcover copy) and it packs in a whole lot of details that you might want to take notes of while reading. I only jotted down a few notes but wished I had written more descriptive notes about the characters. And the themes are quite deep, themes such as family, loss, grief, and womanhood in a time when women had to adhere to strict social norms in order to fit in.
I won’t give a boring plot summary because that would ruin the book, but to make it short, the main plot of the story takes place between the 1930s and the 1940s in Canada. It is about two sisters, Iris and Laura Chase, who come from a well-off family in Toronto but struggle as they get older when their father’s business starts to suffer during the Great Depression. Iris, who is still a teenager at the time, marries to a much older and wealthier man named Richard so that her family can support themselves financially. Laura has her own relationship with a man named Alex, but her family disapproves of him because they suspect he is an orphan and would lead the family into further financial ruin. However, Laura is adamant about following her own path, not just in relationships but in life in general. The novel opens up with Iris saying that Laura drove her car off of a bridge on May 26, 1945, just ten days after World War II ends, and describes the complex events that led up to Laura’s death. In between chapters dedicated to Iris’s first-person account of growing up with Laura are the chapters of Laura’s science fiction novel The Blind Assassin, and in between both Iris’s chapters and the chapters of Laura’s book are obituaries and news surrounding Laura’s death, as well as the deaths of other members of her and Iris’s family.
This book isn’t just one of those novels within a novel; it is a combination of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and coming-of-age drama. I say coming-in-age because Iris narrates how both she and Laura grew up together, from their childhood to their present lives as adults. It helped after I finished reading the book to go back to the beginning and read the opening pages, because these opening pages give away the end of the book rather than leaving the end for the reader to figure out. I think what got me through this really deep work is Atwood’s powerful use of language and dialogue. It moves like melting butter, and even when I wanted to finish the book as quickly as I could so I could put another book on my reading log (trying to read 50 this year), I simply could not speed up because I wanted to reread the way Atwood described a particular scene or character. Of course, this is a dark book with a lot of plot twists that made me go “Oh no he/ she didn’t!”, and Laura’s death was obviously quite depressing. Still, there is something magical about Atwood’s writing. I wanted to savor this book rather than get caught up in plot summary (which is probably why my synopsis of the book is so short), and I think Atwood granted my wish. The ending for example was so profound I had to read it at least three times in order to truly understand it was. Atwood’s writing is spellbinding.
I cannot wait to delve into another one of Margaret Atwood’s works! 🙂
The Blind Assassin. Margaret Atwood. 524 pp. Copyright 2000 by O.W. Toad, Ltd.
I first saw the trailer for The Edge of Seventeen a while back, and thought, Eh, this is okay, but I don’t know if I’m pressed to see it. I am glad I finally watched it because it is a great movie. It is about an unpopular introverted 17-year-old named Nadine whose best friend since second grade, Krista, falls in love with Nadine’s popular older brother Darian. Nadine has been ostracized since she was young, but Krista was her best and only friend during that time, so the fact that Krista begins to prioritize time with Darian over time with Nadine is hurtful to Nadine. Nadine then shuts herself off from the world, and the only person she feels she can trust is her history teacher, Mr. Bruner, who cannot stand her excuses for not turning in homework but still lets her come into his homeroom during lunch and hang out with him since she doesn’t have friends. A guy next to her in class, Erwin, falls in love with Nadine, but Nadine shrugs him off and tries to stay friends with him because she is so busy chasing Nick, a cute guy who works at a pet store called Petland.
This movie taught me a lot of valuable life lessons. Now, my high school years were nowhere as stressful as those of Nadine, but I remember being ostracized as a really young kid, and never fitting in. Like Nadine, I was an “old soul,” meaning I had a hard time relating to my peers because I loved environmental science, reading huge books, and classical music, but I never got ostracized for it. I, like Nadine, do remember closing myself off from people and feeling like I couldn’t relate to my peers. I even remember not wanting to go on an orchestra trip because last time I roomed with a group of girls on a trip the previous year, and I sensed that one of the girls didn’t like me, and thus the entire group of girls didn’t like me. Turns out that they were actually pretty cool, and when I decided to stay in the hotel room and work on my precalculus homework instead of skiing because I assumed they didn’t want me around, they were kind of sad (my orchestra teacher later called me and told me that there were some other participants on the trip who weren’t going skiing and suggested I could hang out with them. I ended up having a blast with these people.) That experience taught me to never assume people didn’t like me, especially in an age where a lot of people communicate through social media and text. I think a lot of people want more real in-person conversations nowadays because we are so overwhelmed with all these modes of communication (e.g. apps, Facebook, smartphones in general.) It reminded me of the film Boyhood, when Mason is talking to his girlfriend before he goes to college and says he wants to quit Facebook because he doesn’t want to live his life behind a screen. I remember not having any social media in high school and feeling like such a weirdo, but then also being too busy with schoolwork and orchestra to care about it much. And most kids even told me that I was smart for not being on Facebook, citing that it was a huge waste of time. I also knew that my real friends respected my choice to not use Facebook and would just call me or tell me in person if they wanted to hang out.
If anything, this film taught me the importance of self-love. If you cannot love yourself, you cannot truly love other people, and Nadine struggles with this throughout the film. When Nadine hits puberty she freaks out and gets jealous of Darian just because he seems to be zit-free (and worry-free, too.) When she goes to a party with Krista and Darian she ends up not meeting anyone while Krista floats off with people she knows and leaves Nadine hanging. Nadine goes into the restroom and beats herself up for being too awkward for her peers, and ends up calling her mom to pick her up and take her home. In one of the most pivotal scenes in the film, Nadine confronts her brother and tells him that she is afraid that she will never get rid of the things she hates about herself, and that when she looks in the mirror she hates everything about herself. However, there are a couple of people who actually support Nadine: Mr. Bruner and Erwin. Erwin, like Nadine, is awkward, but when he tries to kiss her, and Nadine says “no,” he immediately feels bad about what he did and doesn’t do it again. He, like Nadine, isn’t a super popular person, but he is the only guy who actually likes her for who she is and isn’t just interested in her for sex. And yet because Nadine cannot see how beautiful she really is, outside and inside, she thinks Erwin isn’t the right guy for her and keeps chasing Nick. Nick, however, isn’t interested in her and Nadine feels she has to go out of her way to pursue him, so she sends a sexually explicit Facebook message. He sees it and asks her out, but then when they are in the car, all he cares about is having sex with her. She expects him to just get to know her as a person first, but he isn’t interested in that. This scene taught me that it’s important to not go chasing after love just because you have this ideal vision that you and your crush are going to fall in love immediately.
It also taught me to not compare myself to others. When Nadine and her mom are in the car and Nadine doesn’t want to go to school, her mom tells her to take a deep breath and tell herself the truth behind everyone’s facade of composure and success: everyone is just faking it until they make it, and everyone is just as miserable as Nadine is, and that they are just better at hiding it. This is so true though because even though Darian is ripped and popular, he admits to Nadine that he doesn’t care about her even though he pretended to for their entire life. He, Nadine and their mom are still trying to survive the death of Nadine and Darian’s father. I am sure that Nick, the seemingly perfect crush of Nadine, was going through a ton of stuff himself. I remember in high school and college feeling so insecure, thinking everyone has more friends than me and has an easier time with their classes than I did. However, what I failed to realize until much later is that these kids’ lives weren’t perfect either and that they were just as ready to walk across the graduation stage as I was because everyone was just about done with school by their senior year. In college, I studied hard but still compared myself to my peers. A lot of the older students had to tell me multiple times that no one had their stuff together and that everyone was just trying to make it in college, but I wouldn’t listen. These constant comparisons I made between me and my peers led me to feel depressed, and when I got depressed I shut myself away from my peers, thinking it would be pointless to even say “hi” to them because I was too busy thinking about how cool and put-together everyone seemed. After college, part of me wishes I didn’t have to go through such a self-pity party, but another part of me understands that this constant battle with my self-esteem was crucial to my personal development, because it taught me that in the end, I just need to keep killin’ it at whatever I am doing, and to not worry about what others are doing.
This movie reminds me of a book I read called The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins. In the book, Robbins conducts research on high school bullying and proposes a theory called “quirk theory,” which means that the things and characteristics that get kids ostracized when they are in school are the same things that help them achieve success later in life. Nadine reminds me a lot of the kids in the book because she has a hard time relating to her peers and considers herself an “old soul,” but these qualities could help her a lot later in life (although she probably wouldn’t have needed to wait long because she actually found a friend in Erwin.)
Hailee Steinfeld’s performance was incredible. The last film I saw her in was Pitch Perfect 2 (still haven’t seen her in True Grit yet) but her role was kind of on the side. Seeing her play the lead was awesome because she just brings so much depth to Nadine’s character. This film reminded me of Juno and Lady Bird because the lead characters are so quick-witted and relatable.
The Edge of Seventeen. 2016. Rated R for sexual content, language and some drinking–all involving teens.
I am playing catch-up after being off this blog for so long, and in the time I haven’t been blogging I have just been consuming books, movies and music like it’s nobody’s business. Okay, maybe it hasn’t been that long, you will all need to check the calendar for me.
Anyhoo, enough with that. I just finished (my typical beginner line, maybe I should find another beginning line, I’ve kind of worn this “just finished” one out) the film A Bad Moms Christmas. Lately I have been checking out a bunch of comedies since a lot has been going on in the world with coronavirus, the helicopter crash that killed Kobe, his daughter and others, the White House, and climate change, and I just needed to take a break from my phone to have a good laugh. My advice: watch the first Bad Moms movie (back in the dinosaur age I wrote a review on it), and then watch Bad Moms Christmas. Most important tip of all: prepare to laugh even harder than you did when you watched the first. Bad Moms was obviously quite hilarious and had me laughing so hard my side hurt, but Bad Moms Christmas made me laugh even harder (and yes, all this laughter made my side hurt harder than the first time.)
The basic premise of Bad Moms, for those who haven’t seen it, is Amy, this mom living in suburban Chicago, whose life is anything but perfect. Her kids are entitled, her job barely lets her have time off for herself, and worst of all, she is dealing with a clique of PTA moms that are straight out of Mean Girls (only they never had a change of heart like Regina, Gretchen and Karen had). The ringleader of the clique, Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate) loves to taunt Amy and pile all these PTA mom responsibilities on her and expects her to have her life together. Amy meets two other moms who struggle to make time for themselves because they are all trying to be perfect moms, and the three of them strike up a friendship and get back at the PTA moms clique and its ringleader by doing things like bringing store-bought donut holes to bake sales, holding house parties with alcohol, and cursing. Amy, Carla and Kiki (the three main moms in the film) realize that it’s okay to not be the perfect parent and what’s most important is just being their best selves.
In a Bad Moms Christmas, the story continues, but this time, with the moms’ moms all coming to visit them for the holidays. Cheryl Hines (who plays Cheryl in Curb Your Enthusiasm), Christine Baranski (from Chicago, Eloise at Christmastime and How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and Susan Sarandon (who I found out on my American Philosophical Association poster majored in philosophy like me!)–all of them make the film what it is: touching, hilarious and clever. Cheryl Hines plays Kiki’s mom Sandy, and the thing she struggles with is respecting her daughter’s need for space and to live her life independently. Susan Sarandon plays Carla’s mom, and she only comes to see Carla when she needs money for gambling and was never really there for her daughter all the time when Carla was growing up. And Christine Baranski, who plays Ruth, Amy’s mom, is an overbearing perfectionist who comes into Amy’s home and puts her way of life down. She thinks she is going to come into Amy’s home and tell her how they are going to celebrate Christmas, driving everyone to see the five-hour tragic version of The Nutcracker and taking the family to at least 200 homes to sing Christmas Carols with a choir that she hired. She even elaborately decorates the house and invites 100 people over to Amy’s house without her permission because she thinks that a casual Christmas with takeout and time with family isn’t going to cut it. Amy feels that she can’t live her life anymore because her mom wants to control it, but at least she can always rely on her friends Kiki and Carla to support her.
Overall, I really loved this movie. Carla especially is hilarious, and the scene where she has her, Amy and Kiki get drunk and rowdy in the mall during the holidays was very silly but had me busting up. And Kenny G makes a cameo appearance!
A Bad Moms Christmas. 2017. Rated R for crude sexual content and language throughout, and some drug use.
I just finished watching the film Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring Melissa McCarthy as the late writer Lee Israel, who, in real life forged around 400 letters that several famous individuals had written during their lifetimes. She sold these letters and made serious bank from them (the title comes from a line in one of the Dorothy Parker letters Lee forged, asking the person being addressed, “Can you ever forgive me?”) Lee was a struggling writer who could pay neither the vet bills for her cat, Jersey, nor her rent, and her writing kept getting rejected. Her agent didn’t support her because Lee was always cooped up in her house and never went out to meet people, but instead of finding a job like being a bartender or working a 9 to 5, Lee gets money by forging letters by famous writers such as Dorothy Parker and selling them to booksellers that would take them. She was able to pay her landlord, her vet bills and trips to the bar with her friend Jack, who himself is struggling to be successful. Lee has Jack help her sell the forged letters. Of course, the FBI ends up finding out that Lee lied all this time and she incurs serious punishment for it.
If I got anything out of this movie (and believe me, I got a ton out of it. Is it any wonder that the film got 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes?) it’s this: It’s muchbetterto let yourself write a bad first draft than not start at all. It’s better to put your own work out there even if you think it’s far from perfect, because that’s sure as heck better than taking other people’s writing and claiming it for your own. Writing your own stuff is not just fun, it’s also common sense if you want to stick with copyright laws and not land in court for it. I have heard countless cases in the music industry where families of musicians sue new musicians for using a hook or phrase in their songs without crediting the original songwriter or performer.
It reminded me so much of the film Big Eyes, which is about the true story of Margaret Keane, whose husband, Walter, sold her paintings of sad-eyed children and took all the credit for them. In Big Eyes, Margaret gets to do what she wants, which is painting, so she doesn’t have to have a non-art-related day job. However, staying cooped up in her studio painting takes a tremendous toll on her mental, physical and emotional health, and while her husband is doing the marketing part and not the actual painting, she is the one who deserves the credit because she actually put her heart and soul into these paintings, and they came from her heart. In Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Lee’s agent tells her that instead of trying to hide who she is, the only way she can become a real writer is by writing her own stuff. Imposter syndrome is real for a lot of people, but especially for creatives it can be a huge pain in the butt to deal with. Imposter syndrome means that no matter how much money or recognition you get from selling your art, performing beautiful music, or speaking publicly before a large audience, you feel like someday someone is actually going to take away your trophy or tell you you aren’t as good as you seem and that your next work will be a total flop. Can You Ever Forgive Me? takes a totally new spin on imposter syndrome because instead of being this writer who writes in her own voice, Lee actually was an impostor because she pretended to be the writer of those letters when, in fact, she wasn’t.
I have lately been reading about the music business because I was still debating whether to put my music out there since I’ve been reading about how streaming is hurting musicians’ incomes because companies like Spotify and YouTube are offering up their music for free. I watched a talk that former CEO of music publishing company TuneCore Jeff Price did one time, and he talked about copyright in the music industry and how it relates to songwriters, and lately I have been thinking about composing my own pieces. I thought at first, I don’t have a music degree, how can I possibly compose my own pieces? But somehow I took a scale and just mixed up the notes and played it, and to me it sounded fine. Art is a subjective thing; not everyone’s going to love, see or appreciate what you bring to the table, but it’s a job like every other job out there. You just have to show up and do the work even if it is garbage at first. I remember all of the librarians and English teachers who would tell us to cite our sources, warning about the dangers of plagiarism. I’m glad they did, because forgetting these rules can ruin you as an adult.
Lee’s forgery doesn’t just impact her ability to pay her rent and keep her life together; it affects her friendships because she cannot tell anyone what she does for a living. If she tells people, she knows they will find out, so she keeps her distance, even with the bookseller who goes out to have dinner with her. The bookseller, Anna, writes her own stories even though she doesn’t think they are good enough to publish, but at least she actually wrote her own stuff. Lee got so caught up in this idea that her writing needed to be this incredible thing, while Tom Clancy was out there publishing several books and making bank. When Lee got caught up in what people thought about her writing, she stopped writing for herself and became this person she wasn’t. When she goes to the party she overhears a published author say how people with writer’s block are “lazy,” and of course this ticks her off. But I definitely do think that when we come out of ourselves, recognize we have this writer’s block and then resolve to write anything just to combat it, we see what we’re actually capable of. It’s like, if you don’t try, you won’t know what you can do, and it seems the more I publish my own writing (aka through this blog) I have come to understand that while I am an introvert, I have things to be said that need saying. I think that as I write more, I find more quality writing out of my bad drafts, and I stop worrying about what others are thinking of me. Rejection is just a fact of life, and like orchestra auditions, getting turned down by magazines and publishers hurts like hell, but you just need to keep writing your own stuff.
When I write my own music, my own blog posts, my own stories, I feel a sense of catharsis. I’m not doing this for the money or the fame; I’m writing original stuff because I love it. I don’t want to be an imitation of anyone, even though it’s hard to not be influenced by all kinds of writers because you are always reading. But I know I will never be Roger Ebert or Peter Travers or cellist Jacqueline du Pre. I know I won’t have the same journey to success as other people, but everyone has their own story to tell. The film taught me that if you want to make a name for yourself, you of course can still be introverted, but you need to show people the hard work and passion you put in your writing. I have a day job that isn’t related to writing or music because I want to be able to pay for all these movies I watch to write these blog posts, and I want to be able to keep seeing my writing and music as things I love. Now of course, like I said, we shouldn’t always give our work for free because art is a job like anything else. But great writers typically don’t write just so they can get paid. New York City rent is pricey, but that’s why a lot of creatives in the city have day jobs so they can spend their evenings creating art and creating community in the process.
Melissa McCarthy once said in a New York Times piece I read on her that a lot of people like to pigeonhole her as the funny lady who is always doing slapstick stuff, like The Boss and Bridesmaids. These of course were awesome movies, but I really like seeing McCarthy perform in a drama because I typically don’t see her in serious films. In the interview, she said that Can You Ever Forgive Me? gave her a chance to show people that people who normally star in goofy comedies have the diverse range of talent to be able to shift like a chameleon to a drama. Her performance as Lee Israel locked me in and didn’t let me out of its sight until the end of the film.
Here is an excellent article I read in Writer’s Digest a couple of months ago when I was struggling with writer’s block and thinking of seeing the film:
The Arts Are Life 