Author: The Arts Are Life

February 27, 2019

Last night I finally did it: I watched the film Bridesmaids. At first I wasn’t sure how I’d like it because I thought the trailer looked a bit silly (and I am a self-diagnosed emetophobic, so hearing about the infamous vomit/food poisoning scene from the film put me off from watching it.) However, I was totally wrong in my assumptions. I needed to see this movie because it was the best movie to watch before bedtime. It was light, funny and had a lot of good life lessons in it. Also Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who both star in the film and who I both love, wrote the screenplay! 🙂 I didn’t know this, but it was the first film produced by Judd Apatow to be nominated for an Academy Award (it was nominated for Best Supporting Actress–Melissa McCarthy–and Best Original Screenplay).

The film teaches a very valuable lesson about friendship: that people change and you need to just appreciate the friendship while it lasts, as well as the people you meet along the way. It’s about this middle-aged woman named Annie (Kristen Wiig) whose baking company goes bankrupt during the recession and is sleeping with a guy who doesn’t want a serious relationship. She also lives with roommates who are not allowed to work in the U.S. and thus she has to pay most of their rent (Rebel Wilson plays one of these roommates, and she is hilarious.) Things become awkward when her best friend since childhood, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), gets engaged and asks Annie to be her maid of honor. At the engagement party, Annie meets Lillian’s friends, who are also her bridesmaids. From there it becomes a wild party and it is hilarious to watch.

One theme that spoke in particular to me is when Megan, one of Lillian’s bridesmaids, comes to Annie’s door when she is at her most depressed (Annie moves back in with her mom after her roommates kick her out of their apartment) and tells her to stop having a pity party. She tells Annie that she thinks she doesn’t have any friends, but that she is ignoring the fact that Megan actually has her back. Megan tells Annie that she was bullied horribly in school for her weight but she studied hard and now has an incredible job working for the government, has six houses and has a really nice car. At first we don’t know any of this during the first half of the film and we think it’s just Melissa McCarthy doing silly stuff like bugging her seatmate on an airplane and taking nine of Helen’s dogs (which were presents for after the bridal shower she throws for Lillian) and taking them home with her. But Megan really does teach Annie that in life you have to be resilient and you can’t blame other people for your misery.

I remember when I was in college, and I thought I didn’t need any friends. There was a group of incredibly sweet young women who invited me to their breakfasts, lunches and dinners in the campus dining halls, and invited me to study with them, but I again thought I didn’t need any friends so I ignored all of their texts. But in retrospect, I realized how little I appreciated these people, even the other friends I made during my first year of college. I even stormed off on a couple of my friends at a restaurant during my last week of college before graduation, for absolutely no reason at all (I was a hot mess back then, in retrospect, and could have handled my stress in a much more mature way.) Throughout college, I found out the hard way that you can’t have a pity party for yourself and think that no one cares about you. It’s also why it’s important to seek help; Annie’s depression was pretty bad, and sometimes it’s not easy to lift yourself from depression, so that may mean actually going to a licensed mental health professional for help. I felt too bad to ask for help in college so I didn’t seek out counseling services. Bridesmaids taught me that being resilient doesn’t mean refusing help when you need it.

In fact, this message about resilience happens even earlier in the film when Annie and Nathan (Chris O’Dowd), the police officer who pulled her over, are at a bar and he tells her she should try baking again. When she tells him she literally lost all of her money from the baking company going bankrupt, he tells her that just because she didn’t make any money from her baking company doesn’t mean that she failed, and tells her that she is really good at it. Even after they sleep together, he wakes her up and buys her baking supplies so that she can bake him some cupcakes. But this brings up bad memories of her business going bankrupt, so she apologizes immediately and leaves his house. Honestly, I know this wouldn’t have been true to the story, but if she seriously wanted to make the situation better, she could have taught him how to bake instead of her making treats for him. He seems like a very level-headed guy, and after he taught her how to operate that speeding device to detect people driving over the speed-limit, she could have taught him how to bake.

This scene reminds me of the book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, in which Cal Newport debunks the idea that one should quit their job and follow their passion, when in reality they should first build up enough career capital, or skills, and money to be able to invest in their passion projects. Even though Annie’s business went down the toilet, she could have pursued it as a side project while working another job. I have no idea whether she quit her job or dropped out of college to start her business, and frankly I can’t blame her because the recession was pretty bad and it wasn’t her fault. She also could have tried selling her stuff to friends and family members. Even though this would of course have changed the entire plot, I think it would have at least helped her re-boost her self-confidence. Newport says that the key to success is not giving up, but just producing a lot of stuff to show people. Chris Rock did it, Steve Martin did it, Annie could have easily done it while working as a barista or some other job. I know during the recession that there weren’t a lot of jobs, but I had to work a service job and it helped me make money while still playing my music without worrying whether I’d get a paycheck from playing my music or bombing some orchestra audition. Again, I don’t know much about Annie’s situation; just saying it could have been a possibility for her.

Annie’s struggles with moving on also taught me that I need to accept change and appreciate the people in my present life. Annie bakes Nathan a cake saying “sorry” and expects he’ll immediately accept her apology, but I think that he’s more upset not just with the fact that she didn’t get her taillights fixed like she promised, but because she keeps saying sorry to him and blaming other people for making her feel low. Annie finally realizes that Nathan genuinely cares about her. Annie’s previous lover (played by Jon Hamm) constantly makes her feel like a tool and doesn’t respect her (he says that while he’s driving, she can sleep in his lap, showing his narcissism and lack of regard for her not wanting to do that). Nathan, however, actually wants her to succeed. There’s this great quote from this book called Discussions on Youth by philosopher Daisaku Ikeda:

“Real love is not two people clinging to each other; it can only be fostered between two strong people secure in their individuality. A shallow person will have only shallow relationships. If you want to experience real love, it is important to first sincerely develop a strong self-identity.” (Ikeda, 67)

Unlike Nathan, Jon Hamm’s character (I say “Jon Hamm’s character” because Jon Hamm was uncredited in the film so I never got the character’s name. According to IMDB trivia on the film, Hamm chose to go uncredited though because he felt if he appeared in the credits, then people would view Bridesmaids as a more serious film since he isn’t generally recognized for appearing in comedies) does not care about a serious relationship and even straight-up tells Annie that he doesn’t want to be her boyfriend or husband, but is really just interested in sex with her. He doesn’t really care about her baking dreams or her friends. Nathan, however, isn’t trying to fix Annie; in fact, he expects her to have her life together, and when she doesn’t and assumes he is trying to fix her, he knows enough to move on and not get bent out of shape about it. Daisaku Ikeda also says that men should respect women and work alongside with them to help them achieve their goals. Nathan actually cared about Annie and wanted a serious relationship because he has a serious job as a police officer and expects her to take her baking pursuits seriously so that the two of them can be independent happy individuals who are still in love. Honestly I would have loved to see Annie succeed with her baking company.

This film also says a great deal about people-pleasing. Helen, Lillian’s wealthy snobbish friend, constantly tries to make it seem that she is Lillian’s best friend by buying her all of these extravagant things and even booking her a flight to Paris. But as we see later in the film, Lillian realizes she doesn’t want Helen controlling her wedding and in fact, it’s going to be hard for Lillian’s dad to afford the wedding. After Annie destroys everything at Helen’s mansion during the bridal shower, Lillian gets upset with Annie and asks her why she can’t just move on and be happy for her. However, even Lillian is fed up with Helen because this whole extravagant wedding has brought her stress. This film teaches that friendship isn’t so much about how many times we hang out with people as it is the small moments that count. Helen assumes she is Lillian’s best friend because she takes her out for all these social gatherings and buys all these expensive things for her, and that Annie is a bad friend because she doesn’t have any money, even though Annie and Lillian have known each other much longer than Lillian and Helen have been friends. Helen realizes her mistake in trying to please Lillian and apologizes to Annie, but Annie, who spends most of the film apologizing, is fed up with Helen’s apologies. The film also makes a great point about apologizing; women tend to do it a lot (although Nathan apologizes a couple of times) and you really shouldn’t say sorry all the time because it eventually comes off as sounding like you don’t really want to take responsibility and are just looking for someone’s forgiveness. I myself have done this countless times and I am still working on it, so I need to watch movies like Bridesmaids to let me know that just because you say sorry doesn’t mean you can just make the same mistake again. You have to accept what you did wrong, move on, and check your actions next time.

In Discussions on Youth Ikeda also has a profound chapter on friendship, and one of the passages from this chapter spoke to the movie so much:

“What is friendship? It is not simply a matter of being favorably disposed toward someone because he or she spends a lot of time with you, or lends you money, or is nice to you, or because you get along well and have a lot in common. True friendship implies a relationship where you empathize with your friends when they’re suffering and encourage them not to lose heart, and where they, in turn, empathize with you when you’re in the same boat and try to cheer you up. A friendship with those qualities flows as beautifully as a pure, fresh stream.” (Ikeda, “Friendship and Perspectives on Life,” Discussions on Youth, 47)

Overall the film was incredible and I recommend it. Also, Melissa McCarthy is hilarious. Heck, the whole female cast of the film is incredibly funny. 🙂

Bridesmaids. 2011. 2 hr 12 min. Rated R for some strong sexuality and language throughout.

February 10, 2019

For those who haven’t seen the film, Black Swan is a thriller directed by Darren Aronofsky about a kind-hearted ballerina named Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman) who auditions for the lead role of the Swan Queen. She starts off by being nice and not engaging in the competitiveness of his fellow ballerinas, but as the film progresses she lets her ego take over as she tries to be both the innocent pure White Swan and the dark twisted Black Swan simultaneously. She thinks another ballerina, Lily (Mila Kunis), is out to steal her part as the Black Swan, so she goes to great lengths to beat Lily and please Thomas, her teacher.

I read a parents guide on Kids in Mind and a Wikipedia plot summary before seeing the film because I frankly don’t enjoy scary things that jump out or happen suddenly on screen, even though I know deep down that reading these guides kills the fun of the movie. However, even when I closed my eyes at all the gruesome creepy parts I had plenty to ruminate about after the film. In fact, the end credits add to the overall darkness of this psychological horror film because it’s a cream-white background but with black feathers representing Nina’s role as The Black Swan. After you realize how much Nina destroyed herself to become the lead role of the Swan Queen, you’ll need to wait until the end credits are actually finished to actually take a deep breath of relief. Because the white and black contrast of the end credits against the sounds of Peter Tchaikovsky’s ominous Swan Lake Overture are beautiful but unsettling when you remember that the film is overall very dark.

Because I’m still trying to digest the 1 hour and 40-ish minutes of the film (I don’t really want to look up the actual time because then I’d have to see a photo of Natalie Portman’s gorgeous yet haunting glare at the viewer in the film poster), here are just a few of my jumbled thoughts about it. I have never binge-watched so many episodes of Brooklyn 99 in my life, but after seeing Black Swan I needed to see something humorous. While I loved the cinematography and the acting, I had to convince myself of just that: that it was just acting. Because it felt very real. As scary as it was to watch Natalie Portman destroy herself (which is why I was hesitant at first about seeing the movie) her acting is incredible, and so is Mila Kunis and the other actors’ performances. And the music score, speaking as a classical musician, was amazing.

First and foremost, the film has a pretty harsh reality check for any perfectionists out there (speaking for myself). Nina goes into the office of her teacher, Thomas, and asks for the Swan Queen role. He then tells her he gave it to another ballerina and tells her to leave. She then tells him she just wants to be perfect. He then tells her that he doesn’t care about her technique and that perfect performance isn’t just about technique but about losing yourself in the role and letting go. He tells her embodying both the White and Black Swan is hard because the Black Swan would require Nina to lose touch with herself. However, it’s important to not take what he says to heart, because honestly speaking this dude (yes, I called Vincent Cassel’s character a “dude”) is a creep and forcibly kisses Nina in his office. This reminded me of allegations against various orchestra conductors who put their students on a pedestal while abusing them in silence. Thomas also manipulates Nina into taking him literally. While Lily, Nina’s colleague, gets to have fun and go out with friends while still holding Thomas’s attention, Nina is constantly tortured by the idea that Lily would replace her.

I was thinking, this is just a movie, this isn’t supposed to be a documentary about ballerinas, it’s all fiction, but I wanted to find real-life experiences by ballerinas that shattered the Nina stereotype. I immediately remembered a friend and I were talking about Misty Copeland’s story. For those unfamiliar with Misty Copeland, she became the first Black woman to be the principal ballet dancer of the American Ballet Theatre in 2015, and has encouraged so many girls and young women, particularly women of color. Misty Copeland, in an interview with Elle, says that she started later than other ballerinas but that she believes it is her mission to encourage young girls to develop positive self-esteem because of the deeply ingrained stigma associated with the classical ballet sphere.

In Copeland’s words,

“I’m such a late bloomer. Having been in the company for as long as I’ve been, and having been promoted at this stage– I think that it’s been hard for me to accept that I belong here, that I’m good enough. Maybe it’s just that I’m so exhausted and I’m 35 now and it was my breaking point, but I believe that I deserve to be here. The power that I have in bringing people to the ballet, and for what I represent– I don’t need to be working like a slave. I can say no to certain things and decide to do something else that will enrich who I am.” (“Misty Copeland is Pirouetting Her Way to Disney Fame.” Sophie Brickman, Sept. 19 2018. Elle.com)

Misty recognizes that it’s important to not compare yourself to others, and in fact encourages young ballerinas to be passionate about what they do and to have fun. This is just my perspective, but Black Swan made it seem that in order to be a good performer, one must close themselves off from the real world and focus on being better than other performers. This is an unrealistic and unhealthy way of approaching art. Most of the successful musicians, artists and dancers I have encountered over the years have told me to have fun, not compare myself to others and just appreciate the fact that I’m even playing an instrument. Thomas makes it seem like Nina has to give up her sense of self in order to become the best, but him telling her this only leads Nina to destroy herself physically, emotionally and psychologically, and it has a severe impact on her relationships with others.

There is a particular scene in which Nina is rehearsing alone late at night with the pianist, and he finally gets up and leaves. When she tells him to stay and rehearse with her, he tells her “I have a life” and that she herself should get rest instead of staying up late rehearsing. Nina’s mom tells her to get sleep instead of going out for drinks with Lily, and I agree with her (then again, if Nina didn’t go out with Lily and get drinks, the film would be way shorter than 1 hour and 48 minutes.) Countless scientific studies have shown that taking time for ourselves actually helps us perform better. My cello teacher even encourages me to take breaks in between practice sessions so I don’t risk burning out while playing my instrument. I learned the hard way a few years ago about the importance of taking time to care for my mind, body and soul, but the harsh lesson I learned was worth it because I realized how little I cared for my own life. I was obsessing over my musical success without taking care of my mental health, seeing therapy and spending time with loved ones. Even while practicing all of these difficult cello pieces, I know that I need to take a break after 20-40 minutes or so to just stretch, meditate, read, or watch a funny Drunk History episode. Because, like the pianist told Nina, “I have a life.”

I would argue that Nina’s constant comparing herself to her peers and her driven perfectionism hurt her more than help her succeed. In fact, in today’s world of the performing arts, the hard truth is that you can practice all you want to get every note perfect, but you have to do other stuff to balance it out. There have been many times when I have literally destroyed myself in order to play a perfect audition, and I only ended up closing off my friends, family and peers in the process because I was so focused on getting everything perfectly. I ended up losing out on things I enjoy, such as reading for fun, and ended up isolating myself for days at a time. Having mental illness is not fun. Being a tortured artist isn’t beautiful or cute. It’s painful and you’ve got to learn to love yourself first so that you can appreciate your career and the people who helped you along the way.

At the end of the day, no one cares if you did things perfectly. A performance is just that, a performance. Yes, work hard, give it your all, but please love yourself and encourage yourself in the process. Everyone just wants to see something done from the heart. After the film, I had all these heavy feelings, but I had to remember that the film, as it says in the end credits, is a work of fiction and that the characters are fictional. While I am not a ballerina and can’t speak to ballerina’s experiences, I can’t assume that the way ballet is depicted in the film speaks for every ballerina’s experience, such as Misty Copeland’s experience where she found healthy work-life balance. It might have some truth, but for the most part I had to take the film with a grain of salt and just watch it as it was. I think doing this helped me get over the heaviness of the film, although it is one of those movies that I watched and don’t think I can watch again because it really is scary. Although, I must say, this post is a much better critique of the film than mine because it comes from someone who actually is a ballerina and calls out many of the ways in which the film wrongly portrays the lives of ballerinas. Also, there’s a brilliant Saturday Night Live parody of the film, and I have seen it at least a thousand times and cannot stop laughing. Jim Carrey, as always, is brilliant. 🙂

Black Swan. 1 hr 48 min. Rated R for some sexual content, disturbing violent images, language and some drug use.

Written on February 6, 2019

Uncategorized

Like Bad Moms, this movie was HILARIOUS! I seriously found myself busting up laughing quite a lot. The movie also make a great commentary about singlehood.

The film follows the lives of three single women: Robin, an extroverted partygoer, played by Rebel Wilson, and a cautious young woman named Alice (Dakota Johnson) who lives with her sister Meg (Leslie Mann). After graduating college, Alice decides to break up with her boyfriend to move to New York City and gets a job as a paralegal. On her first day she meet Robin, who shows her how to enjoy her newfound singlehood in the big city. She gives Alice tips on how to hook up with guys and enjoy herself, but Alice finds herself still conflicted about her ex-boyfriend while meeting these other men. Meg decides to have a child of her own via a sperm donor, and meets a guy named Ken who wants a long term committed relationship with her. Alice, meanwhile, still remains conflicted about whether or not to get back with her ex-boyfriend even though he has moved on.

What I really loved about the film is the cliches about romantic comedies that they manage to point out at various points in the film. A few years ago, singlehood was stigmatized and single people were often seen lonely and crying over not having anyone. However, the movie sends a good message that just because you’re single doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. And in fact, no single person’s life is going to be identical. One of the guys Alice meets, David, is a single dad. She assumes he is married just because he has a daughter, but then she finds out his wife died. Instead of letting Alice into his life, we find out that David does not feel emotionally ready to have Alice replace his wife and be his daughter’s new mom. He ends up using the time he has to not remarry to develop a healthy relationship with his daughter even after his wife’s death. Had he remarried, it would have been a completely different story and Alice wouldn’t have time to enjoy her singlehood anymore.

Tom, who works as a bartender, hooks up with various women in the movie, but he himself does not want a long-term committed relationship. In the beginning he meets a young woman named Lucy and makes fun of her for using online dating sites to find people rather than meet them in person. However, when she gets married, he continues to act like she still loves him, but her husband George lets him know that Lucy is serious about getting married and to stay away from her (seeing Jason Mantzoukas give this diss to Anders Holm-Tom-was brilliant but also gave me chills because it was so well-delivered.) It’s similar to the film Up in the Air, when George Clooney’s character love living a life where he can just fly by himself in first class and hook up with women, but then has to face the reality that the women he treated so carelessly move on and get married.

The movie not only challenges stereotypes about single women, but also pregnant women. One great scene is when Meg is shopping for things at a maternity store and Ken, the guy who wants to be in a long-term relationship with her, jokingly calls her crazy for not telling him she is pregnant, and says that pregnant women are crazy. She then tells him it is rude to call a pregnant woman crazy and then storms out on him. One of the salespeople calls out to Meg, “Tell him, girl” for calling him out on his nonsense. I literally had to watch this scene at least three times because it was so funny. Normally, if a woman gets angry in a store, the people working behind the counter just stare in shock (not surprisingly, considering I used to work in retail), but I love how in this little moment that woman cheered Meg on for challenging Ken on his comment about pregnant women. *Side note: I thought Ken looked familiar, and so I thought, Wait did he star in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? And then I looked him up on Wikipedia and it said that he starred in Obvious Child. He was a great actor in that movie, too. 🙂

What I like about the film is that it challenges the idea that being single means either being totally lonely for the rest of your life or living this totally carefree life where you can just do what you want without consequences. Robin spends all this money partying and taking Alice shopping; however we find out that she is quite wealthy and didn’t really need a job, and was only working at a law firm so she could spend time with Alice. She made Alice pay for a lot of their fun together, which isn’t fair from a real-life perspective because Alice probably didn’t come from a sizeable nest egg like Robin did. All of the people I have talked about living in New York City have told me it is incredibly expensive, so in real life it wouldn’t have been good for Alice’s budget to live Robin’s social life. I am glad that she finally came to understand that she needed to love herself and take responsibility for her own life so that she could feel confident about who to let in her life and who to leave. Finding yourself in your 20s and 30s is different for everyone. Some people, like me, have found themselves through learning how to appreciate being alone because having depression can often make you feel guilty for spending time alone.

In a 2003 Psychology Today article, Hara Estroff Marano says that in today’s hyperconnected world, we need to embrace solitude so that we can harness our creativity and learn to love ourselves. Marano says that unlike solitude, which is “refreshing; an opportunity to renew ourselves…loneliness is harsh, punishment, a deficiency state, a state of discontent marked by a sense of estrangement, an awareness of excess aloneness. Solitude is something you choose; loneliness is imposed on you by others” (“What is Solitude?”) Alice learns it’s okay to stay in and read a book if you don’t want to go to a party, and she also gets a chance tp mend her friendship with Robin.

Overall, this is an excellent film and I wouldn’t mind seeing it more than once.

How to Be Single. 1 hr 50 min. Rate R for sexual content and strong language throughout.