Recently in arts Category

I just read the opening whirlwind manifesto on the blog Streetheart:  Ethics of Graffiti.  The writing's good, and the anonymous author really throws down:

The new McDonalds in your city, the one running on factory farms that keep animals drugged in minuscule cages for their entire lives--were you asked if they could decorate your skyline with their golden arches? And Coca-Cola--the same Coca-Cola that has employed paramilitary groups to murder and torture Colombian workers to break up their union--did they ask you before taking up a patch of your commute bigger than your front yard with one of their advertisements?

He/she's not pulling any punches; see for yourself.  I'm curious to see what comes next.

Hey, all you members of the adoption triad out there--or just you folks who like a romantic comedy with a grain of reality and brains in it--Then She Found Me is really good.  Helen Hunt, of Mad About You fame, directed, wrote the screenplay, and stars.  Other members of the cast are Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick (who's terrific as the clueless, self-absorbed child-husband), and Bette Midler.  Ben Shenkman (Angels in America) and Lynn Cohen (Miranda's housekeeper on Sex and the City) also have good roles.

The film, which has apparently been a labor of love for Helen Hunt, who's been working on it since 1997, is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Elinor Lipman, who shares her thoughts about its conversion into film on her website.  (Take note of the timeline, all you writers whose books have been optioned or who are hoping for that.)

I really like the way the film explores the sense of total upheaval that an adoption reunion can bring to your life.  As excited and hopeful as you may feel, a reunion is still like an earthquake.  It shakes everything.  The film captures those chaotic highs and lows. 

And it's not like the rest of your life just holds still so you can think about it and deal.  The movie does a good job with that aspect, which it represents in a nicely, realistically complex fashion.  I'm excited about the way Then She Found Me might bring a better understanding of adoption issues to a mainstream, non-adoption-related audience.

I really liked the unabashed inclusion of the protagonist's Jewish faith, too.  Seeing her spirituality presented seriously and with grace made me think about how often Jewishness is depicted in pop culture as inevitably allied with humor, from Woody Allen to Seinfeld to Curb Your Enthusiasm to Jon Stewart's self-deprecating remarks on The Daily Show.  As hilarious as those folks can be, I realized how rare it is to see anything different.  Good for Helen Hunt.

Though most elements of the film are quite strong, some of the dialogue delivery feels, to me, a bit too much like dialogue, not enough like real talk, but that's a minor quibble, and it only happens in a few scenes.  Overall, the movie's terrific.  Here in Lincoln, it's showing at The Ross, but only until this Thursday. 

If you go, prepare to think and be moved.

Do feminist writers--and women writers generally--get shafted in the pages of the New York Times and the New York Times Book Review?  Sarah Seltzer thinks so.  Read her piece "Hard Times" in Bitch to see if you agree.  

Still dizzy with happiness over Obama's serious, nuanced, honest speech about race, I got pulled up short by a piece in Slate by Melinda Henneberger and Dahlia Lithwick titled "What If Hillary Gave a Speech About Gender?  (And Why She Won't)."   I'm not sure about the piece as a whole (I disagree w/some of the authors' views), but I was interested in the talking points Henneberger and Lithwick suggest for such a speech (although--business as usual--when they say "women," they sometimes actually mean only "white women"), and I thought I'd share them here:

1) I am proud to be a woman and a mother and the first serious female contender for the presidency, but my gender is only a part of who I am, and it doesn't define or constrain me.

2) I am part of a generation that faced and still faces all sorts of gender slights and slurs, and I honor the women who came before me for their commitment to achieving equal rights for women in the face of that.

3) But I would ask the women of this country to stop engaging in petty warfare over who has suffered more—women or blacks, women or men—as it is corrosive and fruitless. This country was founded on the promise that you can become the best thing you can dream for yourself; you are not trapped by the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

4) Things have improved for women in America in the last decades. They are not perfect; there is still much to be done. But women have made enormous strides in a few short decades, and to suggest otherwise is to devalue the life's work of too many heroes of the women's movement.

5) It is possible, indeed it is probable, that just as women have faced barriers and obstacles and derision, so have Hispanics, so have blacks, and so have men. No one in America can corner the market on suffering. Who the hell wants to spend their life in a corner, anyhow?

6) Men. What are they thinking? (Pause for applause.)

7) But seriously, if we in this country are ever going to move beyond Hooters, beyond date rape, beyond the wage gap and the glass ceiling, beyond Girls Gone Wild, and bulimic 12-year-olds, we need to start working together. We need to work with men on the gender signals called out by the media and with business about the value of women workers. We need to talk to one another respectfully and listen to one another's complaints.

8) Men, we understand and honor that many of you are taking paternity leave and folding the laundry and eating takeout because we forgot to turn on the crockpot. We get that everything has changed very, very quickly, and it's hard to come home to a wife who's coming home at the same time. You are doing more than your dads ever did around the house, and we still get mad when you forget to clean out the lint filter. It's nuts. But it's getting better. Stay with us.

9) Married guys, don't fool around with hookers. Don't fool around with staffers. Don't fool around with interns or Supreme Court justices. It's insulting to us and to you and to them. Marriage has to mean something. Gov. Spitzer. Bill, darling. I can respect the heck out of your political achievements even as I berate you for demeaning marriage. Life is complicated that way. Deal, buddies.

10) People of America, I understand why some of you are anxious at the prospect of a woman president. Sometimes I am nervous, too. But it's time. Also, I am sorry about that whole cookie comment.

Honestly, some of this is just a tad cutesy for my taste, but I like #2, #4, and #7, and I'd love to hear those points get amplified in a smart, gorgeously crafted talk.  A serious speech about gender could also address the root causes of and the best ways to end male-on-female violence in the U.S. and around the world.  It could bring national, mainstream attention to efforts like the UN's Campaign to End Violence Against Women, Eve Ensler's V-Day's 10th anniversary celebration in New Orleans (wish I were going to be there!), and the myriad of regional and local grassroots programs that help women of all backgrounds lead better, safer, healthier, more autonomous lives.

Eve Ensler interviews Salma Hayek on V-Day, art, activism, and raising her baby daughter Valentina in this month's Glamour, btw.  I like what Hayek says about the natural link between art and activism:

Art and activism seem to go together naturally, the idea being that if you’re an entertainer, you can have a voice, and if you have a voice, you can make a difference. But if I were not an actress, I would still try to extend myself beyond my little micro-universe of my job, family and personal joy. I think that it’s important for every single person, no matter what they do in life, to participate in the well-being of humanity and the planet. Don’t let a year go by knowing you didn’t make an effort to do something—no matter how small—outside your own problems and drama.

Take issue w/Hayek's conflation of artist and entertainer if you want to, but her general point holds.  Artists or not, we can all use our voices on behalf of each other, peace, and the world, no matter how tiny our platform.

If you've raised your voice this year, write in and tell us how you did it.  Seriously!  Don't be shy.  You might inspire somebody else.

In light of the Seltzer scandal, if you're hankering for good news on L.A. gang intervention programs, see the latest post by Luis Rodriguez, whose memoir of having been an actual member of an actual gang is called Always Running:  La Vida Loca:  Gang Days in L.A.  It looks like real community-based intervention alternatives--including education, job training, re-entry programs, spiritual/faith opportunities, and arts programs--have been approved by the L.A. City Council and will soon be implemented in poor and working-class communities of color in L.A. 

Check out Rodriguez's lovely book Hearts and Hands:  Creating Community in Violent Times, which Rodriguez wrote "to convey the complexity of working with youths . . . most people would rather write off, but who are intelligent, creative, and quite decent. . . .  Given other circumstances, these young people might have been college graduates, officeholders, or social activists." 

I love it that the Community Engagement Advisory Committee included the arts in their model.  "Art is the heart's explosion on the world," writes Rodriguez.  "There is probably no more powerful force for change in this uncertain and crisis-ridden world than young people and their art." 

 

Rockin’ Chicana writer Pat Alderete, whom I met at the Macondo Workshop down in San Anto, will be here at UNL on Tuesday!  She reads at 7:30 p.m. in the Bailey Library, which is on the second floor of Andrews Hall on the UNL campus.

 

Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Pat Alderete writes from an insider’s perspective about the beauty and brutality of varrio life, rendering the complex inner worlds  and strict social hierarchies of a community too seldom observed in literature. 

 

Her reading’s free and open to the public (and there’ll be a reception afterward—i.e., free eats).  Come out! 

¡Cubanas!  Finally, a one-woman play for us!  Playwright and actor Carmen Peláez has a new off-Broadway show, Rum & Coke.  The New York Times says Peláez “acts these characters beautifully” and “has obviously honed each piece to its essence” to demonstrate “the courage of survivors and a heritage of artistic, strong-willed women.” 

 

“You are not free, because you’re Cuban and you’re not home,” the grandmother (played by Peláez) tells her U.S. born granddaughter (also Peláez).  Sound familiar?

 

If you’re in Nueva York, go see it—the show runs through March 2 at Abingdon’s June Havoc Theater at 312 W. 36^th Street (between 8^th and 9^th Avenues).  Tickets are available at smarttix.com.   If you see it, please write in with a review.

 

Brava, Carmen!