tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post2684163463013167295..comments2023-10-28T02:59:37.028-07:00Comments on E m e r g i n g ...Q u a k e r i s m ..L i t e r a t u r e ..R e l i g i o n ... L i f e: Grand Hotel and Breaking BadDianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12396312339372162866noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post-74876749478532971842014-03-26T07:35:26.116-07:002014-03-26T07:35:26.116-07:00A little more: a dual explanation. In the second p...A little more: a dual explanation. In the second phase of feminism women asked for sexual liberation (remember that word, liberation!) because Ellen Willis was not the only one to recognize that at the heart of women's imprisonment is men's desire to use her body as they please, and not just sexually but to control it as to build male pride and self-esteem. He not only owns her but is seen to control her utterly or he loses respect among other men. She can ask to earn money, to vote, to own property, all these are secondary to this core relationship men will not give up and have not as yet as a group even in secular modern countries.<br /><br />Some blame the military machismo training that reinforces this macho culture. But why? why do men join the military forces when it risks their lives and they know they can be destroyed at the close. Hell no we won't go was silenced in the 1970s when _jobs went_. The hatred of women and blaming them is a way of giving men power when most of them can no longer have decent jobs. They can no longer make big sums and be proud householders running their families. They are most of the time dependent on the wife's salary. As over the past 40 years the establishment cut the taxes of the rich and destroyed gov't jobs, gov't agencies, allowed other jobs to be exported over seas, destroyed the unions which gave men some place to fight from, so the movies gave them power in a new way: kill that woman who you are dependent on, show you are a man.<br /><br />An older male stereotype was the protective father and husband, the chivalrous gentleman whose benignity was his choice but was a mark of his manliness. The manly man did not beat women. He supported and took care of them.<br /><br />He can no longer. Age 20 to 30+ unemployment in the US is over 20% among whites. Don't even think about black men (huge numbers of whom are put into jail.).<br /><br />The rage needs to be against those invisible lobbyists and corporate heads who engineered slowly a fascist military state -- it's not coincidence that this kind of hatred of women imagery and demand they be in the kitchen, church or pregnant is found in Nazi propaganda too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post-2908256529798332822014-03-23T17:26:11.932-07:002014-03-23T17:26:11.932-07:00I've seen _You've Got Mail_ and read _Shop...I've seen _You've Got Mail_ and read _Shop Around the Corner_ (I own the screenplay), but not seen either _Grand Budapest Hotel_ (which I'll try for) nor _Grand Hotel_ but have seen first reason (7 episodes) of _Breaking Bad_. _You've got mail_ has the reputation of reprising _Pride and Prejudice_ (which has the ritual humiliation in private, after which Elizabeth does assert herself against the established order in the person of Lady Catherine, but alas in terms that do not reject that order. After the 1950s an understood code would not permit the socially warm and affirmative social stories of the 1930s and 40s. But this has been backed up elsewhere in the culture. We should ask, why should this Ayn Rand outlook mean machismo male -- is there no other way to affirm an identity? But movies are not made in isolation and the US gangster film was intensely popular and is today -- when it has the right stars -- watched and praised as "classic." I agree _Breaking Bad_ is misogynist: it has no positive woman in 7 hour long episodes. So how about the idea the macho male complex was as strong then as today but it was tempered by dramatization and endorsement of decent social ideas and a portrayal of decent (using the word in its broadest sense) women. What is to be feared is that indeed the arts do have an effect on human behavior, are not marginal periferal mirrorings.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com