I loved Sicko, but then I love Michael Moore. This little clip is my most favorite moment.
It is one of my dearest dreams that everyone who has not voted, VOTES. Can you imagine if all of the poor, the hopeless, the disenfranchised voted? What would happen if everyone 18 - 29 voted or all women? Just seizing power, which is rightfully theirs, would scare the power brokers out of their minds.
It is Friday. It is movie day. My favorite theater re-opened with all new seats and clean floors. I went to see Once. I knew zero about it, just that it ranked very high on Rotten Tomatoes.
So here's the deal, 85 minutes and no one got beheaded, no one screamed, no one drove their car into another, no one flew off a roof, no one farted or barfed, no one was made of metal, no swords no guns, no knives, no one cut off a dick and fed it to a dog. Can you believe it? That alone is worth the price of admission.
I forgot what tenderness can be on a screen. I forgot what a whisper, a glance, a moment captured looked on a screen. And can you imagine a loving mother, grandmother, father? Sober friends enjoying A COUPLE of beers. Simple clothes, common streets, a dog and a sunrise and NO meant NO. Holy Mother of God ~ NO MEANT NO.
And if that isn't enough; songs, gorgeous songs about love and life. I began to remember what it was like to be touched lightly, kindly, deeply at the movies. You must see Once - maybe Twice.
I had to make up for a couple of weeks, so today I went to two movies. Although I don't like admitting it, I am still baffled about them. It just seemed so odd ~ odd how they fire ideas, odd how they relate to one another and odd how they confirm my inkling about 2008.
First I saw, The Devil Wears Prada. I did not read the book, read reviews of the book or reviews of the movie. I just walked in expecting "The Princess Diaries goes Manhattan." Lets start with Streep's hair - hey right on - white! Love it. And it was Meryl Streep, for god's sake. Stanley Tucci ~ nothing bad there. I thought I would love this movie. But as it rolled on, I got more and more confused until it dawned on me - this entire movie is about hating women.
The woman up and coming, the woman who has made it, the divorced mother, the twins, the two assistants ~ they all hate each other. Power was hateful. Choosing one's career was a crime. Friends and lovers wanted her to stop working late, working hard, working with excellence. And then the boyfriend says she was doing it all for the shoes. Crap.
Movie two was just as odd. It was the most female affirming movie I have ever seen. I am actually moved to tears about it. I sat in a theater and watched Al Gore honor, love, protect, admire Mother Earth. In An Inconvenient Truth, he showed photos of her from space, from the North, from the South, her forest, her land, her seas. It was so moving. I feel as though it could have been Mother Earth's eulogy but Gore is not giving up his love for her and appeals to us to help revive her. Oh that we loved her so much.
These two movies in one day plants me squarely at the crossroad where I wrestle with voting for non-feminist women. I feel so strongly about women in leadership. I know the world's advancement requires women in leadership. However, can I vote for a non-feminist woman running against a feminist man? Gore v. Rice. We just may find out.
Some days I get up and wonder why I am still on fire about the liberation of women. Why would it be so important to me and clearly not of much interest to the people in the market, on the TV, driving on the freeway? I think I am just a nudge and imagine people sighing, "oh that Zoe is at it again." Then I just fold it in and go to the movies.
Of course I would choose to see Water, written and directed by Deepa Mehta. This is her third in the series, Earth, Fire and Water. This is the story about the lives of Hindu widows, who are believed to be half dead as the other half died with their husbands. Their heads are shaved, they are shunned into living in stark communities (ashrams), sustained through begging. Even if a girl is married at the age of seven, even if she never meets her husband, she must live the life of a beggar and the most she can hope for is to be bought for the nightly pleasuring of a man from the Brahmin class.
The movie is set in 1938, ten years before the assassination of MK Gandhi when he was working to lift both women and untouchables (Harijan, as Gandhi called them, which means Children of God) out of entrenched and scripture endorsed oppression. Mehta shows us Gandhiji stopping at a train station, speaking about his discovery ~ that it is not that God is truth but rather, Truth is God. After 2 hours and 30 minutes of laughing, crying, weeping and appreciating that it is not 1938, a paragraph appears on the screen explaining that today, in India, 34 million widows live in poverty, suffering these same terrible injustices.
It took over five years to make Water, as when Mehta began filming in 2000, angry right-wing Hindu fundamentalist mobs burned her sets and threatened her life. You may recall that this same group bombed theaters in Bombay and New Dehli when Fire, a film about lesbians, was being shown. As you can guess, Mehta lives with death threats daily .
This movie is utterly fantastic. The women will make you throw open your hearts. The scenery is brilliant, all along the Ganges with roaming cows, wild dogs, bright saris and vendors cooking food in open pits. (Shall we just not mention that the US poster has a man [handsome but not central] featured in the foreground?) You will mourn for a little girl who wants to go home and be amazed at how easily the culture has made it all seem okay, not just okay but proper. What do we accept as if it is okay?
I love this movie, this writer, this director. And, in case you think I forgot, I can't stop being a nudge.
Thirty years ago I began going to the movies at The Lido Theater in Newport Beach. In 1976 there was a sign at the staircase that directed people to the smoking section upstairs. Truly, you could watch a movie and smoke cigarettes. I think I saw Blazing Saddles a couple of times there puffing on my ciggies.
Today I stopped at the door and asked the ticket taker how long before the movie begins. He said the movie was starting at 11:45. No, I explained, what time does it actually START -- do I have time to go next door to Starbucks for a coffee. He told me that, while I may have time to buy one, I would not have time to drink it as I could not bring it in the theater.
What happened? What happened to that kid? I was going in the theater to see a movie about a young woman who gave her life to the resistance and I could not bring in a coffee. It is noon on a Friday - 5 people in the theater - max and I would be stopped at the door if I tried to bring in a latte grande.
Sophie Scholl The Final Days, was a deep, devastating movie. Sophie Scholl was a sister, a nurse, a protestant, a thoughtful , mindful, wonderful woman who loved the sun and her family and humanity and really believed that everyone, if they only listened, would find strength in their conscience. As she worked her way through days of interrogation she seemed to be saying that what separated her from her captors was the recognition and development of ones conscience. Oh that she be right.
For most of my life I would have said she was right. I have bet my life several times that she is right. I really believed that since most Americans believe that men and women are equal, our Constitution would easily adopt the ERA. Since most Americans believe that a woman should be able to make her own private choices about her reproductive rights, Roe V Wade was the informed reflection of the American conscience.
Today I saw South Dakota make their move. 12 states are poised to follow. Sandra Day O'Connor has gone home. This is no coincidence. Obviously, I want women to refuse any legislation on their reproductive organs. I want women to demand physical autonomy. Of course I wanted to bring a f'ng cup of coffee in the movies.
