the groundhog day project

Opening narration: 53% of the American workforce is female. Three generations of women that turned 1,000 years of tradition on its ear. As little girls they were told to grow up and marry doctors and lawyers. Instead they grew up and became doctors and lawyers. They moved out of the "pink ghetto" and into the executive suite. Sociologists say the new working woman is a phenomenon of our time. Take JC Wiatt, for example. Graduated first in her class at Yale, got her MBA at Harvard. Has a corner office at the corner of 58th and Park. She works five to nine, makes six figures a year, and they call her the Tiger Lady. Married to her job, she lives with an investment banker married to his. They collect African art, co-own their co-op and have separate but equal IRA accounts. One would take it for granted that a woman like this has it all. One must never take anything for granted. Of course the narrator will not return; it's one of those openings. Plus, you know, the usual b...

The past week here tied together around The Magnificent Seven (it's original and it's remake) and A Bug's Life , and I didn't expect it to bring me to the place I am today, to the rant I expect to get into in a moment. See, here's what the last few hours of my life were like. I had A Bug's Life playing while I was working on stone stuff on the computer, figuring on writing a nice casual blog entry later, wondering what I will do tomorrow between Wonder Woman and it being the 2nd, which means I should be watching Groundhog Day . Then, I turned on Trump's speech about pulling out of the Paris Accord (with an introduction by Trump's official MC, Vice President Mike Pence, and followed by today's Trump Cheerleader Scott Pruitt offering up a bunch of rah rah bullshit). Then, I turned on the soundtrack to the Groundhog Day musical and made some tea to improve my mood. The ants (and the grasshoppers) in A Bug's Life were written and performed by ad...

Clover (1992) argues, Certainly, the novelist's (and filmmaker's) target is not the female body, but the transformation that body prompts in the male psyche. Enmeshed from the outset in Karras's spiritual crisis are issues of intimacy and sexuality. Again, Regan provides the palpable field: she stabs a cross in and out of her vagina, speaks incessantly and crudely of sexual matters, is suspected of desecrating the statue of the Virgin Mary, and so on. ...however, it appears to be Karras's own anxieties that are at stake. The nature of those anxieties is hinted at in an early scene [in Blatty's novel] in which Karras is approached for comfort by a young and lonely priest: Of all the anxieties that Karras encountered among the community, this one had lately become the most prevalent. Cut off from their families as well as from women, many of the Jesuits were also fearful of expressing affection for fellow priests; of forming deep and loving friendships. "Lik...

Derr (2013) argues "'feminism' is not simply the absence of 'sexism'" which is good news for American Psycho , directed by Mary Harron and written by Harron and Guinevere Turner. Even though it's satire, it is difficult to suggest that American Psycho -- (For the record, unless I say otherwise--and I might later--I am referring to the film, not Bret Easton Ellis' novel. I have never read more than a few pages of the novel once upon a time in the 90s.) --is not chock full of sexism. Still, Harron has defended the film as feminist. von Busack (2000) argues though, " American Psycho is feminist only at the level that it suggests that men can be vicious and selfish..." (von Busack smartly critiques the film version by pointing out that the satire of the novel gets its power from being close to the 1980s--the novel came out in 1991--and "The only way to give American Psycho teeth would be to set it in the present. We can mock the fashi...

Today's title is, at once, total bullshit, and profoundly true. I quoted a line from bell hooks regarding "love" tonight in my presentation on queer theory. Love, she says, involves "care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication" (1999, p. 5). Key to the profound truth above is all of these things. Love, the romantic, shallow stuff we see in most films--that isn't so interesting. But, if there's recognition and respect, you've got something. If there's commitment and trust, you could keep it. Or leave it behind and move on because maybe nonmonogamy is the way you want to go. Just looking for... And, I don't want to suggest that it can't be love and be temporary, that it can't be love and be left behind in the short term. Mother Culture tells us to seek out the long term, but research-- No, screw research for the moment. As they start singing "With a Little Help from My F...

pa·tri·ar·chy \-ˌär-kē\ noun : a family, group, or government controlled by a man or a group of men : a social system in which family members are related to each other through their fathers Full Definition 1 : social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power 2 : a society or institution organized according to the principles or practices of patriarchy Other forms: plural pa·tri·ar·chies First use: 1632 Before catching up to where I left off--the movie is on Day 3 as I write this opening--I wanted to mention Barry Brummett's (2015)... (Seriously, this Google Books find has next year as its copyright. On the one hand, that means, I guess, this is an as yet unpublished book. On the other hand, Brummett is writing from the future, and doesn't cite me; this makes me s...

There's nothing you can do that can't be done Nothing you can sing that can't be sung Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game It's easy Nothing you can make that can't be made No one you can save that can't be saved Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time It's easy ... Nothing you can know that isn't known Nothing you can see that isn't shown Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be It's easy Today I watched Love Actually (2003), The Fountain (2006), and now Groundhog Day (1993). The obvious link between these three would be "the total agony of being in love" (in the words of Sam in Love Actually ), but I think it's bigger than that. Taken together, I think these films twist the notion of love right into the notion of being human. Love or the pursuit of it, then, becomes the human condition. And, it doesn't have to be romantic love, though that is obviously the ...