Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 319 Editor's Choice: 34
-
whose downfall?
[Read the article: Enough Britney bashing already]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks to Salon and the talented Ms. Traister for bringing a glimmer of insight and empathy to the black hole devouring Britney Spears.
Her public punishment and abuse come from the same anger that a batterer turns on his victim when her assertion of personhood conflicts with his needs. Britney was commoditized, sexualized and consumed to meet the needs of her public, annihilating what might have been a healthy development of self.
The consumption of a person – her objectification, dehumanization, commoditization, and her simultaneous sexualization and shaming – to feed the unmet needs of her consumers constitutes a threat to self which (surprise!) leads predictably to disintegration of ego function: impaired judgment, loss of impulse control and ultimately, as in the case of Andrea Yates, to psychosis.
Britney’s public attempts to take back Britney, her pubic “fuck you”s and “fuck off”s, were not tolerated well. Once her damage and distress became apparent, all that was left for her consumers was to, again predictably, point away from their roles and make certain that nothing is learned form the effects of their hunger – by pathologizing their victim: “her downfall…her crackup…self-destruction…a child…bald and broken…can Britney find the road to redemption?”
Can we find the road to redemption? Britney is pointing us to it.
-
Lucifer, we did see different films. You wrote,
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“As for "Children of Men," did we see the same film? Where are the "big ideas" in this movie? Please tell us. I mean, apocalyptic stories have been around since "Mad Max: The Road Warrior" or longer. And the whole "women can't get pregnant....but wow, one of them can!" story does not constitute a big idea. The movie never bothers to address the question of why women can't get pregnant.”
If you at some point give it another chance, don’t ignore the title, titles generally used to convey meaning of some sort. I found it to be less dystopian or apocalyptic than a meditation on gender and the dis-integrated nature of males and females. Look at how males and females are contrasted, and stuck in their constructed roles (males scheming and controlling, females submissive and subservient) throughout the film.
Then there are the exceptions, the central figures who have integrated male and female and are driven by their newly-born selves: Julian’s non-violent commitment to nurturance and procreation integrated with (to borrow from Stephanie Zacharek) unnerving tenacity, “delicate beauty” in a “fearless warrior”. Then there’s Theo, who’s birth seems to be largely the subject of the film – a man who can acknowledge fear, communicate emotionally, and lead an escape from gun-wielding wanna-be revolutionaries. In the final scenes, he stoically dodges gunfire shortly before instructing the new mother on nurturing her infant. He leads mother and child through the soldier-men who are clueless at the sight, literally dumbfounded, momentarily distracted before being jerked back into their shoot-em-up, which the film somehow renders at times like the popping of toy guns or as somehow not quite real.
“Big ideas”? – you decide. But you may find more here than Mad Max and fertility issues.
-
What Would Bulworth Do?
[Read the article: Why I refused to blog for Edwards]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I know! He’d be blogging for the Edwards campaign!
No, wait! He’d be blogging for Obama! That’s the ticket!
Actually? He would probably be noting the fact that Edwards, Obama and the rest are all frightened children who, unlike certain bloggers I admire, wet themselves at the very thought of saying or doing something authentic or unorthodox. That’s just a hunch, I could be way off.
-
pain of birth
[Read the article: The mating game]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There seems to be a moral here, something about self-actualization, love, and relationship versus the drive to produce offspring, but it’s just so. . . . . confusing . . . . .
-
mass political appeal
[Read the article: Why do journalists suddenly love Al Gore?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is a human drive to continuously compare ourselves to others and to interpret the results in terms of our own competence, integrity, worth and especially status. Low ratings of our own worth and status lead to feelings of anxiety and fear, states that we like to avoid. The less secure one is, the more discomforting the discrepancies resulting from comparisons with others.
A public figure like Al Gore, who evidences the rare qualities of courage, intelligence, honesty and integrity, elicits vulnerability and discomfort in others, including for obvious reasons members of the MSM. That’s why, as Karen M. noted, he has to be taken down, lowered in status, and as Mr. Conason noted, disingenuously.
It’s also why a figure like a Bush or a Reagan can be so wildly popular – in spite of, or actually precisely because of obvious deficits in character, intelligence, and competence. It is difficult to imagine many individuals who could not compare their own level of integrity and competence as congruent with or favorably to these public figures, and that’s very comforting. Voting for one of these figures in effect normalizes, and reduces anxiety stemming from, personal deficits.
We need to give up the quaint view that politics is about politics or ideas, as opposed to psychological needs.
And thanks, Joe, for holding Ms. Dowd accountable. Someone needed to.
-
stop making sense
[Read the article: "Black Snake Moan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“corporeal spirituality” indeed. Rhythm, movement, image, dance, music, sex, paradox – as ways of knowing, as a route to growth and salvation, in both Hustle and Flow and BSM.
Brewer gets it. So does Stephanie.
Metamessage: stop judging and thinking and just experience the film, feel the music, unencumbered and unfiltered by doxa, judgment and analysis.