>>the TV commercials portray women as carping ditzes

I think you meant to say that the commercials portray _a_ woman or a _group_ of women as carping ditzes.

And the problem with that is, again?

Just like American Beauty didn't say "all ex-Marines are repressed homosexuals" but rather "the one in this story is", and just like Brokeback Mountain isn't saying "all cowboys are gay" but rather "the two in the story are", no commercial can possibly be portraying what you claim these commercials are.

This is a problem of logic that is largely confined, thankfully, to North American critics. Movies, novels, plays, TV commercials, NEVER portray "men" or "women" or even "children under five who have rich parents" -- rather they portray individuals, with their individual wants and desires and flaws and charms, in the process of telling a "story".

See Salon's recent review of Jarhead for a saddening display of this logical error.

There are, however, plenty of non-fiction sweeping generalisations made by politicians, researchers, and journalists that demand challenge.

Like the ones in this specious little article.

You've missed my key point -- the narrowing of vision is not mine, but the composite "critic" that I'm talking about.

In your Dickens example, the correct analogy would be if someone criticised the novel Oliver Twist because "not all children in London's poorhouses were orphans, and pickpocket gangs were largely run by older children, not some fantastical Fagin".

Of course Dickens' background is expertly sketched. And because it's so authentic, you could claim it was "saying something" about the general conditions it portrays, but that's not the story, or even the subtext, of the book.

To return to my Jarhead example, neither the book, nor the film, is about the US Marines. So to criticise the film, as many North American reviewers have done, including Salon's, as if it were making comments about all Marines, or even some Marines, is just plain wrongheaded.

And back, finally, to the topic. To claim that an advertisement for a car is making some larger comment about how women and men behave in general is just, well, it's hard to find a polite way of saying facile. You could ask, if you really wanted to make an academic exercise of it: do the personas in the ad "ring true" for its target audience?

In that context, if the personas did ring true, then you might, drawing an extraordinarily long bow, find some way to cattily ridicule the target audience. "Imagine that," you might say, faux horror abristle, "young professionals between 25 and 35 seem to find this sort of portrayal of coupledom amusing." Oh the horror.

Which would, of course, like all criticism, say more about you than about the object of your ire. Hence everything I've written on this topic so far. And so it goes.

It's good to see that the Scottish / Irish / Australian penchant for telling the biggest lies you can get away with to answer stupid questions is alive and well in the person of Colin Farrell.

If you believe even a tenth of what he says in interviews, then I've got a story about large, vicious, carnivorous koalas you'd probably enjoy.

Frankly, I think this is a cultural tactic that should be employed more widely by Hollywood stars, considering the endless rounds of "So how fabulous was it working with [insert famous director's name here]?" that they must endure.

There's a classic test for determining if you really should be supporting your government's foreign policy. Simply replace the word "America" with the word "China". Here's an example:

"America reserves the right to protect its interests wherever they might be in the world. Sometimes that means putting boots on the ground."

Harmless enough, right? I mean, it's a little imperialistic, but nothing to get worried about. Standard stuff. Heard it all before. Now we run the test:

"China reserves the right to protect its interests wherever they might be in the world. Sometimes that means putting boots on the ground."

Now just hang on there!

The best sentence to use is "[Country name here] reserves the right to maintain a deterrent nuclear arsenal." Try substituting "Iran" for "America" in this case.

But of course there is no difference between these sentences. If you are in favour of allowing for "America", you must be in favour of allowing "any other country" in the same policy sentence. Unless hypocrisy is your game.

Back to the original article, this has precious little to do with "propping up dictators" and "blocking sanctions" or any other distractingly emotive issues -- no matter how important they might be on their own -- this is simply the capitalist system that we have set up at work, finding the cheapest source of supply available.

China could say "You said you wanted us engaged in the world. You taught us all about the free market, etc. etc. You said our markets have to be open. Well now here we are, we've done everything you've said, and you're crying foul?!"

It's all in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1.