Letters to the Editor
kevred
Published Letters: 92 Editor's Choice: 8
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You people amaze me.
[Read the article: Freedom is hard work]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It always amazes me how angry, defensive, snide, boorish, elitist, and just plain rude so many of the comments are for Keillor's columns.
So many of you people get so bitter and upset over one man's thoughts. He's not telling you how you should think, or how you should be, or whether your life is right or not. His job is not to live up to all your expectations or write the way you think someone should write, or to be sensitive to all the things you're sensitive about, or to reflect and model every pet cultural ideal you may be championing.
Artists are imperfect, the same way the rest of us are. Measuring any individual artist by all your own neuroses and obsessions is stupid. The synonym for "character" is "flaws", and if you judge art by its absence of flaws, then I pity you for the blandness of your world. When we try and take on the perfect, objective voice that is inclusive of every sensitivity and English-major obscurity known to humankind, that's when we become false and something besides who we really are. That's a pretense--Keillor is being himself, which is all any of us are capable of, even you boors who haven't figured that out yet.
That doesn't mean you have to agree with what he says; of course not, that would be ridiculous. But for Pete's sake, get off your high horses, recognize Keillor as being the one single man he is, and instead of wasting your energy and our time by making your personal frustration his responsibility, use this space to share what you're passionate about.
He's not wrong, and he's not right. He's Garrison Keillor. Who are you? Start there. That will take you your whole life.
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Good question, and for the answer...
[Read the article: Hey Hollywood, where my girls at?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...I'd suggest posing the question to the millions of women who, through buying tickets for the men-blowing-things-up movies, help insure their dominance in the marketplace. Big action films are the lowest common denominator that crosses all demographic lines, thus getting the biggest overall reward. Every sector of society casts a vote for it with their dollars.
My other thought is that the sentiment behind this piece may be a false ideal. Throughout history, the worst, dumbest, least-challenging entertainments have always been the most broadly successful (there are always exceptions, of course). The best films by and about women are only modest financial successes, but then, so are the best films about (and by) men. The issue to me is not so much about the lack of one gender as the lack of quality vehicles for artistry in general. Do women really want a greater role in the production of junk? Is power and visibility a fair price for perpetuating mediocrity?
I'm an intelligent mid-30s guy who likes good drama, but also likes good fantasy, and I saw Iron Man yesterday and enjoyed it a lot. And I also lament the dreck that makes up most of Hollywood produces, but it's insulting to everyone involved, not just women--and it marginalizes honest, artistic stories of both men and women. And when stories of substance do come along, and they focus on men--'No Country for Old Men', for example--should they be chastised for not telling everyone else's story, instead of just their own?
So we can look at the issue through only the lens of absent women, or we can look at the issue together and ask, why is there so little room for good, smart, meaningful entertainment that respects the substance of both genders? Because when you raise the level of intelligence and artistry in a work, things like gender equality and respect almost always follow.
I don't expect anyone else to be telling my story for me. If a story that's important to you isn't being told, then do what it takes to go tell it. Bad movies are just the final product, the outcome, of society's power structures and education. Complaining about the end result will never have the impact of working for change at the source.
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Add my vote to banning horse racing, forever
[Read the article: Eight Belles' last run]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think I can make a point that hasn't already been made here (and many good ones have been made), but add me to the chorus calling for an end to this cruel sport. The only defense of horse racing is that some people like it. Well, some people like dog fighting and starting wars, but that doesn't make it okay.
Horse racing is one of those thing that, in a few more generations, will be looked back on as insane and primitive. It's a great frustration to me that we live in an age when we have all the information we need to tell right from wrong, but we still make the wrong choices, and we're overrun with primitives who care more for their own cheap entertainment than the suffering of other people and creatures.
Horses are magnificent, intelligent creatures. They like to run, they like to play. But racing isn't natural. It's a perverted manipulation that distorts everything natural about horses, from their very physiques to their natural tendencies. And for what? For sport. Not for survival, not for agriculture, not for transportation, not for any meaningful societal purpose. Just for the sake of a bunch of people with a psychotic view of what it means to "care" for an animal.
In the meantime, thousands of animals will suffer and die in the gears of the machines of horse racing, rodeo, dog racing, dog fighting, cock fighting, circuses, and more. And that doesn't even get into industrial meat production, on which many other articles and comments have already been published.
I love people, but humanity, you make me sick.