Watching Legally Blonde

So I was watching Legally Blonde on Netflix last night, partly because I had vicious insomnia and partly because so many people were talking about it Twitter, and there's this one scene where Elle is talking to wossname, the guy she's in love with (or thinks she's in love with) and thinks she wants to marry.

He says law school is a lot of work, and she agrees and wow, it'll be hard to handle the workload and this prestigious internship they're all competing for in the fall. Wossname smile patronizingly and says, "Oh, Elle."

She asks what he means, and he says well, come on. It's not like you really have a chance at getting that internship.

It's an epiphany for her -- that even though she's always made straight A's, even though she scored higher than he did on the LSAT, even though she got into Harvard Law on her own, while he had to use his father's influence to get in -- even so, he still thinks he's smarter than she is.

That made me go hah, because I remember so many of those exact moments, with my older brother; and my younger brother (not with my youngest brother); and guys I dated, and guys in my classes -- all of whom I was regularly outscoring on exams, all of whom I was surpassing academically in every way, all of whom I could outwit in arguments, all of whom I knew more than in many fields. Yet every one of them was sure they were smarter than me. I remember pointing out to one of these guys that cars were so dangerous because of the high speed, how the mass of objects within the car impacted at immense force when the car stopped unexpected in an accident. This is simply physics. "That's what does the damage," I told him. "That impact. That's why you should wear your seatbelt."

"Oh, bullshit," he said to me -- certain I was wrong. Why? Because he was male and I was female and obviously that meant I was wrong.

Then there was the guy in Greek class, a student of around my age who kept arguing with me about translations, this despite the fact that I was always right and that I always got higher grades on the exams than he did. (He finally got so pissed off he dropped the class.)

And my brother, who took took the same math class I did in college (finite math*) the year after I did, who was sure that if I could make an A in the class, obviously he didn't even need to study. (He flunked the class, do I need to add? Finite math ain't calculus, but you do need to pay some attention.)

And so many male students in my classes, who don't bother to read the texts, since if it's something a girl is teaching, pssh, how hard can it be?

And so on.

At this point, it doesn't bother me. Hard heads don't learn. Their loss. But it does make me roll my eyes when people worry about the poor men and how hard life is for them these days. As if.


*I love finite math.

Movie Review

I stayed up late last night watching Outside The Law, an Algerian film recommended over on TNC's blog.

It's not exactly 100% successful as a film -- sort of episodic, and definitely more interested in making a political point than in being a movie -- but on the other hand, it's very effective. Wonderfully shot, and some amazing scenes.

Go watch it, especially if you are at all interested (obsessed, as I am) with resistance movements and revolutions. It's on Netflix instaplay.

Oh, fair warning -- it's in French, and Algerian French, I think, at least in part. You'll have to have your subtitles turned on.

What, Already?

It's the first day of Summer II. I'm only doing one class this semester, but it's WLIT II, so very dense on the reading. Lighter on the essays. Eh, it's a trade-off.

We went up to Fayetteville yesterday and visited my parents. Also saw Uncle Charger and went to the movies (lots and lots and lots of theaters in Fayetteville, including a massive new stadium theater called the Malco Razorback with a giant fountain in its center, like something out of the Roman Empire, which is where we went). We saw Midnight in Paris, in one of those tiny little auditoriums that seat like 75 people, all of them exactly like us -- i.e. liberals and probably English professors or at least Art History majors who wish they could live in Paris. We all laughed in delight as Gil, our hero, met one of our old friends after the next. My kid, who was sitting next to me, kept leaning over to whisper to me, confirming her guesses about who each person was. And, when the movie was over, she said, wistfully, "Let's move to Paris."

I wish, kid.

Then we left the theater to go out into the blistering 101 degree Arkansas July, blasting sunlight, a huge field-sized parking lot filled with SUVs, to drive down College Avenue, a highway filled with car dealerships, liquor stores, fast-food shops, and strip malls. The closest we'll ever come to Paris is Paris, Arkansas.

Which is, among other reasons, why this solemn little apology for our betters and why it isn't right that they pay their share of running this country really got down my neck this morning. Oh, it's so sad that Mr. and Mrs. Jones can barely make ends meet on $250, 000.00/year -- after, you know, socking away $8000.00/per kid in college savings a year, and investing the maximum amount in their 401(k) accounts, mind you -- they're so poor, what with the high cost of living in Manhattan, they can't afford expensive vaccations, it's tragic.

Though of course if they moved to Texas or Alabama (the horror) they'd have plenty of money, the article adds. But who can actually do that, the article hints.

I can't afford a dentist, much less to sock away $8000.00 for college savings for my kids. ($8000.00/year is my rent.) I don't have a house. I don't put any money in my 401(k). If you don't count TIAA-CREF, I don't have a 401(k) -- and my university puts money in that, I can't afford to match it. I haven't gone anywhere on a vacation, if you don't count the odd trip up to Fayetteville to see a movie, in almost three years now. And mind you, I count myself well off enough, because I can look around me and see my students, who are living on, probably, a fourth of what I make. They're the actual poor. I'm doing all right, even if I feel kind of desperate toward the end of the month (okay, by the third week in the month, usually, these days).

But it's Mr. and Mrs. Jones we're supposed to feel sorry for?

Shit. The idiots who write these articles don't have a clue.

And neither, frankly, sad as I am to say it, does Woody Allen. Move to Paris? Like that's a choice most people in America even have.

New Blog!

Hey look over there!

What's that?

It's a new blog!  FanSci!  Go see!

(Why, yes, I am one the bloggers!  Also Marilou Goodwin and Barbara Ann Wright, fellow writers and travelers.  Enjoy!)

Movie Review

I just watched Lord, Save Us From Your Followers on Netflix.  Worth watching.  The narrator is an Evangelical Xtian, but he's one of the good ones, and it's an honest & interesting look at the Religious-Cultural wars in America today.  (My favorite bit is a mock-game show where the Young Conservatives don't know anything about Liberal Elites, while the Liberal Elites wipe the floor with the Young Conservatives -- it's that cultural bubble they're kept in, yikes.)

Anyway, three parts funny, two parts appalling, five parts deeply interesting.  Have a look.

In America

Steinhem slices and dices.