Last night my kid and I watched Rain Man. I hadn't seen it in ... a really long time. But somewhere she had picked up the "definitely . . . definitely" rain man thing, and so I decided it was time for a little film enrichment. (Last weekend we watched Some Like it Hot because she wasn't exactly sure who Marilyn Monroe really was. Lord, what a funny film. I love the way they felt free to play with realism back then.)
And so this weekend we watched Rain Man. She thought Dustin Hoffman was fantastic--"Or is he really like that?" she asked.
"No," I said. "In another year or so, we'll watch The Graduate."
I thought Tom Cruise was good, too. Overall it was just a funny, touching, very watchable movie. I loved the way the writers used the big old car and the two brothers' in-depth knowledge of the car and its family value as a plot device. Of course, that opening shot with the Lamborghini (sp?) flying across the top of the screen is classic. It makes you realize how important location is in capturing the viewer's interest.
I have heard over the years some people complain about "the defective character" instant shoo-in for awards syndrome. As if there were something manipulative and false about the way "the differently abled" are portrayed. But I disagree with this view. You go into a movie knowing that you are not watching a documentary or a PBS special. It's a story, a narrative and hence it will not portray anyone or anything accurately. That doesn't lessen the truth that may be found in such stories. The point of Rain Man is not that the system is stupid and that Raymond should be able to live with Charlie. The point is that Charlie has been changed for the good--become more human and more humane--through his interaction with his autistic brother. This is the theme: when we are taken out of our selfish little worlds by having to care for another, our hearts open in ways to beautiful to express in words.
I'm sure I didn't get this the first time I saw the movie fifteen years ago or however long it was. But for the past year I have been caring for my elderly mother. She moved to a retirement community nearby and needs a lot of attention, which isn't all that easy for me to do considering neither of my siblings is nearby and I'm raising a teenager, trying to take care of a house, a man, and two pets, and editing and writing fulltime. It's frustrating at times and physically exhausting and full of worries (like how many more teeth are going to break apart and how much is it going to cost??). It's also been one of the most gratifying experiences of my life.
My daughter sometimes resents all of the attention that has been diverted from her. But I'm hoping she'll take away something from that movie we watched, even if it's only the nagging suspicion that there's more to this "duty" of mine than meets the eye. Taking care of another person who needs you is more than duty; it's a sacred privilege. It's as if the God inside you said, "Here, this will soften your heart. You can't get into heaven with a hard heart." And whoever that person is who needs your help is giving you this gift. Nothing you can do will ever be enough to pay them back for the spiritual growth you've gained in the process. So you don't worry about it. Someday, you may be giving that same gift to another person.
This blog is about the challenges faced by caregivers, educators, the young and the elderly, and others needing care and how policy impacts their lives.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
The Neighborhood Perv?
Two nights ago I get a call from my next door neighbor. She says, "Have you heard what's going on in the neighborhood?" I recently got a little notice from the neighborhood association so I ask "About the fields?" I can tell by the tone of her voice that the news she's talking about has nothing to do with the two fields full of wildflowers at the top of neighborhood that developers are salivating over.
"No."
"Umm, somebody's building a fence or a wall?" There was something about that in the notice, too, but I can tell that's still too innocuous an item and her voice is full of foreboding. So, finally I shut up and let her tell me.
"You know that family that lives next door to the Smiths? They have the two kids that you never see. The older one has gone to college I think."
"Oh, yeah." I'd completely forgotten about these people.
"Well, the husband moved out a while back and now he's back and guess what? He's a registered sex offender."
"Oh, crap. Are you sure this isn't some rumor?"
"No, it's on the web and everything. With a picture of him. I'll send you the email."
Well, it turns out our neighborhood sentries are up in arms about this guy. They would like to convince the family to move, but I don't see how that's possible. I mean, you can't shun people who don't socialize with you in the first place. The gossip is that he may have molested family members, and no one is quite sure why the wife has let him move back in with her. My general inclination is to give people the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, I have a daughter who has roamed free with her pals in this neighborhood for six years. We lived in this little bubble of 1950s bliss, our girls camping at whichever house had something good to eat. From what I know or have read about sexual offenders, they don't get cured. Your standard run-of-the-mill criminal (a variety I once knew well) generally outgrows his or her stupidity or dies young. But sexual predators? Well, just look at how old some of those Catholic priests were. Or what about the "dirty old men" we all knew about when we were kids. I remember my friend Paula complaining when we were about eleven that her grandfather tried to French kiss her. She hated him.
My husband watches FOX News all the time. (I'm not going to get into that here.) They are always swept up in some frenzy of "thoughtful and insightful" analysis into the latest murdered/disappeared child-girlfriend-pregnant wife.
So . . . now when we drive out of the neighborhood, my husband says the perv is probably hiding in the bushes right now. And I tell him not to worry because our kid is now fifteen which is probably over the hill for a true perv. But still we're paying a little closer attention these days.
My thought is that we need to turn this to our advantage. We need to let the developers who want to put their cookie-cutter houses up on the beautiful fields where we let our dogs play that we have a registered sex offender in the neighborhood and that we plan to let any prospective home buyers know it. Ha, so they'll never be able to sell the houses and maybe they won't build them in the first place.
"No."
"Umm, somebody's building a fence or a wall?" There was something about that in the notice, too, but I can tell that's still too innocuous an item and her voice is full of foreboding. So, finally I shut up and let her tell me.
"You know that family that lives next door to the Smiths? They have the two kids that you never see. The older one has gone to college I think."
"Oh, yeah." I'd completely forgotten about these people.
"Well, the husband moved out a while back and now he's back and guess what? He's a registered sex offender."
"Oh, crap. Are you sure this isn't some rumor?"
"No, it's on the web and everything. With a picture of him. I'll send you the email."
Well, it turns out our neighborhood sentries are up in arms about this guy. They would like to convince the family to move, but I don't see how that's possible. I mean, you can't shun people who don't socialize with you in the first place. The gossip is that he may have molested family members, and no one is quite sure why the wife has let him move back in with her. My general inclination is to give people the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, I have a daughter who has roamed free with her pals in this neighborhood for six years. We lived in this little bubble of 1950s bliss, our girls camping at whichever house had something good to eat. From what I know or have read about sexual offenders, they don't get cured. Your standard run-of-the-mill criminal (a variety I once knew well) generally outgrows his or her stupidity or dies young. But sexual predators? Well, just look at how old some of those Catholic priests were. Or what about the "dirty old men" we all knew about when we were kids. I remember my friend Paula complaining when we were about eleven that her grandfather tried to French kiss her. She hated him.
My husband watches FOX News all the time. (I'm not going to get into that here.) They are always swept up in some frenzy of "thoughtful and insightful" analysis into the latest murdered/disappeared child-girlfriend-pregnant wife.
So . . . now when we drive out of the neighborhood, my husband says the perv is probably hiding in the bushes right now. And I tell him not to worry because our kid is now fifteen which is probably over the hill for a true perv. But still we're paying a little closer attention these days.
My thought is that we need to turn this to our advantage. We need to let the developers who want to put their cookie-cutter houses up on the beautiful fields where we let our dogs play that we have a registered sex offender in the neighborhood and that we plan to let any prospective home buyers know it. Ha, so they'll never be able to sell the houses and maybe they won't build them in the first place.
Monday, May 16, 2005
My First Blog (On television drama)
So here I am. This is my first blog. Woo-hoo. I should be working on my next novel, but this seems like fun. When I went to school in Tallahassee, I used to write a column for the now deceased Florida Flambeau (ah, the good old days before the frat boys killed it because Mary Jane Ryals made fun of their stupid beauty pagent). My column was called Lifestyles for the Poor and Unknown (I've been trying to overcome that stigma ever since) and I wrote about whatever weird thing I had done lately. I don't have nearly such an adventurous life these days but I still have this desire -- like so many of us I guess -- to publish the things I happen to be thinking about at the time. It might also be a good outlet for those little pieces of writing that I know I'll never send out. I'm not sure whether anyone else will read this. I don't profess to have some inside scoop on what the White House is up to. FOX News will never quote me. Thank you, God. But here it is. My first blog.
This morning my friend Patti called me. She has stopped watching "The Medium" because of a recent show that had to do with doctors who were possessed by an evil spirit cutting open fourteen-year-old girls just for fun. She says she loved the show at first but now it seems they're jumping on the CSI bloodthirsty bandwagon. I watched that particular episode of The Medium. (I hadn't seen the show before.) It was nowhere near CSI. If the CSI writers had been in charge, you would have seen the distraught parents walk in to find their daughter a mangled corpse. You would have gotten to truly experience the horror of inexplicable evil. And if you were a regular CSI viewer, you would have said it was entertaining. I hardly ever watch CSI, but sometimes when I'm tired and mindlessly channel surfing it'll snare me. The visual work is stunning, the actors are all easy on the eyes and the dialogue makes you think that something interesting is going on. Then I always get sucker punched. Some vicious example of human behavior so twisted as to make Hitler and his minions look almost kind by comparison pops up on my television screen and scars me for my life. I can't get to the remote fast enough to turn the TV off. Who could possibly like this shit, I wonder? (Okay, nothing would make the Holocaust look kind. I'm just trying to make a point here.)
So The Medium wasn't nearly as bad. The problem I think is with the whole format of the one-hour drama. Leonard Hill, in an essay called "The Hijacking of Hollywood," explains why one-hour dramas are so empty and so unsatisfying: "Only twenty years ago the typical one-hour dramatic series episode had a running time of approximately 48 minutes. Today the typical episode contains roughly 42 minutes of content."* You wouldn't think that six minutes would make that much difference, but it does, and I think it's a major difference. It's nearly impossible to get emotionally or intellectually involved in these shows. And major plot points are NEVER explained. You simply have to accept the fact that the problem was somehow solved. The "how" of the solution is not delineated. One show that I really like is "Numbers" --which is stylish and intriguing (well, Ridley and Tony Scott created it, I think), but it suffers from the same syndrome; there's not enough time to delve into the cool mathematic calculations that form the basis of the show. I wish it were on HBO or one of the other commercial-free stations.
Patti says she's spoken to several other people who have stopped watching "The Medium" for the same reason she has. They liked it at first but find that recent episodes have been too disturbing in a way that seems not narrative-driven but disturbing merely for the shock value. Hmmm, shouldn't "shock value" be an oxymoron? I guess it isn't. It's unfortunate that the producers/writers feel they have to pander to the prurient mindset that seems standard in our culture rightnow. It would be nice for there to be television for the non-sociopathic minority.
* I read Hill's essay in a book called News Incorporated: Corporate Media Ownershop and its Threat to Democracy. This is a must-read book for anyone who cares about what is going on, politically and culturally in the United States.
This morning my friend Patti called me. She has stopped watching "The Medium" because of a recent show that had to do with doctors who were possessed by an evil spirit cutting open fourteen-year-old girls just for fun. She says she loved the show at first but now it seems they're jumping on the CSI bloodthirsty bandwagon. I watched that particular episode of The Medium. (I hadn't seen the show before.) It was nowhere near CSI. If the CSI writers had been in charge, you would have seen the distraught parents walk in to find their daughter a mangled corpse. You would have gotten to truly experience the horror of inexplicable evil. And if you were a regular CSI viewer, you would have said it was entertaining. I hardly ever watch CSI, but sometimes when I'm tired and mindlessly channel surfing it'll snare me. The visual work is stunning, the actors are all easy on the eyes and the dialogue makes you think that something interesting is going on. Then I always get sucker punched. Some vicious example of human behavior so twisted as to make Hitler and his minions look almost kind by comparison pops up on my television screen and scars me for my life. I can't get to the remote fast enough to turn the TV off. Who could possibly like this shit, I wonder? (Okay, nothing would make the Holocaust look kind. I'm just trying to make a point here.)
So The Medium wasn't nearly as bad. The problem I think is with the whole format of the one-hour drama. Leonard Hill, in an essay called "The Hijacking of Hollywood," explains why one-hour dramas are so empty and so unsatisfying: "Only twenty years ago the typical one-hour dramatic series episode had a running time of approximately 48 minutes. Today the typical episode contains roughly 42 minutes of content."* You wouldn't think that six minutes would make that much difference, but it does, and I think it's a major difference. It's nearly impossible to get emotionally or intellectually involved in these shows. And major plot points are NEVER explained. You simply have to accept the fact that the problem was somehow solved. The "how" of the solution is not delineated. One show that I really like is "Numbers" --which is stylish and intriguing (well, Ridley and Tony Scott created it, I think), but it suffers from the same syndrome; there's not enough time to delve into the cool mathematic calculations that form the basis of the show. I wish it were on HBO or one of the other commercial-free stations.
Patti says she's spoken to several other people who have stopped watching "The Medium" for the same reason she has. They liked it at first but find that recent episodes have been too disturbing in a way that seems not narrative-driven but disturbing merely for the shock value. Hmmm, shouldn't "shock value" be an oxymoron? I guess it isn't. It's unfortunate that the producers/writers feel they have to pander to the prurient mindset that seems standard in our culture rightnow. It would be nice for there to be television for the non-sociopathic minority.
* I read Hill's essay in a book called News Incorporated: Corporate Media Ownershop and its Threat to Democracy. This is a must-read book for anyone who cares about what is going on, politically and culturally in the United States.