This should be the first new post of my now fully functioning Blog.
I kept thinking of things to write about over the last few days, but they've all pretty much escaped me now.
Sin City is a very cool movie. Someone tried to tell me today that it was only good because of the black & white/not-so-random colourization. He was like "If it was the same movie, only fully in colour it would have sucked". Well duh. It was an entire style. Yes the black and white thing was "artsy" but it was in keeping with the accurate following of the comic... sorry graphic novel :) and with the film noire genre. At any rate, very cool movie.
Aha! Now I remember...
WARNING WARNING: INCOMING RANT SESSION
I was watching an episode of the Simpsons on Sunday, it's one of the new ones where the kids at school tease Lisa about her weight until she develops an eating disorder. Comedic moments in the episode feature Lisa refusing to eat, working out compulsively and binging on a giant cake. HILLARIOUS. "In case you couldn't tell I was being sarcastic". Well duh.
The show has been sucking pretty hardcore over the last couple of years, but this was a pretty sad plunge, even for them. It wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't a common social attitude that people having these problems are "weak" or "anti-feminist" as Lisa herself calls it. This isn't a choice that women make. It's an actual medical condition linked to depression and all kinds of other health problems that people have very little control over.
They also portray it as coming from a couple of days worth of two or three kids on the playground teasing her, rather than, what many young girls experience, years of humiliation at school and harassment from parents or other authority figures. One manequin in the mall with unrealistic measurements does not make a person "want to be" anorexic.
I'm sure that someone could make the same argument for the treatment of Homer's alcoholism. This is also a widely misunderstood disease, but at least through Barney's rehabilitation and the odd episode with Homer they treat it with SOME quantity of respect. I suppose they don't treat most things with respect. I guess I'm mostly frustrated with the societal attitude towards this issue. People talk about celebrities like "Oh my god she's so skinny, that is so wrong" as though it's gossip or it's like they just found out they kill puppies.
*breath* breath*
alright ranting done :)
I have to go and finish up my laundry. When I return I will think happy thoughts and have a nice healthy lunch.
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1 comment:
And so dies my last remaining interest in the Simpsons.
*Fizzle*
I can't believe they would trivialize something like that. I mean, they didn't do a great job of handling Barney's alcoholism either, but they kind of wrote that character into a corner with the sobering up episode. Once Barney was sober there was nothing to do with him except make fun of his struggle to overcome his problem. Ridiculously offensive quotes include:
"Like all recovering alcoholics, I'm a coward."
"Wow, one drink didn't kill me. I guess they were wrong at AA."
Anyway, did Lisa recover, or seek help, or what? I mean it's not the kind of thing that they want to have drag out into a few episodes until they just have it become another aspect of her character (ie/ her vegetarianism), but if they have her recover by the end of the show it kind of belittles the struggle that people have to go through to get healthy.
Dammit The Simpsons! Stop trying to be Family Guy. We already have a Family Guy. What we need is for the Simpsons to be the Simpsons.
To paraphrase a really good movie:
"You like the Simpsons?"
"The old stuff. In the new stuff they're trying to be Family Guy."
"But Family is trying to be the Simpsons. So if the Simpsons are doing Family Guy, and Family Guy is doing the Simpsons, The Simpsons are still doing the Simpsons."
"If you like the Simpsons."
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