June 21, 2011

Shooting fish in a barrel

Quoting Amanda Marcotte in illustration of Sailer's Law of Female Journalism (That the issue that will tend to most passionately engage non-self-aware female journalists is that society should be turned upside down so that she, personally, would be considered hotter-looking) is kind of a cheap shot because Ms. Marcotte notoriously combines self-absorption, lack of self-awareness, vast reserves of hate, and dimness, but sometimes I can't pass her up:
Boycotting the Hollywood Age Gap 
Well, I'm proposing a test of my own, to save myself the pain of seeing a movie that's advertised as being some kind of intelligent indie film but is yet another example of cliched sexist fantasies being passed off as realistic story-telling. Call it the "Marcotte Test": no more movies or shows where the hero is a decade or more older than his love interest.  And if she's under 25, the time span gets shortened to five years.  Exceptions will be made for anti-heroes whose attraction to younger women helps establish how deeply flawed they are as people (see: Don Draper).

Right. Women of the blogging class all watch Mad Men because Jon Hamm's character is so pathetically flawed.
I hate to be a hard ass about this, because I do believe that there are many happy romances between people who are more than ten years apart, but in reality, most people tend to partner off with those who are close in age to themselves. (The average age at first marriage is less than two years difference in the United States.)  And when people do expand beyond the few-year range, there is usually some discussion about the age gap, and some struggle to overcome it.  But if you only learned about love from Hollywood movies

Perhaps movies should come with a bold type notice from the Surgeon General: Warning: Don't only learn about love from Hollywood movies! (Also, don't attempt to use a broomstick to fly.)
you'd think that most women needed a man who was nearing or past puberty when she was born, and men are disgusted by women with whom they share generational touchstones with. Sorry, but I just don't know many dudes who say things like, "Yuck, I can't be with someone who was actually buying records when Kurt Cobain was still alive. We'd have way too much in common!" 
This test was developed while I was mindlessly reading the preview for the new Ewan McGregor movie "Beginners" in Entertainment Weekly.  It's supposed to be one of those quirky comedies about a man who faces some hard times and learns to grow up and find true love, but my enthusiasm for the movie drained when I realized that McGregor, born in 1971, was being paired off with Mélanie Laurent, born in 1983.  If you want to make a romance a symbol of someone's maturation process, it seems uniquely stupid to make said romance with someone who was still pooping her diapers while you were starting to get your first real crushes. 
Once noticed in this movie

In other words, this 33-year-old professional pundit hadn't noticed that there tends to be an age gap between leading men and leading ladies in movies until a few weeks ago.
it began to bug me across the board: Ryan Reynolds is 11 years older than his love interest Blake Lively in "The Green Lantern."  

In other words, there's ample disparate impact evidence that Hollywood sex discriminates against younger male actors. Unless, like Shia LeBeouf, you remind Steven Spielberg of himself at your age, it's much harder to get cast as the male lead in summer blockbusters until after you've paid a lot of dues than it is to get cast as the female lead. Call the EEOC!
Ryan Gosling, who is 30,  is being paired off with 22-year-old Emma Stone in "Crazy, Stupid, Love". Even Tom Hanks in "Larry Crowne" is 11 years older than Julia Roberts.  I'm sure there are more that have passed my notice; these were just the highlighted movies in the magazine. 

Or how about in last winter's indie version of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, in which Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester is 12-years-older than 21-year-old Mia Wasikowska as Jane? Or how about all those mangled adaptations of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice where the actor playing Mr. Darcy is substantially older than the actress playing Miss Bennett? What woman ever liked 36-year-old Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in the BBC version of P&P? Or what about how Hollywood ruined Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind by casting Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh? It's all the fault of Hollywood moguls for leaving out popular female romance novelists' commitment to gender equality in age just to stoke their own aging male vanity.
Again, none of this would bother me if it was dealt with honestly or was rare as it is in real life.  But when it sits on the screen with no acknowledgment or explanation, it leaves the impression we're supposed to think of the characters as peers, since they're still just close enough in age you can assume they're supposed to be the same age. Which, in turn, thwarts the onscreen image of what a woman actually looks like at any given age.  Ryan Gosling is allowed to be and look 30, but are we meant to assume that a woman around that age should look 22?  Are we really meant to believe that still-radiant Julia Roberts is the same age as puffy-eyed Tom Hanks?  What women look like at any given age is being subtly erased in movies when we're supposed to assume smooth-faced Mélanie Laurent is roughly the same age as Ewan McGregor, whose face is replete with the lines of looming middle age.

Okay, now I get it, it's a double bankshot version of Sailer's Law. The problem with casting a 28-year-old actress opposite 40-year-old Ewan McGregor is that audiences will assume the beautiful 28-year-old is actually a beautiful 40-year-old, which will make the 33-year-old Marcotte seem less hot in comparison. I strongly doubt that audiences will do any such thing, but to alleviate Marcotte's worries, I propose:

Memo to Hollywood: the surest way to ease Armanda Marcotte's concerns that the women in movies are hotter than she is would be to cast Armanda Marcotte as the sexy lead in all your 2012 releases. Is that too much to ask?

120 comments:

IHTG said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wes said...

Amanda Marcotte! I thought her fury might be sated after she viciously and erroneously attacked the Duke Lacrosse players. She was furious at those "white boys", as she called them. She led a crusade to have them all hanged.

Even after the facts came out, she refused to apologize. Quite a piece of work, that Amanda is.

Anonymous said...

Armanda Marcotte has got to be some kind of troll who is engaged in performance art of some sort. I'm aware of her wave of feminism or whatever, but she really takes it to a new level.

Can't be a real human.

Anonymous said...

"Sorry, but I just don't know many dudes who say things like, "Yuck, I can't be with someone who was actually buying records when Kurt Cobain was still alive. We'd have way too much in common!"


You gotta love the stupidity of Marcotte. As though common pop culture is what a man and woman need to have in common rather than religion, temperament, social class, education etc. My husband is seriously my senior, but we have a lot in common, except in the area of the disposable pop culture of our youth.

Anonymous said...

Hey Mandy, maybe guys think hot girls are hot because they are hot. Ever think of that?

Of course, it's a short step from there to "Maybe blacks do worse on IQ tests because they aren't as smart." And then you get Watsoned.

Anonymous said...

"Sorry, but I just don't know many dudes who say things like, "Yuck, I can't be with someone who was actually buying records when Kurt Cobain was still alive. We'd have way too much in common!"

I wasn't even buying records when Kurt Cobain was alive. I won't date a used-up old lady, no.

Anonymous said...

"Sorry, but I just don't know many dudes who say things like, "Yuck, I can't be with someone who was actually buying records when Kurt Cobain was still alive. We'd have way too much in common!"

Oh, like men and women of the same age have anything in common. They don't. Aren't even supposed to. While Kurt Cobain was still alive, young women were into 90210, and not into him.

"Again, none of this would bother me if it was dealt with honestly or was rare as it is in real life."

The men who date substantially younger women are winners in the game of life. People would rather watch winners than those like themselves on screen. Shakespeare filled his plays with royalty, not peasants, for a reason.

"What women look like at any given age is being subtly erased in movies when we're supposed to assume smooth-faced Mélanie Laurent is roughly the same age as Ewan McGregor, whose face is replete with the lines of looming middle age."

What looks are to women, money and power are to men. So by focusing on kings, presidents, generals, heavyweight boxing champions and the like, the entertainment industry is erasing the average man from the picture (sob), telling him he doesn't measure up (tear), etc. (mope).

Anonymous said...

Remember that Marcotte is one of the blogging chicks who fell so hard for the Silky Pony (a/k/a John Edwards) that she quit "journalism" to become his spokesgal to Today's Young Women. I think her anger in pieces like this is a reflection at her continued fury at being conned so badly that episode.

carol said...

Well it is kinda funny nowadays to see old movies like Daddy Long Legs, pairing Leslie Caron with an ancient Fred Astaire. I grew up thinking that kind of thing was normal.

Sorta related, after watching Sound of Music a number of times, I realized that Julie Andrews was way too old to play Maria. Maria should have been about 16. I guess they got away with it, they way they get away with it on the stage, but that story would be sexy with a younger female lead.

albert magnus said...

There is an 11 year age gap between her old boss John Edwards and Rielle Hunter.

Anonymous said...

comment #1: i don't know what "shooting fish in a barrel" means.

comment #2: who the heck is Amanda Marcotte and why should I care about Amanda Marcotte???

it's like you go trolling online picking arguments with people... there are no stakes here

nobody cares about Amanda Marcotte and she's a nobody.

2nd Waver said...

If Mandy had a trace of wit she might've worked in a reference to "The Graduate" there, with the actor playing the male lead being 29 and his female opposite pushing 35. I think these predictably profuse chick-blog operations (XX Factor, Feministe, Cafe Frisky Esther and Her Glam Coven--although I notice Broadsheet's been canceled) are purveying really horrendous stereotypes, such as the notion that whenever college-educated suburban women are put together they inevitably steer the discussion toward weddings, TV shows, breast implants, sensational murder trials, etc. It sets a terrible example for the girls who will be our future physics professors and Navy SEALs.

soren said...

It's a Jungle Out There (background)

Anonymous said...

feminism is so pathetic..the question is why does all this nonsense - PC multi culti, etc continue??

AmericanGoy said...

"Hollywood sex discriminates against younger male actors"

Again Sailer strikes out.

Hollywood (movies) and WB (TV) just looooove younger male actors.

They are cheaper and provide eye candy to young teenage girls AND older grandmas looking for the "lookers".

This is reaching silly plateaus, as for example in the new Star Trek movie the kids get to fly a gigantic spaceship.

In fact, the trend has been to NOT have Mel Gibson/Tom Cruise type men, but more like Shia Lebouf type losers.

I cannot take a TV show/movie seriously with "actors" who are 18 to 24 who look like they stepped out of a beauty salon.

lesley said...

Who is this Amanda Marcotte? A white who would talk like that about the Duke case and not even acknowledge her error when the facts became known, is of the mentally ill ilk that also comprised of Tim Wise and that Diversity Inc. man. I just don't get these people. It hasn't been 1930 Mississippi for a long time, anywhere.

"Sorta related, after watching Sound of Music a number of times, I realized that Julie Andrews was way too old to play Maria. Maria should have been about 16. I guess they got away with it, they way they get away with it on the stage, but that story would be sexy with a younger female lead.

Maria was 22 in real life when she went to tutor the von Trapp children in 1926. She married Herr von Trapp a year of so later and there was a 24 yr gap between them. Apparently she had thought it would be a plantonic marriage to get the kids raised and she required a number of conversations with the local priest in order to accept the situation. Poor Herr von Trapp found her a handful and told her the best way to make him happy was to be as good and kind as his first wife had been (which she had briefly thought meant knitting booties). "Other than that, please be yourself."
Usually I'm critical of movies made of real life, when I am aware of the "real life", but Julie Andrews, 27 at the time, was actually not a bad choice either in personality, age or looks.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

comment #2: who the heck is Amanda Marcotte and why should I care about Amanda Marcotte???

Someone who has accomplished far more than you ever will.

--Le Sigh.

Eric said...

Remember that Marcotte is one of the blogging chicks who fell so hard for the Silky Pony (a/k/a John Edwards) that she quit "journalism" to become his spokesgal to Today's Young Women.

She was never a journalist. She was working for UT when she started pandagon. She was invited to be Edwards' official "blogmaster", whatever that is, and then dis-invited two weeks later after some of her anti-Catholic rants came to light. That, and her language is foul enough to make sailors blush.

I'm warming to the "performance art" theory suggested above. Marcotte is just a perfect feminist archetype: A middle aged single harpy with a literature degree holding forth on topics she doesn't understand. But she knows, knows, damnit, men are responsible for every irritation in her life, and by extension in every woman's life. The only checkbox she's missing is "lesbian".

Christopher said...

Hold it, she knows from buying _records_? Kurt Cobain records? Dude, records are so 80's. Cobain was on CDs. How old is she?

Anonymous said...

The men who date substantially younger women are winners in the game of life. People would rather watch winners than those like themselves on screen. Shakespeare filled his plays with royalty, not peasants, for a reason.

This is just an extension of the ridiculously nice apartments everyone has in movies and TV.

Anonymous said...

That, and her language is foul enough to make sailors blush.

look at mr. prissypants.

anony-mouse said...

Missing the obvious example: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in 'To Have and Have Not'. Huge age difference and they got married after the filming.

(Bonus for iSteve commenters-Lauren Bacall and Shimon Peres are first cousins)

Anonymous said...

Well, she does play for the other team, if that explains anything.

Crawfurdmuir said...

Aristotle held that the appropriate age for marriage was 18 for women and 37 for men. Amanda Marcotte probably doesn't know who Aristotle is. It is too bad that we know who Amanda Marcotte is. She is well deserving of obscurity. She should be told to go to Hell, which is, after all, "quivi le brutte Arpie lor nidi fanno... con trist' annunzio di futuro danno."

Lucy said...

An age difference around 10 years is no big deal until the woman is in her 30s. After that you're dealing with a guy who's got some relationship baggage or who, never being married, isn't a good prospect as a mate.

And then there's Hugh "Tales from the Crypt" Heffner...

As for you dweebs, you aren't getting a hot chick unless you buy her on the black market.

black swan said...

"Marcotte is just a perfect feminist archetype: A middle aged single harpy with a literature degree holding forth on topics she doesn't understand."

Why aren't you snuggled up on the couch with that much younger wife of yours, Eric, instead of hanging out here on iGeek.

Oh yeah, this isn't Sailer's writing either. Fakers.

Anonymous said...

Part of the problem is the American audience. They like mental floss movies, usually involving lots of effortlessly rich people with access to cool stuff getting into adrenaline pumping trouble. That's not a scenario that bodes well for serious, talented male or female actors much over 40.

My favorite actress of all time, Anna Magnani, played brilliantly in The Rose Tatoo at the age of 47, but movies in general seemed aimed at a mature audience in the past.

Anonymous said...

gene kelly 39, leslie caron 19 in American In Paris, it worked.

Fred Astaire was charming enough to pull it off w/ Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face as well.

Cary Grant and Audrey worked,

so did Cary Grant and Grace Kelly,

Gregory Peck @ 37 and Audrey @ 24 in roman holiday..

Yeah all those are "ruined" by gender discrimination.

But whose counting? said...

Well the POTUS is an example of an alpha dog male that both men and women tend to follow.

The most respected GOP president of the past century is probably Ronald Reagan. The most respected DEM presidents of the past century would probably be FDR, JFK and Clinton so far. Reagan married his younger wives while the Dems had affairs with them.

29yrs and 41yrs difference
==========================
Ronald Reagan b.1911
Jane Wyman b.1940
Nancy Davis b.1952

9 yrs and 16yr difference
=========================
Franklin D. Roosevelt b.1882
Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd b.1891
Marguerite Missy LeHand b.1898

est. avg 15yrs younger
======================
John F. Kennedy b.1917
Judith Campbell/Exner b.1934
Blaze Starr b.1932
Pam Turnure
Marilyn Monroe
Ellen Romesch
Gunilla Von Post
Jill Cowan/Faddle
Mariella Novotny
Priscilla Wear/Fiddle
Annie Blanche Banks
Leslie Devereaux

27yrs difference:
=================
Bill Clinton b.1946
Monica Lewinsky b.1973

And to give equal airtime:

17 yrs difference:
==================
Barney Frank b.1940
Stephen Gobie b.1957

Kylie said...

Amanda writes, "Call it the 'Marcotte Test': no more movies or shows where the hero is a decade or more older than his love interest. And if she's under 25, the time span gets shortened to five years."

She then complains, "Ryan Reynolds is 11 years older than his love interest Blake Lively in 'The Green Lantern'. Ryan Gosling, who is 30, is being paired off with 22-year-old Emma Stone in 'Crazy, Stupid, Love'. Even Tom Hanks in 'Larry Crowne' is 11 years older than Julia Roberts."

So she's confusing actors and actresses with the characters they play.

She should be forced to watch Harold and Maude in an infinite loop until some "dude" ten years her junior publicly admits he think she's really, really hot.

Eric said...

look at mr. prissypants.

Nah. It's impossible to shock me with language. But I recognize that's not true for everyone, and were I running for president you can be damn sure I wouldn't want my campaign associated with someone like Marcotte. That's just giving away votes.

The whole episode was a perfect illustration of why Edwards wasn't fit to be president. One of many. His team hired her on without even looking at her body of work. It's just incompetent.

Anonymous said...

Wonder what she thinks of the two newlyweds in the western high noon? Gary Cooper was almost 30 years his bride's senior. If anything the gap has narrowed.

agnostic said...

This is a perfect illustration of what social psychologists (Baumeister and Twenge) found out about who "polices the boundaries" of female sexuality -- other females, especially older jumpier ones if there's authority involved (as opposed to gossip & shunning).

Listen to Amanda gripe about the younger starlets stealing away her male peers, while almost apologizing for these men. Just like on Jerry Springer -- the used-up skank picks a fight with the spring chicken while mostly forgiving her cheating boyfriend.

If she really sympathized for her fellow sisters, she would be yakking about how bad the young female has it in these relationships. (Which is mostly bogus, of course, since they're only too eager to star alongside a leading man.)

Rather, she imposes an even shorter leash on the under-25 girls to keep them away from her men. Pathetic.

Anonymous said...

My only comment is that Rochester was supposed to be about 20 years older than Jane Eyre, and Rhett Butler was 17 years older than Scarlett. (In the last pages of the book, she reveals that she is 28; he is 45.)

Clio

agnostic said...

Amanda's rule of "less than 5 if you're under 25" betrays the same cluelessness about dating & mating as does the beta male's fantasy that if there are more homos out there, "that means more chicks for me!"

Guess again -- girls still won't take you, even if you've climbed up from the 6th to the 9th percentile.

The same goes for Amanda -- even if she had her authoritarian dream to regulate younger babes away from her male peers, they still would rather smash their balls in a waffle iron than suffer a single conversation with her.

Anonymous said...

James MacAvoy and Rose Byrne are exactly the same age. Natalie Portman is actually older than Chris Hemsworth. The Super 8 kids are....well, kids. Vin Diesel and his love interest, Paul Walker, are eminently age appropriate. I don't know what Marcotte's complaint is about this summer's movies, but I do know that whenever I see her byline on an article I stop reading because I know it will be a dreary polemic.

A working screenwriter

Tom in Va said...

Memo to Hollywood: the surest way to ease Armanda Marcotte's concerns that the women in movies are hotter than she is would be to cast Armanda Marcotte as the sexy lead in all your 2012 releases. Is that too much to ask?

Why not just stab me in the eye with a fork? Seriously, why does anyone pay any attention to what she says (other than to shoot her down deftly?)

Anonymous said...

The only checkbox she's missing is "lesbian".

-----

And Jewish. Jewish lesbian. Would be the complete package.

Anonymous said...

1. Ryan Gosling and Ewan McGregor both have boyish looks.

2. She should complain to the editors of women's magazines that never put women over 30 on their covers. That is, she's got a problem with other (old) women. Not men.

3. Most people don't look as good as movie stars.

4. Women's beauty is a fleeting thing.

5. Marcotte thinks of herself as a serious (whatever), and this is her subject?

You're right, this is shooting fish in a barrel.

SPImmortal said...

"Someone who has accomplished far more than you ever will.

--Le Sigh."

If that guy were to spend his life cleaning out septic tanks, his positive contribution to the world would be far greater than Amanda Marcotte's. And his line of work would be similar to hers as well.

Anonymous said...

Sailer's Law of Female Journalism never disappoints.

re: Marcotte, her writings are a rich tapestry of aggressive stupidity and anger.

Here's Marcotte on the Duke Lax hoax in February of 2007, long after even the simplest rube knew that the rape was fabricated:

In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out.

Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it?

...This is about race and class and gender in every way, and there’s basically no way this woman was going to see justice. In her part of the country, both women and black people are seen as subhuman objects to be used and abused by white men.


http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/02/edwards-fiasco.html

Anonymous said...

What does it matter when so many middle-aged actors still come across as somewhere between 17 and 22? Is Tom Cruise 25 yet?

Anonymous said...

I'll bet 'Amanda' is really a gay guy blogger.

Anonymous said...

"In other words, there's ample disparate impact evidence that Hollywood sex discriminates against younger male actors."

Not really. Though Hollywood may cast more younger actresses, many are essentially little more than sexual toys/possessions/sidekicks of lead male actors.
Young females aren't given a break in movies out of respect for 'women's rights' but because male producers, directors, and stars(and fans)prefer young women as trophy babes. It is an example of 'sexism'.

Chuck said...

I love it. I've been going after Marcotte for a while and am glad to see an esteemed blogger take her down as well.

Re: Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively: funny that IRL Lively is dating Leonardo DiCraprio who is actually 13 years older than her.

Also, why would a feminist like Marcotte want to limit womens' choices? Why would she want to stifle them by criticizing them for dating older men?

Anonymous said...

Okay, this is not a nice thing to bring up but it is very relevant in this case: Amanda Marcotte is very unattractive woman. Not exactly ugly or anything but seriously lacking in the sexiness and cuteness departments. That alone explains a lot.

Garrett said...

Drudge had a link yesterday to a story about the character actor Doug Hutchison, who is 51, marrying a 16 year-old beauty queen/aspiring singer. He was in Lost and The Green Mile, and in one of the classic episodes of The X-Files, where he played a mutant contortionist who could squeeze into unbelievably tight spaces. Which would probably come in pretty handy with a 16 year-old wife.

K(yle) said...

Of course Marcotte ignores all of the other unrealistic aspects of movies and TV. These 40 year old leading men with smooth features and full heads of hair and tone, fit bodies.

I just started watching a TV show with a heartthrob lead, who I found out is 2 years older than me but can easily pass for about 6 years younger.

I do date younger women, and I often get the 'You're friends are bald' comment. It's not true, but some have the monk's crown or receding hairline. They are in their late 20s and early 30s, which is really normal for male pattern baldness.

But no one on TV or in movies at that age is balding until they are in their early 50s.

All that's putting aside having zero stories about essentially common men. Every man is extraordinary, exotic, rich, powerful, emotionally hardened, way smarter than average, et cetera.

For all the fame Joyce received his milieu of writing about the mundanities has not bridged the gap to scriptwriting, that's for sure.

Silken Pony said...

comment #2: who the heck is Amanda Marcotte and why should I care about Amanda Marcotte???

She is a nobody in fact. But she does serve a purpose as a real example of how heinous radical feminism is today.

She and her fellow aggriveritas confuse her shallow, hateful and potty-mouthed diatribes with speaking truth to power or some similar hackneyed shtick.

Nonetheless, they are useful reminders for the overwhelming majority of humans just how depraved our MSM has become in sanctioning her opinion in places like The Guardian and Slate.

Anonymous said...

I just googled Mélanie Laurent and her ex-husband is 1 year older than Ewan McGregor.

Garland said...

"...that society should be turned upside down so that she, personally, would be considered hotter-looking) is kind of a cheap shot because Ms. Marcotte notoriously combines self-absorption, lack of self-awareness, vast reserves of hate, and dimness..."

Ah, come on, there's one more attribute of Marcotte's that makes a discussion of female beauty standards a cheap shot against her..you're just too unwilling to take the cheap shot to list it.

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't you be picking on someone with more substance?

Anonymous said...

"Someone who has accomplished far more than you ever will."

What a strange use of the word 'accomplished.'

Anonymous said...

The reason it happens on-screen in Hollywood is because it happens more often than not off-screen in Hollywood as well. Scarlett Johansson dating Sean Penn, Catherine Zeta-Jones marrying Michael Douglas, and a few years back rumors of Mickey Rourke dating Evan Rachel Wood who played her father in a movie they were in together. These relationship gaps are 24 years, 25 years, and 35 years respectively. Even the guy Scarlett recently divorced Ryan Reynolds, is 8 years older than her, which is a bit more than the claimed 2 year average she cites. Even Hollywood's reigning power couple has quite an age gap, Brad Pitt is 11 1/2 years older than Angelina Jolie and Pitt's fellow Hollywood leading man George Clooney is dating a former Italian actress who 17 years his junior. Tom Cruise divorced a woman 5 years younger than him to marry one 16 years younger than him, get the picture Amanda Marcotte? Probably not.

Anonymous said...

She stated that the average marriage had the players at an average of 2 years apart.

If the fat chick would take a look at the beautiful and the financially successful who marry, the age differences will gap right back to the 10 year sweet spot.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

comment #2: who the heck is Amanda Marcotte and why should I care about Amanda Marcotte???

Someone who has accomplished far more than you ever will.

--Le Sigh."

If you call stuffing your face with baked goods until you have a third chin, and whining about people who have it better than you an "accomplishment," then I guess this girl is quite accomplished.

Anonymous said...

Hello? She's a Lesbian. This might make her comments men, women, and Hollywood a little bit suspect, wouldn't you think?

Next, Andrew Sullivan tells us how to find the perfect woman.

Harry Baldwin said...

It's silly to complain about age gaps of 10 or 12 years in movies with actors who often look better than their age would suggest. Does Tom Hanks really look too old for Julia Roberts? I admit that it bothers me when the discrepancy gets beyond 20 years. I walked out of "Where the Money Is", repulsed by the spectacle of a wizened, 75-year-old Paul Newman being lasciviously ogled by a still-hot 42-year-old Linda Fiorentino.

I also found "Up Close and Personal" cheesy, with 60-year-old Robert Redford getting it on with 38-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer, but that's because it was played cheesy. Fifty-three-year-old Bill Murray wasn't so bad with 19-year-old Scarlett Johansson in "Lost in Translation," because that was a platonic relationship.

I wouldn't care to watch a movie depicting Hugh Hefner or Larry King in the sack with their young conquests. Te image is just too disturbing.

Anonymous said...

sailer bit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/us/22infosys.html?hp

Ricky said...

I find her emphasis on the maturity theme the oddest, especially ill-advised part. The commenters at Slate already hammered it in: getting sore about TIPIOIA (the inherent patriarchal injustice of it all, in TV and movies at any rate) doesn't become a woman in her 30s. In the NYT or Vanity Fair equivalent it would be a more-in-sorrow-than-anger, quasi-literary reflection on TIPIOIA.

I dunno how the rest of you (black-market-shopping dweebs, right?) think, but to me the XX post screams "emotionally frozen in high school." Maybe that's unfair, as I'm not a frequent reader of hers, and if so she'd hardly be some unique example. Lots of the big new ecriture feminine online is marked by Jenna Rose-level insights such as that Palin is a "mean girl." Somewhere in Marcotte's aimless blather of 600+ words is a solid Wikipedia footnote about American movie casting vs. the rising median ages in first marriages (which she misidentified as average ages).

Anonymous said...

Well, Steve, maybe Marcotte would be more passionately engaged with your favourite issues (racist pseudoscience, resentful alms-begging, etc) if her biological parents had also abandoned her.

Anonymous said...

"Well, Steve, maybe Marcotte would be more passionately engaged with your favourite issues (racist pseudoscience, resentful alms-begging, etc) if her biological parents had also abandoned her."

That you, Amanda? Donuts in the kitchen, sweetie.

Anonymous said...

Not Marcotte, though she is somewhat less pitiable than Sailer. At least she manages to get published on websites that look like they were designed after 1998.

Anonymous said...

She's going to boycott movies that don't show movies that meet her feminist criterion?

Ok, she's either not going to see many mainstream movies then.

If that's the case she'll have to:
1. begin reviewing movies even her hardcore feminist cadre can't force themselves to watch, or,

2. she'll continue watching mainstream stuff (probably happily enough), while complaining about how anti-woman they are.

I'd bet on 2.

Someone might ask her why feminists don't make movies anyone wants to watch. We could harness the steam coming out of her ears and solve the energy crisis as she tries to rationalize this and blame it all on the patriarchy.

Anonymous said...

If you call stuffing your face with baked goods until you have a third chin, and whining about people who have it better than you an "accomplishment," then I guess this girl is quite accomplished.

Amanda is quite slim.

--Le Sigh.

Anonymous said...

She should be encouraging girls to max out their market value and marry a much older alpha man, hilarious that she calls her self an advocate for women.

Child Bride said...

@butt who's counting



Points of order.

Nancy Davis married RR in 1952 she was born 31 years earlier.

Jane Wyman married RR in 1940, she was born in 1917.

Whiskey said...

Marcotte's not even in the ballpark with what goes on in casting for men and women. Chick flicks, generally have older, less hot, women as the leads and younger guys as the romantic object. The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds comes to mind. A substantial age gap there, and in Bullock's not Ryan's favor. Bullock is 46, Ryan is 34. But often leading men of Chick Flicks are older, around the same age as their female co-stars. The Bounty Hunter with 41 year old Gerard Butler (a Chick flick frequent star) and 42 year old Jennifer Aniston comes to mind.

Frequent female leads in Chick flicks include Bullock, Aniston, Katherine Heigl (age 32), Rachel McAdams (age 32), and Amy Adams (age 36). On TV, you will have 45 year old Julianna Margulies (the Good Wife), or 39 year old Christina Applegate as stars.

That makes sense. Female audiences want to see mid-late forties versions of themselves still fabulous and attracting hunks. Sex and the City, anyone?

Whiskey said...

It is ONLY in films oriented towards a male action audience that mostly have younger leads. Duh, guys want to see a guy capable of action. The last Indiana Jones movie had me afraid Harrison Ford would break a hip!

But MOST action movies have neither the tweener-romance young hunks (Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Shia LaBoeuf, Jake Gyllenhall, etc.) nor old guys. You'll find Jason Statham, Thomas Jayne, Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, and so on as action leads. Guys mature enough to command respect from other men, young enough to still duke it out.

Since its a male audience, they'd rather see a young hottie than a 45 year old no matter how well preserved by plastic surgery, diet, and exercise. Newsflash 25 year old guys don't lust after Sandra Bullock. She's just too old.

There has been an issue with finding more guys in the sweet spot for action leads. Liam Neeson and John Travolta starred in respectively Taken and From Paris With Love, probably a bit older than the age director Bresson wanted but they outshine a lot of contemporaries. Michael Caine even did a film involving action (Harry Brown, an excellent film) and carried it off because he's a great actor.

Action movies require most of all, the ability to act authoritative and dangerous. A guy like say, Joseph Gordon-Levitt though a good actor just doesn't have it. Too many younger US male actors have come up and played effeminate pretty boys and don't or can't bring menace, grit, and authority to roles. Its been a problem.

[In a side-note, many young actresses have a preference for older romantic leads, because they LOOK BETTER with a guy who is all man, rather than half boy. It is not uncommon to hear a 25 year old actress express a desire to have a romantic lead from an experienced actor who is nearly 20 years her senior, in the view that she'll look sexier as an actress because she'll be with an actor who can pull of manly.]

Anonymous said...

"racist pseudoscience, resentful alms-begging"

I must say though, for a 'pseudo-science', it keeps being validated with new scientific discoveries in DNA and psychological studies.
We would like to remain faithful to PC playdo science such as anthropology, but it's no longer even called a science by people who practice it. And we would like to treat Gould's tome as the final truth but new findings haven't been kind to it.

Sailer calls the money business 'panhandling', which can't be beat for honesty. Notice how PBS asks for money but calls it 'subscription'. Government employees and welfare bums steal money from us but call it 'taxation' or 'distribution'.
$PLC and ADL have all sorts of words for what they do--which really should be called 'fraud' or a 'con'.
But 'panhandling', now that's honest.

Of course, well-funded liberal bloggers don't have to 'panhandle' since they are given 'allowances' by the likes of Bill Gates and Soros.

Anonymous said...

"She's a Lesbian."

Men lucked out in this case. Can you imagine any guy being stuck with that nitwit?

Scott said...

In Marcotte's defense, she might just be writing these things to make herself angry, lest she smile more.

But Whose Counting? said...

CORRECTION:

Once posted, there is an obvious mistake in my last post.

I used the marriage dates for DOB with Reagan's wives. My bad.

6 and 10yrs
===========
Ronald Regan b.1911
Jane Wyman b.1917

So, Ronnie is the only POTUS celebrated by his party who isn't some pedo according to Marcotte.
Nancy Davis. b.1921

Anonymous said...

Good point Steve - what happened to actresses paying their dues? Mae West was obviously only held together by industrial-strength corsetry in her movies. She gave Cary Grant his first break; he was 11 years younger. His next co-star, with whom he made a couple of good comedies, was 5 years older than him. He just carried on playing the same roles while actresses were replaced. Actresses the age of today's hottest stars used to be called "starlets" because they hadn't payed their dues.

Anonymous said...

comment #1: i don't know what "shooting fish in a barrel" means.

You cannot be serious?

A fish in a barrel, an easy target. Hunting something so easy that its unsporting.

Steve is working on two levels here, having the fun of blowing this airhead to pieces and reminding us that she is indeed such an airhead that she shouldnt be taken as anything but a joke.

Anonymous said...

Marcotte's belief that couples be close together in age is surely a racist generalisation of the first order.

Its only in white western countries where boys and girls tend to pair off at the same age. In the vibrant and ever so much more morally worthy non-white world men are likely to be much older their wives.

Anonymous said...

Not Marcotte, though she is somewhat less pitiable than Sailer. At least she manages to get published on websites that look like they were designed after 1998.

Thats the weakest, pitiful, substance free comment Ive seen here in a good long while.

josh said...

My father is 12 years older than my mother and they have been married for 35 years. So there.

Anonymous said...

but don't these June-March pairings appeal to the basically female audience for these movies?

Ms. Marcotte is seriously out of step with her peers.How sad!

Anonymous said...

What do men do who want to have children? You would think a radical feminist like Marcotte, would understand that men want to have a choice as well. Women chose when and how many children there will be in a relationship. This means that the only way an unfulfilled guy who is in his 30s, 40s, 50s, ... can have more children is to start over with a younger women. Besides, I don't see why this is any business of hers. Privacy and choice for men too.

Anonymous said...

If you really want a nasty taste of Marcotte's obsession with prettier women, see this Bloggingheads diavlog

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/33912?&in=45:17&out=53:59

The other woman says that maybe feminists hate Palin so much because they are jealous of her good looks.

Marcotte replies that one time she dressed up as Palin for halloween, which proves she has no issues with Palin's looks.

I think she says, "Obviously we don't want to look like her, since we can look like her."

Whatever else you think about her, Palin is a gorgeous babe (at 45+!). Marcotte is, maybe not fugly, but quite plain. Homely. She is slim (contra above). But look at how her chin is wider than her head at the eyes. Her head is a trapezoid! And her lips are unattractively narrow, which she tries to correct by slathering on too much, too dark lipstick. And she always seems agitated and uncomfortable, check how she keeps glancing at the camera and flinching, worried about how she looks.

Anyway, Palin: 10, Marcotte: 3. But Marcotte aggressively insists that Palin is not better looking than her.

That's a girl with some serious issues.

Is Marcotte worth talking about? Well, she got a job at Slate, and gets on TV more and more. If you want to know about the modern left, look at what they think is interesting and admirable. That they want to watch this harridan is not good news.

DCThrowback said...

70 comments until we got an embedded photo? Things are really slipping in the comments section.

The photos posted by Scott are hilarious. Thanks dude.

Anonymous said...

It would be shocking to discover the amount of money male movie stars spend on fitness training, special diets, pills, hair implants, plastic surgery, facials, etc. Male or female, all actors worry about growing old.

That said, there are a hell of a lot more Michael Caines and Clint Eastwoods then there are Helen Mirrens and Judi Denchs. Men have a much better chance than women at making a long career out of acting. Men can start out young and still be acting into their dotage, like Henry Fonda. Women tend to be more flash in the pan. They are a big deal for awhile, then they slowly vanish.

If I were an actress, I'd be working feverishly, squirreling away and investing everything I could, and studying for another career, such as entertainment lawyer, to be prepared for my inevitable demise.

Look at Danica McKellar, "Winnie" from The Wonder Years. She's done a few more TV stints, but she also got a degree or two in math, and has published two phenomenally successful math books, aimed at the middle school female market. She can act again, or not. Doesn't matter. Smart girl.

Anonymous said...

But who's counting:

"29yrs and 41yrs difference
==========================
Ronald Reagan b.1911
Jane Wyman b.1940
Nancy Davis b.1952"

Oy veh. Reagan & Wyman married in 1940. Reagan & Davis married in 1952.

The real age differences are 6 and 10 years - which makes your point, but less extremely.

Anonymous said...

I heard Mickey Rooney was dating Dakota Fanning.

JSM said...

"I do date younger women, and I often get the 'You're friends are bald' comment."

Stay away from my daughter.

Signed:

Middle-aged mom who is not a feminist

greenrivervalleyman said...

Steve,

A little off-topic, but since we're talking casting somewhat relevant. My wife and I were watching this B-movie crime thriller over the weekend, mainly because it featured a distant relative in a bit role. The movie had Andrew Dice Clay and Ice-T in it; both were fairly effective in their roles, but it struck me that here you had an A-list rapper stuck with a B-list comic/C-list actor in a straight-to-video release.

It then occurred to me that Hollywood casting is an analog for what college admissions would look like without affirmative action. A-list, top-of-the heap rappers appear in schlocky genre films (Anaconda - Ice Cube, Halloween: H20 - LL Cool J, Leprechaun 5 - Ice T)- the equivalent, in AMPAS eyes, of lower rung state colleges. Notice how there is almost no diversity when it comes to the sort of "difficult", prestige films the Academy likes to reward during Oscar season, like King's Speech or Black Swan. These are the movie equivalents of Stanford and the Ivies.

Of course there is solid core of A-list black actors (Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle) who appear in Oscar-worthy films from time-to-time, but almost always in a context of addressing racial issues and where their own racial identity is a central, not incidental, part of the role. This is the equivalent of inserting an African-American studies department into Harvard, giving Skip Gates a plausible excuse to be hanging around Cambridge.

SouthernAnonyia said...

"They are cheaper and provide eye candy to young teenage girls AND older grandmas looking for the "lookers".

This is reaching silly plateaus, as for example in the new Star Trek movie the kids get to fly a gigantic spaceship.

In fact, the trend has been to NOT have Mel Gibson/Tom Cruise type men, but more like Shia Lebouf type losers."

You sound just almost as neurotic as the woman who penned the article in question. The movies which feature younger males are for niche audiences- those movies with handsome 23 year old male leads are probably generally not marketed towards you anyway. There is no more use complaining about teenage girls preferring to watch young men around their own age than there is in complaining that men in their 30s/40s like much younger women as eye candy.

SouthernAnonyia said...

As many others have noted, most male hollywood actors look younger than their age anyway for some reason. Ryan Reynolds for example could almost pass as a grad student...
And as far as Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks go, Julia Roberts hasn't aged too well by Hollywood standards so they actually do look around the same age despite the decade long age gap.

charlotte said...

well, for the conservative minded among you (most of you it seems) there's a quote in the Old Testament (of all places!) on which you and even Ms. Marcotte might agree. While I cannot cite chapter and verse, I will paraphrase, " ... among the most despicable traits is lust in old men." I suppose lust in old women would have knocked their sandles off entirely. In fact, I remember reading a theological book my parents had around (about the Virgin Mary, they were Catholic) in which the learned Jesuit pointed out that the Virgin Mary could not have been more than 15 years younger than Joseph, because Jewish law at that time demanded that young virgins be married to men no more than 15 yrs their senior. Extraordinary. Whether the Jewish law was to ensure a capable husband, or out of consideration for the young virgin's esthetics, I don't know.
This was an important point, because Catholics believe that Mary remained a Virgin, and some people thought this would have meant that Joseph was necessarily a very old man, even a grandfather type. He is often portrayed in paintings with white hair, looking as old as Methusalah. But some argued that [St.] Joseph's saintliness was acquired through his self-control and sacrifice of his manly instincts.
Among young people in rural life, left to their own devices, girls in their mid to late teens, tended to pair off with young men 5 to 10 yrs older. If the girl was more educated, she tended not marry till her early or mid twenties. This was true by the late 1700s, long before female occupational opportunities other than teaching.
My grandmother married at 17 to a man 10 yrs her senior, and always felt she had to coddle him. So I guess he felt like a winner.

As for the bright light who says that men and women of the same age have nothing in common because some singer's fans of his own age were not listening to his work when he died young--are you serious, or do you really live in such a limited context? Amazing the ideas out there. Age factors because changes have occurred so mind-numbingly fast. In fact, that's part of the fun--the "do you remember when" game. How on earth couples of extremely disparate ages integrate their friends and interests, is a mystery to me. There is a natural tendency for people of similar age to congregate.

not a hacker said...

Further to Whiskey's point about chick flicks featuring unlikely older woman-younger guy pairings, how about "Something's Gotta Give"? Ridiculous to think of a hot young physician (Keanu Reeves) going for Diane Keaton. Come to think of it, that could be a good new reality show. How old and fugly would a man have to be to get excited about Diane Keaton?

Glaivester said...

Darth Vader, should Hollywood cast Armanda Marcotte as the sexy lead in all its 2012 releases?

Darth's response

Eric said...

Hello? She's a Lesbian.

I do not believe this is true, unless she's come out within the last year or two. She was in a lengthy relationship with a man which ended about the same time as she moved to New York from Texas.

Anonymous said...

"She's going to boycott movies that don't show movies that meet her feminist criterion?"

'Boycott'? She oughta call it 'girlcott' or 'marcott'.

Dahlia said...

I always get a little anxious when these comments about ideal age differences between men and women show up. This one has been pretty good.

These discussions immediately transport me back to my pre-marital years of 21 and younger. Blessedly, it wasn't often, but I hated, hated, HATED when the older guys showed up. Not only did my male peers seem like more natural prospects, but they were also hot. It's just downright weird to always be thinking about Tall-Young-Handsome-Intelligent when Old-Crow's Feet-Receding Hairline-Shallow shows up.

I've been thinking lately about the large number of divorced Baby Boomer men entering old age. A 60-something family member is very lonely and desperately wants a young wife. Because of the competition, young men and many older men just like himself, I don't see it happening. Last I talked to him, his desperation had grown to an extent that he started letting slip how much money he has in the context of his attractiveness.

He is so ripe for the taking by a young hustler it isn't funny. And naturally at an age when he is less capable of spotting a con.

Anonymous said...

Julia Roberts is still radiant??? I'd like to see her do her next movie without wearing makeup. Then she will look like Tom Hanks!!!

JoeJoe

Anonymous said...

"Ryan Gosling is allowed to be and look 30, but are we meant to assume that a woman around that age should look 22?"

No, we are to assume attractive characters are chosen at their peak attractiveness. For women the door opens -- closes -- earlier than for men. Why is that so complicated?

Londoner said...

"...men are disgusted by women with whom they share generational touchstones with..."

Oh dear.

This woman cannot write.

Anonymous said...

>she might've worked in a reference to "The Graduate" there<

You are just the type of older, more experienced man she disapproves of.

Other commenters are right: a woman "of a certain age" is paired to advantage with a significantly older man. It makes the chick look hotter. And smarter. Is this what Mandy resents?

Anonymous said...

>comment #1: i don't know what "shooting fish in a barrel" means.<

"'Shooting fish in a barrel' is an idiom, describing an effortless or simple action, with guaranteed success." - Wikipedia

Anonymous said...

While Ms. Marcotte might note that leading men in romantic movies tend to be older than their younger, more attractive female counterparts, she might also notice that [with the exception of Matthew McConaghey] those leading men are usually far better actors than their female counterparts, who are usually nothing more than eye candy. Ms. Marcotte might also note that these movies are almost always directed at a female audience, as most men would rather watch car chases and explosions.

Anonymous said...

Tom Hanks is too old for that role. Sorry to agree with the kooky feminist, but stopped clocks and all that.

Anonymous said...

Stay away from my daughter.

Signed:

Middle-aged mom who is not a feminist


Lol. Deluded moms who don;t know what their daughters are secretly up to.

Anonymous said...

"Hello? She's a Lesbian."

"I do not believe this is true, unless she's come out within the last year or two. She was in a lengthy relationship with a man which ended about the same time as she moved to New York from Texas."

She's probably a let's-be-an, one of those straight girls who put on show of solidarity with the gay crowd to show off how progressive, hip, and creative she is.

Anonymous said...

Or let's-be-one.

Anonymous said...

'Boycott'? She oughta call it 'girlcott' or 'marcott'.

Wendy Schallit (sp?) has already trademarked 'girlcott'.

Unknown said...

Of course there is solid core of A-list black actors (Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle) who appear in Oscar-worthy films from time-to-time, but almost always in a context of addressing racial issues and where their own racial identity is a central, not incidental, part of the role.

Said by someone who only remembers some of their movies, and conveniently forgets a lot of others. (e.g. Morgan Freeman in movies such as the Shawshank Redemption, Bruce Almighty, and Batman Begins.)

jcp said...

"These discussions immediately transport me back to my pre-marital years of 21 and younger. Blessedly, it wasn't often, but I hated, hated, HATED when the older guys showed up. Not only did my male peers ..."

Yes, what you see in movies and what is real life. There will always be some women, and a even a few men, who prefer older (much older) partners.... but...
When I was at my 5 yr high school reuion, a few of us girls went to a bar. While there, the prettiest blonde among us was approached by a 40 something guy who looked a little like Tom Hanks at 40 something. The girl was polite but then her ex-boyfriend, gorgeous, came in with friends and she was mortified. Somehow we got the older guy to go away and we felt sorry for him. He paid for her drink, too. It seemed unfair to me. I was "feminist" but didn't think men should get stuck with paying for stuff they got nothing from. The pretty blonde said in a low voice she did not want her boyfriend to think she was going around with old guys.
There was a stigma attached to that sort of thing, and while the older guy might have been envied by other older guys, the girl was not in quite so enviable a situation for the most part. Even more scathing was the scorn and contempt that young MEN had for it...they called girls who went after older guys by some remarkably demonizing terms, and I remember wondering how complex and changable was human nature as it passes through the ages of man. And woman.

You never know though -- I recall a British professor of 60 who really did look about 38 and if he'd whistled, I'd have come. But that's rare. There's a reason people pair off at least in the same generation. There are outliers who are happy to marry much older, but they are not the generality.
As for the idea that alpha males are so enviable, that's not looking too closely. The young gal wife is likely to be as more of a nurse and that's part of the deal.
Like Shirley McLaine in Being There.

Anonymous said...

"Julia Roberts is still radiant??? I'd like to see her do her next movie without wearing makeup. Then she will look like Tom Hanks!!!

JoeJoe"

No JoeJoe. She doesn't need gobs of makeup. I've seen her plain faced with her kids, and she is just fine. You'd never mistake her for Tom Hanks. Personally I always thought her mouth was too big and unbalanced her face. She was always a type of quirky beauty. She whatever it was, it's still there.

Anonymous said...

Not a hacker:

Keanu Reeves dated Diane Keaton in real life for a while after the making of that film. People are a lot more idiosyncratic about what they're attracted to than the dateless losers and biological reductionists around here would lead you to believe.

You'd think the sight of uber-alpha male Arnold frolicking with the chubby, middle-aged Mexican nanny would give them pause or something. Nah.

Anonymous said...

>People are a lot more idiosyncratic about what they're attracted to than the dateless losers and biological reductionists around here would lead you to believe.<

Exceptions are just that, and drop the ad hominem.

truth said...

That was brilliant. Just what we need, more social engineering so that women can feel good about themselves.

Truth said...

"truth" with a lower-case "t" very nice.

I have you folks beat on one thing for sure; I have more of these doppelgangers than anyone else.

Nitwit Celebratard Obsessive said...

Star gazing Anon:

* Looking at an airbrushed photo in US or People does not count as "seeing Julia Roberts".

* Celebs are followed virtually 24/7 by paparazzi. They do not go out (esp if >44yrs) in public without makeup on unless they want to end up humiliated on tabloid covers.

* Sure, Keanu dated Keaton... same as Tab Hunter more famously dated Natalie Wood and Debbie Reynolds.

* Nothing idiosyncratic about Arnold's or Clinton's or JFK's attractions. Their big heads are attracted to (and marry) high-status and/or career enhancing wife. Their little heads then proceed to bone anything that can't move faster than they can - uuggos included. They've all had em although only Arnold was dumb enough to impregnate one.

Unknown said...

Yep, nothing central about race in THAT role.

In other words, you're saying that any positive portrayal of black characters is intrinsically about race, even if the script doesn't have anything to with about race?

ben tillman said...

The only checkbox she's missing is "lesbian".

-----

And Jewish. Jewish lesbian. Would be the complete package.


At Brown, the complete package included vegetarianism and hairy legs.

Truth said...

"In other words, you're saying that any positive portrayal of black characters is intrinsically about race, even if the script doesn't have anything to with about race?"

She has her teeth in your butt like a rabid Doberman there, Sport.

Anonymous said...

"In other words, you're saying that any positive portrayal of black characters is intrinsically about race, even if the script doesn't have anything to with about race?"

Google "numinous negro." It seems you couldn't be bothered to do that the first time, so you made an utter fool of yourself with this latest comment.

Come back when you do your homework.

Scott said...

I'm pretty sure Amanda, like many feminists, is a high functioning autistic.

Anonymous said...

>if he'd whistled, I'd have come. But that's rare.<

Thank goodness!