THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
12/06/02 -- Vol. 21, No. 23
Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
There Are Two Kinds of Tolerance (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
FRIDA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
BETWEEN STRANGERS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (RULED BRITANNIA, Ted Chiang)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: There Are Two Kinds of Tolerance (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
In an editorial at
,
Salman Rushdie asks why moderate Moslems do not do more speaking
out against the Miss World riots in Nigeria, the religious court
sentences of stoning to death in the same country, Egypt's
broadcast of a TV series that endorses the historical anti-Jewish
forgery "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," and several
other actions, each seeming more outrageous than the last. I was
struck by how many non-Moslems also do not protest. This got me
thinking about inter-ethnic relations, and who does speak up for
people in other ethnic groups, at least as I see it from a Jewish
perspective.
What I think I have seen in my lifetime is that Jews came out of
the Holocaust with a determination to create a better world
where such occurrences as what they had suffered could not
happen again. They decided that they had to be an active voice
for any oppressed people and to set a positive example in the
hopes that other people would follow suit.
They fought for Civil Rights to help blacks. Jews were
extremely active in freedom marches and civil rights protests.
The "Mississippi Burning" murders are held as an example of
intolerance to blacks. Murdered were one black and two Jews.
Jews were pivotal in the founding of the NAACP. They worked to
be an example and a light for other people.
During the 1960s the tide of public opinion started to shift.
There was a popular belief that we needed a tolerant world to
find peace. We needed to include all oppressed people.
Emblematic was the New York City Police Department who found
themselves underrepresented in blacks, Latinos, Asians, and
Jews. They set up programs to increase their numbers of blacks,
Latinos, and Asians. Why not Jews? Well, they said, just
because a group was underrepresented, it does not mean they are
discriminated against. This argument had previously been used
as an excuse for not hiring any of the four groups, now it was
being used only against Jews. Jews could have complained at the
time, but these jobs did not seem important to them and they
felt they really didn't need to. By and large they were making
it on their own. Many were successful and those where were not
were frequently helped by the Jewish community. The attitude
was don't whine and complain because we really could do what we
needed ourselves and we would hold the help of other groups in
reserve for some time when we would really need it.
By the time I started working in the Bell system they were
instituting affirmative action programs for groups that had been
discriminated against. There were special programs to recruit
Asians, Hispanics, and Afro-Americans. No effort was made to
recruit Jews because it was assumed they could make it on their
own. As one of my Chinese supervisors explained it, Jews didn't
get any affirmative action because they had never been
discriminated against in the Bell System the way Chinese were.
At least one incident comes to mind. In the name of promoting
tolerance, they approvingly played a videotape of a black
speaker who blithely slipped anti-Jewish comments into his talk.
The affirmative action department resolutely refused to have any
program even to acknowledge that there had been discrimination
against Jews at the same time there was against other groups.
There was, of course. There were no Jews whatsoever hired
before the 1920s and very few before the 1940s. Richard Feynman
said he would have worked for Bell given the opportunity but he
knew that being Jewish it never would have been offered to him.
(Personal note: for several years I and my wife wrote paragraphs
about Jewish heritage and published them on company bulletin
boards. It was not much, but something was done.) However, for
the most part Jews did not care a lot about the injustice
because they were getting by without special help. And the
world in general seemed to be moving in the direction of
tolerance.
Meanwhile in Crown Heights, Brooklyn anti-Jewish riots turned
fatal and in the name of liberalism the Mayor of New York
decides to do nothing and let the riots burn themselves out.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries that attitude of
tolerance is a powerful force. It is just frequently being
misused. People seem to believe that we have to be tolerant of
dictatorships that allow schoolgirls to burn to death rather
than flee from fire without headscarves and abayas. We should
tolerate Egyptian government television's broadcast of their
series based on the Protocols of Zion. We should be tolerant of
fundamentalist Moslem anti-Jewish, anti-American, and anti-
everything-but-Moslem hatred in the Middle East and elsewhere.
For years a few voices have pointed out the hatred, particularly
anti-Jewish hatred, that was brewing in the Arab press and also
strongly in Arab grade schools. Official state newspapers
resurrect anti-Jewish blood libels from the Middle Ages and add
new libels of their own. Four-year-old children are taught the
religious requirement to hate Jews. The reaction of the world
was that was just a localized disagreement. "We probably don't
have to get involved. And after all, isn't it just some Jews
complaining about it? We have to overlook this supposed hatred
if we are to achieve World Peace." (There is a striking
similarity to attitudes in the 1930s.) Now that same hatred
that has festered and been ignored is choosing new targets. It
is striking out in India, in Bali, in the United States, in
Nigeria, and in Holland. And I strongly suspect it is going to
hit a lot more places. Because when it does strike out the
attitude of much of the world is that it is pardonable rage.
"It is mostly the world's fault, and the fault of America, and
the fault of Israel. Let's just ignore it this time. Like we
did last time. It is just a minor culture disagreement." And
some people who never got around to tolerating the Jews are now
claiming that this Middle Eastern hatred should be tolerated.
Somehow the public indignity and outrage at injustices done
other groups is rarely applied to injustice to the Jews. There is
an acknowledgement that the Holocaust happened, and even that has
to be fought for against those who would deny even that. But
outrage against the anti-Jewish hatred is weak and small and comes
mostly from Jews themselves.
I think that the support of tolerance and trying to create a world
of mutual respect among cultures was the right thing to do. But
the world missed the point that the hatred of intolerance should
extend to hatred of anti-Jewish bigotry as well. The truth is
that though Jews have been strong supporters of liberal causes,
they too often have been exempted from receiving the same
consideration they advocated for others. Now the left wing is
even singling out Jews for "special attention." Even tolerance
and acceptance can be used as a weapon in the right hands,
particularly if those hands are determined. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: FRIDA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: The tumultuous life of Frida Kahlo is chronicled in the
second feature film of Julie Taymor. Kahlo, a celebrated artist
and also the wife of one of the great mural artists of the
century, Diego Rivera, led a tempestuous life of pain and
genius. This film is a visual feast though too often the viewer
yearns for the focus of the film to be more on Rivera. Rating:
7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4)
The names Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are tightly linked in the
history of 20th century art. Kahlo was known for paintings that
were profound and greatly introspective. Rivera was a great
muralist and was known for cubism as well as his extreme left-
wing politics. FRIDA details the life of Kahlo and her
turbulent relationship with Rivera.
Kahlo was the daughter of a German-Jewish father and a Mexican
mother. Her father instilled in her a lust for life and a
personal force that she directs at everything that she does.
She is ever a free spirit. While Kahlo (played by Salma Hayek)
is still in college she first sees and is fascinated by Diego
Rivera (Alfred Molina). At this point Rivera is already a
famous artist. He is also already a womanizer. Then Kahlo is
in a traffic accident that leaves her unable to walk for an
extended period and in great pain for the rest of her life. She
is confined to a bed and turns to art, drawing the only subject
around of any real interest, the woman she sees in the mirror.
She does the first of her many self-portraits. Self-portraiture
would remain a large part of her work. She also teaches herself
to walk again. Rivera, on a return visit to her school, is
impressed with her talent as an artist and with her energy.
FRIDA covers their affair, their marriage, and their careers
together. Each has affairs, though Diego goes in for dalliances
a lot more than Frida is willing to tolerate. The film includes
their travels to New York and the famous Rockefeller Plaza mural
incident. (This may already be familiar to viewers from the PBS
documentary and/or the film CRADLE WILL ROCK.) When Leon
Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush) flees Stalin and travels to Mexico
Rivera and Kahlo play host to him and become involved in his
fate.
Sadly, the story of the two great artists does not really break
much new ground. The relationship between Rivera and Kahlo is
strongly reminiscent of that between John Reed and Louise Bryant
in REDS. Director Julie Taymor is not always sympathetic to
Kahlo, who has her own affairs but is hypocritically enraged by
Rivera's philandering. Kahlo allows herself to be hurt by it.
Also, one feels through the entire film that as interesting as
Kahlo was, the real story to be told would have been that of
Rivera. It is generally the verdict of history that Rivera was
the better of the two artists and the film frequently leaves us
wanting to know more of him.
Taymor herself is a great visual stylist. This is her third
film, following the hour-long FOOL'S FIRE and the film TITUS.
She also staged "The Lion King" for Broadway. She spices this
biography with some terrific surreal hallucinations and mental
images. When Rivera visits New York, Kahlo whimsically
visualizes it in terms of the film KING KONG. Taymor's
narrative is punctuated with paintings that come to life and
images on a Mexican skeleton theme. Some of the visions are
brought to life with an assist from the marvelous and morbid
Brothers Quay.
Any work by Julie Taymor is worth seeing. While this story
follows a predictable arc, it is visually stunning. I rate it a
7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: America Ferrera plays Ana, a Mexican-American woman who
has hard choices to make after she graduates high school. She
desperately wants to go to college, but her family cannot afford
it and she must take a sweat shop job. A pleasant and positive
film. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
Ana is just graduating high school, but already she seems more
mature than her mother, who fakes illnesses to manipulate her
family and to get her own way. Ana is a promising high school
student who, so her teacher thinks, might get into Columbia
University. But Ana's traditional Mexican-American family
cannot afford to send her away to school. Her father, who loves
her a great deal, still refuses to see the family broken up even
that much. Ana is unhappily slated for a job in her older
sister's dress factory, really just a sweat shop. The work is
hard and uncomfortable and hot, but Ana will get to know the
other workers, will form bonds, and will learn about life. She
will also get a view of her sister's life that she has not seen
before. Over the summer Ana will come of age in more ways than
one and will learn to value herself and to assert herself.
This is a somewhat predictable and familiar story of a young
person rejecting the future chosen by parents. We have seen it
played in different ways in films from THE JAZZ SINGER to
OCTOBER SKY. Here the story is set in the barrio of Los
Angeles. The view of life in the barrio, perhaps somewhat
romanticized, and the portrait of Ana's mother Carmen (Lupe
Ontiveros of MI FAMILIA) is where this film stands out. Carmen
is almost a barrio equivalent of Tevye from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.
She has a strange and very personal relationship with God,
leavened with a good deal of the superstitious. Carmen is
convinced that she already knows how far her daughter will
succeed in life and what life has in store for her. Ana is
short and plump and Carmen knows her daughter will end as one of
the chubby women who work in the steaming sweatshop. She loves
her daughter and wants to spare her the disappointment that she
is sure will follow her daughter's high ambitions. In some ways
she is cruel to her daughter now to be kind in the long run and
spare here the pain that will come with what Carmen sees as
Ana's inevitable failure. She herself has gotten no further
than to work in her daughter's factory and she cannot imagine
that her daughter has any more potential than she had. Ana does
not want to be pigeon-holed as a common laborer to be exploited
by the chic Beverly Hills boutiques. She is sure she has much
better than that in her.
There are not enough films about the Hispanic community, and this
one is certainly entertaining. The story just lacks a lot in
originality. REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES is a likable low-budget
film with a lot of heart. It was made for HBO films, probably
with an eye to being shown on cable. The film is mostly in
English, but there is much that is in Spanish with English
subtitles. I rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on
the -4 to +4 scale. (Is it really possible to decide mid-summer
that one wants to go to Columbia University in the fall and
still get the application in on time?) [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: BETWEEN STRANGERS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Three women who do not feel they have control of their
destinies. They find that they are more empowered than they
realized through some mystical force they all share. A very
good cast tries hard to help along a movie-of-the-week story.
Rating: 4 (0 to 10), 0 (-4 to +4)
In three nearly unconnected stories occurring simultaneously,
three women break out of their dominated tracks and learn they
are empowered to live and control their own lives. BETWEEN
STRANGERS has a good cast, good direction, but a story that
would be cliched for a TV-movie. Director/writer Edoardo Ponti
debuts with a small production with several name actors in the
Toronto-filmed production.
We have here the story of three desperate women, each confined
in a discouraging life. Sophia Loren who is, incidentally, the
mother of the director, plays Olivia. She works in a
convenience store but has powerful artistic urges she finds it
difficult to control. This need to express herself is mocked by
her wheelchair bound husband John (Pete Postlethwaite with an
American accent) who has no trouble whatsoever expressing
himself. John manipulates Olivia through his disability and his
dependency on her.
Natalia (Mira Sorvino) is an accomplished photojournalist. She
has just had a photograph on the cover of "Time" magazine. Not
bad, but as her domineering father Alexander (Klaus Maria
Brandauer) points out, at her age he had already had several
"Time" covers. And there is something about this cover that is
mysterious to Natalia herself. But Alexander wants her to
forget these questions and continue on the path he has chosen
for her.
Cellist Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger) is dominated by the
demands of her position in an orchestra. She also has deep
fears when her abusive father (Malcolm McDowell) is released
unexpectedly early from prison and seeks her out. She fears he
will once more inflict himself into her life.
These women are tied together with a vision of a little girl.
The girl has about the same role as the monolith has in 2001: A
SPACE ODYSSEY. Perhaps that puts this film into the realm of
Magical Realism. There is also another plot element not
explained and so it too seems to be Magical Realism. If so that
may be about the only plot element that would distinguish this
film from several other similar empowerment films. This one
probably got such a distinguished cast more for who the director
was than for excitement for the story.
The film was well-attended at the Toronto Fest, probably because
of the distinguished cast and for the fact it was filmed and set
in Toronto. It was probably good as a starting point for
Edoardo Ponti to film his own script, but he should get better
material next time. I rate BETWEEN STRANGERS a 4 on the 0 to 10
scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I recently read RULED BRITANNIA by Harry Turtledove, and have a
few comments on that. RULED BRITANNIA is set in an alternate
"Elizabethan" England, where the Spanish Armada won, and features
such well-known characters as Shakespeare and Marlowe.
But first, a quote from a Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel article:
'And, [Robert Schmunk] said, sometimes writers in the genre have a
flawed sense of history. [Harry] Turtledove cited an example of
this in an alternate Civil War novel in which the South had won
the war and Jefferson Davis was campaigning for re-election as its
president. "As soon as I saw that," Turtledove said, "I didn't
want to read it. The Confederate constitution called for one
six-year term and he was not eligible for re-election. If the
author didn't know that, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
So why read it?"'
This from a man who just wrote a book set in 1597 in which a
character refers to a "dentist."
The word did not come into use in the English language until
1759.
Okay, I'm being picky.
But for that matter, the concept of sexual orientation (as in
Marlowe's protestations that God made him that way so it wasn't
his doing that he liked boys) is also much more modern.
"Football," however, does pre-date the era. So far as I can tell,
"maricon" and "cojones" also were indeed terms used in the
Castillian of the era. (One must be careful these days, as the
Spanish heard in this country is much more Mexican or other Latin
American Spanish. For example, the use of the verb "chingar" in
Phillipian England would be completely wrong.)
The plays, while they all map to real plays by Shakespeare (except
for KING PHILIP and BOUDICCA, of course), seem to have been
written at completely different times. For example, ALL'S WELL
THAT ENDS WELL was written sometime after 1600, not before 1597
as here, while LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST was written in 1593 and not in
progress in 1597. (However, there is evidence that Shakespeare
did write a play entitled LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON sometime before
1598, so maybe it was actually under its real title in RULED
BRITANNIA.) HAMLET also came much later, and while the date is
about right for THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, it's unlikely that
play (and the Falstaff character in it) would even exist, as it
was specifically written because Queen Elizabeth liked Falstaff
in the Henriad and requested more of him. But in RULED
BRITANNIA, there was no Henriad.
(Yeah, I know SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE abused history as well.
Turtledove is no Stoppard.)
There also seems to be some rule of Conservation of Eye-Stabbing
in Deptford, since in our world that was how and where Marlowe
died, while in RULED BRITANNIA, it was someone else. (Though
Marlowe also dies in pretty much the same way after all.)
I found the use in conversation of all the lines from Shakespeare
annoying after a while, but not surprising given the sorts of
jokes Turtledove goes in for.
I hate Dogberry in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, and Strawberry is no
improvement. (I wish one could get a Dogberry-free MUCH ADO ABOUT
NOTHING the way one can get a Jar-Jar-Binks-free STAR WARS: THE
PHANTOM MENACE.)
I'm not convinced a play about rising up against invaders and
*failing* would be all that rousing to the populace.
I also don't think Turtledove understands the issue over Henry
VIII's divorce. Henry didn't claim he could have the divorce
because he wanted it (though that was the fact), but he at least
put forth an argument to justify it on Church grounds--namely,
that her previous marriage to his brother made a marriage between
the two of them forbidden (Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21). (Of
course, this conflicts with Deuteronomy 25:5, which is why there
were so many opinions.) And in fact, he was not asking for a
divorce per se, but an annulment. The Anglican Church did not
then (and does not now) countenance divorce; Henry VIII was a
one-time deal. So Shakespeare could not ask for a "bill of
divorcement" just on the grounds that he "repented the marriage"
and "Romish doctrines were now overthrown." (Well, he could ask,
but his chances of getting it were nil.) It's only now that the
Anglican Church is considering allowing anulments the way the
Catholic Church does, so if anything they are *more* strict.
And as part of a bizarre synchronicty affecting only me, not
only had I just finished reading Lisa Goldstein's THE ALCHEMIST'S
DOOR in which John Dee and Edward Kelley are major characters when
I picked up RULED BRITANNIA and who should be being led to his
death in the first scene but Edward Kelley? But wait, it gets
better. I then went to the library and picked up a flyer for the
17th Biennial Shakespeare Colloquium. I opened it to discover the
theme was "The Alchemy of the Spirit of the Spirit" and one of the
lectures was "Prospero, John Dee, and the Magic of the Book"!!
My reading of Frances Sherwood's THE BOOK OF SPLENDOR was
intentional, so doesn't count toward this synchronicity. What
does count is one more detail, courtesy of the Venerable Bede,
whose ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY I just read shortly after. The
argument that Bede cites the church as applying is that because
in marriage man and woman become "one flesh", when your brother
marries a woman she becomes your sister, and hence is forbidden
to you. (I'm not saying I agree, mind you. Sounds a bit forced
to me.)
I can also say that Ted Chiang's new story, "Liking What You See:
A Documentary," is up to Chiang's usual standards. It reminded me
a bit of Greg Egan's "Reasons to be Cheerful" and a bit of Kurt
Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," while also being quite distinct
from either of them. Chiang takes on "lookism," but doesn't
decide for the reader which side he or she should be on. Rather
he presents positives and negatives for both sides, and leaves
the matter as ambiguous as, say, the matter of faith in his
"Hell Is the Absence of God." [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Europe was created by history. America was created
by philosophy.
-- Margaret Thatcher
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