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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 7/3/98 -- Vol. 17, No. 1
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URLs of the week:
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/bizarre.imagery/albacon/ and
http://www.sff.net/people/rothman/albacon.htp. As proof that
science fiction conventions have gotten out of control, there are
now *two* conventions named Albacon. Rumor (or rumour) has it that
membership in one gets you a compliementary membership in the
other, but I have not verified that. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. Suppose the bumper sticker had said, "Cultivate your own dope.
Plant a Black man." I think people would have been a little
shocked. Our society has supposedly progressed beyond the point
where people feel comfortable insulting an entire race or ethnic
group. It just is not done. You just don't say things like that.
It is not funny, and it shows just a mind of questionable
intellect. In fact such a bumper sticker would be an open
invitation for a smashed windshield.
But that is not what it said. Actually what it said was "Cultivate
your own dope. Plant a man."
It takes a certain kind of person to enjoy a joke like that. But
once you are that kind of person whether the joke is about Irish or
men or women or Blacks or Arabs or Jews is purely a matter of
taste. Still somehow that is supposed to be different. Somehow
insulting men has come to be acceptable.
Now I wrote the first part of this editorial something like January
of this year and never wrote more. Why? Because I knew it was
going to be unpopular with friends. My best examples come from
people I actually like. Also it has happened when I complain about
what I consider to be the excesses of feminism, I have gotten angry
phone calls from women telling me to remove their names from our
mailing list. Apparently they were quite upset that anyone would
even publish a point of view varying from theirs. That's fine.
Anyone who wants to be taken off the list can be. What sparked my
coming back to the subject was John Leo's editorial in the May 11,
1998, US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, which said almost precisely the
same thing I had been planning to say.
Years ago I made a sort of joke myself. I said that if you want to
make a joke like ethnic humor, but did not want to offend people,
tell "bigot" jokes. You know. "There were two bigots working on a
house and one was throwing away half the nails...." You probably
know the rest of that joke. But the idea is that nobody runs in
and defends bigots. Well apparently in our society men are so
conditioned not to stand up for themselves that we are having a
flood of anti-male humor and nobody is bothering to point out what
bigotry it really is.
It has become so acceptable to tell anti-male hate jokes that close
friends and family participate in it openly. These I might add are
women who are active in diversity work. (None is Evelyn, by the
way.) One told me that men suffer from "testosterone poisoning,"
and then was surprised I did not think it was funny. If she had
openly talked about a black person whose behavior was due to
"melanin poisoning" she would not be around the company for long I
think. Another circulated a page of jokes with a section of anti-
male jokes. A third has tacked on her refrigerator "a woman needs
a man like a fish needs a bicycle." AT&T and Lucent make an effort
to have a comfortable and diverse work environment. I would bet
that these women think of themselves as being part of the solution
and would not like the suggestion that they are actually part of
the problem in that effort.
The company itself fosters programs that have told participants
that there is no such thing as reverse bigotry. The assumption is
that women cannot be sexist, blacks cannot be racist, etc. And
ketchup is a vegetable. In fact the protected groups usually
harbor the worst offenders. In my circles at work the most racist
comments I have heard have come from a black man; the most sexist
comments I have heard have all come from women; and for that matter
the worst profanity has also come from women. And the reason is
probably the same in all three cases. It is in each case the
person has been convinced by company sponsored programs that no
apology is expected from them. They cannot even be accused of bad
behavior. We are told to think of them only as the victims, never
the prepetrators.
Outside of work the hypocrisy is even stronger. I have seen in the
so-called "humor" sections of bookstores books advocating that
women "abolish" men. I have never seen the symmetric opposite. I
believe in Northampton, Massachusetts, a town I frequently visit,
there is a bookstore whose open policy is to exclude all male
authors. I have never seen a bookstore whose open policy is to
exclude all female authors. There are also publishers with the
same policy of excluding male authors.
The person who says "this was done to my group, nobody should do it
to anybody again," is interested in ending injustice. The person
who says "this was done to my group, we should be able to do it to
others," is interested only in power. My mindset is not to give
respect until I get it. The women who male-bash in the name of
humor are bigots, pure and simple. But the fact that they are not
just tolerated but actually encouraged by feminists reveals a great
deal about the whole Women's Movement. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. OUT OF SIGHT (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: An escaped bank robber heads for a big
score while being chased by a female federal
marshal, each of whom really wants to know the
other better. Hunter and quarry are
romantically entangled, but are they going to
let romanticism get in the way of their
professional interests? Steven Soderbergh
balances light and dark elements of this
sometimes comic, sometimes violent adaptation
of the Elmore Leonard novel. Rating: 6 (0 to
10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
This is the season for "good guy" bank robbers. Earlier this year
we had THE NEWTON BOYS about the most successful bank robbers in
American history, but who remained nice guys through it all.
Perhaps inspired by them is Jack Foley (George Clooney) who has
robbed more than 200 banks without anyone ever being hurt. That
record is almost believable as the film opens with Foley using his
charm and a clever plot to rob one more bank. This time his luck
is against him and he is caught and thrown into prison. Nor do the
breaks come his way when he tries to escape from prison. Just as
he has tunneled out, gun-loving federal marshal Karen Sisco
(Jennifer Lopez) is there by chance. Foley and company have to
take shotgun from her and kidnap her, throwing her in the same
trunk in which Foley will hide. Even under the circumstances there
is chemistry between them, and even after she escapes, each
continues to think about the other. This could be bad for either
of them since professionally they are opponents.
George Clooney is sort of a bland actor who floats along on his
good looks. I have yet to see him show anything akin to emotional
intensity in a role. And because his characters are not stressed,
we never see what they are made of. That gives him a nice sturdy
screen persona, but it is not going to win him any acting awards.
Clooney glides through Jack Foley effortlessly and leaving behind
little memorable but his smile. Jennifer Lopez's Karen Sisco is
only a little more interesting. She is more of a prime mover in
the story, but as is much to frequently the case in 90s popular
films, the main characters more have to look good than to create
memorable characters. More interesting roles went to Ving Rhames,
Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, and especially Dennis Farina. Watch
for two major actors who have cameo roles.
Scott Frank's screenplay is deliberately non-linear and a little
confusing, jumping without warning into or out of flashbacks.
Perhaps this is even a good thing since the story itself is fairly
straightforward. The solution to the puzzle may be simple, but
there is enough spin on the ball when the story is told to make the
viewer feel good when the pieces fit together. When the film
starts we have several seemingly disconnected strands of plot with
different characters, but the strands are quickly brought together.
Some of the photographic touches are a little obvious. Scenes that
take place under the warm Florida sun are shot with bright colors,
but scenes that take place in Detroit are shot mostly with a blue
filter to give them a sort of run-down look. The dialog is
humorous, but a little more down-to-earth than Quentin Tarantino
might offer. But then Elmore Leonard has his own strange touch
when it come to dialog. There is little actual sex in the film
that the audience sees--two characters undress in front of each
other, but we see little we could not see on the beach. The
conclusion of the film, on the other hand, is fairly gory and we do
see the blood.
OUT OF SIGHT is not one of the great crime films, but it is
entertainment with a little challenge to the audience. It does not
push the outside of the envelope, but it gets its job done. I give
it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619