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The Retail Worker's Dark Weekend

For various reasons, I try never to shop on "Black Friday Weekend", avoiding the post-Thanksgiving madness and the media-constructed frenzy of shop-til-you-drop consumerist Americans and their lemming-like trip to the malls. I've worked in retail too long to see the romance, I don't like crowds, and frankly, the "bargains" of this shopping holiday are overstated.

It's also the case, these days, that I will probably also be working for most of it.

Black Friday this year was notable for a couple of things - one was the encroachment of the shopping into the actual Thursday of Thanksgiving, and the second was a planned, notable, if debatably successful attempt at labor actions outside of many Wal-Marts around the country. Even by the organizers' generous assessments, the number of workers participating in these protests was in the hundreds, though media coverage did clearly amplify the noise and the effect of the protests.

The remarkable thing, really, is that it's taken much of my lifetime for Thanksgiving to be breached by retailers as sacrosanct; only Easter Sunday - and Christmas Day, I suppose - remain as the day of no shopping, and that anachronism may be the hardest to topple, but it's also the one that makes the least sense (at some point, Christian traditionalism will be damned). Literally 20 years ago, I was having conversations with family and friends that one day, obviously, retailers would launch the "Thanksgiving Day Sale" - I mean, heck, one day, Macy*s was sure to notice that there was a crowd of people outside the store after that darn parade, if nothing else - and one more domino would fall on the notion that for one day, at least, we could forestall the real American pastime (shopping, not football).

Let's be clear: we don't close stores for the sake of shoppers. Keeping shopping out of Thanksgiving wasn't some kind of "have respect for this important American holiday, consumerism can wait." No, the point of closing stores was simple human decency for the American worker. Let's take one day, just one day, and nobody, or almost nobody, should have to work. The problem with Thanksgiving, arguably, started with my company, Starbucks; we're the most major corporation I know of that sees no particular reason to close its outlets on any holiday at all. Almost all Starbucks are open on Thanksgiving, for at least some portion of the normal day. Many are open on Christmas. We are almost all open on Easter, normal hours. We close early on days like New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July. But we are open. Always open. And people get bewildered when we close, even for obvious practical reasons, like a hurricane.

But Starbucks isn't just a restaurant - food being the general exception to "closed on the holiday" - we are a retailer, and we are located in shopping centers and malls like the other retailers and we sell more than just drinks and food and we're helping, I think, to erode the idea tbat there's one day, any day, when a retailer should be closed. 

And the people who get punished, when we lose even one day of being closed... are workers.

I was struck, this year, by the fact that, however small, people (and the media) seemed to take nte of the workers. It wasn't a big story, and it was surely subsumed by the stories of stampedes and fights and all the attendant madness of crowds. But the Wal-Mart action and the Thursday opens did get people talking, and talking about what these things mean to workers. Which is, after all, almost all of us. We are a nation of service workers, now, and it means that many of us work to serve the rest of us. It's a different equation about work and what we think of people who serve and it's complicated... and I think we're only just beginning to sort out the cultural and social implications, never mind the political and economic ones.

The Wal-Mart action revived the favorite liberal topics of how bad the big W is, how badly its workers are treated... but Wal-Mart in many ways is really just a stand-in for most of retailing, where the wages are low, the hours are long, and the rights of workers mean but so much. Attempts to unionize most retail workers, in or out of Wal-Mart, are rarely successful, and are unlikely to succeed en masse or long term. To say this is to be labeled "anti-union", and I'm not; but the realities are stark. I've been in retail a long time, and I've known many, many of the women (mostly) and men who work there. Don't take my word for it... but most of them are not interested in a union. And won't be. They are students and mothers and transient and free thinkers. Not being organized provides a kind of flexibility and set of options many workers want, and even need. Unions have not found a way to convince retail workers, generally, of their value long term. And still, that's unlikely to change much.

Even more to the point, as I've said before, because we are no longer a nation of mostly manufacturing jobs, Unions do not really respresent the majority experience of most workers in this country now. Yet "Organized Labor" is allowed, mostly by Democrats, to serve as the "Working Person's Voice" even when the policies unions promote don't necessarily refelects the needs and opinions of most workers. What we need, really, is a change in how we talk and think about the issues of work and labor in this country, and try harder to develop a sensible labor policy that reflects who we actually are and what we actually do. That's why, I suspect, the Affordable Care Act has managed, quietly, to be  a key selling point of President Obama and the Democrats this past election - it's not perfect, but it makes sure many workers will get health insurance, a practical slution many people need. Similarly with the debates of contraception and abortion - in the place where airy philosophical debates mean less than the practical issues of real people actually face.

I don't think we can "save Thanksgiving" from the retail encroachment; the wall has been breached, business needs have overtaken simple decency and humane respect for workers and their families. We will, as we do, work around these new relaities. We are workers, after all. But I think this year may mark another, more refreshing turning point, one where the discussions around our working lives, and the pratcical need for a life beyond work, begins to become more public, louder, and more insistent. It doesn't mean service workers will unionize, and new laws may not be the answer (certainbly, that's not the whole answer); the change we need is cultural, social... not just political, and not just economic. 

And I could go on... but I really have to get on with my day - I have to work this evening.

Articles We Never Finished Reading: Survey Says... Misogyny Is Bad (Thank Goddess)

"There was one description of the president that truly seized me:

'The metrosexual black Abe Lincoln has emerged as a hyper-partisan, hyper-liberal, elitist politician with more than a bit of the trimmer in him.'

This sentence is just so deliciously ridiculous, insulting and incendiary — perfect Republican fodder.

Let’s dissect it, shall we? Scalpel!

First, there is the word metrosexual. It is usually defined as a man keenly interested in grooming and preening. Despite the sexual root, the term isn’t rooted in sexuality. In its truest sense, President Obama of mom jeans infamy — as he told the 'Today Show' in 2009, 'I’m a little frumpy' — is far less metrosexual than Mitt Romney of the perfect hair, copper tan and Gap skinny jeans.

But this term is rarely appropriately applied. On the contrary, it’s often delivered with a snicker to question sexuality and feminize the subject, and femininity in a misogynistic culture is the greatest of sins. Metrosexual has become a roundabout homophobic taunt."

 - Charles Blow, "Dirty Racial Politics" in today's New York Times.

I give Blow credit for identifying a "misogynistic culture" that makes feminization of men an insult; I'm a little more perplexed that Blow seems to suggest that this insult is, well, really insulting. If we're trying to end a misogynistic culture, rather than just admit its existence (powerlessness... there's another good issue to discuss), then it doesn't help to just identify emasculation and then complain about it. That, it strikes me, is just giving the tactic all the more credence. Making a man seem woman-like wouldn't be an insult if we stopped treating being a woman as insulting.

"Metrosexual" is a dopey word and its use in the Ricketts material was, obviously, telling; in the context of that extreme sentence, a volume of assumptions and dislikes of the President certainly were made clear, and who wouldn't expect an Obama cheerleader like Blow (who later admits that Obama is a "moderate left centrist" who can anger "devout liberals", as if liberal ideas were religious dogma) to defend him? Blow is meant to represent a fresher, younger approach to opinion writing, and it's things like identifying anti-woman biases that add to that formulation; but Blow is, in most ways, more of the same on the NYT Op Eds - a supportive Democrat who wants the simplicity of two party distinctions and shows his contrariness by blaming Lefties who Go Too Far.

In general, I never really finish Blow's pieces - his hook is to accompany his pieces with some element of recent survey data, data that invariably shows him to be absolutely riight about his conclusions, which in turn our usually that some Democratic friendly idea, proposal, or candidate is good or right (or both). His opening paragraphs are lively enough (that "scalpel!" reference, however trite, is bracing), but he devolves into boilerplate and statsical citings pretty quickly, and it's prety much downhill from there.

I'd be more impressed if Blow was braver, if his opinion on a particular subject wasn't so obviously telegraphed by whatever graph accompanies his column, or at least if he'd question the whole reliance on poll driven opinionating a lot more than he does. Being more adventurous - which he seems readily capable of - would lift his op-ed writing out of the ordinary, and beyond partisan boilerplate. Or is it too girly of me to point that out?

Articles We Never Finished Reading: The Crying Game

If the nineties were the decade of Prozac, all hollow-eyed and depressed, then this is the era of Xanax, all jumpy and edgy and short of breath. In Prozac Nation, published in 1994, Elizabeth Wurtzel describes a New York that today seems as antique as the one rendered by Edith Wharton. In the book, she evokes a time when twenty­somethings lived in Soho lofts, dressed for parties in black chiffon frocks, and ended the night crying on the bathroom floor. Twenty years ago, just before Kurt Cobain blew off his head with a shotgun, it was cool for Kate Moss to haunt the city from the sides of buses with a visage like an empty store and for Wurtzel to confess in print that she entertained fantasies of winding up, like Plath or Sexton, a massive talent who died too soon, “young and sad, a corpse with her head in the oven.”

            Lisa Miller, "Listening to Xanax," New York Magazine (current issue)

Miller actually kicks off this article remembering the night she rummaged through her dying mother's medicine cabinet - in front of her mother's home care nurse - looking for an Ativan, surely a sign of the bad to come all by itself. But Miller's evocation, and dismissal, of Wurtzel (as fashionable now as it was when her book first appeared - Wurtzel will forever be punished for speaking truth to medicalizing women's problems) is itself an all-too-glib indication of missing the point: there will still be late nights of crying on the bathroom floor, whether you choose a happy pill like Prozac or an anesthetizer like Xanax or Ativan. We just haven't gotten to that part of the story yet.

And PS, congratulations to the various drug companies enjoying free advertising for their trademarked drug product names!

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Rush Limbaugh beat me to it.

There I was, trying to explain to my Mom last weekend about the sense that the "insured contraception mandate" discussion was not, as Republicans claimed, about religion, but indeed about contraception, I also said, as a follow-on, that I thought the subtext of the "debate" - and the reason Republicans got some traction on it - was because the real issue was sex, and Americans are uncomfortable with talking about that.

And then Rush Limbaugh took the subtext and made it text.

If there's something heartening about the latest Rush furor, I think it may be that feminism finally had a clear example of "slut shaming" that made an often abstract discussion very literal. Slut Shaming is trying to marginalize voices, especially women's voices, in political discussions by calling people things like sluts and whores, implications that are negative, sexual, and promiscuous. Sandra Fluke, a law student at Georgetown, was offering a reasonable, thoughtful take one the issues of contraceptive cost and availability, and there was Rush, to call her a slut and a whore.

Unfortunately, I suspect that raising awareness about Slut Shaming is about as good as it gets; what's really problematic here is that conservatives will continue to get truck out of the contraceptive debate because liberals, even as they defended and praised Sandra Fluke, tended to run away from the uncomfortable aspect of the contraception debate that is  the reality of our American cuture: that is, that we are nation at once obsessed about sex and deeply conflicted about the issues around it. And the idea of people having sex, especially a great deal of it, tends to raise flags about morality that cloud reasonable policy discussions.

Which is to say... it's fine if you want contraception, ladies... just don't be all sexed up about it.

The Iron Lady: The Lioness In Winter

A few years back, I finally caught A Cry In The Dark, the Meryl Streep movie where she plays Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman whose daughter was taken by wild dingoes. It's the "Dingoes Took My Baby!" movie. I'd avoided it in theaters, my own moment of Meryl overload - too many accents, too many weepy dramas, all of that.

That was silly - A Cry in The Dark is a fine film, and Streep is, naturally and predictably, quite good in it. It's also less deliberately tragic than some of her earlier efforts, more about the sensational trial Hemmings went through than the event itself.

What struck me more, and stayed with me, is how seamlessly Streep inserted heself into an ensemble cast, not being bigger than the film or her costars, but one of them, and part of the film.

Streep has had a fascinating career as America's Greatest Living Actress; it's an assessment that got made very early in her career, and the remarkable thing, really, is that she has lived up to that rep, pretty much unbroken, ever since. Yes, even with Death Becomes Her on her resume.

The other interesting thing, though, when I thought about it, is how Streep has made her name playing, in essence, smaller parts. Nearly every film she's made is an ensemble piece. She's rarely the sole, or central, point of attention. She's played wives and mothers, and committed professionals, most of them part of a group, a family, or a team. And that, I think, is what complicates her history as an Oscar nominee - her chances hinge on the strength of the ensemble, and how one takes the whole film. Which is why, for instance, she wouldn't win for A Cry in the Dark - she's the best thing in an okay film.

My point is, really, that Streep has redefined what it is to be a star, largely on her own terms; which, by now, it should be clear are pretty feminist. Streep is a proponent of women's lives and women's roles, and a woman's approach to making film and art.  What's remarkable, really, is how she's been able to chart a course doing largely that in a business often aligned against anything of the sort.

All of which is why The Iron Lady may well be a breakout chance for Streep to win an Oscar (or not - apparently the Gods are smiling on Viola Davis). Playing Margaret Thatcher may well be Streep's first real turn in a "Great Lady" part, the central role in a film built entirely around her character. I don't think Streep has ever made herself the central star of a biographical picture, ever. But of course, The Iron Lady is not like other biopics. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, The Iron Lady asks a question not usually asked of biographical subjects: what happens after the most important thing you've ever done? 

The Iron Lady is a fascinating look at what it means to age, and to age out of the spotlight that once you held. Some have compained that the film is an injustice or an insult to Thatcher; I'd disagree. Lloyd hits the high notes of the Thatcher period in Great Britain, and doesn't give any easy answers about Thatcherism, either. But by showing an elderly woman dealing with what it means to be past your prime, Lloyd, and Streep, illuminate aging and confronting mortality with more light than I think I've seen in, like, ever.

Margaret Thatcher, of course, is a strong, indomitable figure to portray, and Streep goes at it with gusto. Thatcher was the first, and one of the few, women to serve in Parliament, the first to rise through the ranks of the Conservative (Tory) Party, and the first woman Prime Minister. Because she is a peer of Ronald Reagan and carried strong views, conservatives here and in England tend to lump a lot of what happened in the eighties into one big right wing ball. But Thatcher was very much her own creature. Her sense of conservatism was, to her, a kind of common sense. She grew up a grocer's daughter and believed, firmly, in the value of hard work and a sense of purpose. Her rejection of government ownership and social welfare came out of her belief that both things held back individual ambitions.

It would be easy to make a political biograpy of this; Thatcher herself did, over several volumes, discussing her time as Prime Minister. But Lloyd is more interested in the drive and ambition of the actual woman, the details that make a personal life. The film focuses on the support and care Thatcher got from her marriage; her husband Denys being her chief cheerleader and rock of support. When Thatcher's hotel was bombed by IRA separatists, she was in her suite of rooms with Denys, and her initial response wasn't about about strength or justice... it was trying to find her husband.

In the film, Thatcher is hauunted by the presence of Denys, still nattering aorund, offering advice, refusing to leave, even though he's already passed. This allows for a framing device that brings in flashbacks to Thatcher's rise and eventual success as prime Minister, and also to look at the questions of aging and dementia (which Thatcher's daughter has alluded to in interviews). But the film is not a tragedy, nor is Thatcher protrayed as simply weak and decaying in her senior years. Instead, we see Mrs. Thatcher ultimately apply to herself what she always believed: that there is no point to wallowing. One has to get up, get tough, and soldier on. In this case, alone.

This is great lady stuff, Katharine Hepburn stuff, and Streep, as usual, disappears into the role, carrying off not just the accent, but the sense of what it is to be such a commanding, determined presence. When she gives her doctor a long lecture on how one's hopes and beliefs becomes one's character, she is authoritative, yet also immensely human and true. One can debate the ultimate value or success of Thatcher's policies, but in another sense, we hold the debate on her terms: the world we have, post-Privatisation and after Thatcher ended or changed much of the social welfare structure of Britain, is a world that it is not nearly as apocalyptic as her worst critics insisted it would be. And that, in some sense, proves her right.

Lloyd hasn't delivered the sort of pure, unvarnished ode to Thatcher's commanding greatness that many wanted or expected, and there is, surely, a time and a place for that film. But this film, which captures and dissects what it is to age, and how we, as a society, determinedly look away from the hard parts of the final aspects of aging, is a remarkable, and worthwhile, effort. And I suspect, over time, the value of The Iron Lady will become clearer, and another Streep performance will get its due.

Or we could just give her the Oscar and get it over with.

By All Means, Let's Make The Election About Domesticated Fags And Loose Living Tramps (Thanks, Newt!)

I have to admit I pretty much figured this year's Presidential election was foreordained as a Romney vs. Obama slugfest over the economy, with a predictable, if dismal, win for President Obama. And that's probably what we're still going to get. But how we get there, apparently, still matters.

If Romney has failed to exactly inspire the Republican base, the last couple of weeks haven't been entirely about him. What's changed, I thnk, is that Rconservatives have decided that they can't win on economic issues... and so they unpacked their favorite old trunk, the thing we often call "social issues."

Maybe it's age, maybe it's the sense that I've heard this song before, but my patience for euphemisms is pretty much gone. And so, I am tired of hearing about "social issues" when what people mean is "let's say awful things about blacks, gays and other minorities and see if Americans will give in to their worst instincts."

"Social Issues" is supposed to be about abortion, gay marriage, "family values" and the like, but really, it's about dressing up age-old prejudices and judgements about others without saying the ugly words. What's wrong with gay marriage? Something about men, women, tradition and procreation... since marriage equality opponents insist, all the time, that they don't hate gays. And what's behind the spate of new restrictive abortion laws and the brouhaha over Catholic charities and insurance coverage for contraception? Concern for life and religious freedom, not hatred of women or opposition to contraception, since that's what they keep telling us.

If there's a reason American conservatism has utterly failed to broaden its appeal, certainly in the past thirty years, it has a lot to do with just how negatve and unappealing their pitch has been. There's been virtually nothing positive that conservatives have had to offer, nothing but anti-this and opposition to that. Immigration, in fact, is a perfectly sensible issue that really does need reform, but it's become a "social issue" about the Mexican border and a specific group of undocumented immigrants because... well, "anti-Hispanic" isn't attractive, either. 

It's not surprising, really, that conservatives have drifted back into this corner; an actual election about economic injustice and issues like health care would have been an interesting discussion, especially if the right had something to offer groups of people - especially in the working class - who have really been shafted, left and right, over time. But of course, Republicans have nothing to offer on jobs, housing, financial reform, or health care. All they have is an intense dislike for President Obama and anything he's done on those issues. 

I'm not sure Mitt Romney really does have anything to offer, but to his credit, he's studiously avoided reverting to the social issues morass unless heavily pushed; it's not really the Mormon way (Orrin Hatch is a good example of this), and it's not Romney's style to appeal to people's worse instincts. So perhaps it's understandable that the "not-Romneys" of the primary season have found themselves forced to resort to the basest appeals to the base.

Of all of them, though, I suspect the real turning point  was South Carolina and Newt Gingrich's win; Gingrich really had nothing to offer except boilerplate rhetoric built on right wing talk radio bromides, the familiar litany of how things are terrible and liberals are to blame for it.  It's Gingrich who, rather skillfully, re-introduced the sham issue of insurance coverage for contraception. And Gingrich offered the kind of rhetorical cover that conservatives need to revert to "social issues" as their driving force - we're not clased-minded bigots... we're decent people looking out for America, and the Constitution.

Of course, Gingrich himself is a twice divorced Catholic convert who would, literally, say just about anything to win an election, and the dissonance between who he is and what he says just got more pronounced as his prominence grew. Rick Santorum, on the other hand, doesn't have quite that problem. Unlike almost any of the other conservatives who got big and flamed out, Santorum doesn't have to go to some of the ugliest places to sell his fealty to "social issues"; he's already been there (remember "man on dog"?). And so Santorum pitches himself as the populist voice of the unheard working (white) man (and we do mean men), and all of the "social" issues are covered as well.

I don't know if Santorum can actually ride this wave all the way to the Republican nopmination; it would be frankly hilarious if he pulls it off, but we (and he) can't possibly be that lucky. It's telling, though, that Romney and his team are, yet again, flummoxed by Santorum's success. He's the one thing they don't quite have an argument against: a true believer who thinks moderation is for wimps.

Either way, an election that revolves around the angry right renewing its worst calls against gays, pushing familiar virgin/whore/mommy lines about women's roles in society, selling familiar prejudices about blacks and hispanics... is an election held on familiar ground that they really can't win. There's too many of us, too few of them, and too many like me who are tired of listening to carefully chosen words meant to mask really hateful ideas and prejudices. None of it makes President Obama a better President, but it certainly makes clear the starkness of the choice. Which is a much easier election than the one about those pesky problems with jobs and housing and health care and such. 

Euphemisms And Political Math... And Birth Control

Abortion is a form of birth control.

If I have to explain the obviousness of that statement, then we both have a problem... and a good explanation of the wild politics of the past week.

Nothing was stranger, and yet more American, than all the men - and it was almost always a man - who said, piously, that the discussion we were having "was not about contraception" as if it were true. It's about freedom of religiion, it's about government coercion, it's about the rights of the Catholic Church...

Most obviously, this debate is all about contraception, and the fact that abortion is a form of contraception.

Lots of people said this "controversy" - and it's not "controversial" when the vast majority of women, Catholics and, in fact, most Americans favor coverage for contraception - started last November, but the seeds of this debate go back to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Remember when they tried to strip provisions to cover abortion out of the bill? That was the warning shot for this. And then, as now, a big problem is the muddle of euphemistic words like "pro-choice" and "women's health" when we discuss contraception, and more pointedly, abortion.

Liberals often seem confused by anti-abortion, pro-life rhetoric; I think part of the mistake is that many of the "reasonable", pro-choice people see two separate issues: a dispute over abortion, that may also extend to contraceptives. The truth, I think, is that many people have it backwards: truly Pro-lifers oppose contraception, birth "control" of any kind. Abortion is just the most extreme example.

Morning after pills, "Plan B", tubal ligation, the pill, IUD... there's scientifically little difference to what these approaches do to prevent pregnancy. And it's problematic to try and separate them, to try and draw some sort of "contraceptive line" where some of these are better/different/more reasonable than others. Yet, that's the "muddy middle" of the pro-choice moderates, the ones who say "safe legal and rare" and genuinely mean that abortion shouldn't really happen all that much. If at all.

There's a tacit agreement among many professional Democrats that abortion politics are in fact too loaded to touch; that while pro-life conservatives are wrong on the specifics, they're right on the emotional impact of opposing abortion and calling it baby killing. It's safer to talk about "women's health" (as if we don't know that the main differential here is... pregnancy), it's safer to try and set artificial distinctions for liberals than to take on the whole stupid, brutal underlying argument: that, at heart, conservative pro-lifers don't want women to exert control over the sexual reproductive process.

This issue - the one where we try, at a very basic level, to do something based on common sense that helps women - is a "loser" for the left because the left is terrified about being seen as favoring infanticide. And basically, my point is, we can't turn this around until liberals are willing to try harder and own it. That is, until someone can stand up and make the basic point that the breadth of contraception, from condoms to abortions, are all on a continuum, all practical and all useful, we're kind of doomed. We wind up wilting the closer conservatives get to calling us baby killers.

In that context, I'm not surprised that the President - and his men - invented a fig leaf of compromise that might, maybe, survive close scrutiny: most women will be able to get coverage for contraception. Those who work for certain charitable organizations will also get coverage, just as a paid add-on absorbed by the insurer.

The real news here, though, is probably that the thin shreds of obfuscation that the euphemisms provide really broke down this week; as with Susan Komen and Planned Parenthood, the real action here was how many women, especially younger professional women, made it clear that the euphemisms were silly and that access to conraception, women's health care, and, yes, abortion, is not up for grabs. Or up for debate. That, in itself, is a big step towards reframing the discussion of women and pregnancy and who decides to be not pregnant, and when. But the problematic math remains: as long as conservatives are more comfortable linking abortion to other methods of contraception, as a way to stop all of them, lefties are in the weaker position. We can't win defending half a position, no matter how artfully we try to word it.

Whitney

I am writing this about an hour after the news first appeared: Whitney Houston has died.

It's one of those losses that is utterly unbelievable, yet somehow, inevitable.

To think that we'll have to - I'll have to - explain to people what she was, what it was like, what she meant. There hadn't been anyone quite like Whitney Houston; no one who had that voice, her looks, her onstage presence. Just as music video changed everything (and Whitney was as video-ready as anyone), changes in television production allowed more artists to perform live onstage, as opposed to lip-synching to already recorded tracks. Whitney Houston was one of the first artists to use this opportunity to her advantage, rearranging and reconstructing her songs on the fly. It wasn't the strength of her voice or the breadth of her range that was so astonishing. It was the times that, mid-song or mid-phrase, she'd simply take off in an entirely different direction than she'd gone the last time you'd heard her. I remember when she performed "All At Once" at the American Music Awards, and re-did the second verse so it rose from the depths of her low range to soar an octave higher by the end of the phrase, all in one breath.

That was the way she paved the way for all the Mariahs and Christinas and at least three seasons of American Idols; none of what happened to pop singing - the extended melismas, the fluttering around notes, the frank oversinging - was possible without the way Whitney Houston took on a song. At her height, she was unstoppable, undeniable. No one sang like she did, no one sang as consistently. And she made it look effortless.

Of course, it was too much, too soon and all of it was insane. I remember seeing her live - it was an imperative - with the lucky break of getting a seat in the fifth row. It was astonishing. And she was so innocent, so ingenue to it all. When she sang "I Am Changing", and got to the final notes, "and nothing's gonna stop" - pause - the audience couldn't wait. The ovation was deafening. And she stared at us, wide-eyed. It was a mixture of appreciation... and fear. It's scary, I think, to be that loved, no matter how good you are at what you do.

Clive Davis sold her to America as the embodiment of the American Dream; our Golden Girl, the triumph of talent and beauty and class and taste. And it worked. So what if she couldn't dance? (In Living Color, famously, spoofed her as the "Rhythmless Nation", verbalizing something we all whispered). It was two albums and six years before the reality, and then the less pretty parts, started to sink in: no one's life is that golden. No one, really, can not break under all that pressure.

The problems were apparent long before the rumors moved from whispers to scandal. She was erratic on her films, not a strong actress, and tales off set suggested some real problems. The fact of her drug use was apparent long before it was openly discussed. By "I Will Always Love You" it was clear that her voice was suffering under the strain. By My Love Is Your Love it was all too clear that her range was far less than it had been, and there'd been some real damage. And maybe, just maybe, the story of the past year or two is that her singing could never entirely recover. And she lived to sing. I'm sure that would be crushing.

I am, frankly, stunned. I can't explain, exactly, how much she meant to me, how influential she was, how much I admired her; the most analogous I could be is to say she was, in some sense, my gay generation's Judy Garland, the singer of our age against whom others were measured. Such a beautiful, stunning, talented creaure. And, of course, perhaps how obvious that talent that burns that bright cannot last for long. Not long enough. Not nearly long enough. I just thought we'd get to see her rise, like a phoenix, one last time. And instead... she's gone.

 

...But Why Give To Susan G Komen In The First Place?

All those 5K runs and long walks and pink ribbons and all the rest... if this week is the moment that some women realize there's a problem in breast cancer fundraising, all I can say is, you're really late. The industry of fundraising around breast cancer "awareness", treatment, research and "finding a cure" has long been excessive and in need of a good bit of questioning. And if it takes a stunningly strange decision by  executives at the Susan G Komen foundation to do it, well, there's another thing one ought to ask more clearly: why is everyone giving money to the Susan G Komen fund anyway?

The Susan G Komen Race For The Cure was, at its inception, a clever idea: Komen was an active woman who apparently enjoyed those 5K races (before she was diagnosed and died of breast cancer), it tapped into a group of active young women who are probably the third (or fourth wave) of feminism looking for ways to be active (especially a group of young, mid-level corporate women), and it served as a good reminder that women have the economic leverage, now, to make a difference on causes they care about most.

Trouble is, "Susan G Komen" also became a kind of corporate shorthand for easy giving to a cause. You can buy lipstick and detergent and cereal and God knows what else these days, and "a portion of the proceeds" will go to Komen. Bank of America will give you a Susan Komen Visa, for God's sake. For fashion and advertising and health and beauty - or more to the point, anything in the industry of selling things to women - the easy way to look good and caring is to wrap something in pink and slap the Susan G Komen name on it.

Pink. Seriously, all this stuff, and they've colored it pink and say its for breast cancer awareness and the fact that it's also gendered and sexist determinism, suddenly flies out the window because it's for "Breast Cancer" and that makes it practically illegal to point out that most of this stuff is exploitative and kind of offensive... because say that, and somehow you're an uncaring lout who doesn't care about the millions of women with breast cancer.

And what does the Susan G Komen Foundation do, anyway? Well... mostly, they raise money, or spend money to raise yet more money, planning events and running races and all the rest. Do they actually do breast cancer research? Do they do breast cancer screenings? Do they treat patients? No, none of these, and not much else. What they do is take the money they raise - and I'm sure it's a reasonable percentage as these things go, not some scandal about them keeping more of it than they give away... but that's not my point. My point is, they take the money they raise... and they give it to the people who actually do those things.

At some point, one can reasonably say... why are you giving money to a third party when you could just as easily give the money you want to see used for breast cancer screenings and treatment and research and all the rest... and give it to the people who actually do that?

The thing that this "scandal" about Komen dropping Planned Parenthood reveals is not (just) that it exposes some woman at Komen as a pro-life tool, or that it puts both organizatiosn squarely in the middle of white hot women's politics (abortion is so the issue that's all over this election season that most men like to pretend isn't)... the thing about this scandal that cuts to th heart of charitable giving is that it makes something really lazy and embarrassing really obvious about all these people giving to Komen as if they're doing something. In other words... if you want to give money to see more women screened for breast cancer... give it to Planned Parenthood. Like you should have been doing, anyway.

I'm not trying to make people feel guilty or bad about giving to Komen; but from the start, sending money to "The Susan G Komen Fund For The Cure" has been, as charity often is, a class issue masquerading as kindness. It's third party, hands clean, do a little something, but just a little, for a difficult issue. Do you have some money, a little time, do you like parties or running or really long walkathons? Do you like to wear pink? Then we have the charity for you! Because that's what "charity" is, that's how charity works... it's comfortable, well off people who can watch other people's difficulties from a comfortable distance giving money to make sure other people take care of whatever it is that's wrong.

There's nothing wrong, really with giving money that goes to the Komen fund; even if they don't give it to Planned Parenthood, I'm sure they give it to a lot of worthy enterprises that are doing things to treat and research breast cancer. There's also nothing wrong with giving money, or having the kind of wealth that allows you to give generously. But the problem is, and has been, that giving money in this kind of corporate, three hands from the source kind of way is just what the past couple of days reminds us - you are at the mercy of a lot of well meaning people whose actions you don't control and have very little say over. And the reason people give to Komen, rather than to the actual sources, is because it would be harder, and take more work, to figure out what that is, how to give that way, and also still not think about the fact that you could do a lot more, really, than just give money. Or race for the cure. And people with the money to give don't like to spend a lot of time, often, thinking about all of that.

 

Melancholia: Like It's The End Of The World

To me, the real definition of "screen presence" or star power is the ability to visually hold the screen. It's not as simple as being good looking, or well known. It's a quality, I think, of "something behind the eyes" - the presence of a mind that conveys feeling, thinking, something to make us both curious and satisfied, all at once.

I'm not explaining it all that well, but whatever it is, Kirsten Dunst is a movie star because she has it. She has had it for a long time, really since she first burst onto the scrren in Interview With The Vampire. Big or small, arty or lightweight (bring it on!), most of Dunst's work is amazing because she's so much more than just an attractive face.

Melancholia opens (as Manohla Dargis, lord help me, describes) with a series of dreamlike shots of Dunst in various moments of the film's story. There's a shot of her sinking into the ground as she tries to run across a golf course, and a shot of her appearing to conduct electricity. And there's the dramatic shot of her in an opulent wedding dress, tangled in strings and branches, trying to escape a forest. All of it centered on Dunst, beautiful, magnetic, mysterious.

And then the world ends.

Director Lars von Trier makes the nervy decision to show his hand up front - the plot of Melancholia, no spoiler, is that a giant planet is headed for the Earth and will crash into it and destroy it. But that, really, is not what Melancholia is about. Melancholia is a musing on depression, a science fiction story about being so depressed it's the end of the world... except if the world were really to end. 

Dunst plays Justine, a young woman who is getting married at the start of Melancholia, whom we first see on her way to the reception with her new husband. The reception is taking place at the large hotel/estate of her sister and brother-in-law, and things, naturally, go disastrously awry. The bride's family is a mess, her boss is on hand to pressure her to work, and Justine is sinking into a deep depression that makes it impossible for her to please all of the people who expect so much from her. It's a long night, with a variety of dramas and revelations... but we wind up with a marriage that couldn't survive the after party, and a woman uncertain of her future.

We next see Justine returning to her sister Calire's a few weeks later, when her depression has worsened, and the world is gripped by the news of Melancholia, the planet headed straght for us. Claire's husband is fascinated by the planet's movements, the real life science experiment happening overhead, less concerned with his family's growing concern, or with supporting Justine at her most desperate hour of need. Claire is left to try and hold everything together - her fragile sister, her difficult marriage, and taking care of her young son. It is, in the end, too much.

As Claire sinks, miraculously, Justine revives; as Melancholia inches closer to its collision (the one we've already seen), Justine sharpens, gains focus, It's Justine who takes charge as Claire gets ever more hopeless and helpless, especially when John, her husband, realizes that we are, in fact, doomed. And it's Justine who faces the final end more alive, more present than ever, whose face may well be the last thing we ever see.

Von Trier is a difficult, eccentric director - and that's being kind - and Melancholia is not without his usual tics and tendencies, particularly to mistreat his beautiful female leads, and to be needlessly heavy handed with his thematic points, especially in his graphic depictions of sex and female sexuality. That said, this may be von Trier's best, most commercially accessible film yet, a sharp piece of carefully controlled sci-fi that harks back to classics like Raymond Carver, where a hypothetical futuristic scenario yields well observed thoughts on the current human condition. As a metaphor for depression, the end of the world caused by slamming into a planet named Melancholia may be obvious... but it's also, in its way, accurate. Von Trier's implication is that something about depression is personal, internal - it turns on, and then, for some reason, turns off. He also suggests, via Justine and Claire's interpersonal dynamic, that depression is catching, and that passing it along may somehow be part of surviving.

As I said at the start, what holds all of this together is Dunst, luminous, fearless, taking enormous risks as an actress that pay off, handsomely, in the end, as Justine regains her inner strength and sense of purpose. As she bathes, naked, in the glow of Melancholia as it approaches, Dunst is every inch the movie goddess, but that is almost beside the point; it's her moments of near catatonia, her desperation as Justine is at her lowest, that really speak volumes to how natural and unforced her work can be.

Dunst is ably supported by a stellar international cast - especially Charlotte Gainsbourg as Claire and Kiefer Sutherland (who knew?) as the feckless John. But there are masterfu turns by John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling as her parents, Stellan Skarsgaard as her boss, and several lovely young men during the wedding scenes (notably Alex Skarsgard as her new spouse). It's likely that von Trier had two films that didn't make sense until he combined them - one a bitter wedding story, the other, this intruiging idea about a planet. Together, they make a genius combination, a way to underline what matters, and what we really have to live for, in every sense.

Handsomely shot, and beautifully scored (as well as stunningly costumed), Melancholia may suffer during awards season from an understandable backlash against von Trier's thoughtless manner of speaking, but it's terribly unfair to such an ambitious, fascinating exercise, graced with such a daring, expressive performance. In a sane world, Dunst would easily face off against Michelle Williams and Meryl Streep. But likely there's no justice to be had, and Dunst will have to simply advance on a brilliant revival of her career in an overlooked gem. If you have better sense than an Academy voter, I'd urge you to give Melancholia a look.