Sansa will miss Matt and Jaya, her beloved friends.
Literature has known many divisive characters. The dubious morality of Humbert Humbert, the disreputable spikiness of Holden Caulfield, the judgment and snobbery of Emma Bovary—all have pitted readers against one another since time immemorial. That said, there’s one character more controversial than all of these put together: Friedrich Bhaer.
Bhaer is a character in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and its sequels, Little Men and Jo’s Boys. If you’re unfamiliar with him, here are the broad, spoiler-filled basics of the controversy. Little Women’s heroine, Jo, having devotedly fulfilled her readers’ expectations for years, confounds our hopes by ending up not with the dashing, boyish Laurie but with Professor Bhaer, a somewhat older, less glamorous, rather didactic German tutor. To anyone steeped in the conventions of romance—not to mention conventional plotting—the gesture has for generations felt almost vindictive on Alcott’s part. It was, at the very least, a true surprise.
Beloved Friend of The Toast Pilot Viruet on TV’s attractiveness gap:
More recent, we have Modern Family, where the entire joke with Jay (Ed O’Neill, who once had a similar role when matched with Katey Sagal onMarried … With Children) and Gloria’s (Sofía Vergara) relationship is that he’s unattractive and geriatric while she is young and impossibly hot. Modern Family does occasionally include somewhat heartfelt moments punctuated by poignant music or fourth-wall-breaking segments to explain that Gloria really does love Jay and that she’s not only with him for his money, but it usually feels more forced than natural. The Big Bang Theory’s Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) spent the first few seasons mostly making jokes about how nerdy and unattractive Leonard is in comparison to how ditzy and hot Penny is, and therefore, how they would never really work as a couple. Yet, by building their relationship over multiple seasons, they do.
This interview with a Duke oncologist about Lyme disease was shared by two of my Lyme-having friends as being reasonably good (there’s a lot of woo-woo stuff AND a lot of dismissive stuff about Lyme out there):
Like so many of us, your Lyme was missed by multiple physicians. What were your symptoms?
I don’t recall a tick bite, but I first started having symptoms in 1993, mostly cardiac arrhythmias. I had unprovoked palpitations that lasted fifteen to twenty seconds. There was something ominous about the way they felt and came on, but they were never captured because by the time I got to the ER, they’d resolve. And because I had just moved to a new state and was extremely busy with my career, the easy diagnosis was that I was just stressed. Doctors were saying I looked and seemed fine, but I wasn’t.
Ask a Manager on what to do with a good employee who is actually a terrible employee:
My direct manager recently resigned and, until I hear an answer from higher up, I am the acting manager. I’ve been receiving complaints from some of my employees about another employee, let’s call her Leah.
The final moments of Germanwings Flight 9525 (unsurprisingly, this is a very upsetting read):
The Airbus sat at the gate for 26 minutes past its scheduled departure time of 9:35, then taxied to the runway and took off, rising over the city and banking gently toward the Mediterranean Sea. From the cockpit, Captain Patrick Sondenheimer, a veteran with 6,000 hours in the air, apologized for the delay and promised to try to make up the lost time en route. At one point, Sondenheimer mentioned to his co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, that he forgot to go to the bathroom before they boarded. “Go any time,” Lubitz told him. At 10:27, after the Airbus had reached its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet, Sondenheimer told Lubitz to begin preparing for landing (it was only a two-hour flight), a routine that included gauging the fuel levels, ensuring that the flaps and landing gear were working, and checking the latest airport and weather information. Lubitz’s response was cryptic. “Hopefully,” he said. “We’ll see.” It’s unclear if Sondenheimer noted his co-pilot’s odd language, but he said nothing in response. A minute later, Sondenheimer pushed his seat back, opened the cockpit door, closed it behind him, and ducked into the lavatory. It was 10:30 A.M.
Q. Teacher tattoos: I had a professor last semester who I am really, literally in love with. She’s married with a kid and I think straight, so it’s not something I would ever even attempt to act on. I’m fairly sure she knows I have a crush on her—it’s not subtle—and my guess would be that she finds it flattering. She just offered to be my adviser, and I was obviously ecstatic and said yes. The problem is, I have a couple of tattoos related to her. One is a small word in her handwriting, which is really cute, distinctive handwriting, that I got sort of in the spirit of unrequited love, and because it was a positive affirmation she’d written on some of my work, and having her say something like that about something I wrote just meant a crazy amount to me. The other is a line from some of her published writing; I’d sent an artist friend of mine a list of poems and articles and essays and other things that meant a lot to me, including some of this professor’s work, and asked her to turn it into a tattoo, which she did. My question is: Do I need to make sure to keep them covered whenever I know I’m going to be seeing her? (They’re on my foot and ankle, so not super difficult to hide.) Will she be creeped out and hate me if she sees them?
A: Oh, honey. I wish I could hug you out of your recent decisions. I have a lot of sympathy for your feelings, but there’s nothing we can do about those now; let’s go ahead and tidy up your actions.
A black police officer’s struggle with the NYPD (from last week, but new to me!):
Every morning before his shift, Edwin Raymond, a 30-year-old officer in the New York Police Department, ties up his long dreadlocks so they won’t brush against his collar, as the job requires. On Dec. 7, he carefully pinned them up in a nautilus pattern, buttoned the brass buttons of his regulation dress coat and pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves. He used a lint roller to make sure his uniform was spotless. In a few hours, he would appear before three of the department’s highest-ranking officials at a hearing that would determine whether he would be promoted to sergeant. He had often stayed up late worrying about how this conversation would play out, but now that the moment was here, he felt surprisingly calm. The department had recently announced a push to recruit more men and women like him — minority cops who could help the police build trust among black and Hispanic New Yorkers. But before he could move up in rank, Raymond would have to disprove some of the things people had said about him.
Over the past year, Raymond had received a series of increasingly damning evaluations from his supervisors. He had been summoned to the hearing to tell his side of the story. His commanders had been punishing him, he believed, for refusing to comply with what Raymond considered a hidden and ‘‘inherently racist’’ policy.
DID YOU SEE THE 106-YEAR-OLD WOMAN DANCING WITH THE OBAMAS THOUGH
I laugh-cried when I saw that. Like, it was so cute, but it was also super touching? She’s the tits, is what I’m trying to say.
I cried and cried. Like 4 times yesterday, I cried over this woman, and over the Obamas.
I love that even as we have to say goodbye to them, there’s still a few more occasions to delight in the Obamas. You saw the little kid in the rope line?
DID YOU SEE HER BEING CHARMED BY HER OWN DAMN SELF THOUGH
I heart this woman.
She will never stop making me tear up with joy.
I can’t even handle her!!! She has GREAT GREAT GREAT grandchildren!!!! She is a great dancer!!! She once partied with James Brown, and she is so amazing that that was a THROWAWAY LINE in the article BobofSeals listed below!!!!
She also finds Barack Obama very handsome and would like “30 minutes [alone] with him.”
She is my hero and why isn’t she legit famous, is what I’m saying.
This was my everything yesterday. (Well, that and my coworker convincing me that the time had come to download Neko Atsume.)
I hope she lives another 106 years. And from that video, it seems like she might.
Seriously – how is she still so spry?!?
I am obviously mega-glad this has turned into An Internet Thing, but my first reaction was “screw state dinners, this is the only White House party worth crashing”.
A BLACK PRESIDENT, I love her for reminding us of the wondrousness of this.
A BLACK WIFE! and Michelle’s adorable “That’s me” response. I can’t even.
She’s also a longtime DC resident (as in, since 1941) who is organizing and fighting with her tenant association to keep her housing from being sold and redeveloped! https://www.facebook.com/HelpMsV1909
I WAS GRINNING UNCONTROLLABLY. She was born in 1910, people! Women couldn’t vote! Segregation was everywhere! She was already in her 50s when the ’60s revolution came! AND SHE LIVED TO MEET BARACK OBAMA!
I want to believe there is someone in the West Wing staff whose job it is to research centenarians who deserve a chance to meet Obama. Just bring them all in.
When she was born, anyone in her world who was Obama’s age *had been a slave.* And she has lived to see this family live eight years in the White House.
Holy shit, you’re right. God, I get angry at those Fox News/Republican assholes who imply that the civil rights era, let alone slavery, was a thousand years ago.
I was wrong, she was born in 1909
I miss Sansa
I miss pictures of you and Matt cuddling Sansa.
The dubious morality of Humbert Humbert
lolololol
Sadie Stein is the queen of backhanded understatement.
Wait… there WAS doubt all along? That was not… a sure thing?
There are a lot of people out there who take ‘She seduced me’ at face value. They are to be avoided.
I don’t think Sadie Stein is one of them, I think she’s making a very low-under-the-radar joke about those guys.
Oh yeah totally. But always good to remember those people exist.
Exist and may, in fact, be a majority, which is scary as fuck.
And write reviews which are quoted on the backs of editions of Lolita, describing it as ‘the 20th century’s greatest love story’.
LOLWHUT
NO.
Maybe “Nabokov’s love story with the English language?”
God, even that’s giving too much leeway. Just NO.
I’m taking “dubious” to mean “people have debated this” and not “the text leaves room for debate.”
Yes, he was a pedophile of dubious morality.
Yeah, nothing dubious about it.
Everyone everywhere should listen to Jeremy Irons’ audiobook of Lolita, though. In my mind, the last word in interpretations.
His RL creepiness ruined him for me 🙁
Right? Ctrl-C’ed that line immediately too
Just jumps out at you like that
Guys, I was recently on a Tinder date with a dude who casually threw out “Picture your favorite literary character! Anna Karenina! Humbert Humbert!”. I went “Hang on. Is… is your favorite literary character Humbert Humbert?!” and he said yes! He found Humbert Humbert “perversely compelling”. I had no idea this was an Actual Thing! If only I could unmatch all of humanity. 🙁
I mean, he’s compelling in the sense that he represents a masterful portrait of self-justifying cruelty and solipsism…but it sounds like that’s not what your date meant.
Toasts, I read Lolita because I heard here there was controversy over Humbert Humbert, knew the book was vaguely about a grown-ass man who has sex with a tween, and couldn’t imagine why there was controversy over the character instead of just condemnation. Then I read it and was even more horrified.
I genuinely couldn’t finish it. Partially because my SO at the time had been a survivor of child sexual abuse into his early teens, and partially because I cannot stand smug “aren’t I clever”-style narration. It just made me queasy. TWELVE. SHE WAS TWELVE.
I had to read it over a bunch of 15- and 20-minute periods because it was so creepy; I would totally understand why anybody w/couldn’t finish it.
I just don’t understand how anybody who did finish it can skip over all the parts where Humbert is drugging people (because he knows he’s doing something wrong) or scaring the 12-year-old with stories of orphanages (because he knows what he’s doing is wrong) so she doesn’t want to leave or hiding from everybody who knows him (because even Humbert Effing Humbert knows what he’s doing is wrong).
Fucking Professor Bhaer. I refuse to acknowledge LMA’s written ending, everyone knows Jo actually never married Bhaer and reveled in her blissful spinsterhood.
I love that this article was posted today — I was thinking this morning of asking in today’s comments where people get the idea that Alcott really wanted Jo to be a spinster? I fully understand that the ending doesn’t fit the character, but is there evidence (letters, etc.) from Alcott that prove this?
Downnn the rabbit hole we go!
I think it’s mostly that that’s how LMA herself was — a happy spinster (and maaaaybe a lesbian?) — and that Bhaer has no part in the first half of the novel, which was published first.
I do not have my biographies of Alcott with me, but while she was fervently against Jo being paired with Laurie, I don’t remember if Bhaer was her idea or her publisher’s — in Little Women/ Little Men he’s very based off of her father.
The worst biographies of LMA are the ones that insist that she had a torrid affair with “the real Laurie”, when there is no evidence that she did!
Could you recommend your favorite biography/ies of LMA? That just sounds like exactly what I feel like reading right now.
Just saw this. Madeleine B. Stern’s “Louisa May Alcott: A Biography” is the standard: she and her friend Leona Rostenberg (whose friendship is like Nicole’s and Mallory’s) are the ones who discovered LMA’s potboilers under pseudonyms. I also personally liked Eve LaPlante’s Marmee and Louisa, as she’s the first person to use Abigail Alcott’s letters extensively.
Thank you!!! Seconding the request for biographies of LMA – I’m trying to get through Marmee and Louisa but it is kind of dragging at the beginning.
That’s the Eve LaPlante one, right? It’s good! Skip ahead to their courtship / Louisa’s childhood if you’re bored at the beginning.
Yep — Thanks, I will definitely do that!
I’m making my way through John Matteson’s 2015 annotated version of LW, and there is mention of this.
In response to her readers’ expectations that Jo would end up with Laurie:
“Alcott bristled at the very thought. Her identification with Jo was already deep and personal; her fans’ assumption that the only possible happy ending for a heroine was marriage not only offended Alcott’s firm belief in female equality but also seemed to imply that Alcott’s own happiness as an unmarried writer was less authentic and complete than if she had found a husband […] But Roberts Brothers [Alcott’s publisher] insisted ‘on having people married off in a wholesale manner.’ The demand that Jo must have a husband ‘much afflicted’ Alcott. Still, as she thought about the sales she might lose if she stuck to her principles, she found at last that she ‘didn’t dare to refuse.’ As she often did when life grew too complicated to confront with a straight face, she sought a solution in humor. ‘Out of perversity’ and much against her personal wishes, she concocted Professor Bhaer and thus contrived ‘a funny match’ for Jo.” (pp. xxi-xxii)
(The “out of perversity” quote is taken from a letter written by Alcott to Elizabeth Powell in 1869.)
Still, I like that by the time Jo’s Boys rolls around, Alcott finally gets to create a happy professional spinster in Nan.
Thank you!!
I need this annotated edition. And I love Nan, too!
I always thought that Maud’s ending in An Old Fashioned Girl was what Alcott had wanted for Jo.
“Lest any of my young readers who have honored Maud with their interest should suffer the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity as to her future, I will add for their benefit that she did not marry Will, but remained a busy, lively spinster all her days, and kept house for her father in the most delightful manner.”
Molly from Jack and Jill, too.
And Nan from Little Men/Jo’s Boys.
I could always understand Jo not wanting to marry Laurie–he was one of those guys who thinks that you have to love him back b/c he loves you. And, you know, sometimes you just don’t. But when I was a girl I thought Jo should have stayed a spinster. Then I became a spinster, very much by my own wish, and very happily. And then, unexpectedly, after decades of living the single life on purpose, I met someone who shocked me by making me think that marrying him would be a good idea. So I did, and it was, and now I get it that Jo falling for the professor didn’t negate or devalue her earlier enjoyment of spinsterhood. (I can’t say that Bhaer is the guy who would have made me change my mind, but I do at least understand the appeal of someone who challenges you to do better at what you love.)
Eh, as I get older I like him more, just like the essayist–I don’t think it’s any great romance or that they had fabulous physical chemistry, but there was mutual respect and kindness, and that counts for something.
I am ready for the Professor Bhaer investigation*! I preferred him to Laurie, but think I would have liked non-married Jo even more.
*note that I had typed rabbit hole (as in the article) and then went “nope!”
Honestly- I’m OK with each way that Jo might have picked. I like Laurie. I like Bhaer. I like happy singledom. All are good options.
My introduction to Little Women was the Winona Ryder movie as a kid. I watched it several times before reading the book as a teenager and the movie has thus irrevocably coloured my reading of the book. Watching the movie at first, I was sad Jo turned Laurie down but by the time I read the book I had come around on Bhaer. So I like Bhaer as her endgame but only because I read book!Bhaer as if he is movie!Bhaer.
Me and a friend re-watched that movie this last December, and I’d forgotten how genuinely charming it is.
I would have been fine with Bhaer except that he’s SUCH A DICK about her writing for magazines. (This is my general problem with LMA books, though: they’re going along fine and then she sticks in a whole chunk of Obligatory Shitty 1860s Morals and haaaate. See also: Meg and the ball. LET THE GIRL HAVE SOME FUN, JESUS.)
I just re-read that part today and it is so frustrating, especially the part where Laurie of all people shames her for it. KID, YOU ARE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD AND NOT THE BOSS OF HER. Do not mansplain about how champagne will give her a hangover and fancy dresses are frivolous. Also, as a rich person, I really doubt you have ever been in a situation where you have to borrow someone else’s clothes because you don’t have anything nice of your own, so shush.
And God forbid she should show a little cleavage. SHUT UP, LAURIE. Amy is TOO GOOD FOR YOU.
That’s how I felt with Jane Eyre! When I expressed my dislike about [do potential spoiler warnings count for something this old?] her ending up with Rochester everyone else in my (highschool) class was all “eww so you wanted her to marry her cousin???” No, I didn’t want her to marry any jerkwads, I wanted her to be free!
(I’ve read and seen little women a ton of times, I always forget that Jo and Laurie didn’t end up together. I forget Bhaer is even a character)
Personally, I always found Jo and her Professor to be a nice reminder that just because you don’t end up marrying the boy next door, that doesn’t necessarily mean you lost your one chance at finding the right guy. This was very important to me because I grew up with no potential boy next door, no high school sweetheart, etc, and at times it pained me to think I would never have that kind of relationship, growing up and growing old with a person (also: my parents have been together since they were 15. It’s adorable/disgusting, depending on my mood). Over time I learned to embrace Spinsterhood as a very legtimate and pleasing life option, but even so it was good to have a literary reminder that your options don’t cease to exist just because you’re past any certain age, and that like Jo and the Professor, my True Love might be someone unexpected who I won’t even meet until I’m more than halfway through the book.
Flight 9525 is every flying nightmare I’ve had made manifest.
I have to get on a plane tomorrow to go to my grandfather’s funeral. This is not an article I needed to see today.
Oh my god, I find it so difficult to read about plane crashes. Especially ones like Germanwings, where it’s due to not just human error but human malice. Even if it doesn’t bother me while reading, the next time I get on a plane it’ll all come back to me and I’ll start obsessing over the details and if anything relates to the flight I’m currently on. And then I try to numb the terror by drinking the really terrible wine.
Same, but I can’t not read it. I’m going to that tab right now and basically nothing short of an electromagnetic pulse frying the electrical grid will stop me. Meet you back here for an internet therapy session about it in 10.
Tuesday’s not good for day drinking, so I think it’ll have to be Maru videos and the Galavant soundtrack. And I’ll have to watch Practical Magic tonight as well.
These all seem like very good curatives. I’m off to read reassuring statistics about U.S. domestic air travel now.
Second paragraph, third sentence. I am trying to nope on out, but the tab is still open and I am so, so weak.
I just got to that line and immediately regretted reading this while eating lunch…
Atavan is your (my) friend for all flying over an hour.
Unless you are the co-pilot . . . . . which, spoiler alert if you haven’t read the article.
Will not read. I get free booze on JetBlue because they can’t stand to look at my face sober when in a plane.
Nothing that’s ever said about the NYPD should surprise anyone anymore. It’s obviously an organization with very deep attitude problems.
If someone said “what a great, progressive organisation full of right-headed people!” I’d be damn surprised.
Lol, what a quaint way of describing it.
I feel like the only person on earth who is pleased that Laurie and Amy got married. Jo so clearly and obviously did not want to marry Laurie that the incessant “you were MADE FOR EACH OTHER” is like well, clearly Jo herself did not think so! It’s like insisting that Anne should have gotten together with Roy Gardiner because they were so well matched.
I do wish she had been allowed to live in glorious singlehood and travel and write exciting stories her whole life instead of becoming “Mother Bhaer”.
You’re not alone! But then again, I am in the very small minority of People Who Actually Like Amy, so.
#teamAmy I like them together too! (and the vindictive dark side of me just likes that she “won”)
Are you also a youngest child?
Only child (named Amy. I love most characters named Amy on principle)
I like ALL OF THEM the March sisters are the best sisters, how could anyone just choose… not to like one of them?!
#teamAmy for LIFE. Pretty sure I have at least one past comment somewhere on The Toast defending Amy!
When I first read LW as a kid I hated Amy, BUT that was mostly because I was an older sibling and her younger-sibling bratty escapades irritated me to no end. But when I read it recently as an adult I was like, WHAT, I love Amy haha. She’s way better when you read her as an adult. (I mean plus she has my name, so.)
As a younger sister, I LOVED Amy. I thought she was fabulous and Jo was a meanie. I also think, though, that Amy is the reason why I had crushes on all of my older sister’s male friends — I really thought that I had a chance, just as Amy had with Laurie!!
I will co-sign this completely. Amy/Laurie was a perfect match up! Jo should have been able to take to the sea and write as many books as she liked. (True story: I forgot about Bhaer until reading that article, and had it in my head that Jo just took off on adventures. I kind of like my version better.)
I’m jealous that you lived in that world
I’m all over Amy-Laurie. He would have just held Jo down!
Now that I’m older, I do like this match! I mentioned it upthread, but my introduction to Little Woman was through the 1995? movie which I watched many times before reading the book, thus I tend to read the book characters as if they are their movie versions. I think perhaps Amy comes across better in the movie than in the book and that is why I like her and the Amy-Laurie match (it’s been awhile since I read it though, I could be wrong).
I can’t get behind Laurie/Amy because I just don’t see any signs of romantic love between them. It’s a marriage of convenience for both parties. Laurie marries Amy because he’s desperate to become part of the March family one way or another because he was starved for affection and emotional connection his whole life until he met them and Amy is the closest he can get to Jo. I can see him marrying Beth if she hadn’t died (even though Beth is narratively useless) because she was Jo’s favourite. Amy marries Laurie because she has always wanted to marry a rich man and live in comfort and have the money for a nose job. She basically negs him into the relationship. “Oh, Laurie, I see you’re being a WORTHLESS GADABOUT as usual. Your grandfather would be so ashamed!” “What?! I’ll show you how great I am! I’m so great I’ll marry you right now! That way we can fuck on the boat home!”
Yeah I can’t get rid of the feeling that Amy was the Last Available March for Laurie, though I applaud Amy for marrying a man who she genuinely liked and still managing to get the life she thought she wanted.
Laurie would 100% have proposed to Mrs. March if her husband had died in the war.
He WOULD.
…I’ll ship it.
“have the money for a nose job” lol
To be fair though, MOST marriages were of convenience back then. The idea of all marriages being love-matches is relatively new. Disregarding Laurie, Amy was pretty practical if you think about it. Or practical and ambitious? IDK. She wanted to marry someone with money, not just for herself but so her FAMILY could be supported (I think people forget that if they haven’t read the books in awhile, but a large part of her desire for a rich husband is so her entire family would be taken care of). She knew marrying Laurie would make sure her whole family was taken care of/safe money wise, he was a friend of the family and she liked him and “loved” him in a familial way, it was pretty much a perfect marriage for the time, you know?
This part of me is saying “but whyyyy didn’t Jo make the perfect match? She could have married him for the money and security”
However I know that Amy is completely the practical one and that would have been completely against Jo’s nature
Yeah, Amy would be capable of having a solid, workable marriage to someone she didn’t love. Jo would have made them both miserable.
Yes. Actually, as I get older I find it interesting to think about the various pieces Amy internalized from the others–I always feel she carries herself with so much more confidence then Meg did in their interactions-with-rich-people, and at least some of her “social climbing” she comes by honestly in that she makes an effort to connect with people, especially Aunt March. (Possibly as an adult I have a bit less tolerance for some of Jo’s posturing.) But I did feel it was made clear that she wouldn’t marry a rich man she disliked or didn’t respect for security.
(also for real the will Amy makes when she’s bundled off to Aunt March’s is amazing, and the part where Laurie kisses her on the top of the head in the carriage is probably the most pleasant I ever find him in the whole movie. Christian Bale’s Laurie reminds me that in real life I expect I’d find that boy exhausting.)
Nooo! What about the whole Amy maturing arc in Europe, where she turns down Fred because she realizes that she can’t be a golddigger! What about her realizing she’s actually a mediocre artist and thus is humbled! What about her making Laurie figure out that he’s being a tool over Jo! There was character development that made them mature together, not just settling.
“I’m not a cold-blooded gold-digger after all! I can’t marry Fred just for his money! Instead I’ll marry this other guy who’s at least as rich as Fred” is an awfully convenient epiphany.
Laurie was significantly less rich than Fred! No estate in England! No titles!
…but probably much hotter, and Amy does joke that she married him for his nose.
Do you know what incenses me the most? John, Meg’s husband. Spoilers if you haven’t read Little Men!
So, if you have, you know that the git dies. Why? He works himself to death. Why? So he could provide Meg with a nice life….after he’s dead. Um, you don’t think maybe she’d rather have her husband? Yeah, and they sent their kids to Jo’s school, so they’re not even living as a family. The children lost their father permanently at the age of ten, didn’t see much of him before that, but he’s a hero for providing for them! Which was unnecessary, since as he died, Laurie promised that he’d take care of the family (Laurie has his good points). Oh, and John died when he was 32. WTF?
Well, the guy who she based him on did die. Anyway, death was a lot more present and unpreventable in the nineteenth century, so characters die in sometimes frustrating ways that look weird to us and are rationalized or explained in a way that makes sense to the author. Like all of those people who die of TB but are said to basically bring it on themselves by living too hard or whatever (Ruby in the Anne books, Charlie in LMA’s Rose books), or Daisy dying of taking in the night air while hanging out with Eye-talians in Daisy Miller, or in this case, John dying of “working too hard” when probably he had a heart condition or something. Or Beth! Dying of being too nice and angelic and “not meant for this world”!
Edit: apparently Charlie didn’t die of consumption? I misremembered. But anyway.
Now I’m wondering if there are actually any people out there who wish Anne has chosen Roy instead of Gilbert….
I wanted her to choose Diana.
cosign.
I….I have read a fanfiction of her and Diana. I mean, there’s only a single page on AO3, but this is the only one rated Explicit. I really enjoyed it.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/33516
You are not alone, as the comments above suggest, but I just wanted to add my own approval for that. I also want to state, perhaps controversially, that Laurie’s desire for Jo was a little creepy (certainly unreciprocated) and very Nice Guy, and that even as a wee child I Did Not Ship It because I thought that in order to ship it, one must approve of such abominable behavior. Not to mention that when she basically gives him the speech that Rosa gives Boyle on Brooklyn Nine Nine (I like you, I think you’re nice, I’m just not interested in you that way), Laurie freaks out and goes to Europe in a sulk. So team Jo doing what she wants, and I’m glad Amy and Laurie found one another but I’m still mad at Laurie for being terrible.
Yes. I was never a fan of Laurie, for anyone (although the version of him in Katharine Weber’s The Little Women is pretty all right. Probably because she gave him a badass feminist critic for an aunt.)
My mom read all the Little Women books aloud to me, and I haven’t read them since, so my memory of the details is incomplete at est, but I remember being initially sad that Jo and Laurie didn’t work out, but not minding Professor Bhaer at all. I think Alcott did a good enough job convincing me that Jo really loved him.
I also feel like the Laurie thing got shot down in the first or second book, and then there was a long stretch of time between that and Bhaer, so I’m a little confused as to why the article framed it as Laurie v. Bhaer: the Love Triangle, but like I said: memories are pretty fuzzy.
I read LW when I was pretty young, but I remember thinking that marrying a professor sounded GREAT. Just think of all the books he must have! And the intellectual conversations at dinner! Later on I got ideas like “Hmm, maybe I could BE the person I admire” and also “maybe I don’t have to marry AT ALL” but the tiny version of me hadn’t gotten there yet.
I always felt bad for Jo because I always secretly suspected that Alcott was kind of resentful that she was successful at writing semiautobiographical melodramas instead of potboilers about revenge.
YUP
When I reread Little Women as an adult, I was struck by how strongly I felt her sense of Nope I Do Not Want To Be Writing This Bilge.
(Not to say that it actually *is* bilge. But I felt like her snark at the whole genre came through.)
“You know what these books don’t have? Ghosts and murder. *sigh*”
Did you ever read “A Long Fatal Love Chase”? That book terrified me as a child.
Oh oh, the last paragraph on the attractiveness gap article. <3
Misandry in the corvidae! Spitalfields Life provides a charming story of the Tower of London’s current Master Raven Keeper and his friendship with Merlin the raven, who is, like all proper magicians, female. “Ravens are monogamous creatures that mate for life but, like Elizabeth I, Merlin has no consort. ‘She chose her partner, it’s me,’ Chris assured me in a whisper, eager to confide his infatuation with the top bird, before he opened the door to wake her.”
Real life Hodgesaargh!
The ravenmaster is on twitter at @ravenmaster1 and he posts pictures of the ravens all day long. You’re welcome.
I love the ravens. Actually, I just kind of generally love corvids, and welcome our new crow overlords.
What’s wrong with the world today? The inequitable distribution of raven cuddles.
Agreed 100%
DAT TWITTER FEED, THO.
<3
Followed! I need more ravens in my Twitter feed.
A certain root vegetable- naming no names- decided his mommy’s glasses were a chew toy and now they’re badly scratched on the right lens. You can see how sorry he is about this! It’s a good thing he’s so fluffy or I would actually be mad but who can possibly be mad at a face like that?
maybe he needs glasses because he can’t see with all that fluff in his eyes
CHARLIE POTATO HASHBROWNS YOU GET DOWN HERE AND APOLOGIZE TO YOUR MOTHER AT ONCE!
“Charles”? Uh oh, mom’s using your FULL NAME, Charles Starchy Tuber Home Fries. Shit’s about to get real
I would thumb this up all damn day if I could.
Same.
“Charles Solanum tuberosum griddle cakes, you get down here right now!”
I don’t think I’d be as annoyed by the “attractiveness gap” as I am if they would flip the script from time to time and have someone who, say, resembles me (fat, middle-aged woman, filled to the brim with wit and charm) paired up with someone who is a stone fox.
It reminds me of a story I heard about “The Tao of Steve”, which starred Donal Logue. The filmmaker (if I recall correctly) said that it was a movie that you could never gender-flip because no one would believe a fat woman could score with a conventionally handsome man. That’s fucked up, and that perception needs to fucking change.
Great, now I’ve gone and made myself ornery.
God, remember when it was a huge deal when “Louie” had an episode wherein he actually dated a fat woman (who was blonde and hot) and it was like this whole thing and she got a great scene to really call him out on his shit for initially not wanting to date her, but at the same time it was like – you’re telling me it’s a stretch that this overweight bald dude in his 40s would be paired up with this young, gorgeous woman, just because she’s not thin? Like I’m supposed to applaud you for that, Louie CK? Fuck you.
Thank you! I remember remarking to someone that it was the same schlubby older dude/attractive younger woman pairing, only apparently we weren’t supposed to notice that she was over ten years younger and so beautiful, because she was fat. *Eye roll* Catch an out of shape, middle-aged, bald dude dating an average-looking woman his own age?! Ha.
AUGH, this is exactly how I felt about that episode! Like, yes, Louie, way to point out something that women have been yelling about for years. You want a cookie? Yes you do! Have a cookie. *barfs*
Louis CK seems to spend a lot of time pointing out things that women and minorities have been yelling about for years and getting cookies for it. Like, on the one hand, I’m glad that at least a white person is saying it because I see white people listen when he says it. And on the other, idk, maybe he could mackle less and signal boost marginalized voices more?
And then I remember that there is no really correct way for a celebrity to engage in anything and feel bad for thinking uncharitably of him.
That last point! You are so correct, if ever I was famous I’d be like Bey – Twitterwhattwitter?
“Mackle less” lol
I hate that and I’m starting to frankly hate Louis CK too. Also, every single goddamn episode of Criminal Minds where Garcia gets a love interest because she’s so “quirky” and “fat,” let’s just ignore that she’s only “tv fat” and completely beautiful. Grrr.
His hatefulness tends to leak out around the edges, I think. I have found his work funny in the past, but I think he’s probably terrible and that’s ruined it for me.
http://gawker.com/5894527/which-beloved-comedian-…
(grrrrr, what is intensedebate’s problem today! it won’t let me log in)
I just binge watched the British comedy The Vicar of Dimbley, from 20 years ago (Netflix, what what!), starring Dawn French, and they have that scenario in the last two episodes. IDK, it was kind of rushed, but maybe Richard Armitage (!!! talk about Stone Cold Fox) was busy doing other things? Anyway, he was sweet, she was over the moon, but like I say, it was pretty rushed, to end the series.
That is such a delightful storyline!
I binge watched “Rosemary & Thyme” on Netflix and a number of the episodes have men falling for the older and heavier Laura Thyme. She turns them all down, but I still love it.
The Vicar of Dibley ended perfectly. Also, Dawn French is radiant. Kissing Richard Armitage agrees with her.
OMG the scene where hot accountant Richard Armitage works out on a piece of paper that she owes him a kiss?? “I wouldn’t want you to be in arrears…”
!!!
“One kiss, with tongues.”
God, that scene where he talks about how sexy woman vicars are? “Starched crispness, but with the promise of softness beneath?” I experienced a brief but profound call to ministry at that moment.
Yep. Because the culture at large values men for what they say and think and do, and values women only for what they look like. So male characters in television and movies can have personality characteristics that “make up for” not being all that attractive. Whereas female characters are never allowed that, because the cultural assumption is that women are purely decorative and therefore no man would ever be with a woman for any reason besides her appearance.
When I read romance novelist blogs more, I occasionally ran into the “do these novels give women too high standards” question, and I always had A Lot of Feelings about that, but my primary one was, basically: yes, because when we spend our lives with makeup and push-up bras and seven different magazines dedicated to diet, exercise, fashion, and driving him wild in bed, plus shaving, waxing, high heels, eyebrow goddamn threading whatever that is, and pedicures, GOD FORBID WE HAVE HIGHER STANDARDS FOR MEN’S APPEARANCE.
Cosigned! If I have to work hard to be hot enough for my peers and colleagues to consider me socially acceptable, so should he!
> So male characters in television and movies can have personality characteristics that “make up for” not being all that attractive
What’s so bad is that the male characters never have those characteristics. They’re always human garbage in service of engineering weekly hijinks.
“Human garbage rescued by woman. Lesson not learned; tune in next week for more of the same.”
Remember how Drop Dead Diva was about someone resembling you? It’s just that you had to have, uh, the personality? of a supermodel? who has just discovered life on “the other side”?
zomg fuck Drop Dead Diva – how does being skinny trump actual law school? Nothing legals as much as skinny feels.
GO FIND THE NINES AND WATCH IT IMMEDIATELY.
a) this movie is how I “met” Melissa McCarthy
b) it pairs her with Ryan Reynolds
c) their daughter is deaf
It is a weird film but does so. many. good. things. that I forgive it unconditionally.
I’m seeing that it came out in 2007, and I don’t think Ryan Reynolds was as big of a star then (I think The Proposal is what really propelled him into leading man land). I’m not sure this scenario would have come about if he was as famous then as his is now.
Ryan Reynolds isn’t really the important part though–the writer specifically wanted Melissa McCarthy in the role/s she played, and odds were good that her costar would be a conventionally attractive man in any case.
Oh! I’d recommend watching the show Miranda. It pairs witty, awkward, charming, and gorgeous (but not thin) Miranda Hart with conventionally attractive and foxy Tom Ellis. Miranda Hart is a treasure, and the Will They or Won’t They in this show is great (read: super frustrating but you love it). It’s not a perfect show (there are some other issues, I think), but it’s really awkward and funny and all three seasons are on Hulu.
I tried to watch Miranda, but noped out after there were four “I’m fat and pathetic” jokes in the first 60 seconds of the first episode.
This is why I could never get into Melissa McCarthy’s sitcom when my parents started watching it, and even now I find myself noping out when I’m in the room and it comes on. (but that’s how it is for MOST tv anymore – I’m so tired of the fat jokes and gay jokes and hot shrewish wife-dumpy lazy husband jokes)
There’s this book I really like called Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand, and it includes a plot where (spoilers?) the heroine, who is in her late thirties, finds love with a hot young college student. The only reason this sticks out in the context of this particular discussion is because I remember reading a review of the book describing their relationship as “wish fulfillment on the part of the author.” Even as a teenager, that made me go “bwuh?”
Everything about Waking the Moon is AMAZEBALLS.
love,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Elizabeth Hand Fangirl
Love that book! It’s been a while since I read it, but it hit so many nails on the head, on so many levels–weird academia, feminist mythology and archaeology, and yes, gender roles.
I am a fat woman paired with a conventionally handsome man in real life and there are few things more hilarious than the reactions of people who meet him after meeting me. Shock! Chagrin! Accusing looks paired with “he’s attractive!”
Never ceases to amuse.
Haha joke’s on him I’m decently fat (and have a dope frown line) and my betrothed is conventionally hot af.
From the files of the Department of Rule-Proving Exceptions, I guess that’s kind of a minor plotpoint in “Bachelorette.”
Yeah, as someone trying to navigate online dating, this is so internalized that I’m basically terrified to write to anyone whose picture I actually find attractive, because whoooa gap ahead!
Oh, I got ornery the minute I woke up today. There was a fatal crash today described in the paper as “woman killed when she walks into traffic”. The article actually said that there was “some kind of argument”, and then she jumped out of the car into rush hour highway traffic and was hit. I posted that this was just another way domestic violence kills, and got a whole lot of people saying, “oh, it was probably just a suicide”–completely ignoring the whole previous argument PRECIPITATING the suicide, as if the one negated the other. I kept myself calm by repeating “There is something wrong on the internet” over and over in the car.
Glee has a plot where conventionally attractive Puck was in love with Lauren Zises, who was heavy. It was not popular. One of the reasons was probably that Lauren Zises wasn’t written terribly well as a character–she was just mean to Puck for no clear reason a lot of the time. But I saw a lot of women (including self-identified-as-plus-sized ) writing fairly angrily about how unrealistic and insulting the storyline was because no one who looked like Puck would be with someone like Lauren. It really surprised me when I first started reading those comments because I expected women at least to be happy to see the script flipped for once. I don’t know if Lauren had been a better written character if people would have liked the romance better.
Also, I’m going to keep “I wish I could hug you out of your recent decisions” in my back pocket for any future disasters.
I’m just worrying about the possible tattoos from 15 years of being a professor to youngsters with poor impulse control.
It’s funny, when my husband said “this student who got tattoos about their professor” last night I didn’t know he was reading Dear Prudence. I know he likes Slate but I’m not telling him how much I love Mallory.
Just commenting to say how much I love your handle.
Aw, thank you! “Oh” was already taken, may they keep to their side of the internets until the end of days.
I hear you. [Glares at whoever already took “kayjayoh” sans underscore on IntenseDebate. That’s *me*. That’s *my* handle.]
Mallory is KILLING IT. I loved so many of yesterday’s responses, from the one to the woman whose husband nonstop verbally abuses her, to the daughter whose father is an alcoholic jerk (who needs an abusive father in their life? No one!).
Her suggestion that the sleepover daughter may have an abusive home life was a revelation to me. Absolutely possible and an important complication to consider in raising the issue with her parents. In any case, I hope that girl ends up OK.
I’m going to get it tattooed on my…wait, never mind.
I mean, why would you start off a letter about your new boyfriend with the words “He isn’t old, nor anything bad” unless you secretly had deep misgivings and suspected you should never have turned down beautiful, rich, fun-loving Laurie’s proposal?
If I am remembering the book correctly, that’s not the opening of a latter – she mentions Professor Bhaer and Laurie overreacts and is all “That old man! I hate him”, and this is her response. And they’re not a couple at that point.
He SHOULD hate him, everyone should hate him! This is the hill I choose to die on.
But in the movie he’s played by Gabriel Byrne!
I have not yet read the Professor Bhaer link, as I am at work, but here aer my immediate thoughts: while I definitely had a soft spot for Jo and Laurie (he kisses her when Mr March comes back and everyone is rejoicing! They are best friends and have fun together!), one of the things I like about Professor Bhaer is how much he makes it clear that he thinks Jo is amazing and beautiful and wonderful, even after they’ve been married for ages. (Although if he thinks she’s so great maybe he shouldn’t tell her to stop writing sensation stories. I suppose there were weird attitudes about the potentially harmful effect of fiction in the nineteenth century, but still.)
Also, Amy’s child with Laurie is super annoying and Jo and Friedrich’s Rob, at least, is great, so Jo may have dodged a bullet there in choosing who to reproduce with.
counterpoint: Jo committed two cardinal sins wrt her other kid, one for naming him after her ex and another for utterly awful first name-last name combo (Teddy Bhaer, really?)
I NEVER REALISED THAT HIS NAME IS TEDDY BHAER TILL NOW! oh my gosh
Nor did I! But I pronounce “Bhaer” in my head closer to two syllables than one (I have not seen any of the films, so may be completely wrong), so it is not quite a terrible pun of a name.
But give Jo a break, at the time Theodore Roosevelt and teddy bears hadn’t happened yet
This! If anything, Teddy bears should have come from Teddy Bhaer!
(Also, I was under the impression for years that Meg’s son Demi married Amy’s daughter Bess, and was very relieved when I retead Jo’s Boys and realized that wasn’t the case.)
Man, I am just so glad I’m not the only one who hated Bess.
She was an annoying child and a boring teenager. Dan was far too good for her.
I was just complaining about attractiveness gap to my husband, re Netflix’s new show Loving or Love or something (too rushed to look it up)! Pretty girl, dorky guy, will they, won’t they, blurgh. Also, pretty/skinny girl always has psychological problems or intellect problems that make her a handful. Or something. It’s lame and I’m tired of it.
This happens a lot, where the Link Roundup! offers links that relate weirdly to recent conversations. Hive mind, I guess? Don’t know. Anyway, glad to be a worker bee, in the mix, just doing her thing! Thanks, Toast!
OMG, commented before I went to the link, because the article is specifically about the show Love. It’s not just me! It’s not just me!
I’ve seen the trailer for the show, and at first I thought they were just two friends who were commiserating about how hard it is to find love, which makes sense. Then it became more apparent that they’re the couple, and I was thinking “uuuuuuugh, no, whyyyyy?”
Well, that’s the one personality trait women are allowed to have: crazy.
Or clumsy! Clumsy is the other flaw that we are allowed to possess.
And it’s not just the two leads! The show has shown two of her exes so far, and neither of them are as hot as her either! I was so annoyed by this last night.
To be fair, who is as hot as Gillian Jacobs?
(To be more fair, the attractiveness gap is a thing and is shit. But I do like Gillian Jacobs a lot.)
Fwiw, I interpreted that as part of her dysfunction with sex and love? Like, clearly she is ridiculously hot – she’s a 30-something addict who somehow has a perfect lean body and dewy skin, utterly impervious to hangovers? – but she goes for men who are easy to attract. Dudes without great personalities, who are kind of homely*. There’s even an episode where her neighbor mentions something about going through a phase where she only slept with ugly guys because it felt safer.
* I mean, Hollywood homely. IRL these guys would look totally fine.
Ok, but I was sick on Friday night and watched the whole season in stead of going out for dinner with friends, and I can say this: the dude is just as bad personality-wise. The writers absolutely EVISCERATE his “I’m a nice guy” persona, pretty brilliantly. It is 100% not “nice dorky guy managing hot handful crazy lady”. He is a complete asshole, disguised as a nice guy, and that is half of what the show is about.
I feel like the other half is what it’s like to be a hot woman with mental health issues, which is also a really interesting theme, and one that is dealt with pretty deftly. Like, nobody actually listens to her or is kind to her, because they want to fuck her. When she’s not being fuckable, people dismiss her. It’s pretty intense.
SPOILER: the end of the last episode, she discloses to him that she’s an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a sex and love addict, and needs some space from him and relationships to sort herself out, and he KISSES HER, and only a very dense person would think that it was meant to be sweet. Because it’s not sweet. It’s awful, he’s awful.
Thank you for saying this! I too watched the whole thing this weekend and it left me feeling kinda flat and bummed out and I realised it was because I didn’t like any of the characters EXCEPT for her roommate who is the best person in the whole thing. But least of all him. Ugh.
Toasties! I went to watch “A Ballerina’s Tale” on Netflix last night, but of course it’s not in Canada.
But I *did* find a short documentary called “Ballet 422” that is soooooooooo catttttyyyyyyyyyyyy.
My favourite part is when the choreographer’s mentor instructs him to go over and thank the orchestra. So, the choreographer goes over and beggggggggs the orchestra not to fuck up on opening night instead. Excruciating.
Also there is a twist ending! Four ballet shoes out of five.
As an orchestra member I would have taken that as a challenge to see just how fast I could play. Don’t mess with the pit.
So we interpreted Ballet 422 very differently! I didn’t see Justin Peck as catty, I saw him as an exacting choreographer with passion and a very specific vision. He doesn’t beg the orchestra not to screw up, he asks them to play the music with the speed and energy he’s looking for (while realizing that this may not be their favorite piece to play). Rich tapestry, etc.
Oh! Both! I think the documentary was designed to highlight moments of tone-deafness and miscommunication, which it did extremely well. I absolutely think the people portrayed are passionate artists, as well. But “specific vision” is absolutely not portrayed; the entire thing is about people failing to articulate their ideas, and how collaboration and discussion happens in those spaces.
I think in that orchestra scene in particular I saw so many possible ways for him to express gratitude and support which he explicitly did not choose. He chose to express concern over confidence, which to me is a #1 bad leadership decision.
:-O Justin Peck?! I just went to the NYC Ballet on Friday night to see his collaboration with Marcel Dzama and it was amaaaaaaazing. I will definitely check out Ballet 422!
(Also, Justin Peck spoke to the audience beforehand and seemed so damn chill. He was like, “You should all stick around afterward, we’re going to have free beer and Win Butler from Arcade Fire is going to DJ. NBD.” Meanwhile, all of our heads were exploding.)
I would much prefer justin peck if he was actually the choreographer character from flesh and bone whose fake ballet he made.
I enjoyed that documentary but I enjoyed it a lot more after I watched the feature commentary (I got the DVD from the library) and figured out more of what was going on. I had missed a lot with the cinema verite, no narration no explanations style.
I didn’t see the orchestra moment as catty, though it was a kind of tense encounter. They didn’t expect him to come down there, and he didn’t seem to know how to strike the right tone. The piano master had told him that the musicians didn’t love the piece and weren’t as excited as they could be about debuting this ballet by such a young choreographer and member of the company. But Justin Peck is obviously not much of an inspirational speaker, and he doesn’t want to present himself as a newbie; he wants to seem like a capable insider. So he talks about the music in a way that kind of makes it seem like he’s honoring the importance of the orchestra (he says all his choreography is based on highlighting the music) and also kind of makes it seem like he’s dissatisfied with them.
I enjoyed “Ballet 422” but I was also cringing because Justin was not having a lot of luck communicating with people (the TENSION between him and the orchestra!) and because he was trying to both be a dancer in the corps AND get his piece completed and that’s gotta be SOOO stressful!
Now all I want to do is go home and watch The Red Shoes for the half-dozen-ish-est time and weep. Ballet, man!
Isn’t TV’s “attractiveness gap” really about misogyny? The writers are forcing beautiful women into less desirable relationships, humiliating them for comedy, and teaching them a lesson for the viewers’ vicarious enjoyment.
I’m inclined to agree. To me, it reads as comedy writers fulfilling angry-nerd fantasies about taking the women who don’t want to sleep with them ‘down a peg or two’.
Yes! And I find the whole “women are less shallow and visually oriented” meme to be a) untrue, on the whole, and b) guys perpetuating what they want to be true, because otherwise they might actually have to get a gym membership and wear something other than Dockers and cartoon t-shirts.
They also tend to be the comedic foils and not the instigators of comedy, so passive and not active, trying to contain their schlubby partners’ chaotic exuberance.
It’s like we just decided that we should repeat The Honeymooners dynamic ad nauseum forever and ever.
The attractiveness gap infuriates me for so many reasons. There are so few available roles in the industry for women who aren’t conventionally attractive in the first place. (“Let’s put glasses and ill-tailored clothing on her, and everyone will know she’s supposed to be ugly!”) It plays into male entitlement in a really gross way. And it dehumanizes the women who are cast by using them as rewards for a man’s sense of humor, centrality to the script, or whatever the fuck.
YASS, the whole let’s make over this gorgeous girl by just turning her into her actual self by the end of the movie, nobody could tell she was gorgeous when she had those glasses on, thing should be so completely dead by now. FFS
You know, I always thought of it as the creators/writers 100% focused on their insecure young male demographic (“you too can have the hot lady, don’t you love our show?”), but that’s a disturbing angle that should be considered as well. I don’t know how much of it is conscious, but it’s gross nonetheless.
But it’s not actually humiliating to go out with someone who’s perceived as less conventionally attractive than you. I think there are humiliation fantasies where the beautiful woman is shown to be stupid/vain/crazy/obsessive/whatever, but that’s separate from just “hot woman dates ordinary-looking man”.
I think it’s basically just the fundamental sexism of how TV and film gets made: less-attractive men who are talented or funny will still be successful and get into positions where they get to develop new shows, write scripts and take the lead. Not-conventionally-attractive but very talented women won’t get into those positions in the first place. And if you are a man in that position, then of course when it comes to hiring someone to play your girlfriend, you have your pick of dozens or hundreds of slim, pretty, attractive 20something women to play her, because women on television are for looking at and who bothers going to casting calls for “JANE: slim, pretty 20something” if they are size 14?
Yeah, I’m liking this take as part of the inherent way TV gets made.
My husband could easily be in one of those “unattractive” male roles — won’t comment as to whether there’s an attractiveness gap or not — and it kind of pisses me off, the implication that someone attractive should be humiliated to be seen with him.
I know the attractiveness gap is a thing. I know it’s a thing that is pernicious and sexist and double-standard-y. But I think the take home maybe isn’t, “Naturally, attractive people should find it humiliating to be with someone fat, can you believe they did that to her?”
Or if you’re hot, but not quite Hollywood hot, like Amy Schumer, success is partially predicated on being able to make fun of yourself for not being hot enough all the time. Can’t win.
I want to thank everyone who posted their encouraging bone marrow transplant stories yesterday and for all your kind and supportive words, vibes, thoughts etc. I would also like to encourage anyone who feels so inclined to join the US bone marrow donor registry ( https://bethematch.org ) especially people of minority or mixed ethnic heritage. My husband is Dominican and luckily has a number of family members but there’s no guarantee he will find a match among them. I hope there is a match out there for him and for everyone else out there who needs one!
Timely and somewhat disheartening article I read this morning on Broadly highlighting the dire need for minority/multi-heritage donors.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/without-di…
Best of luck for your husband 🙂
The Canadian registry is here if Canadian Toasties want to investigate registering: https://www.blood.ca/en/stem-cell/onematch-inform…
I have registered for the OneMatch and it was a super easy process. Fill some stuff out online, there was maybe a phone call, and then they mail you a swab kit which you mail back, and boom done!
There’s a new American Girl doll! I’m way to old to be excited about this but yes, I’m excited she’s African American and from Detroit in the 60’s. http://theweek.com/speedreads/607698/american-gir…
I’m super excited too!
Me three!
Love her outfit. And this is awesome news! (The type of cheerful thing I needed today, so thanks.)
Somewhat relevant: there’s a Kickstarter around for a series of dolls that are like the American Girls with books and accessories and whatnot, but modern and aspirational instead of historical/educational: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/588326574/wi…
Me too! I still swipe the catalog from my mom every Christmas.
You are never too old to be excited about American Girls things. IMHO.
So I read Little Women at least ten times as a youngster and then decided I had read it enough, but I went back to it a couple years ago at age 36 and was shocked (SHOCKED) that I could actually see what Jo saw in Bhaer. I wrote unsolicited emails to old friends with lines like “Jo has just started writing home letters about Professor Bhaer, and I am kind of smitten” or “Also, he is our age. ‘Nearly forty.’ The crusty old German is OUR. AGE.”
About ten minutes after that HE IS US email I wrote this one, which I reproduce in full without edits:
Also once Jo starts writing all the sensationalist, moral-less stories, LM Alcott gives us this paragraph:
“She was beginning to feel rather than see [the darker side of life], for much describing of other people’s passions and feelings set her to studying and speculating about her own, a morbid amusement in which healthy young minds do not voluntarily indulge.”
Josephine March, a 20-year-old financially-independent woman, is masturbating? Is that it?
TELL ME WHAT TO THINK ABOUT THIS BOOK
Re-reading it is turning my world upside down.
When I first read Little Women as a teenager, I was so unhappy that Jo ended up with Bhaer. I couldn’t read it again for years because of that. I reread it again when I was about 30 and was also shocked that I now I too like Bhaer! I think our attitudes on love and romance change as we age, and maybe that’s a good thing! And yes, of COURSE Jo was masturbating.
I have totally and completely missed that but it makes perfect sense. Now I need to go re-read Little Women as well.
Jo is writing slashfic.
That explains why Bhaer was so down on her writing!
Headcanon accepted.
Obviously the only explanation for Bhaergate is that they were each other’s beards. I will not accept anything else.
ohhhhhhhhh
I will not accept that Jo is not at least bi.
Saaaame
The thing about the attractiveness gap on TV is it suggests that it can never happen the other way round (hot guy, average woman) whereas in reality that happens all the time! I have a couple of average-looking women friends who get with insanely hot guys (like, models and that level of hot person) all the time, because they’re funny, charming, interesting – all those things we’re told can make up for being less than physically perfect in men, but not in women. Because hot man with not hot woman does not compute, other people I know rave about how insanely beautiful these women are when they’re not! They’re great fantastic people, but they are not insanely beautiful. But it’s like people see them with hot guys and level them up in their heads to match a picture of what heterosexual relationships should look like. It’s bizarre.
New Girl briefly tried it, pairing Schmidt with Merritt Weaver for a while before he went back to Cece, for reasons which mostly seem based on the fact that she’s a lead on the show.
I don’t watch New Girl, but whenever I hear about it, it seems like the writers try hard to be nice and understanding about relationships and stuff, and that’s better than nothing.
I was running through things in my head, and I think there’s a few other counterexamples (although obviously, a tiny minority).
Liz Lemon isn’t unattractive by any stretch, but she is generally kind of a sloppy mess. But Tina Fey cast Jason Sudeikis, Matt Damon, and James Marsden as her boyfriends. Not to mention Jon Freaking Hamm. Same for Jessica Jones. Krysten Ritter is gorgeous, but Jones wears the same dirty hoodie every day, opposite Luke Cage who seems unable to stop flexing. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rebecca Bunch is similarly schlubby next to Josh.
Although the running thread in these, I’m realizing, is incredibly attractive actresses very carefully trying to undermine their own hotness in particular roles. I don’t even know if that counts.
yeah exactly, it’s a side effect of TV/movie universes where unattractive women just don’t exist. So then we have to buy that Tina Fey is one of them.
I adore Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but Rebecca and Josh have not been portrayed as a viable couple. The joke is that is not a good match for her on several levels (hotness, intellectual, financial). I don’t think it’s mean towards Rebecca in the looks department the way an inferior show would be, but the fact that Josh is on another level than her physically, thus making her hopes for him even more unrealistic, is definitely a part of the show.
She is definitely “normal hot” vs Hollywood hot. I think that works in a show about Southern California, because that’s definitely a thing that is more obvious there. The beauty standard is ridiculously high even for everyday people.
I actually disagree, not about the hotness differential but that Josh and Rebecca have not been portrayed as a viable couple. I think one of the interesting things they’ve done is flip the standard “she wants the hot confident guy but will soon realize the nerdier best friend is the perfect guy for her” trope on its head. Josh is definitely not as smart as Rebecca but they get each other on an emotional level, like how he gets how deeply soul-sucking she found New York to be and how she could find comfort in small, boring West Covina even though no one else gets that. Meanwhile Greg is level with her on the hotness and intellectual levels, but his harsh but affectionate teasing hits all the right buttons to send her into an emotional spiral and means that they probably won’t ever work as a couple unless they both change dramatically. I think it’s the best show I’ve seen for portraying the subtle personality interactions that make or break a relationship, even if she doesn’t end up dating either guy.
Ooooh. Interesting points. I totally agree that Greg is all wrong for her and that the show is cleverly setting that up.
I still think the show drops a lot of hints that Josh is actually wrong for Rebecca. Yes, he understands stuff like the New York/West Covina thing. And you could make an argument that his lack of ambition is matched to her realization in the first episode that career isn’t everything.
But there is so much about her that he doesn’t understand at all. Like how he laughs at first about her letter being weird, saying how weird and intense she was back then and thinking she’s reading it to him as a joke. What he tends to respond to in Rebecca is someone who needs him and appreciates him. It’s rather ego-driven. He’s really appreciating having this woman around who adores him, but there isn’t a lot of evidence to me that they have much in common beyond him needing someone who admires him and her needing him to love him.
I’m really hoping that at some point we see them get together and those issues come out. Will Rebecca really be happy if she gets her man?
P.S. Did “You Ruined Everything” make you cry? I totally was close to ugly crying but kept laughing too because it was so perfectly acted. My spouse just thought it was funny and I was a little dumbfounded that he didn’t respond to it on another level. But he has a mom who worships him and I have a Ms Bunch. Haha
I actually am on the fence if Josh is right for Rebecca or not. If nothing else, I’m not sure she could have a functional relationship with him after obsessing on him and building him up in her mind even if she got to a better place psychologically and emotionally.
I do think he’d have to come around to appreciating her emotional intensity, but I think maybe he was by the end of I’m Back at Camp with Josh! And I do agree he’s pretty self-involved and I’m not impressed that he wanted to hang out with Rebecca behind Valencia’s back even after he agreed he wouldn’t. I’m not sure if he only likes Rebecca when she’s being adoring. I think that’s a valid read on it, but my read was more that he’s led a life of useless frivolity so he’s really drawn to times when he can be useful and helpful, like using his social capital to help out Rebecca’s housewarming party or helping run the summer camp for disadvantaged youth.
I don’t usually cry at TV shows, but that song was an emotional roller coaster. This show, to me, is what I think Girls is for other people: I simultaneously identify so hard with the characters and cringe at how horribly they behave. I was never the artistic idealist in the big city so Girls does nothing for me, but I’ve definitely been the “responsible” awkward one feeling like my life is going nowhere I want it to and seems held together with string.
Also, Jon Hamm’s hotness is played with pretty hilariously, since his character is a guy who’s so good looking that he exists in a bubble where nobody ever corrects him, despite the fact that he’s a total idiot, and Liz can’t take his stupidity, despite his hotness.
incredibly attractive actresses very carefully trying to undermine their own hotness That’s what they call acting! See also: every woman who’s ever won an Oscar for performing while wearing an “unattractive” prosthetic/”ugly” makeup.
It’s an interesting parallel to the “Jonah Hill has a great personality” approach, actually. Average-to-schlubby guy has personality traits that make up for his physical imperfections, whereas gorgeous woman has personality traits that detract from her physical perfection, allowing these two categories of human to meet in the middle.
I just watched Master of None last month and while I thought it was a really thoughtful, aware show, the episode where Aziz hooks up with Claire Danes got me thinking about the attractiveness gap issue and how irritating I find it. I like Aziz and think he’s cute, but it kind of gets to me how male comedians specifically seem to think that being funny and telling a few mediocre jokes will make it plausible that a normal-looking guy will get with a ridiculously hot lady. Female comedians (if they even had their own shows har har har) could never get away with doing that! How does being a funny dude automatically raise you from a 5 to a 9 on the attractiveness scale but nobody seems to think the same thing about funny ladies? Even though within the episode Aziz seems aware of how crazy it is, it did kind of sour me on the show a bit. I’m just tired of it.
That episode is such a stark example of the attractiveness gap. In no actual world would Claire Danes be so amped to have an affair with Aziz Ansari. I see beautiful women with dudes less attractive than them in the real world often (all the time), but that’s seriously pushing it.
Sometimes (a lot) I think that comedians with their own shows or movies specifically build episodes or plots around getting with much hotter women as a form of wish-fulfillment, just because they can (Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, Adam Sandler, etc. etc.) The classic example of this is Seinfeld, in which almost every single woman that George, Kramer, and Jerry date are so much hotter than them it’s crazy. And then they get to dump the hot women because they chew too loudly or have large hands.
I was actually thinking about Seinfeld specifically. Jerry isn’t the hottest guy in NY but you would never know that from the women he dates. And in a show which is so sharp and not afraid of criticizing its characters for their flaws, I feel like that’s never brought up by anybody else as a “wait, are we really supposed to believe that all these women want to date you because you’re a COMEDIAN” moment. And George and Kramer is just straight up ridiculous fantasy territory. I noticed in the comments of the original article that somebody brought up that many of these guys actually are married to crazy beautiful women irl, but still, I don’t think it’s because “male comedian” is world’s sexiest profession or something which often just seems assumed in some of these shows.
Eh, Jerry was (a) reasonably good-looking; (b) outgoing and confident; (c) successful enough in his career to be on national TV from time to time; and (d) by definition, spending a lot of time in nightclubs, meeting women who were out looking to meet someone. I could usually buy his girlfriends.
George and Kramer, though…
Oh gawd, Adam Sandler–he’s the schlubbiest of the schlubs. I don’t really find him funny either. Aziz is an average looking guy, but at least he is genuinely funny and an interesting guy.
Adam Sandler’s movies are wish-fulfillment in two senses: the women he pairs himself with and the locations he shoots at (he’s admitted that most of his latest movies are basically paid vacations). It is downright OFFENSIVE to me when his movies portray women like Brooklyn Decker and Jennifer Aniston and Drew Barrymore as super into him. It’s not like he’s funny or charming in these movies either. Just offensive on so many levels.
Side note: the linked article writes it as zhlub, which I’ve never seen spelled that way!
Ben Stiller was on the Daily Show the other night promoting Zoolander 2. The movie clip they showed was of Ben Stiller grabbing Penelope Cruz’s boobs for some reason (they had to jump in the ocean and needed buoyancy? Doesn’t matter, was dumb.)
Anyway, during the interview Trevor Noah said “Tell me Ben, who wrote that scene” and Ben mumbled and smirked for a few minutes and then just admitted “I did.” I mean yes, it’s a silly movie, and for all I know that scene was actually Penelope Cruz’s idea, and Ben Stiller is a nice enough looking man but…come on. Penelope Cruz. The whole thing was gross.
Further evidence of my theory!
MAN, I hated that movie clip they played. It guarantees I’m not going to see the movie.
Because it wasn’t just Ben Stiller grabbing her boobs, it was presented as PENELOPE’S idea, her physically grabbing his hands and moving them there while he’s all :O, and it was the grossest kind of self-insert fantasy while the hot lady has no self-awareness of how gratifying it is for the dude.
DEFINITELY don’t go to see it. I actually left in the middle of the movie, for the first time in my life. It wasn’t just a mediocre comedy sequel, it was so aggressively unfunny that I couldn’t even sit through it because time slowed to the slowest of crawls.
Damn, I’m sorry you had to go through that. What a bummer — I saw the original Zoolander for the first time not so long ago, and I pretty well enjoyed it.
Yeah, it was especially disappointing because I’d always had a soft spot in my heart for the original.
I mean, the Claire Danes character is clearly using him to deal with her own stuff. His main virtues to her are that he’s proximate and relatively pliable. I agree that the attractiveness gap is obnoxious for many of those reasons, but for me, MON’s courtship had two (exaggerated) humans behaving as humans sometimes do, rather than rolling stock tropes in without explanation.
That’s true, it did spin it on its head a little, I guess it just caused me to think more about the trope in general because it did stand out in such an otherwise progressive and interesting show.
I felt this way too. And I dunno, I find Aziz Ansari plenty attractive. Though I find it hard to compare Ansari and Danes just in terms of attractiveness–she is so famous that she has this Movie Star aura that sorta overwhelms all the reasonably successful comedians onscreen with her.
One thing I’ve always liked about Claire Danes, actually, is that she’s not model-pretty. She can look beautiful from some angles and plain from others. Which is the way a lot of people are, but Claire Danes somehow is more so. As I understand it, that’s why the role of Angela in My So-Called Life went to her and not Alicia Silverstone, who also auditioned – Silverstone was older and able to work more hours, but she was too classically pretty to be a realistic Angela. With Claire Danes, you could honestly believe that she saw herself as just ordinary-looking.
At this point I think you’re right, she has a movie star glamour that kind of takes over, but in theory I don’t think she and Ansari are an outrageous mismatch looks-wise.
There’s been this research recently to the effect that “when [psychologists] would ask men and women what they looked for in their long-term partners, both genders would say they wanted someone “with a good sense of humor.” It was only when researchers pressed their subjects on what they meant, specifically, by “sense of humor,” that the sex difference became clear. Women want men who will tell jokes; men want women who will laugh at theirs” (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/plight-of-the-funny-female/416559/). Thus, male comedians feel like they can probably pull, while the funniest girl you know is probably single.
Oof. That’s all I have to say.
I almost shouted “what?!” in the middle of my work cafeteria, reading that.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am! Sexism always finds new ways to delight!
Oh man, I am both hilarious and single, and hadn’t made that connection. Goddamnit.
I would bask in your jokes!! <3<3<3<3
I read this a while ago and I’m pretty sure I had blocked it out until now. It’s probably going to go back into the mental void, because just re-skimming the article is making me twitchy.
I’m suddenly so glad to have my boyfriend–we tell an equal number of terrible jokes and feed off each other, and when I land a particularly good one he LOVES IT.
It doesn’t happen with female comedians as much because female comedians have to be model/actress hot to even get a show.
I know Mindy Kaling has joked about using the show to cast hot guys to make out with, and she certainly had lots of camoes in the first two seasons but once again, but while she doesn’t fulfill the traditional super slim standards, she is still gorgeous.
The closest I can get to the reverse is the 30 Rock episode where Liz Lemon dated Jon Hamm.
I really feel for the interim manager who has to deal with Leah. I’ve had a similar situation at my job, with a fellow employee who would sneak around behind peoples’ backs, interfere with their work, and refuse to admit that she was wrong in doing so. She eventually retired (refusing to let the department throw her a going-away party–that tells you a lot, right there), but even before that, she’d become one of the least-reliable people in terms of coming into work; the manager let her come in at odd hours to make it up, but there was some of her work that had to be done under tight and unforgivable headlines, and so the rest of us had to cover for her. The thing is, we wouldn’t mind that much, because that just meant that we didn’t have to deal with her bullshit. (P.S. The reason she retired? New manager, who told her that she had to come in when she was supposed to, and if it was a genuine health problem (her go-to excuse), that had to be documented. Sometimes, stories do have happy endings!)
Oh, I DO TOO. I had an employee once who did that. I had The Talk with her and also noted (on top of AAM’s excellent reframing) that when she did other people’s jobs she sent the message that she thought they were incompetent. Which is also not good for morale.
Was so relieved when she quit.
With age, I can understand that Laurie was not right for Jo but I will NEVER forgive Bhaer for telling her to stop wasting her time writing sensationalist stories. Fuck you, condescending white dude. So, Team Adventuress Spinster Jo!
I am so glad Ask A Manager exists.
I literally rec it to everyone looking for a job or who’s looking for job-related advice.
AAM taught me how to job. I am sincerely applying Alison’s advice in an effort to level up my employment now. I don’t think I could do it without her.
Didn’t LMA do that a lot, though? She had another series (Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, I think) where the protag was supposed to be in love with the rakishly handsome dude but found that the quieter guy was a better fit.
Except in that one the hot guy died from a DUI (seriously I think he got in an accident from drunken horseback riding), and the quiet guy was a doctor who wrote poetry in his spare time.
Also they were her COUSINS why were the only suitable matches her COUSINS.
Mac was a million times better than Charlie, and I will brook no argument on that front.
True true! It really frustrated me how everyone else kept saying, “But what about CHAAAAAARLIE~”
Just. No.
The only thing about Mac was the one time he was complaining about some woman they knew who was mean or annoying, and he said something along the lines of, “Next time her dog’s leg breaks I’m not gonna fix it.”
I haven’t read that book in years, but that moment really stuck with me. Yeah, the woman might be a pill, but what’s wrong with you that you take it out on a defenceless animal?
Other than that he was cool, though.
I know someone who finds Charlie attractive, and I cannot understand it; the feckless layabout type does nothing for me. Give me the nerds every time.
I don’t remember that bit, but I am now deeply disappointed in Mac for it.
Yeah, I just had a look in my copy, it’s from Chapter 6. Mac recounts how he advised some society type to adopt an orphan instead of having a lapdog:
“No, she gave a little shriek and said, ‘Good gracious, Mr. Campbell, how droll you are! Take me to Mama, please,’ which I did with a thankful heart. Catch me setting her pug’s leg again,” ended Mac with a grim shake of the head.”
Maybe I should read the book again. It seems a bit different to how I remember.
I think if your dog’s leg is breaking regularly, you probably ought to figure out why.
You’d hope so, right? Probably she was a terrible pet owner. It’s just as well she didn’t want an orphan, really.
my nana’s friend had a lap dog who was so tiny and fragile that he couldn’t jump down from the sofa without a serious risk of breaking bones.
which is a problem in and of itself, but not specifically the owner’s fault- she spent a lot of time and energy making sure he never jumped anywhere after the first time it happened.
I always “got” Bhaer more than Laurie. Laurie never made any sense to me even as a kid.
In the Winona Ryder film version (my first and longest-lasting impression of LW), I loved that Bhaer took her to the opera. Even as a little mariahnotmaria, I knew that shit was romantic.
According to Twitter’s trending topics (always the most reliable source) it’s National Toast Day. I’m just going to pretend that’s about The Toast. Cheers to us all!
WHERE ARE THE GIFS IN REPLY TO THIS ~ PLEASE REMEDY TOASTHASTE ~
ETA pun, as one does
Being given a bowlderized Little Women that omitted Beth’s death has messed me up throughout life: I always had my headcanon that Jo Made It Big On Her Own.
I had that same edition and I was SO CONFUSED at Beth’s ‘magical recovery’ because the one thing I knew about that damn book before even reading it is that Beth dies! My young self was disappointed at not being traumatised.
Was it bowdlerised or was it the UK version? That splits Little Women (everything up to Beth’s recovery and Mr March’s return) and Good Wives (second half with all the marriages and Beth’s death) into two books, rather than the American one. I was so confused about all of the “Little Women is so sad! Beth dies!” stuff, because I knew she didn’t, she died in Good Wives!
The latter! Thank you for unconfusing something I’ve had confused since pre tweenage.
My mom always claims that Alcott was in love with Emerson, who was her father’s friend, and that’s why Jo likes older, scholarly men.
my heart hurts just looking at that Sansa photo, no one should be deprived of Sansa snugs! Those big fluff feets!!!
The attractiveness gap thing fascinates me in that it’s a trope that’s well known and regularly made fun of, but still happens, in a straight-up non-subverty way, all the dang time. It’s like TV is going “we know, we know, here’s one more, though.”
It’s like TV is going “we know, we know, here’s one more, though.”
Yes, exactly! That’s what annoyed me with Master of None I think, it was like “maybe you thought we weren’t going to go there, guess what, WE ARE!!” while simultaneously asking for the show to be praised as progressive and unique.
Take this with a grain of salt because I don’t watch MoN, but I think that even though the attractiveness gap is a terrible trope, pairing Claire Danes with Aziz Ansari is a little subversive and progressive in that it’s not the kind of interracial relationship that usually plays on TV. There’s been a historical tendency to play off Asian men as undesirable or else really sexually threatening (stealing all the white women, though I think that’s mainly an Early Hollywood thing), and Indian men are particularly underrepresented in Western media.
It’s almost like the executives greenlighting the shows have schlubby-dude issues.
My (poorly remembered and probably irrational) impression of Laurie was one of annoyance, so I was glad Jo didn’t wind up with him. She was so much cooler than him, truly. I sort of…forgot Bhaer existed, tbh. So I have no poorly informed opinion on that match.
I’ve always assumed Jo was queer and I just wanted her to strike out on her own, be a spinster in some sort of Boston marriage arrangement…
Oh yeah, 100%, the whole sudden earth-mother thing was a huge disappointment.
Sooooo, I have very PASSIONATE feelings about Little Women, and especially Jo. I will admit that when I was younger, I TOO, was VERY UPSET about her not marrying Laurie — but on rereads as a young adult, I DO see the charm in Professor Bhaer — like in the chapter, Under the Umbrella, when he’s so touched that she’s tearing up about him leaving? And he’s so joyful and surprised? I don’t know, that’s a lovely moment, and in Jo’s Boys, he does so many good teaching and fatherly things that while I’m still a little miffed over the Not-Laurie Ending, I’m coming to accept dear old Fritz.
ALSO THE PROFESSOR BHAER CASTING FOR THE MOVIE WAS TERRIBLE AND THAT’S PROBABLY WHAT RUINED IT FOR MANY PEOPLE — WHERE WAS HIS BEARD FIRST OF ALL!??!?!?!?
It would be all wrong even if he had a beard. Gabriel Byrne is so slimy in that movie. He is not the slightest bit comfortingly Germanic, and the opera thing is so exactly wrong. (I don’t like that movie much.)
I LOVE that “Under the Umbrella” chapter. That was actually my favorite part of the book when I read it as a kid.
I loved that umbrella chapter — I think partially because the version I had as a kid had a good illustration of it? Anyway, to this day I see sharing an umbrella as a Very Romantic Thing. (I do hate that Bhaer criticizes Jo’s writing though.)
I think it’s romantic too. I love that she is a big dithery mess and no one is articulate and it’s raining and yet it all works out because love. That is the best.
I don’t think it’s awful that he thinks her writing is trashy. Alcott’s sensation stories are kind of trashy, frankly–lots of cliches, forgettable writing, not very thriling.
I really wish it had gone something like this when Bhaer cirticized Jo for writing adventure stories:
Jo slapped a bundle of papers down on the table. “This is my collection of Grant/Lee slashfic. You’d better be prepared to act this out in its entirety if you ever plan on hooking up with me.”
Leaves through papers. “Why are you looking at me like that? Gott in Himmel, you’re going to make me be Lee, aren’t you?”
ACTUAL LITERAL LOL
I love this so much.
Know what I would like? A human Lyme vaccine.
(Yes, I know there used to be, and it was pulled.)
Amazing (“28 queens of black history who deserve much more glory”): http://goodstuffhappenedtoday.tumblr.com/post/139…
That Kathleen Cleaver picture!
that is the face of a woman who knows she’s listening to some bullshit.
Ha, my thought when I saw it was, “She’s about to kill someone with nothing but her spectacular eyebrows.”
Continuing his trend of being a decent human being while politician-ing, JT will be the first prime minister to march in the Toronto Pride Parade.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/trudeau-tor…
I am hoping with every fibre of my being that he will wear a black mesh muscle shirt and leather chaps or something.
My money’s on something casual-but-sexy that’ll give him plausible deniability, but still make it clear that he understands and supports Pridefest. Dark-wash jeans and a tight t-shirt, or something. Like Anderson Cooper sometimes wears for fieldwork.
Given that he’s worn desi kurta-pyjamas while bhangra dancing at an Indian-Candian cultural event, I see no reason to believe he won’t dress appropriately for the Pride parade. Hold on to your hope!
Ooooo, I totally have a pic of him with my friend at Montreal’s pride parade from… 3 or 4 years ago? If history repeats itself, it will be slim, dark jeans, stylish shoes, and a slightly too hot b&w striped shirt. And, of course, a gleeful grin and hosts of admirers.
My state has the first out LGBT governor in the USA (Kate Brown!) and she was at Portland’s Pride parade last year. Ugh, I love her so much.
Oh thanks, I’ve been looking for a reason to close that Reddit thread about the worst things people have seen in the ER you posted yesterday, and now I have that plane crash thing to replace it.
The hyphen toast dot net, keeping your browser disturbing!
I fully intended to Get Shit Done yesterday, and then I spent the afternoon reading about disturbing ER shit.
i never did finish that. thanks for the reminder 😀
i feel like tattoos should involve some kind of personal internal review process in advance where you sort of go over your decisions and check whether your great idea of permanently engraving that one time your hot teacher said something nice to you onto your foot crosses the line from puppy love to skinsuit love
My dream job is “sober, disinterested adult sitting outside tattoo parlor to whom people must verbally explain their desired tattoo.” Then, they can do whatever they want, but a small and crucial number of terrible mistakes could be prevented by just having to say the thing aloud.
imagine the first dates ten years down the line when this person has continued in their habit of tattooing it every time someone in any context says something that makes them feel all warm inside, like Memento for affirmations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbiDj6vJfug
but with
But if she had a lot of them from different people, that would almost qualify as a socially-acceptable level of quirky. Having just one, from a teacher she has a crush on, is just scary.
You’d think that would work, but tattooists who can afford to turn away work sometimes attempt these things, and according to my buddy who is one such, very few people ever back out, they just go find someone hungrier to do it. 🙁
Also I am now realizing that this student probably had this tattoo done near her university and…all the sadface. All of it.
I want that job, only for child naming.
I almost shrieked at that. I have a dear friend’s signature Incorporated into the tattoo he designed for me, and I know that choice is off-putting to some people…I can’t imagine inking the handwriting of someone in a professional relationship with me on my body, and I’m a person who tried *hard* to get a good enough handwriting sample from a historical personage for my tattooist to create a font with which to ink a spoken quotation of theirs. Seriously. I want to find that student and offer to hook her up with the cover up artist I know before she embarrasses herself more.
(Sample from their written works, obviously, I didn’t try to contact them from the spirit realm.)
ug, why not? don’t you want your tattoo to be authentic?! maybe their ghost would have written it all fancy-like.
1.) As a superstitious Southerner, I don’t do seances and Ouija boards, plus I think the personage in question has earned their rest from human cares; and 2.) My tattooist had the excellent suggestion of a period font and the sketch looks great, so that’s my next ink adventure, without the possibility of anything trying to eat my soul.
Ah, well, soul-eating is a bit of a concerns I suppose…
yeah like they’re always something personal but also every person who has ever seen my tat wants me to explain it to them, and the letter writer has condemned themselves to a lifetime of the choice to wear sandals being a choice to tell every vague acquaintance in detail about how they were once hot for teacher
Apparently it’s very small, so I wish for her an excellent cover-up artist and better boundaries.
Yeah, except having a tattoo doesn’t mean you are obligated to tell every stranger who asks the meaning. Which a lot of asshole strangers don’t realize.
Yeah, like, if the historical poet I’m intending to basically commit my career to had a very good extant piece of writing I’d get it tattooed in a heartbeat but… living person? Living person I have to be able to look in the eye next time I see them? Hell no.
Like I said elsethread, if it’s a living person & you can’t talk to them about your plans to use their handwriting (famous people excepted maybe but I still think that’s weird) then you don’t need that tattoo.
I keep thinking “okay but I have a song lyric on my arm” and I keep reminding myself that that’s different, it’s not like I know Bjork personally or stalk her or anything, and on top of that it’s my own handwriting.
Quotes and lyrics are a done thing, though: I don’t think people find it that unsettling, and its your own handwriting.
Also what lyric I am mad curious if it’s the one I want.
“All is full of love”
Which, I have since discovered, is a fairly common tattoo for Bjork fans! I once was shopping for clothes and the dude who rang me up had the same words in HIS own handwriting!
I love that one, but I want “I’m a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl.”
OH MAN. That’s a good one too!
I got mine when I was turning 28 and going through depression (again). It was meant to be a reminder that I’m always surrounded by love–my friends and family care about me. It’s been a good reminder.
That song has been my rock since it came out, so I feel that.
This is why I impose a one year waiting period for all tattoos
Wow, was it just me or are the Dear Prudence questions unusually sad today? Normally, there’s at least one that amazes me with its sheer absurdity or that has me shouting “DTMFA!!” in righteous indignation. But today, they just seem grim.
Don’t get permanent tattoos about “unrequited love”. Don’t let anyone (much less your husband!) call you awful names. Don’t let your abusive dad back in your life now that you’ve successfully escaped him. Do tell the parents that an 8-year-old pooped her pants and didn’t care about it!
And about that guy with the wife in hospice and half-his-age girlfriend, if I’ve done my math right…
His wife has been in hospice “for several years” + he already has a 4-year-old “from a different relationship” + he’ll totes marry you after he gets you pregnant = GIRL, GET YOUR RUNNING SHOES ON YESTERDAY AND RUN
Sometimes I think 80% of being an advice columnist is finding nurturing ways to say “No” and “Run away.”
I’m in the middle of Roxane Gay’s book Bad Feminist, and I am relating hard to her desire to start all her advice with GIRL.
(Also, how does she know how just to cut my heart out with a hot knife? All her words are fiery darts.)
I am a person who people come to for advice professionally, which means they also come to me for personal advice on occasion, and the non-professional ones so often require me to start out with “Oh, honey.”
The guy in that letter set off my pathological liar vibes either he doesn’t have a wife or the wife is alive and well and has no idea her philandering husband is pregnancy propositioning women half his age.
Ooooooh yes that would make a lot of sense.
That would explain things, for sure, because this story just does not add up, and I smell bullshit in it somewhere.
I’m pretty sure his wife isn’t in hospice.
FOR ONE THING, hospices generally only (by generally I mean basically they only ever ever ever) accept people who have medical documentation of a <12-month life expectancy, and insurance absolutely stops paying for hospice care after twelve months.
If this woman has been in hospice care for several years, she is either a miracle person or they are so wealthy they can pay for it out of pocket, which… most people cannot do that.
Yeah, I also started to think about that after I posted, and more and more it makes me suspect that this is one of those guys who has whole worlds built out of nothing but lies.
I think this guy is sketch as all hell, but I have occasionally heard people refer to long-term care facilities for people in vegetative states with minimal chances of recovery (etc) but not actively/acutely dying as “hospice.” (I think the facility Terri Schiavo was in, for example, had “hospice” in its name even though she was there for several years before her actual death.)
So he totally could be full of it, but it’s possible he and/or the LW and/or the facility are saying “hospice” when they mean “long term acute care with minimal chance of recovery.”
Speaking as someone who works in a retirement home that is mostly independent living, people mix up the terms (retirement home, nursing home, long-term care, rehab, hospice) all the damn time. It can make phone conversations at work confusing.
It brings out all my Rochester feelings.
YES.
By “hospice”, what he really meant to say was “attic”.
I felt a lot of empathy for that Prudie letter writer, but if I had a student who had tattoos not just of stuff I’d published (I imagine JK Rowling meets people with Harry Potter tattoos) but handwritten feedback I’d given on their paper, I would get a restraining order.
I cannot imagine inking a living person’s handwriting without their permission. It hits all my Not Okay buttons. I know people do it with dead people, famous and not, but alive? If you’re not close enough with the person to discuss the tattoo then you don’t need the tattoo, dude.
YES. I need us to be talking A WHOLE LOT MORE about how this article turned a sympathy cringe into a deep shiver. I also empathize with being young and queer and heartsick, but oh nooooooo, this is so upsettingggggg
Yes. And this person is going to be her adviser. This has Cannot End Well written all over it.
I’m also stuck on this part: “I’m fairly sure she knows I have a crush on her—it’s not subtle—and my guess would be that she finds it flattering.”
How exactly does it manifest unsubtly? How much does the professor actually suspect? It can’t be so bad that she feels unsafe in one-on-one encounters in a closed room, since she’s agreed to be her adviser…
Every scenario I run through my head comes back to “but would she feel it’s harmless if she knew about the ink.” I cannot.
YES that exactly.
Yeah, exactly. I can’t imagine she would ever have agreed to be an adviser, if she knew. I sincerely hope the LW can keep it together and not “accidentally” let it slip or…do anything else that crosses boundaries.
I had a crush on my mentor for five minutes before she was my mentor and now very close friend and even NOW I cannot imagine asking her to let me ink her handwriting even though we are super close. Maybe if she died and even then I’d feel obligated to at least talk to her husband about it since we’re also friends, and I hope whatever embarrassment that girl felt reading the response from Mallory sent her straight to student health to get some kind of therapy. I’m a person who has had trouble with boundaries in my life and I cannot imagine ever going this far off script. Yeesh.
Unreturned affections aren’t flattering either (at least for me?) and if I knew my student had those kinds of feelings I would NOPE the heck out of that situtation
yeah I’m p sure the only person who’s flattered by that is the one who wants to bang you back, who if they have any sense won’t agree to be your faculty advisor either
This, or maybe they are really insecure as an academic (especially if fairly junior?) and enjoy the adulation as a confirmation of their worth? Or they could be really senior and egotistical and enjoy the confirmation of their self-regard. Either way, it’s a big ol’ NOPE
Or they’re oblivious that there’s a romantic component because the student is queer and they’re not picking it up. All kinds of bad options!
That was my roommate’s assessment, and definitely possible. As someone who has been on the professor side of a student crush a few times, though, I feel like you ALWAYS KNOW. Especially when it’s this intense.
(Also, I sorta hope the LW isn’t a Toast reader and feeling upset by this thread. I hesitated to post anything here, but it just has SO MANY interesting threads, I couldn’t not.)
Yeah, I’ve heard this idea that being liked by someone, even if you don’t like them back, should be flattering. It has never been true in real life, in my experience – both I and the people I’ve known who ended up in that situation just found unrequited crushes embarrassing and awkward. It’s not a compliment and doesn’t read like one when you’re on the receiving end.
(Not an insult either, or anything, it just is what it is, but it’s not a compliment.)
THIS IS A NO GOOD VERY BAD IDEA ON THE PART OF THE ADVISOR, too! If she does have any awareness of the crush, which the writer seems to think she does. As a professor myself, I was pondering over this aspect of the whole thing at length last night.
Yeah. I’ve never been a professor but I think the professor has less of a clue than LW thinks. (I am desperately hoping for both their sakes that LW is an undergrad and this is not, like, their thesis advisor, or some advisory thing harder to change.)
I IMMEDIATELY assumed this is a grad student – didn’t even think of the undergrad possibility – but now that I have, I’m fervently hoping the same.
“Sympathy cringe to deep shiver.” Exactly. Letter-writer seems really lonely, honestly, and we all do kinda weird things when we have crushes, but this crossed into NOT OKAY when she decided to put a reminder of her “unrequited love” for this person onto her body forever.
My roommate explained this Dear Prudence to me over dinner last night, because I hadn’t read for myself yet. So at first I was like, ah, I see, this is a question about professionalism and tattoos. Then she brought up the unrequited crush and I was like, oh noooo, weird turn, but whatever. THEN she got to the tattoos and I became “AAAAHHH OMGGGGG”. FINALLY I was told that this is her future advisor and I officially lost my mind.
THEN THE FACT THAT THE END IS LIKE, “SHOULD I COVER THEM?!?!” sent me into a new mental galaxy.
Felicia Day wrote in her memoir about someone who got her signature tattooed onto him for a bet…and was planning to use the money he got for winning the bet to enroll in community college…and the guy wouldn’t pay up…all of which makes me think tattoos should be more expensive and community college cheaper.
My self described tattooed knucklehead buddy frequently (usually while intoxicated) issues the “I’ll let you make me get any tattoo you want if you pay for it or vice versa” challenge. Apparently previous iterations of this stunt are what got him the zombie clowns preeminent in one of his sleeves.
Lol, yes, those are good take-away lessons.
I AM SO TROUBLED BY THIS. Using someone’s published words or characters (I speak as someone with a Terry Pratchett tattoo who plans to get another) is fine, and I’ve seen examples of people using their loved ones’ handwriting in sweet ways, but this seems really, really, really WEIRD.
As I mentioned on another thread today, I have a tattoo of a Bjork song lyric, in my own handwriting. Lots of people have song lyric tattoos though! I’m not Bjork’s friend or her stalker.
A former acquaintance (newish friend, but not someone I would call “close”) secretly snapped a photo of a drawing my 2-year-old son made and HAD IT TATTOOED ON HER CALF. She knew that my husband was planning to have a small, black & white version tattooed on his arm, so she beat him to the punch with a huge, full color version. Of my son’s drawing. Whom she had known for maybe six months (also, she had her own 2-year-old son–that’s how we knew her, our kids were preschool friends–but she declined to have any of his drawings made into a tattoo.)
What. Was there any more context? Is she somehow obsessed with all of you? Insanely competitive in a really weird way? I can’t imagine how she explained that to her poor kid. Or anyone else.
I honestly have been trying to explain it to myself for years (this happened 8 years ago). Yhe friendship obviously came to an abrupt conclusion shortly after, but I have always wanted to figure out WHHHHYYYY without having to re-establsh contact. It wasn’t even a good drawing! Just one of ghose floating heads with limbs that all 2-year-olds make!
That would gnaw at me too along with everything about this. I just…my sympathies.
I think it’s gnawing at all of us already….! I will forever want to know wtf that person was thinking. For. Ever.
I could sorta understand if she didn’t have kids, but wanted an authentic kid drawing, thought this was a great one. (SORTA.) (And of course she DOES have a kid, soooooo….. WHAT?) But THEN the element of beating your partner to the tattoo punch is what takes it to serious levels of what-the-fuckery.
This is on the level of that reddit story that was going around yesterday, too. (http://jezebel.com/redditor-wants-to-know-if-we-think-her-fiance-is-doing-1760444524) NOT OKAY
OHHHHHHHHH MYYYYYY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD what
DO WHAT NOW
WHAAAAAT oh my god that’s terrifying.
HOLY SHIT WHY. Was she after your husband? I would be SO CREEPED OUT if someone did that with my hypothetical kid’s drawing. Like, worth immediately considering a restraining order.
How awkward is the pickup time at preschool now oh my god.
I can’t even oh my god
No! She was gay and happily married to her very beautiful, smart, successful wife with Her own perfect, sweet son! The whole thing was the most insane thing that has ever happened to me (possibly aside from when Micheal Jackon came into my bookstore in disguise and bought $1,000 worth of antique books of Victorian photos of children).
shuddering RN
OK, I need you to write a book about your life IMMEDIATELY.
I literally cocked my head to the side and re-read when I got to your parentheses.
NOPE
This would be an entirely plausible start to a horror movie where she’s trying to replace you.
Ex. Act. Ly.
D: D: D: D: D: Picture me making my most horrified face. That is so creepy on so many levels. Not just that she A. had a large tattoo made of YOUR kid’s drawing B. rather than her own, but that she C. took the photo surreptitiously and D. did it in competition with the kid’s own dad
WTelF
Okay, I get all the horrified reaction but …. that must be some picture.
No! It was just the regular disembodied head with slit eyes that every 2-year-old draws! We loved it because he is the only child (conceived via IVF after many years of trying) to two Jewish parents. Otherwise totally unremarkable.
:tries to imagine getting Marilynne Robinson’s feedback, in her perfect loopy script, tattooed on self:
:head explodes:
eta: I mean, I will keep those copies forever, but not in body mod form!
My edition of Good Omens has the intro in which Neil Gaiman advises that it’s okay to ask an author to sign your arm, but really not okay to come back a couple of hours later to show them the fresh, oozing tattoo you’ve had done over it. Pretty good advice, I think. (With a side of if you’re freaking out Neil Gaiman, it’s probably an examine your life and your choices moment.)
Oh my Goddddd the lack of safe tattooing procedure required to do that plus the other ish. Cringe cringe cringe.
The strangest thing about Love is that it’s written by Leslie Arfin, who is Paul Rust’s real-life wife.
I watched the entire thing because I love Gillian Jacobs. It was okay, Claudia O’Doherty is the comedic highlight, Jacobs is amazing and Rust (who is hilarious on tons of podcasts I enjoy) just isn’t that great of an actor, to say nothing about the gap in attractiveness between him & Gilly.
Who watched the Canadian web series The March Family Letters on youtube?? (distributed by Pemberley Digital of Lizzie Bennett Diaries fame)
Lesbian!John/Joan Brooke!!!!!
I watched the beginning of the series, but the actress playing Jo just…grated on every damn nerve I have, and none of the other sisters quite sat right for me either. So I stopped. I really wanted to like it, because I adored the guy they had playing Laurie and really enjoyed how they were adapting it. I did go and watch a few of the episodes with Meg and Joan, though, and they were adorable.
Is it me or is there something really, really gross and dehumanizing about the much older man saying he wants to “get her pregnant”? Like, not “have a baby with you,” or “have kids,” or even “start a family” (which I have other Issues with), but specifically something he can’t wait to do TO her. Yuck. Girl, get outta there, your instincts are solid.
Yeah, that should kick your alarm sensors to RED ALERT. Not to mention how he’s like, “oh I’ll definitely marry you” while his WIFE has been lingering at death’s door for YEARS. Where are this girl’s friends???
and he has a 4 year old with someone else?! ICK Ick Ick!
Honestly, I always liked Professor Bhaer. He’s not a conventional romantic lead but since when is that convention worth giving the time of day? He’s kind and wise and while his sense of morality is rather stricter than mine, it aligns with Jo’s. I would have liked a spinster Jo too, but pairing her up with Laurie is my absolute last choice. It’s not even that I dislike them together, but Jo saying no to Laurie is so so so important, the way she just sidesteps the meant-to-be with “no we’re not, not if I don’t agree.” There aren’t enough examples of women in fiction saying no like that.
Also, although it’s been DECADES since I last read the books, my impression was that Jo kind of lightened Fritzie up a bit once they got together.
http://thesetupwizard.tumblr.com/tagged/setupwiza…
Guys. You guys.
OMG that looks amazing, can’t wait to have more time to read it fully. I LOVE CREATIVE PEOPLE.
GIVE ME COFFEE NOW
This post is the entire internet.
This is all that is good. I love this.
THIS IS SO GREAT.
Is there a birth control spell? A school with this many young teens who are, truth be told, poorly supervised, and I’ve yet to hear of a single pregnancy scare.
Right??
it’s probably in Hogwarts, A History if anyone would bother to read it. Something spelled into the walls.
HMMMM so it’s without the kids’ or their parents’ permission? Skeevy! Or do they sign some kind of waiver upon admission stating that they accept magical universal BC for the duration of their teen years? (It can’t be that; any waiver you’d have to sign before going to Hogwarts would take all summer to read. Or is Hogwarts: A History basically the Hogwarts EULA that no one bothers to read before they click “accept?”) Does it work on the staff? So many questions; this is why I love this series.
I wonder if universal passive birth control in school would be controversial in the UK, let alone the magical UK. Like, why would it be a bad thing? Especially if everyone’s parents also went there and it was just widely understood to be one of the things about attending Hogwarts, no accidental pregnancy complications while you’re underage or finishing school!
If the birth control spell has been around long enough, maybe most people don’t even realize that teen pregnancy is a thing? Like, no one they know in the magical UK has ever become a teen parent, so they just figure that witches and wizards don’t become fertile until they’re eighteen, and who really knows why, it’s not worth worrying about, probably it’s just like how witches and wizards recover from concussions better.
Ooooh, I like that theory.
Then it would have to be something like the underage wizard trace and not something built into Hogwarts because you know underage witches and wizards are getting busy over summer. Plus I totally like the idea of the Shrieking Shack getting it’s name reinforced when brave students use it as a place to hook up on Hogsmead days.
If only it weren’t canon that no one can get into it, not even Fred and George. (I’m currently listening to the third book again.)
Huh. It’s been awhile since I’ve read the books, I must be due for a reread.
Possibly the effect just takes a few months to wear off? Although something like the trace would make sense. It would be seen as a major government overreach in the muggle world, but so would the underage wizard trace itself, and witches and wizards seem to think that’s entirely reasonable. And then it would cover those few people who get kicked out of Hogwarts.
right, it would be such a violation of individual rights, but the wizarding world does that kind of thing all the time, so NBD. I can see it being just background knowledge that no one bothers explaining to the Muggle-borns, and that creates all kinds of complicated misunderstandings (from “your mom is how young?!” to “Uhhh I *thought* I was doing everything I needed to do to get pregnant, what am I missing?”)
Everyone knows it’s “Contraceptio!”
Honestly, one of the things I loved about Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s Below the Root trilogy is she slips in a quiet but overt reference to the existence of birth control in the youth halls (where people tend to live in their mid-teens to early 20s) and setting up the point that the availability of birth control was an enormous factor in what two different cultures deemed acceptable behavior (and calls out one character for saying it’s about the one culture being more evolved.) I mean, I read this when I was seven or eight, and I didn’t quite understand all of it, but I felt awesome that I was being trusted with this whole idea that yes, people are having sex in this world, and not just to make babies, and how it made so much sense that these cultures have different attitudes about it. It felt like she was talking to me as a grown up.
(I know some of the overall ideas probably feel a little dated, but I proselytize for those books like mad and I don’t understand why they aren’t better known.)
/tangent
I loved this series! I also remember the birth control bit (but I also read them during freshman year at HS so it was more directly applicable to my interests at the time). I often found myself thinking about these books while reading HP. I really thought the endings would be more similar (I mean they almost were the same).
Oh man, I really wanted at some point to write a huge article comparing the two series (D’ol Falla v. Dumbledore, the use of Christ figure imagery, the Neric/Genaa/Raamo dynamic v. The Golden Trio, the :spoiler: literal physical affect on the woman who steals the you-know-what in Until the Celebration to the Dark Mark. . .but I dithered so long I figured no one would be interested by the time I started.)
I think you should do it! I honestly thought JK Rowling would have some kind of shout out to these books (and a few others like Matilda) that inspired her. I mean, maybe she did and I missed it? But it was glaringly apparent at certain points in the series that she was standing on the shoulders of giants (and doing great things! I’m not dissing Jo, I’m just saying she should release a “further reading” list at some point).
I love those books and I loved that inclusion.
Oh my god thank you
Eeeeee! I’ve only read the first post but it is very promising. Thanks for posting.
I posted this to our library’s facebook page. Because I’m a nerd.
You know his assistant’s a Ravenclaw.
This is amazing!
I just also want to say that this is amazing, and thank you so much for sharing!
I’m home from work sick, and this is giving me life. Especially since I just applied for four tech support jobs in the last week!
Oh, this is brilliant.
Here’s my most recent infuriating example of the attractiveness gap and wish fulfilment: That garbage 2014 movie Chef, where Jon Favreau plays this failed chef who is an asshole and has nothing going on, and Sofia Vergara shows up and fucks him (but does not insist on dating him, which is good because he is also fucking and MENTORING Scarlet Johansen at the same time) and is also rich and buys him a food truck and then everything is better.
Deus ex hot woman.
The whole thing is just Jon Favreau’s jerk-off fantasy where he gets to fuck incredibly hot women who ask for nothing but to selflessly stroke his ego and enable him, WITH MONEY, for nothing in return.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRFFFF
I told my friend that, and she ended up telling her boss when he was like “I love this Chef movie!” and apparently he was like “…wow… I never saw that before”. Yeah, no shit dude, that’s because the patriarchy really wants that kind of thing to be totally plausible.
Hahahah, that movie. That gross, gross movie. The only explanation I was able to come up with is that is Jon Favreau’s life: he must have people in his life who’s only function (as far as he is concerned) is to make sure his goals and dreams are realized. Otherwise how the hell did this movie even get made? Every single character in that movie only existed to insist to Jon Favreau’s character that he is wonderful, talented, and worthy. Even the young son! The kid didn’t want anything except to help his Dad in any way he could. That was his only agency. I didn’t register the hot woman/dumb man element because it is everywhere and in my opinion primarily exists to make sure non-hot women remember they are not worth any man’s time or attention, but that movie was definitely terrible.
Deus ex hot woman.
There are not enough flails in the _world_ for me to flail enough at that turn of phrase. *applauds*
THIS MOVIE ANNOYED ME SO MUCH. I got in a fight with my then-bf/now-ex over it after watching it last Valentine’s Day, because he loved it and my reaction was “lol of course Jon Favreau would write a movie starring himself and cast Sofia Vergara and Scarlett Johansson as his love interests lol”)
Perhaps it should be a litmus test. Not to brag (ok, to brag), my dude was like “wtf is this garbage?”. I do indeed love him.
I have only seen the DVD case but pretty much assumed any movie staring Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara and Scarlett Johanson had to, absolutely had to, be one of the world worst cases of uglyman/hotwoman put to film.
Like others here, I’d always had a hard time with Prof. Bhaer’s reaction to Jo’s sensationalist stories. But now I’m sitting here thinking that maybe what was wrong with them (in the context of the book) is that she was using human tragedy as fodder, as grist for her story mill, and that’s not a moral thing to do (IMO), or a healthy thing to do–it was damaging her empathy. Also, she was embarking on a course which would limit her experiences to encounters with people who were not kind, or thoughtful, or good, or who had her best interests in mind and so, as a friend–and he’s worried about telling her, he doesn’t want to impose or be bossy—he told her that. I think too he saw that her own voice was fresh and original and that if she let it out, and wrote from her own self, she would have more success. He clearly wasn’t a worldly man, but if she wanted her stories in the world with a wide audience, and to make a living from them, I think he wanted that for her.
This is a sweet and charitable way to think of it and I am going to try applying this when I reread LW!
I’m not sure I agree with the answer to the “No sex for me” Prudie letter. It seems to say that if your sex life with your S.O. sucks, there’s nothing to be done but end the relationship ASAP. But there are other options, right? There are sex/relationship counselors who have spent their whole careers working with tough cases like this one. Plus, the writer says they have been together for two years, and that they are “truly compatible” and have a “true respect and admiration” for each other. Do they necessarily have to give all that up because they’re having trouble in bed?
Even if the boyfriend is asexual, it’s possible for asexual and sexual people to be in relationships – sometimes they know about their differences before they get together, and sometimes they find out about it later and decide to stay together anyway. While the sex aspect of the relationship is probably never going to satisfy either party, and they are going to have to do a lot of communication and accommodation to make it OK, sometimes all the other dimensions can more than make up for it.
(And sometimes not, of course, and maybe this is one of those times.)
I think Mallory was probably on the money with this one, just bc the LW went out of her way to categorize herself as someone with strong sexual desires. Two years is not really an eternity, and a person who is in their forties and already does not have much interest in sex is unlikely to go the opposite direction over time. I think it might be worth seeing someone to work on it, but I also think deciding that sex is too important to you to be with someone who does not feel the same way is A-okay.
If she had said that this was the great love of her life, etc., I would feel differently, but the description of her relationship seemed pretty low-key in terms of enthusiasm.
Yeah. On second thought, “true respect and admiration” sounds kinda like what you’d say about a good friend, or even a good colleague.
It seemed like she really cared about him as a person and was trying to very clearly communicate that this wasn’t some other issue manifesting as lack of sex, to me.
On third thought, I agree with you. Maybe they do have a really strong relationship. Actually, I have no idea. It’s hard to infer the strength and dynamics of their relationship from a couple sentences one of them wrote.
They themselves know best, and they should decide where they’re gonna go from here. But there is a decision to be made, and now I’m back to thinking that it’s not necessarily the clear-cut no-brainer that Mallory/Prudie’s answer made it out to be.
It’s also tricky because I feel like sexual incompatibility is seen as a “petty” reason to end a relationship, where other kinds of incompatibility are less so, and I think that’s especially true when it’s women who have the higher desire for sex, because we’re not “supposed” to.
THIS.
YES. That is a very good point.
I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to imply that couples with sexual incompatibility problems should suck it up and stay together, or that the Letter Writer and people in her situation are shallow for wanting more/better sex. Sex drive is not shallow. If she wants to leave, but is worried she’s being selfish, she should stop worrying and leave.
True that!
Also, to me the way she was asking if there was a trauma-based reason for it made me think the letter writer saw it as a problem that needed to be fixed on the partner’s side, not as something they should work on together in the relationship, by finding mutual accommodations and compromises. And if you’re framing it that way, you kind of already have your answer.
I spent four and a half years in a relationship where my sex drive was a lot higher. I wish I’d gotten out the moment I realized. There was a lot of resentment on both sides.
There is a lot of interesting and insightful stuff being said about the attractiveness gap, but when I was reading that essay I paused when she claimed there was an attractiveness gap in the Sopranos. Tony and Carmella seem pretty well matched to me, particularly if you consider they got married 20 years before the show starts. He gets progressively heavier as the show goes on, but that’s not quite the same as “fat schlub marries hot woman.”
But also, Tony Soprano is sexy af.
Without taking a position on Tony’s sexiness (OR LACK THEREOF), the attractiveness gap is a lot more believable when it’s between two people who grew in the same relatively insular community where everyone was getting married shortly after high school, which IIRC was the case with Tony and Carmella. It’s when the couple is meeting in the big city where there are nine million more attractive people available to date that it gets really cringeworthy.
I agree with what you are saying, but I would add that whether or not you personally find Tony sexy (I do, obviously – but life is a rich tapestry etc etc), within the show, he is considered to be a charismatic and magnetic figure whom women find attractive (look at Melfi). In comparison to King of Queens or Modern Family, where the couple itself believes in the attractiveness gap, I don’t think Tony and Carmella saw themselves as mismatched appearance-wise.
Carmella even talks about how hot Tony used to be when he’s in a coma.
Yeah, the only way it made sense for me was if I imagined she was referring to Christopher and Adriana.
I have been that teacher. In my case, it escalated to stalking.
Oh my God, I’m so sorry.
It was a while ago, and I feel pretty safe now. Still, I wanted to give that perspective, because I don’t think this is cute or sweet or hilariously misguided. Its dangerous.
Another teacher on the first page said she’d seek a restraining order. I don’t blame any of you because it is not cute.
I tried; unfortunately the ceiling for a stalking RO in the state I was living in at the time was very high. I did, however, spend a fair amount of time crashing on my friends’ couches, and eventually I got a dog with a deep, scary sounding bark (I didn’t get him to feel safe, but I do feel safer with him).
Dear God, I’m glad you are safe now. I didn’t get my pit because of my stalker, and she’s a huge baby besides, but he noped out once she was in the picture.
It’s amazing how well that sometimes works. Assholes won’t take no for an answer, but they seem to understand the language of big teeth and growls.
I’ve chosen to pretend this is Cocktail Hour because: Commentariat! I’ve Marie-Kondo’ed my flat! It was not very magical.
Now I have huge piles of stuff to slowly get rid off, and papers to scan, and also I have 518 unsorted books on my shelves, and 138 books to be discarded, and would anybody like to have some books? I’m certainly not throwing them away, but what do you do with discarded books?
Also my yarn fits in ONE box now and is sorted by colour, which pleases me immensely.
When I last purged my bookshelves, I sold the discards to Half-Price Books. I got a bit of cash for them, but more to the point, I made them available to other people who might get more out of them than I was. Another option would be to take them to your local library – our library system has regular cheap book sales to raise money Or just drop them off at Goodwill or another thrift shop.
Our local library doesn’t take donations (I checked), but apparently I have three used bookshops to choose from… let’s see what they’d be willing to take. The selection is pretty eclectic.
Jail libraries are often hopelessly underfunded or rely solely on donations.
That is a pretty great suggestion, and I happen to know somebody working in/for a jail. Thank you!
You’re welcome! We did jail book drives for our community service when I was in paralegal school and a lot of people don’t know how bad the need is out there. I didn’t until I happened to ask one of the jail trusties who did landscaping around the courthouse how the jail library was after they had moved to a bigger facility and he told me it had basically ceased to exist because the materials had been damaged. Turns out there’s no requirement for the county to use the money the inmates pay to check out books to actually maintain the library. 🙁
Not sure where you’re located, but here is a list of places in the US that accept book donations on behalf of prisoners.
This is an excellent suggestion that I would never have thought of!
I didn’t know until an inmate told me and now I tell everyone who may be in a position to donate books.
That Germanwings article is horrifying. (Also, maybe not the best thing to read a few days before my boyfriend is due to fly home from Barcelona.)
Shortly after it happened, I remember a co-worker pontificating to me about how he was sure that what had happened was that the pilot had been diagnosed with a terminal disease and decided to kill himself quickly, and that was clearly the situation. I like talking about disasters as much as the next person (if not more!) but that sort of speculation (and assurance that yes, that had definitely been what happened) felt really weird and unpleasant.
Especially with how irritating Nat and Daisy are–somehow that just makes the shock and horror at his presumption more annoying. (I mean, Daisy's not an heiress herself, but she is Laurie's niece, and connected to pretty much everyone important in the neighborhood, it seems.)