Posts Tagged ‘sexism’
4 items.
The “Female Empowerment Fairy?” “Mr. Happy?” I have no idea what’s wrong with me.
I guess looking forward at the movies that are coming out this weekend, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous served itself up on a silver platter to be made fun of.
I mean, first of all, you have Sandra Bullock who is all of 41 years-old playing an FBI agent trying to compete against 19 and 20 year-olds in a Miss America-type pageant. I don’t think there’s a bucket big enough for me to dump my disbelief into before accepting this concept.
Second, from all outward appearances, they decided to remove the one redeeming quality of the original movie, which was the potential romance angle with Benjamin Bratt. Instead, they’ve replaced him with… a back-talking, no-nonsense body guard in the guise of Regina King. Uh, okay. What kind of weird escapism is this?
Don’t ask me why I know this stuff, okay? I’m a married man, remember. Sometimes compromise means watching Miss Congeniality instead of taking a nap on a Saturday afternoon.
Anyway, instead of going the obvious route and apply my deeply entrenched male perspective on the “chick flick genre, I thought it was about time Tom was served a little comeuppance – even if it was in dream form. Needless to say, the result is somewhat… unique. Hopefully for the younger readers of this site, the joke will go over their heads.
Incidentally, Tom waking up startled isn’t a new concept for Theater Hopper. It’s kind of a cheap devise, but I have a lot of fun with it. Especially when I get to dust off the old trick and apply it in a new situation. It’s a little experiment to see if I can take something from funny, to not funny and back to funny again. I guess you’ll be the judge of that. At least the pajamas are changing from strip to strip!…
Not much else to report today. Stop by the THorum if you feel like saying “Hi.” We’ve been seeing lots of activity in there lately!
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Punches to the head shouldn’t tickle and people shouldn’t expect them to. The juxtaposition is too jarring.
Today’s Web Comics List incentive sketch is actually a “two-fer” – as in, “two fer the price of one.” I drew one sketch and wasn’t really communicating what I wanted it to, so I drew a second one. Still, I thought the first one was a good drawing and thought it would be a treat to share both. So I did.
At any rate, so ends this weeks Shopgirl extravaganza. I hope you enjoyed it.
Can I be candid with you a minute? Right now I’m working on an archive application that will make using the site much easier for you in the future, but it requires me to go back and touch every page and look over every comic I have. It has put me in a very reflective mood.
Sometimes I think about how far I’ve come with the comic and I’m really amazed. Three years. MORE than three years of my life I’ve wrapped up into this. I can’t imagine a day where I don’t do it.
But sometimes after taking stock and looking back at these old comics, I think “Man, even though the art wasn’t any good, some of these jokes are much better than what I’m doing right now.”
I don’t know guys. I think I’m in a slump.
It’s been a long one, too. A few months at least. Used to be, I’d enter into a slump and rebound after a month or so. In my mind, at least. These days, I can’t seem to snap out of it.
I can make excuses for myself. Tell myself that it’s been a rough year. It has. Moving to a new house, losing a grandparent, general job and life stresses. It gets to you.
Sometimes I look at the competition and I’m really envious of the guys who gave something up to do this full time. The five days a week guys. That’s something to aspire to. I’m sure it’s hard work – and although their comics are supporting them – I’m sure it’s not much money for the effort. But I imagine them to be very happy people. They get to do this all the time. What an honor.
I’ve expressed this before, but I often wonder what would have become of Theater Hopper had I started it during college and not 3 years after graduation. Would I have gone for it? Hard to say.
I want to make this the best comic for you that I can. I want to make it so as many people as possible can see the work I’m doing and hopefully get a kick out of it and become fans.
Sometimes it seems no matter how much hustling you do, no matter how many connections you make – at some point, things have to level off. I’m worried that right now is one of those times.
I think I know the answer to this problem and most of it to keep your nose to the grindstone and keep putting out work. I think the other half of the problem is to do something new or stretch artistic muscles I haven’t used in a while.
I don’t want this interpreted the wrong way. Theater Hopper is a hobby for me. A successful one at that. I see the traffic that comes through my site and I’m stunned that so many people make this web site part of their daily routine. I think about all the cool people I’ve met and talked to. These are wonderful rewards. But I want to keep growing.
Things will be different after we celebrate our 500th strip on November 25. Maybe a larger storyline is in order. Maybe a crossover. But I’m on the hunt. I want that spark back. I want to light it up for you guys.
Sincere thanks for all your support. I appreciate it. Everyone have a great weekend.
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I caught this story about Katherine Heigl complaining about her role in Knocked Up in the latest issue of Vanity Fair earlier in the week and it’s really been bugging me.
Entertainment Weekly would have you believe that Heigl should be commended for speaking her mind and ignoring “publicist-scripted hooey” in her interview with the magazine. But there is a difference between being honest and being disrespectful.
Not being a woman, I can’t speak with any authority as to Heigl’s claim that Knocked Up is sexist. But as a man, I think there is enough to take umbrage in the depiction of my gender as slothful, stoned, ambitionless tubs of lard. In fact, I would be willing to wager that Knocked Up is more sexist in it’s stereotypes against men than it is against women. It would be one thing if the movie had Heigl’s character walking around barefoot and cooking Seth Rogen’s character dinner in every third scene. But that’s not the case. I think they treat her character with great respect. She’s a responsible professional. She has strong family bonds. And she has dimension of character! She’s responsible, but has a one night stand. She drives her niece’s to school but she gets hormonal like a normal pregnant woman would. If you want sexist, look at the punchline of today’s comic. Now THAT’S sexist!
Things get more disgusting when you start to follow the money. Apparently after the success of Knocked Up and her Emmy win for Grey’s Anatomy, her asking price for the upcoming 27 Dresses with James Marsden went up from $300,000 to $6 million.
The simple fact of the matter is if you didn’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, you didn’t know who Katherine Heigl was. Knocked Up put her on the map. Maybe she didn’t like her character or the movie. Fine. But be a little bit magnanimous about where it got you. Because now you look ungrateful.
I think Heigl’s comments against Knocked Up are going to go down in history as one of the most sublime Hollywood foot-in-mouth moments. Considering how well writer/director Judd Apatow treats his stable of actors, there’s no telling where that relationship could have taken her. What’s the incentive to work with her ever again after this?
Apparently Apatow took the high road when questioned about Heigl’s comments at the recent GQ Men of the Year party in Hollywood this week:
“I don’t think the movie’s sexist, I think there are characters in the movie who are sexist,” clarified writer/director Judd Apatow, who hasn’t spoken with Heigl about her comments. “Apparently Vanity Fair needs to sell some magazines. They’ve got to turn up the controversy. I’m sure when they get you talking for hours and hours, a couple lines taken out of context seem more interesting than they really are.”
That’s a fairly diplomatic response. But Rogen’s response to the same line of questioning is a little more revealing:
“We won A Women’s Image Network Award; I picked it up myself,” he reminded, adding, “I don’t really talk to Katie.”
Does that mean she’s off his Christmas list? “Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah, like she was on it before.”
Rogen has a pretty sarcastic sense of humor, but that still comes off kind of harsh. You get the sense from his comments that they’ve already left her behind.
I look at this mess and the whole time I’m reminded of the reportedly contentious relationship between Kevin Smith and Linda Fiorentino on the set of Dogma. Listen to the Dogma DVD commentary track to get the scoop straight from Smith. Or read this news item from 2000 at TVGuide.com. My point is, has anyone heard from Linda Fiorentino since Dogma?
Her page over at IMDB.com lists four credits since Dogma, all in 2000 and then nothing. Maybe it’s a coincidence. But for someone who starred in Men In Black and Dogma at the end of the 90’s, she seemed poised to make it big in the next few years. Then… nothing.
Apatow probably pulls more clout than Smith did during his Dogma days. But all Smith had to do was be vocal about how difficult Fiorentino was on-set before she stopped turning up in movies. Apatow doesn’t have to say word-one. Heigl is doing it for him. Still, if she’s burning bridges with someone comparable to Smith, could Katherine Heigl be the next Linda Fiorentino? Time will tell, I suppose.
I guess, for me, what’s most disappointing about Heigl’s comments is that it subtracts from a movie I really enjoyed this year. I liked Knocked Up… a lot. I bought the Special Unrated Edition on DVD so I could get MORE Knocked Up content. Now if I watch that movie, I’m going to be looking at Heigl, thinking about her comments and stewing about how ungrateful she is.
Think of it another way. Have you ever been to a concert where maybe the band is just starting to break through? They’ve got some big hit single and they’re tired of playing it? They kind of mope through the song because they feel obligated to, but you can tell their heart’s not into it? They make you feel like an idiot for liking their song! That’s what I feel like after reading Heigl’s comments.
Granted, there is a lot of stuff going on in Knocked Up that I like that has nothing to do with Heigl’s character. I’m sure I can enjoy those parts. But her involvement is pretty much central to the motivations of the character. So I’ll always be aware of her on the periphery, sulking, bitching about sexism (yet comfortable selling out her principles for a hit movie) and it’s just going to taint the entire experience.
Incidentally, if you wanted to look at her Maxim photo shoot where you can see more of her “principles” on display, you can find it here.
That concludes my rant. Have a great weekend, everyone!
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This joke for The Ugly Truth is one I had in mind a couple weeks ago, BEFORE I turned my hand into hamburger with a router. So dusting it off this week makes it stale in my mind.
I know that’s not the case, though. Movies do exist in theaters for longer than one week. It’s hard to snap out of that mentality when I go to the work of making the comic timely.
Before we go any further, it would probably be advantageous if everyone were on the same page. So, embedded here is the clip in question. It is OBVIOUSLY not safe for work and probably not something you want to play around young children, either. You’ve been warned:
Now I had seen this clip maybe a month before The Ugly Truth was in theaters and I remember thinking at the time how hypocritical it was when considering Heigl’s comments back in 2007 to Vanity Fair that Knocked Up – the movie that pretty much opened the door to a successful career in film – was sexist.
Since the movie has come out, Heigl has been taking a lot of hits for those statements in contrast to the above scene. Sarah Ball from Newsweek published a particularly harsh article. Ken Levine, an Emmy-winning writer for Fraiser and Cheers also published a fairly articulate hate-piece on her.
Now Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen have gotten in on the act during an interview with Howard Stern last week.
Fans of Heigl cite a double-standard. That’s it’s okay for someone like Seth Rogen to run off at the mouth, but if someone like Heigl speaks her mind, she’s put back “in her place.”
I see both sides of the argument. But fundamentally I think Heigl’s problem is that she gives off an air of superiority that she hasn’t earned and it makes her unlikable. The sad thing is, I WANT to like Heigl. She’s funny, attractive and I appreciate anyone willing to speak their mind.
But career-wise, winning and Emmy and starring in a couple of romantic comedies aren’t much to hang your hat from. Her reputation and her performances don’t match up. She’s trying to be Sandra Bullock but comes off like Sandra Bernhard.
I don’t know how much of it is bad casting and how much of it is her choice. But I think before I would find Heigl more appealing if she were able to find (or develop) a character that plays toward her outspoken nature.
What do you think? Is there a sexist double-standard being applied to the outspoken Heigl? How aware are you of the statements she’s made to the press? Should it affect how we interpret her performances? Why do you think Heigl attracts these kind of strong feelings toward her? Leave your comments below!
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