Movies, Anger and Victim-hood Cycle

It has been widely understood that someone abused as a child for example may grow up to become an offender or may even be so damaged and shut down that he/she grows up to become a serial killer. Sir Anthony Hopkins has said that he learned in his research for Hannibal Lector that serial killers usually have childhood sexual abuse in their background. So someone who introduces himself/herself as a victim, even if it is ostensibly for education, social betterment, and scaring the hell out of anyone who belongs to the potential "abusive" segment of the population. It has gotten to a point where the cracks are showing and playing up the victim role is not only tacky but it is more revealing than ever in the blog-o-sphere where the air is thin. Try speaking truth to power on Facebook and you lose interest. If you burst someone's bubble it's considered vandalism. You might actually care about any wrongdoing done to the person, but by the time you have seen the dark side under the veneer, it is just not worth your attention. The status quo begins to look better and better. First World problems can roll along. Anger and victim-hood are valid reasons to regard an individual or group as a possible threat, either to a quality of life or to an art form or your own freedom from legal persecution. The con artist or embezzler who is confronted with irregularities and false claims following an audit of records may evade communication and resist owning up to deceptions and skimming of funds. This person may even go to authorities claiming there have been too many calls or e-mails regarding the matter. If a lawsuit is pursued and won, the individual may revert to the same process of evasion to avoid paying the judgement. This con artist may even portray those he or she has wronged as guilty of harassment. It would be reasonable to expect that those who have been wronged will want redress. Where it gets complicated is with groups and racial heritage issues. Historically, African Americans have been kept down by a system that knows that slavery will never be redressed. Anger can be visited upon Caucasian peoples alive today who have not participated in slavery but grew up watching Roots and Norman Lear sit-coms. It can also be visited upon Portuguese descendants of those who in 1526 first put the slaves onto ships, or those African chiefs who at the time waged war upon each other and captured and sold their own people as described in 1998 by then President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni, who called the descendants of those chiefs traitors. If someone is saddened that there are not enough rom-coms with heavyset heroines, they are more than free to take an HD camera and go make as many as they like with willing actors. But the anger has more to do with the idea of money being invested in something and profit being reasonably expected and status being earned by someone who is hired. There seems to be an intense and somewhat naive campaign for affirmative action movies and TV, and something called “The Diversity Problem” comes up on the internet lot as established successful creative people are confronted by people who wish to use a forum or spotlight for their own issue. In the Twitter age, there is rampant expectation of immediate gratification. If you want Hollywood – that non-existent place – to do your bidding or increase the stock market value of your experience and your look, or if you are angry that a celebrity said a word you find offensive and you want that career ended forever, there is a childish impatience and an empty demand. The anger behind it is real, so it should be taken seriously and the best defense against it is a strong offense. What fuels the Diversity issue? Look at the under-reported aspects. China owns a considerable portion of Sony. In 2008, there was news that Spielberg’s Dreamworks received considerable investment from Bollywood. American Movie fans were braced at the time for an influx of obligatory nods to India on the Domestic movie screen. Action movies especially are able to achieve a profit thanks to the Foreign box office, now more than ever. The specialness with which movie stars were regarded as far back as the Nineteen Eighties or Nineties has dropped off, and the role of the Director has been in question depending somewhat on the name. Sam Raimi has said in a Spider-Man 2 commentary that if someone from his team of storyboard artists thinks up their own shot, he will usually let that person direct it like a second unit. He says, “People are looking for someone to give them a chance. You have to prove that you don’t need a chance, and then people want to work with you.” Even so, the key scenes from his films bear the Raimi imprint and there is no doubt where an efficient sequence of shots comes from. Jon Favreau has occasionally hired the likes of Genndy Tartakovsky (Samuri Jack, Holtel Transylvania, Tele-Toon Clone Wars) to design a sequence because he doesn’t “come from action films.” He has lamented that sometimes Marvel would give him storyboards and said, “Just shoot this.” In cases where a director is merely running the set and making sure to remember Tiara Tuesday or being an “inspiration” to people, frankly that isn’t the director that inspires film students and those who want to feel their credit is authentic. But the mad rush for folks other than the infamous white straight male to be hired as director has come with accusations that the word “merit” is just a term invented to keep the status quo. It is difficult to argue this if TV series are actually run by producers and writers and any guest director will most likely be paired with one of the regular Cinematographers who keep the schedule and look somewhat consistent. Presumably the one thing an incoming director might bring is a visual style or an interesting way to motivate the use of the frame, but even that might be kept in check. When Steven Spielberg started in television, he was frequently over schedule and in conflict over shooting in a way that was not rote or generic. Being distinctive is a risk. When Vincenzo Natalie had a credit on Hannibal, it was worthy of taking notice. But even then, the decision to assign him the more artsy and abstract episodes robs the viewer of seeing simply his command of the frame when it might not be so obvious to all. When Cube was made, it had to be fought for since it was not the kind of film the Canadian Film Center was doing with its Feature Film project. Yet, it has been the most financially successful and it helped kick off the career of an important Canadian director who actually does direct the attention of the audience – the most important element a director directs. The Film Center can point to founder Norman Jewison as the reason for social issues playing a big role in content they want to support, but it should be remembered that Jewison’s own films were first-of-all good and well-directed. Some writers and filmmakers hide behind virtue signalling and social or political content while merely covering the material and relegating the camera to a recording device that documents inoffensive mediocrity. With that as the standard, it is no wonder that some people have ants in their pants and pathologically talk about “developing the script” instead of getting past that. The tired old saw is, “Once the script is right and the casting is appropriate, Ninety percent of the director’s job is done.” While script and cast are vital, that supposed ten percent should be 100% of the conversation about directing. I find directors intent on re-writing the script for the writer tend to be people with no vision about the actual directing. A cinematographer may be happy to serve as de facto co-director designing the shots, and actors may be happy to call a director who stays out of their way and doesn’t say much an “actor’s director” and an editor might be delighted to “find the film” in post and hope this “director” keeps getting hired and making everyone feel creative and fulfilled. But it also has a ring of fraud. If the director of mostly low budget comedy Safety Not Guaranteed made a leap frog to Jurassic World and then a coveted job helming Star Wars IX, and another went from relatively modest Monsters to Godzilla and then his own Star Wars project, and the lady who made character-based tragedy Monster goes through a few TV movies and series gigs to take over Wonder Woman, it catches our attention and imagination. If also is bound to leave countless established cinema stylists wondering how they have been passed over. It also suggests that someone who needs this kind of break to make a name for themselves will also not rock the boat with executives. If Patty Jenkins has a huge hit with Wonder Woman, people will say it was heavily storyboarded by others. If it is anything less than a blockbuster, the survival of the Extended DC universe can be blamed on her and by extension her gender. Hopefully it will do strong business and she can prove herself with on other projects in the future. John Landis told Kevin Pollok’s Chatshow that he actually did ask an executive once why he was not getting the bog tentpole movies anymore. He was told, “We’re afraid you’ll just go and make the movie.” Historically when the studio “suits” are focused on other projects during a busy time, that is when a good movie was able to slip through the cracks and get made either because it was overseas or too long a drive from the studio, or just under the radar. Executives trying to justify their jobs with useless input may be the biggest expense in the bloated carcass of cinema. Now as for feedback from people who don’t care about the craft of cinema nor its future, this brings us back to social issues, activism, and anger. Suppose you have the State of Israel with people in Gaza starving outside the wall. The knee-jerk reaction is to tear down the wall and let all who are needy inside and spread the wealth. The reality is that Hamas – an elected body – could take responsibility for the care, feeding and shelter of any Palestinian suffering in Gaza. They could afford it. But they WANT to sacrifice the health and wellbeing of their own people so that emotional manipulation can happen to pressure Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, does not speak for all Arabs nor all Muslims. They can’t enter into an agreement that would be honored by all on the Palastine side of the debate. Reuven Rivlin President of Israel, or Benjamin Netanyahu the Prime Minister of Israel could arguably make agreements on behalf of Jews but one-way agreements would not be in their best interest. If their responsibility is to look after those who live inside the borders of Israel, they may understand the anger of those outside the gates but they would be naive to drop their guard. World Cinema is not stopped from existing because Hollywood movies exist. But there is a naive willingness to erode mainstream film with input from the fringe. There is a book of essays called “The Case Against Schindler’s List” and it boils down the belief that the point of view that gives a screenplay its structure and emotional investment is doing a disservice to history. Supposedly, although anyone watching the film knows about the gas chambers made from converted showers, to spend screen time only on the exception to the rule – the time water came out – erases what actually happened by the millions elsewhere. This is a theory that can easily be rejected. The movie shines a spotlight on the Holocaust and it also led Spielberg to create The Shoah Foundation which documented testimonies from survivors which is still available today. At its core, what this book of essays has in common with Twitter activists now is that it disregards what is good for the film, for its narrative focus and thus its power to move people. A more documentary approach with plain coverage of events and all available statistics would not only be long it would commit the greatest sin: It would leave the audience not caring except in the abstract. It is easy to say, “Yes, it is terrible so many people died,” but can also mean people won’t sit through the information session in lieu of a movie. If to be the “Director” merely means to be the boss and to be a “star” means merely to get a paid job in a current pool of talent, that can all backfire. There are many people in offices who have “director” in their job title. If the person directing a movie or TV show is no different in character or approach to the job, and hasn’t got a talent for deciding how the frame itself can aid in telling the story, that person is diluting film language. Spielberg is the director who is most fluent in that language, which has evolved through Hitchcock and is always in danger of being devolved thanks to movies being watched on smaller devices and the overpowering reliance on “pictures of people talking” or talking heads of dialogue scenes over-explaining the content. If it is an imposition for a director to specify a shot or placement of an object, or if storyboards are regarded as a crutch, then the crew has the wrong mindset. If everything is art, then art is a meaningless distinction. If there is a ruling from the top down that each culture on the planet earth must be represented in a movie, Chinese viewers will be alert for the “flower vase” character who is just there to represent Asians. The role most actors would want – the criminal or bad guy or John Bender in an updated Breakfast Club with a chip on his shoulder – had better not be played by someone who actually is expected to hold angry attitudes or a lobby group will piggy back on the publicity and make it about them. If you like Bollywood movies, those are readily available. There is no shortage. If a movie is going to get release in China, there are strict controls. It is surprising that a Star Wars movie could play there despite the supernatural element. There was American fan outcry when it was revealed that the Chinese poster for The Force Awakens used a smaller size for John Boyega as Flinn in proportion to the white actors. But each culture will have its prejudices and even if a market has a regressive stance on something cinema will still want them as an audience. There are strict conditions about co-productions with China and what they want for their investments. It would be naive to think that you are seeing more of one culture or another in Hollywood productions merely because the USA is a melting pot or because Canada is a cultural mosaic. The great Meryl Streep herself stated at an event for women that, “Young heterosexual males are not interested in seeing a movie about a woman.” We can only accept her authority in this matter. I can say that as a long-suffering straight man in his forties I still have yet to see The Devil Wears Prada, even when it is at the Public Library for free. Women doing “guy things” may be a genre in and of itself, which can draw an audience but not to the degree that the industry might want to invest in. Yes, Star Wars has Rey, and Princess Leia before that, but the stakes in their lives are compelling. Yes, Thelma and Louise is a great movie, but it is also a car chase / get-away buddy picture. The screenwriter Callie Kourie went on to make movies that had less of the grit and more what we expect: women talking about relationships. Devine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood seems to be the title that comes to mind when imagining what women might want to see take over the cinema from the mean white male coasting on privilege. Sex and the City made money, and then its sequel was considered a bomb. Where was the solidarity among women wanting to see themselves represented? It would cost less to make a feature-length version of The View. There could be a story focusing on the time Star Jones lost weight and was promptly fired for not putting the overweight viewers at ease with her fat. (This last example comes from someone who himself struggles with weight and knows intimately why it is about much more than looks – gout, sore backs, type 2 diabetes, and loss of energy are among the burdens that cause empty talk of “positive body image” and “acceptance” to ring hollow.) If you want more Native movie directors, encourage the Native Robert Rodriguez. When I hear propaganda looking for new voices, I expect a Native director to generate bitter pills about glue sniffing and suicide and tainted water and the trail of tears or residential schools and the demon white man. So it goes into the, “glad it’s being made, good for society” bottom drawer and not on my must see list. What I’ve learned from Robert Rodriguez all these years is nothing about the plight of Mexico or Latinos, but that the Mariachi is cool, the Cortez Spy Kids are cool and their uncle Machete is cool and that Cheech Marin remains cool. There is a kinetic energy and whimsical flair to the style of Rodriguez, above and beyond the idea that he makes movies at a reasonable cost. He could make a big budget movie and vest it with a mastery lacking in some of the committee-made fare. He would have the right shot for the right moment. The filmmaker who gets into directing because he/she loves movies can come from any walk of life but hopefully will not be content to make arbitrary choices and accept what is there instead of manifesting magic and charm. The fact that you hired someone does not make their work your “direction.” You either had a vision or you did not. What may happen is that fans of non-directing (Robert Altman’s way of describing what he did), where the camera adds nothing to our proximity and identification with characters, a relaxed muscle that frustrated the viewer, will still get work and make social connections and show up at events and be part of the “community” generating limitless content when there is already far too much to wade through. That is bad news for cinema. Hiring a director with affirmative-action as the primary reason can result in even more mediocre sludge to market. Suppose your mission is to stop the darn Male Gaze dominating photography and cinema. It is said that the Male Gaze reduces people to Tits and Ass, while the Female Gaze notices your shoes. That would line up with males having a physiological imperative and women having a political imperative. If you thrive on discussion of attraction, for example, that is taking something organic or analogue (attraction or lack thereof) which is not a choice and therefore not to be judged and not political and synthesizing or digitizing it into a conversation which is a series of choices and therefore vulnerable to judgement or politicization. Therefore it follows that issues such as leagues and busybody terms like “trophy wife” come into play as a way to artificially steer and control what had been innate or to devalue and throw shade upon something that works well for someone else’ life. It comes back to devaluing the stock of someone’s experience or artificially inflating one’s own. In cinema, there are many gay and lesbian viewers who can watch a romance between a man and a woman without being repelled. So pandering to 10 percent of the audience at the expense of the other 90% trying to generate more gay themed films for the sake of those who follow statistics reads like an empty mission. The Dallas Buyers Club was described as important by Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres the year it was nominated. But you can’t please everybody. Bret Easton Ellis on his podcast has talked about how the Trans character was invented for the script and the main character in reality had been bisexual but that producers figured a straight man getting AIDS was more compelling and marketable. Maybe the truth would have been off message and less important. There are directors who get work because they are willing to be de facto producers. Maybe they get a cinematographer who has talent because that person is simpatico with the idea of building up the director but also discretely coming up with great shots he/she can call “directing.” Maybe the editor is on board because there will be so much opportunity to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. And maybe the producer is happy only as long as the under-funded make-work project is on time and under-budget. And meanwhile, those of us drawing storyboards followed by floor plans and making sure we have our clever shots planned may be regarded as the a-holes who think we are Kubrick and as the Farrelly Brothers warn, a crew will make that kind of director’s life a living hell. But such is life. That is the stacked deck of cards being dealt. Some of us would rather keep crews very small and not worry about the industry as a whole. Others want to see larger crews, concern themselves about the industry, and maybe not care so much what is happening to the craft of direction.

What is a "Troll" ?

A central principal or conceit of mine is that intelligent, worthwhile people get the idea of parallel ideas and parallel arguments. If one person presents a post or a link or a set of arguments and another person comes along to examine and refute part of it, we understand that the two arguments co-exist and that the intention is not necessarily to erase the other. Even if a movie is remade, the second statement of the premise is likely to be viewed as an also-ran and a knock-off coasting on a brand, with the original benefitting from a new marketing push in association with the next version. If we are talking about Ghostbusters - as will be mentioned later in this blog - people searching the internet or chancing upon a discussion might like to gauge what kind of support an upcoming reboot will get. My position on most issues is left of the middle. If someone is a zealot at either extreme, that person might find me too aloof on matters that they hold with disproportionate importance. A worthwhile and constructive dialogue must be open to the idea that some people in your community don't believe in cheating their way to a win by lying about the state of the zeitgeist on one issue or another. It may come to a point where on the surface nothing can be said that is tested and true, only what is popular and painless to those on the margins. It is expected that a victim of a crime or abuse might be in such a state of trauma - repressed or actively remembered - that their own behaviour is impacted and they are in danger of becoming offenders in their own life. Being is only intelligible in terms of becoming. And yet, the posture of the victim is growing as if it is a badge of honour and there is now a blind spot where it is verboten to even consider implying that the said victim or champion of the victim could possibly develop the traits of the offender by abusing others. We know someone by how that person treats those he or she does not HAVE TO be nice to. If someone tests or challenges your preferred premise, that person must not be dismissed as a troll or perhaps even cyber-swarmed. That person should be engaged with the expectation that he or she has only the best intentions and wishes the issues to be complete and to fairly represent each voice and angle. Here is the definition found on Wikipedia for "Internet Troll." This is as I understand it and have all along. ************* In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[3] This sense of the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families."[4][5] In addition, depictions of trolling have been included in popular fictional works such as the HBO television program The Newsroom, in which a main character encounters harassing individuals online and tries to infiltrate their circles by posting negative sexual comments himself.[6][7] **************** Seems logical. Recently, I found myself being told by someone on my Facebook that a comment was "trollish." I argued that it was not. The standard she wanted to go by was that any dissenting view or fact-check under a posted or linked article was a troll. I prefer to treat people as I want to be treated. Ads and random posts appear in my "News" Feed, and randomly if I invest a few moments checking out an article that is posted, I think it is reasonable and welcome to ask a question or point out an error or oversight. My former "friend" or frienemy as it turns out apparently wants a standard where whatever propaganda is being presented must be received in a vacuum of agreement, and any representation of the dissenting voice must be pathologized by a slap-down term like "troll" or "truther" in the case of conspiracies. In this case, it was something rather basic. ---------------------------------------------------------- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ An article link was posted by this person on the topic of "The Male Gaze." Apparently the topic was introduced in the 1960's. I do not recall the blog name or the website, not that I would want to promote it with my vast influence. I first asked a simple question, "Isn't there a "Female Gaze?" The blog or article kicked off by railing against the movie adaptation of "Fifty Shades of Grey." It argued that there was too much erotic view of the female form, as if to appeal to men, despite having a target audience of women. I pointed out that the director of that movie was a woman. The response I got, along with the accusation that my post was "trollish," was that the director may have been influenced by others to put that stuff in. So the woman who is directing doesn't count as contributing to the "Gaze" of the movie, and this person discounts the idea that she might even recognize the beauty of the female form despite being married and ostensibly straight. A lot of women on this person's FB posts will add comments about binary sexuality and fluid this or that, yet not entertain the idea that these factors might be part of the director. If said director is not responsible for what is on screen, then why the fuss about more female directors? (This last part is my own aside now, and was not part of my posts.) The article chose as its second example of the offensive "male Gaze" the unlikely target of Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which it argued that females "aren't shot the same way as men. I pointed out there that the director was Joss Whedon who is a known feminist and a old sort, not to mention the fact that nothing unflattering or leering struck me in the movie. Finally, the blogger/columnist gave qualified praise to Mad Max: Fury Road but stated that the camera strategy forced everything to be in the centre frame so that women could not be pushed off to the side. There is some invocation of the "rule of thirds" in framing invoked, which seems to diminish the fact that the STORY and deliberate DIRECTING of GEORGE MILLER is what actually guided that movie to have strong female characters we care about. It was not "forced" by some sort of centre-framing policy. The research of the person seems to have come from straight out of the rectum. Yet - and I have heard this from a third party who followed the discussion - my posts remained restrained and clearly well-intentioned. The woman who had posted the link and was playing what she called "moderator" by seemed poised for attack from word one. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -------------------------------------------------------------- Here I am calmly and idly going back on my smart phone as alerts come up, answering whatever post on a Sunday evening, matter-of-fact, and I'm getting kind of a shrill vibe from even the most trivial and innocuous remark. When we got into the trend of women leading films and changes and so on, I remarked that the new reboot of women as Ghostbusters casting Chris (Thor) Hemsworth as their secretary or receptionist is not really a parallel or inversion of the original film, because Annie Potts as Janine was not portrayed as a sex object. The response I got was an affronted spiel along the lines of, "Annie Potts in that movie is super sexy!" Now at that point what am I to say other than reiterate what I have already said, not that I have said anything against Potts. She is funny and an effective character. Sexy isn't a descriptive that I expect she was going for. Any more than Rick Moranis' character would expect to be called sexy. The conversation is like stepping in shit and not being able to scrape it off. And the core of it must be that this person had some sort of spite against me personally from the beginning, despite adding me on Facebook and voicing no objection to past posts over the years. ------------------------------------------------------------ ########################################################################### Then a shark swam into the cove. I would not have noticed if I had not procrastinated about disabling Facebook alerts on my smart phone. It had been giving redundant messages whenever someone replied to whatever. For those alerts, I could wait until when I choose to hit the site myself. But this particular Sunday night I hadn't figured out what to delete or uninstall. So I looked over and saw my old antagonist's name and thought FRIG ! Sure enough, he had put up oner of his boiler-plate bait posts to pathologies me and make an unflattering estimate of my intelligence because I am not reading the script of the party line and not "all in" with whatever zealot intransigence he represents. This post meets the above criteria for a definition of a troll. In fact, I'd say Troll is a weak word for what this guy does. It is harassment, certainly couched in some sort of smug sheep's clothing of ostensibly liberal platitudes and standing up for women which he appears to regard as so fragile that they must be handled with kit gloves and those of us who are not part of a minority (outside of the discussion) are somehow twisted and defending the "status quo." A "like" appeared on his missive around this time. The next day, I was on my laptop and noticed that the like came from the individual who started the thread, and who started a new post to say that she was not moderating or following the thread after a while. . . not mentioning that she had followed it enough to support the most offensive and truly trollish or trollesque post! My antagonist had deleted a couple of his posts over night, leaving my own posts hanging with less context. Knowing that his own had been valued and mine had not, I decided to delete my posts from the thread. I only found out half an hour later that she - the poster of the flawed article link - was upset that I had removed my posts. She said, "Why did you do that. They were important." She then bent over backwards to try to re-tell the story to "followers" of the thread, as if there are pages missing from a Gnostic Gospel. She entreated me to return to the thread, hot-linking my name over and over, only to answer me with what can only politely he called guano. It was all circular. Accusation, my defence, followed by the accusation of being "defensive." Total mind f**kery. It was a merry-go-round that was now eating up a Monday that I had off and which was supposed to be spent on writing and editing. I bowed out, asked her to stop hot-linking my name, and in tern advised that I would stop following the thread. I also ended up clicking "unfollow" of her, since it was clear that any comment on any post could have an unpredictable and soul-sickening result. She responded by de-friending me. I sent one more PM to say something like, "At least that's an answer." &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& ///////////////////// Somewhere in the middle of that, before I had gone to sleep Sunday, I'd sent her a first private message asking if there is anything wrong that I should know about, given the tone of some of her Sunday night replies and the "trollish" accusation. I reminded her that since helping out the previous summer documenting a project of hers I had not heard any reply - timely or otherwise - about what was to be done with footage I had captured and so on. The questions had been time sensitive. I got the feeling she cancelled her project or something, but never got the full scoop. I mentioned the shark/troll that had chimed in on the thread to really mess with me, and apologized for drawing that fly. But I did not hear back until some time after I had asked about her unfriending me. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ She did reply to that. I'll paraphrase rather than paste someone's actual words. She mentioned knowing me for 15 years and liking me in person and having fond memories of the play reading group (she performed a reading of a one-act I wrote in 2001, and did a good job) but then went on to characterize the way I am on Facebook. She also mentioned that the had taken the council of my adversary - the one guy I considered to be a TROLL - whom I had to delete the year before, and who I had failed to block. (I have blocked him since this blow-up, but would have rather not have him seeing and commenting on any of my posts this past year, and have no idea why I have neglected to block him and have somehow allowed him to harass me. It must be discomfort with the settings of the site, which I am a little more familiar with now.) Anyway, it was not encouraging. I can dislike someone and still feel sick if I am rejected. She mentioned a short I made back in 2000, which I would not have thrown in her face and never have. As she describes it, what she signed on for was a western stand-off where two girls fight over an abandoned cigarette in the street. She claimed that she walked off the set because I "added a girl-fight." I mentioned that I don't recall how others characterized the fight, which was part of the script she read and part of the storyboards. If my camera operator whose camera we were using mentioned Russ Meyer, it is beside the point. She had stated that she worried I would "edit in" shots of "nudity or sex" later, which offended me as someone who is only interested in making a straightforward film with no artsy flashes. I reminded her that I did remember her also complaining that there was no craft services table with flies buzzing around and that we did get someone to buy her a bottle of water when she asked for it. She came back with a totally wigged-out lecture about what a hot day it was (not very hot and I hate hot days) and how she wasn't being paid (which she knew going in. She accused me of not even taking "responsibility" for what she complained about and said "there is no apology here" as if I should apologize for questioning or fact-checking a blog she had linked in the news feed. She ended on a note like "please don't contact me again." ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That's the way to end a conversation that might actually answer questions intended to be rhetorical by someone who can't handle reality. Someone on her page left a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson to the effect of "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted when I am contradicted." Her friend meant for this to be something to answer the likes of me, but it would have been more appropriate applied to her. I ended up blocking her as well as my main annoyance. But the infuriating thing is this ploy of throwing down an accusation and demanding that it not be answered. On the movie she mentioned, the only reason I have not nursed any animosity over it is that I had another actress who stepped in and saved my ass and did a great job. I got to make the movie people were there to make. I didn't have time to worry about a snack table, but I did ask the remaining people if they needed anything and volunteered to get it. They said they did not and appreciated that time was of the essence. This was a guerrilla-style shoot, less than an hour. I asked how they felt about what was said by the departing actress, and nobody felt the same despite both remaining actresses being principled people themselves. Luckily for me, their principles also included staying with a project they have agreed to shoot instead of abandoning the director and wasting everyone's time. The departing girl had - ironically - flashed her chest in a movie the year before. I won't name the film, but I taped it from City TV and have not het gotten around to trashing the VHS. Just seems hypocritical to me. @@@@@@@ As I reflected on this I recall better times but I also recall an odd moment at the home of the person in question while I was documenting her project on video and having a break with her other guests in her kitchen. The subject of comedy came up and what this or that person likes. I mentioned liking Sarah Silverman. One guy said, with a hint of mustard, "I hear she has a great rape joke." I honestly forget what I said back, but it created no fuss. I could have gone for a quip like, "Your momma is a rape joke." But I likely would not, unless that person were a heckler and I was on stage. I might have ignored his sarcastic intent and the idea that he "hears" and obviously has not heard for himself what Silverman's joke actually was and its context or delivery. I might have said, "Yes, in fact she has a few good rape jokes." I think I mentioned that she also has a great Holocaust bit. I'm a firm believer that comedy can and must include gallows humour and explore the most painful and difficult to process traumas of life. Smokey and the Bandit or Blues Brothers wacky car accidents will not play as amusing to someone who just survived a real car accident or lost someone in one, or killed someone with a car. But that can't be the standard for what is talked about or joked about. Even Blazing Saddles has a couple of "good" rape jokes, as well as frequent use of the notorious n-word. There is definitely a culture or subculture of net nannys playing word police and over-inflating reactions to behaviours and habits and old ideas and slow adaptations to the culture of sales and affirmations and propaganda wrapped up in the fear of a lost audience or a lost market. Sometimes it is fair. It is better to know if Cosby is known by many people as a creep or worse. It is better to know that Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird had more to say in his late seventies and that Scout had to actually get to know him as a human being and get over her disappointment that her dad was not an icon in her head 100% uncomplicated and on-side with all of her own political package deals. I had recently listened to Reese Witherspoon's unabridged audio book of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, and it was very appropriate timing. People will project. There is little to be done about that. People wrap themselves in a rainbow flag or turn their home country flag upside down when the wrong candidate for them gets into office. But what can be a problem is discarding the heart of politics - that your adversary or opponent on one issue or sub-issue may be an ally on many others. I know a few more intransigent jerks than I thought I knew. I'm better off knowing. I've done my own fearless moral inventory and flipped the finger at one imposed on me by a presumptuous and inexplicably pompous pair of piranha. I don't have to boost myself as any kind of moral example to feel wronged and irritated. But perhaps I have bigger fish to fry.