I'm an Educated Woman... And You're a Pig

Here's a true tale of Los Angeles in 2012. This just happened.

Let me state a couple of things which I believe to be true, which may or may not actually be true.

First, probably because we have a celebrity culture here and/or so many who are actors/creative types, there is an unspoken bubble around everyone as they travel through Los Angeles. If you happen to be walking, people will always give you enough distance as if that bubble were actually there. Personal space is regarded highly. As in, you don't, under any circumstances, invade it.

Now, if you happen to be riding a bus in Los Angeles (or a subway), this rule is compromised a bit. Often buses and trains get crowded, and one has to make do. But even in these extreme circumstances, one tries, as best as one can, to maintain personal space. That bubble around each person just gets a little bit smaller.

This even goes to the extremes on buses and trains where (unlike Chicago or Paris or Toronto or other cities in which I've ridden trains/subways) people don't have issues with the close quarters. It's expected. In Los Angeles, if you TOUCH someone, it better be as minimal as possible, because under any other circumstances, this is a HUGE affront.

Second, and maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but it's considered common courtesy (and yes, even on city buses and trains one exhibits common courtesy) that if the bus or train is full, or even crowded (and by crowded I mean that every seat is taken, or nearly so), one has the decency, if one has a bag or a backpack or a shopping bag or whatever on the seat next to them, to put it on their lap. In fact, one considers the crowdedness of buses and trains before one contemplates getting on board with 85 bags. You have this many bags, take a damn cab. (But that's my issue.)

So those are my prejudices going into this true story.

Man gets on said crowded bus. He is (and while many in Los Angeles are extremely judgmental of people's physiques, I am not of this ilk), but he is, safe estimate, 400 lbs. He has trouble making it through the aisles. He is wheezing and has shortness of breath so much that I worry he's going to pass out as he ambles back to the back of the bus, looking for a seat.

There are none. He ambles back toward the front, still wheezing. I honestly, at this point, really do believe the poor man needs to sit down. Or go back out and get some air, or something.

As he gets to the front of the bus, he spies a woman who has her bag on the seat next to her. (As I mentioned, this is one of my button-pushers, and I would've gotten mad too. In fact, if all seats were taken, I, too, would have insisted that I sit in the empty seat next to her. Although I would've done it the LA way, by simply standing and looking at her, plaintively, until she moves her bag of her own volition.)

Mind you, there was a three-seat thingie next to this woman, of which TWO seats were available, in which this man could've sat. He did not. He chose to sit next to the woman.

I missed the beginning part of this, but he was talking to her, basicallly telling her to move her bag. She did not. She said something about him taking up two seats, and motioned to the open two seats next to them.

This caused the man to PICK UP HER OPEN PURSE and THROW IT in her lap. And sit down next to her, making rude comments about whether or not he was actually touching her. Now, I wasn't sitting right next to them, so I couldn't see, but it's completely impossible for me to imagine this behemoth of a man sitting next to ANYONE and not touching them. He easily would take up two seats comfortably. In one, half his body takes up the seat. So, I had a problem imagining that he wasn't touching her, after already having violated her with her purse (which caused half the bus to gasp). (People on LA buses, by and large don't even notice what's going on around them. At this whole incident, they gasped.)

Not surprisingly, this woman wanted no part of this nasty man next to her, and she did what I would've done, got up and moved. The man continues to verbally harangue her.

She finally counters with, "You look like a pig." (The bus laughed, cause actually, he kinda did.)

And he counters with, "Sure, I could call you the 'N' word, and I'd be the one in trouble."

She says, "I'm not a 'N,' I'm not white or black. I'm brown. And I'm educated. You're the one that's acting like a 'N.' " (The bus also laughed at that, cause that was kinda true, too.)

I got off at the next stop, so I don't know how this whole incident finished, but it just started me thinking.

Why are we all so self-involved that we have to confront each other with such hostility? Why do we assume that everyone is out to get us, or hassle us, or be a jerk to us?

Why can we all not just get along?

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A Consideration of the Best Actress Race: Real-Life Impersonations

Let us examine, for a moment, from a deeply detailed acting perspective, who deserves to win the Oscar for Best Actress, and who doesn't, and why.

Two nominees played real-life people that we know and (maybe) love. Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe.

Let's take Beauty first, then Beast.

Back in the acting days of my youth, there were several actresses that I studied thoroughly: Bette Davis, Kathryn Hepburn, Jane Fonda. And Marilyn Monroe. I knew their gait, their phrasing, their breathiness or lack thereof, I knew their histories, as much about them as I possibly could.

So I started out seeing "My Week with Marilyn" with several prejudices: 1. that really NO ONE can do Marilyn and 2. that Michelle Williams can't act.

Sure, I liked her fine in Dawson's Creek, but since then, she has pretty much left me cold. Didn't think she deserved the nominations for Brokeback Mountain or Blue Valentine.

However, I will say, she deserves this one. It's a very tall mountain to climb to recreate Marilyn Monroe. Williams even taught me something about Marilyn that I didn't know: that she was a series of poses, always posing, even in repose. And, in this movie, Williams does some pretty impossible stuff.

She recreates famous dance scenes, and movie moments, so much that you forget that you are watching another actress. That is no small thing. She has her breathiness down, and her movements. Even her insecurities. For all of those things, for which Williams herself says she "worked harder than she ever did in her life," she gets an A+ in my book.

Sadly, here is where she falters. While she was meticulous about recreating the voice, the mannerisms and the steps and phrasing, she missed the heart of it. She missed the things that really made Marilyn tick.

The script, in Williams' defense, only really gives you bits where this Marilyn shines, but in each of them, Williams falls flat.

Here are the key questions one will ask at the end of this movie:
1. What really drove Marilyn to succeed (and to chase men)?
ANSWER: her childhood in orphanages, and feeling like everyone abandoned her

2. What was her connection with Fame? Why didn't she just give it all up and "settle down" with one guy?
ANSWER: She couldn't, cause fame is a drug like any other. She needed that.

Two scenes ask these questions of her, and Williams' performance (to me) fell completely flat in these scenes. So put that Oscar away for this year.

In one, she is looking at the dolls in a dollhouse. There it is, the metaphor is just about hitting you over the head. This was the moment for the actress to break our hearts with her shattered psyche. BAM. Nothing.

In the second, she is lying on the bed, and her lover asks her to just give it all up and settle down with him. This is the moment where the actress needs to give us some insight as to why Marilyn couldn't give up this lifestyle or settle down with this, or any, man. BAM. Nothing.

At the end of that scene, a really poignant scene, the audience should have been sobbing, or at least, thinking, that poor woman. I felt nothing after watching her. She could've been doing her nails. Very unfulfilling.

Meryl Streep suffers from the other problem. She is phenomenal, the script is dreadful and the direction is hokey.

But for me, it was like this. There is an opening scene where you see an old British woman, buying milk. Like her performance in Angels in America, where you see an old Jewish man, and go, HOLY CRAP! That's Meryl Streep... it's the same here. She walks and talks like an elderly British woman. As she talks more, in closeup, in the next scene, you see that it's Margaret Thatcher.

To be fair, her hair and makeup people also deserve an Oscar, cause WOW! This makeup was unbelievable. I've seen nearly all Meryl Streep movies, and I swear, I had a hard time seeing Maryl in there.

She also loses points (like she did last year) when a good chunk of the movie is someone else playing the younger years.

But wow. You wanna see a virtuoso playing that acting instrument, you need go no further than Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady." I really didn't like the movie at all, but when Streep was in frame, she was riveting. My favorite scenes of hers were the ones with Jim Broadbent. They really could've made better use of Anthony Stewart Head, too.

Streep didn't look like Thatcher as much as Williams looked like Marilyn, but as far as capturing a heart and soul of a person, this Oscar is Streep's, hands down.

I have yet to see the other three performers in this category, but at this moment, I'm calling Streep for the win.

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