Screen Adaptations: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

I just finished reading this book, so I thought I should watch the movie. It's a pretty good adaptation, I only felt indifferent about the Lena storyline (bottom right corner, played by Alexis Bledel.)

In the book Lena is REALLY beautiful, but she's extremely quiet and private, and she's very mistrustful of guys because they're always trying to get in her pants. So when she goes to Greece to visit family, she almost misses out on a nice guy because of her suspicions.

But in the movie they make the romance (rather than her inner struggle) more prominent, and the obstacle to their romance is that he's a Bad Boy and her family doesn't want her to date him. Which is completely opposite from the book (where everyone loves him.)

From a movie point of view I don't really blame them for the change--I guess it's more Dramatic! and it gives the movie a strong romance storyline. But they do lose the complexity of the character, and of being a really pretty girl.

(I watched Sisterhood 2, but haven't read the other books so I can't review it. It's a good romance movie though!)

Another day in the suburbs

My dad mentioned Rush's song "Subdivisions" on my comments recently. Not being a Rush fan (other than "Take Off to the Great White North") I'd never listened to the lyrics. So I have two reactions.

First -- great song and I'm sure it's provided comfort to many a teenager over the past couple decades.

Second -- I always have sort of mixed feelings when people express disdain for the suburbs. [The following is not a critique of the Rush song.] I dislike the way some people judge suburb dwellers, as though they're all the same. As though living in a certain type of neighborhood turns you into a zombie. As if originality, creativity and authenticity only exist in cities. It's just another way of stereotyping, and shows that those doing the judging are as into conformity as the people they're dissing. They just have their own idea of what we all should conform to.





Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

[Chorus:]
(Subdivisions)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
(Subdivisions)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...

Where is my pirate shirt? I want a pirate shirt!

In case anyone gets the wrong impression from this blog that I'm against makeup, fashion etc. I should share with you the fact that:

- if there were no starving peoples in the world (that is, if I felt guilt-free about spending wild amounts of money on clothes)

...I would dress like a drag queen. And on my casual days, like Prince. When I was in high school I LOVED these ads from Shiseido and Revlon. That's exactly how I would have loved to dress every day for school.

Bullying

Once in awhile I'll read an article about bullying in high school, and I think of how much more potential there is for damage in the internets age. I got teased in high school a LOT (I did not like to conform to my peers, either in clothing or action) but I was basically protected from it once I was away from school. But with emails and blogs and LJs and facebooks... heavens. The opportunities for Picking On are endless.

Why all this bullying in high school anyway? A genetically wired fear of The Other that hasn't yet been reigned in??

Keep Your Inner Child on Speed Dial baby!

I have Miley Cyrus' song "Party in the USA" cause it's catchy, but I only really listened to the lyrics a day or so ago. The song is about feeling nervous and out of place, and then your favourite song comes on and life suddenly seems so much better!


I need Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" to come on every time I'm about to do something nerve-wracking, or every time I feel awkward.There must be other things besides music that help people feel Like Themselves--like a speed dial to your soul. ;-) An awesome movie scene maybe? A famous speech? A passage from a favourite book? Something that brings out your heavy metal horns and gets you "noddin' your head like Yeah."





I hopped off the plane at LAX
With the dream, my cardigan
Welcome to the land of fame excess
Am I gonna fit in?

Jumped in the cab
Here I am for the first time
Looked to my right and i see the Hollywood sign
This is all so crazy
Everybody seems so famous

My tummy's turnin' and i'm feelin' kind of homesick
Too much pressure and I'm nervous
That's when the taxi man turned on the radio
And a Jay-Z song was on
and the the Jay-Z was on

So I put my hands up
They're playin' My Song
The butterflies fly away
Noddin' my head like yeah
Movin' my hips like yeah
I got my hands up
They're playin' my song
I know I'm gonna be ok
Yeah It's a party in the USA
Yeah It's a party in the USA

Screen Adaptations: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

I can't complain about most adaptations of Quasimodo. The on-stage musical hunchback is the least ugly, but that's probably just a stage limitation, and the music is more important (Garou's voice is very Quasi!)





As long as the lump over the eye and the hunched back are there--and maybe some messed up walking, cause his limbs were poopy--then he's alright.

The brilliant Lon Chaney

Charles Laughton

Anthony Quinn

Mandy Patinkin? ...Really?

I took mild exception to the Disney version cause they sort of unsexed the poor guy. He's like a big ole huggable stuffy. If they were going to change the story as much as they did, why not give him Esmeralda and send a Nice Message to the Kiddies?

But I hear that in part 2 they gave him a girlfriend and some snogging action.

The screen adaptations I always dislike from this story are of Esmeralda. She does one nice thing in the book, and the rest of the time she's an airhead and a bitch, and very superficial. She's in love with the captain of the guard who's a dick, and even when she learns he's a dick, she still loves him cause he's hot.

As far as reformed Esme's go, I guess I'd pick the cartoon one. She's feisty and smart. I like her "God Help the Outcasts" song.

Need to get something done? Dye your hair.

I just noticed that the 4 women's magazines I bought in December have blonds on the covers.


And according to one study they expect to get their way:

The study [...] examined links between confidence and aggression, involved 156 female undergraduates. It showed that blondes were more likely to be treated better than other women and were more willing to “go to war”. ...

The research did confirm one theory: when male students were asked to rate the attractiveness of their female counterparts, blondes gained the highest scores.

(I went blond about 11 years ago, and I saw right away that men noticed me more. It was really strange.)

Sell suspects that blondes exist in a “bubble” where they have been treated better than other people for so long they do not realise that men, in particular, are more deferential towards them than other women. “They may not even realise they are treated like a princess,” Sell said.

His research indicated that the more “special” people feel, judged by physical strength for men and looks for women, the more likely they are to get angry to reach social goals.

Article from the Times Online.

Juvéderm for Juvéniles

"parentheses have a place
but not on your face"

Saw this ad in December 2009's In Style magazine. Apparently the lines around your mouth when you smile are not natural.

They got no place
on yo face.

Nothing says OLD like the lines you've had on your face since you were born. How can these kids leave the house every day??

Inner Beauty and Beautiful Toys

My step-mother has always been a physically beautiful woman (she was even on a shampoo bottle in the 70s!) but she also has a lot of inner beauty, and she also has the talent and patience and perseverance to make beautiful things. Years ago she got into collecting dolls, and then taught herself how to repaint them. She auctions them off on eBay and sends the money to the Pan de Vida orphanage in Mexico.

Her latest repaint is so gorgeous, I had to share it.

Before & After (Gene doll)

Her web site: Bijou Doll by France

For the Boys: Is your hair too long?

A talk show host this week was talking about schools with dress codes that don't allow boys to have long hair.

It kind of blows my mind that people still have rules about boys and long hair. It's so crazy. Bad enough that people imbue their children with all this blue vs pink garbage... but long hair? WHO CARES? Weird weird weird.

Is it homophobic? Or is the fear more about rebellion--only rock stars have long hair? Probably a bit of both. Here are some details from one Texas school:

Hairstyles "designed to attract attention to the individual or to disrupt the orderly conduct of the classroom or campus (are) not permitted," the policy states. ...On its Web site, the district defends its code, saying "students who dress and groom themselves neatly, and in an acceptable and appropriate manner, are more likely to become constructive members of the society in which we live." (Yahoo News)

And this is an issue not limited to White People. Racialicious just had an article on it:

I’m often fascinated by the attempted control of people through their hair ...and how this control is often dressed in the language of “growing up” or “being professional.”

Extra Reading: Here's a great little article about a woman whose son has long hair, doesn't mind that people mistake him for a girl, and he also loves hot pink. And when his friend told him pink is a girl's colour, he just told him that was silly.

Screen Adaptations: Anne of Green Gables

You can't get more perfect casting than all the actors in the CBC movies of Anne of Green Gables. Megan Follows looked natural with red hair, she looked cute but still different, and she perfectly captured the mixture of dreamy-fruitiness, and break-slate-over-head temper. A great heroine to grow up on.

Oh that fat girl, she's so hot right now

And yet more stories in the news about larger sized models.

“It’s simply bizarre that ‘normal’ is the new overweight,” [plus size model Crystal Renn] wrote. “We’ve seen that super-skinny women can be as unhappy as the fattest fat girl. We know how awful it is to obsess about every calorie. We’ve just opted not to make ourselves crazy.”

THE rub is that many plus-size models complain that their images are often retouched as routinely as celebrity covers — only to make them look bigger. ...

“Because I am a plus-size model, they like to make an example,” she said. “They see a roll, and they say, ‘Ooh, a roll!’ And they focus on it.”

In her book, she describes this as the fetishization of fat. “When designers and editors choose one fat girl to salivate over, and revel in her avoirdupois, I’m not sure how much it advances the cause of using girls of all sizes in a magazine,” she wrote. What she would like to see, in the interest of fairness, is those photographers and magazines making a point of not showing an image of a model whose ribs are showing.

“I’m fighting for something,” Ms. Renn said. “I believe fashion can be a place of diversity. It’s not going to happen overnight, but do you want it to?” (New York Times "The Triumph of the Size 12s.")

And check out this link showing previews from V Magazine's upcoming "Size Issue."

Passing fad? Or are things really changing?

Beautiful Haiti

I crashed all sleepy into bed last night and forgot to post. And now I'm just feeling shocked and sad about Haiti. I've only been in one "natural disaster" in my life, and that was the 1998 ice storm. But going through a disaster in a very developed country, with an organized and rich government, with well-off citizens, with tons of services, and where infrastructural damage was minimal (compared to a 7.0 earthquake) is one thing. A disaster of this magnitude hitting a country that's already struggling to get by--hitting the capital no less--it's so so sad.

But since this blog is about beauty, here are some paintings by Haitian artists. And a couple of songs.

Wyclef Jean's cover of "Wish You Were Here." (Wyclef lived in Haiti til he was 13.)


And Josephine Baker singing: Haiti.

Georgia Nicolson and the "Be Yourself" Lesson

Let's talk some more about Angus.

History:
In the 80s the teen section in the bookstore consisted of Judy Blume, Sweet Valley High and one romantic series--can't remember the name now. In the 90s they added all those death books by Lurlene McDaniels. This is because my generation was tiny, they didn't need to make books for us. But with the "echo" generation they've finally discovered writing-for-teens, and what once took up one 4 foot section of shelf space, now takes up about 20.

Georgia:
Louise Rennison was one of the first hits (first book: 1999). I always noticed her books cause they had great titles like: Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging; and Knocked Out by My Nunga-nungas. It's a fictional series of diaries (like Bridget Jones) by an insane 15 year old. I have yet to find anything as funny in the teen section; and she is up there with PG Wodehouse for me.

Relevance to this blog:
So besides the fact that the heroine of the series has a big nose, and she's full of ego and self-confidence, I also like her boy storyline. Throughout the series she is chasing after two gorgeous guys: the Sex God, and the Luuuurve God. Neither of them is as crazy as she is, and she's always afraid of being too silly or immature around them so mostly she says nothing, and they just snog a lot. And they're a bit dull.

Meanwhile she's friends with Dave the Laugh, who isn't quite as gorgeous (though he is "quite fit") but who's actually funny and she has a good time with him and she can be herself. And after ten books they finally get together.

In other words, there's a nice subtle undertone message of: A sex god is all well and fine, but find a guy you can actually be yourself with.

But with no moralizing. She treats her audience with Maturosity, and respects them enough to know that they'll get it.

Screen Adaptations: Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging (movie)

I think I'll do a little Monday mini-series on screen adaptations--where characters from their original source are either beautified, or portrayed accurately. If you have any, do please send them to me and I'll feature them on a future Monday.

Since I'm on the last book of the Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging books, I'll begin with Georgia Nicolson. In the books she's pretty, but it's a fact that she has a big nose. Other people comment on it. She also has ample nunga-nungas (breasts) so it's good they didn't choose someone overly thin. Georgia Groome also possesses the character's sassiness-sparkle.

Grade: A+

Born to stand out

I like this quote from the movie What a Girl Wants.

"Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?"

Very nice. And when I googled it, I was led to this page:

She always frowns, feels so down.
Never ever thought she was anybody.
Thought she should be pretty like ''her'' or skinny
like ''that girl''' but never accepted her true beauty.
It wasn't until she heard of the saying ''Why try so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out'' before she realized she was diferent and that was ok.

Cleaning up the dating pool, one web site at a time

There's a story all over the web about the dating site BeautifulPeople.com (where only people rated as beautiful can be members) kicking 5000 members off for gaining weight over the holidays.

But I lurv this site, and all you singletons out there owe the creators of this site a big bear hug. By luring away the "Oh God PLEASE rate me as beautiful! sob sob" people from the dating pool, they've decreased your chance of running into someone "really really ridiculously good looking" with the mental weight of Zoolander, or the moral gravitas of Mugatu. Yeah baby!

Now when will AbsoluteUggos.com become a reality?

Fat and Horrifying

This is a fun song, but the video...

I think this would have been funny if they'd just taken the singers of the song and done the "têtes à claque" effect on them. But by using large women, dressed skimpy, I feel like the video is somehow pointing to large women as grotesque. Here are some of the youtube comments:

"they're fat and horryfing"
"If there was a knife nearby I'd end my life just to make it stop..."
"Her arm pits are reeally hariy, and who would wanna party with those ugly fat assed greesers."
"so uh.... would anybody else bang those weird looking chunky chicks?"

But I gather this is typical of this director's style--he's also a comedian so... maybe it's just nnnot my sense of humour.



There's another video for the song:


[If these videos get taken down, try here.]

Demi Moore: Don't be a playah hatah.

Another one of these silly Ralph-Lauren-esque stories has hit the news. This time it's Demi Moore and her lawyers who are vehemently denying that her thigh was photoshopped on the cover of W magazine. Even though...

1. the pic looks just plain anatomically incorrect
2. the Korean version of W shows her with thigh intact

It's such a non-issue... the only reasons I can think of for threatening litigation is...

1. publicity
2. boredom

Check out the photo comparison on Boing Boing.

Stand up for your core self

I was going to post this for Jan 1, but decided it would be a rather negative start to the year!

I think this is one of the best songs Janet Jackson has written, from a 90s album The Velvet Rope. It's about a man being all "hey baby marry me" romantic, and his girlfriend screwing up the courage to finally confront him for abusing her.



What about the times you lied to me
What about the times you said no one would want me
What about all the shit you've done to me
What about that
What about that
What about the times you yelled at me
What about the times I cried
You wouldn't even hold me
What about those things
What about that
What about that

...

What about the times you hit my face
What about the times you kept on when I said
No more please
What about those things
What about that
What about that oh
What about the times you shamed me
What about the times when you said you didn't fuck
her
She only gave you head
What about that
What about that

Monday Morning Music: Sesame Street!

Sesame St has had some great songs in its time, and here's a new one!



Do you have any old faves? Mr brother favors Lower Case N. My friend Swiss Girl can probably still sing Captain Vegetable (I know I can--she taught me in high school.)  I love the Alligator King. (Who are these people on youtube giving thumbs down to these songs??)