Love to the Boys

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/05/what_state_prisoners_get_to_wo.html

Heard some important information on Twitter today, and thought I’d post it here for anyone who may not have heard it. This is actually a thing, devised by human rights organisation called Karma Nirvana.

here’s the synopsis for first wives club 2:

disgruntled first wives take their ex-husbands’ new lovers under their wing.

sounds great, right? awesome viewing material for a precocious 11-year-old.

so i buy this movie, and like, three minutes into it i’m starting to feel suspicious?? like it’s really low quality and my girls are nowhere in sight?? how come none of the first wives are the same?? how come they’re alone in a bedroom with mood lighting?? why is she taking off her shirt?? why are they both taking off their shirts?? WHY ARE THEY–

here’s what i did not know about first wives club 2:

it is a lesbian porno of no relation to the beloved 1996 classic.

so of course i, horrified that i’ve accidentally bought porn on my family’s account (and in that state of panic that kids work themselves into whenever anything regarding sex is mentioned), quickly shut off the TV and go upstairs and watch an episode of veggie tales to like, cleanse my soul and apologize to jesus, and that’s that.

EXCEPT, OF COURSE:

you have to pay for pay per view.

so the end of the month comes and i have completely put this incident out of my mind, haha, i accidentally bought porn, how funny, TELL NO ONE. right? and i’m sitting at a nice dinner with my mother, my stepfather, and my very religious aunt deb, and we’re just talking about farm things, whatever, when suddenly my mother puts her fork down and says, “okay, there’s something we need to discuss. as a family.”

AS A FAMILY.

and i’m like, running through a list of people i know who could conceivably be dead, and fantasizing about my mother announcing that she’s going to buy me My Own Computer Just Because U Earned It Kiddo, and she pulls out a piece of paper that says DIRECTV across the top. and i’m like: OH NO.

“i received the tv bill today,” my mother said, and i was like, shoveling potatoes into my mouth as fast as i could because i knew that when i went to PORN PRISON they weren’t going to feed me this kind of quality starch. “does anybody want to tell me who purchased the pornography?”

as a reminder, a quick table survey:

my mother, surprised and disappointed by the porn bill (innocent)

my stepfather, a grumbly old cowboy who just wants to sing along to kenny chesney and watch the hunt for red october (innocent)

my aunt deb, a super religious catholic whose best friend is a nun named Sister Placid (innocent)

me, the 11-year-old with a mouthful of potatoes who definitely purchased the lesbian pornography

silence.

my mother said, “i’m not going to ask again.”

silence.

my aunt looked at my stepdad. my stepdad looked at my aunt. NOBODY LOOKED AT ME, THE 11-YEAR-OLD WITH A MOUTHFUL OF POTATOES WHO DEFINITELY PURCHASED THE LESBIAN PORNOGRAPHY.

my mother shook her head and put the bill down. “this was incredibly inappropriate,” she said. “skip, deb, whoever. buy that shit on your own time. i’m not paying for it. what if molly had seen it?”

WHAT IF MOLLY HAD SEEN IT?

“don’t expose my kid to that crap.”

DON’T

EXPOSE

MY KID

TO THAT CRAP

“if you want to watch porn, fine, but do it in private and don’t expect me to pay for it. i can’t believe one of you did that in the living room.”

I CAN’T BELIEVE ONE OF YOU DID THAT

IN THE LIVING ROOM

but molly, why didn’t you own up to it and explain that it was an accident?

are you fucking kidding

i did not want to go to porn prison

the fun conclusion to this story is that i never owned up to it, which means that there are 3 people in the world who have not solved the mystery of the lesbian porn. a quick survey:

my mother, who lives every day wondering whose porn she paid for

my stepfather, who probably wishes he knew less about his wife’s sister’s porn preferences

my aunt, who probably wishes she knew less about her sister’s husband’s porn preferences

but molly, why don’t you own up to it now, with the safety of time and distance and the knowledge that porn prison isn’t real?

are you fucking kidding

(and not already dead and broke from 2016)

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Uber

The person who owns the store is an older Muslim man. He’s always been nothing but friendly, to the point of letting me take the stuff I had planned to buy with the promise of paying him back once when my card didn’t work. 

Today I walked in and got my stuff, stepped up to the counter, and started to say hi. Then he turned around, motioned for me to wait a moment, and continued with what he was doing. It was only then I realized he was in the middle of his prayers. 

So I waited at the counter for a few minutes. Then he picked up his mat and put it away, came over, and gave me a free corny dog to thank me for my patience (and because we’re pals).

This is My America, or at least the way I want it to be.

We’re coming to love and recognize actors who work in full-body makeup/costumes, such as Andy Serkis, or actors whose entire performances, or large chunks thereof, are motion captured or digitized (lately sometimes also Andy Serkis!). But people like Leander Deeny play an enormous part in making characters such as Steve Rogers come to life, too. Body language is a huge part of a performance and of characterization. For characters/series with a lot of action, a stunt person can have a huge influence on how we read and interpret a character, such as the influence Heidi Moneymaker has had on the style and choreography of Black Widow’s signature fighting style. Talent doubles breathe believability and discipline-specific nuance into demanding storylines.

Actors are creative people themselves, and incredibly important in building the characters we see onscreen. But if we agree that they’re more than dancing monkeys who just do whatever the directors/writers say, then we have to agree that doubles are more than that, too. Doubles make creative decisions too, and often form strong, mutually supportive relationship with actors.

  Image 1: “I would like to thank Kathryn Alexandre, the most generous actor I’ve ever worked opposite.”

Image 2: “Kathryn who’s playing my double who’s incredible.”

[ Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany on her acting double, Kathryn Alexandre, two images from a set on themarysue, via lifeofkj ]

   I’ve got a relationship that goes back many, many years with Dave. And I would hate for people to just see that image of me and Dave and go, “oh, there’s Dan Radcliffe with a person in a wheelchair.” Because I would never even for a moment want them to assume that Dave was anything except for an incredibly important person in my life.

[ Daniel Radcliffe talking about David Holmes, his stunt double for 2001-2009, who was paralysed while working on the Harry Potter films. David Holmes relates his story here. Gifset via smeagoled ]

With modern tv- and film-making techniques, many characters are composite creations. The characters we see onscreen or onstage have always been team efforts, with writers, directors, makeup artists, costume designers, special effects artists, production designers, and many other people all contributing to how a character is ultimately realized in front of us. Many different techniques go into something like the creation of Skinny Steve — he’s no more all Leander Deeny than he is all Chris Evans.

But as fandom dissects the anatomy of scenes in ever-increasing detail to get at microexpressions and the minutiae of body language, let’s recognize the anatomy in the scenes, too. I don’t mean to take away from the work Chris Evans or any other actors do (he is an amazing Steve Rogers and I love him tons), but fandom needs to do better in recognizing the bodies, the other people, who make up the characters we love and some of our very favourite shots of them. Chris Evans has an amazing body, but so does Leander Deeny — that body is beautiful; that body mimicked Chris Evans’s motions with amazing, skilled precision; that body moved Steve Rogers with emotion and grace and character.

Fandom should do better than productions and creators who fail to be transparent about the doubles in their productions. On the screen, suspension of disbelief is key and the goal is to make all the effort that went into the production vanish and leave only the product itself behind. But when the film is over and the episode ends, let’s remember everyone who helped make that happen.