Winona W. Wendth's Open Salon Blog

The Devastation of What's-Her-Name Palin

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:03:40 -0400

What is it, now . . . Brittany? Brianna? Oh: Bristol.

I am sorry she is—or feels—devastated, although none of these splash-page notices I get on AOL tell me exactly why she's devastated, given that, according to these news-posts, wisely dumping the guy was her idea.

I am sorry for her mother, who might well have believed that her daughter was really going to marry this kid—and it's very, very hard for me to feel sorry for Sarah Palin. Very.

I am sorry for the RNC treasurer, who had to cut those checks for the clothes Bristol and whoever it is—I have already forgotten—wore during the convention, knowing that s/he could have bought so many more flags and balloons.

I am sorry for the few young women who might have momentarily thought that teenage pregnancy could, in the end, turn out all right;

I am sorry that the Planned Parenthood offices of The Great Northwest weren't adquately funded or supported—and that their Health Center was not yet opened—in the spring of 2008, or politically strong enough for their materials to be available in Alaska high schools.

I am sorry for the American people who held this family up as a model for right living—even if that lasted only six months, or so (are the rumors that Joe the Plumber abuses his wife true?).

I am sorry about all of this, but I have an idea: Here's an opportunity for Rush Limbaugh to come to the aid of his party. Limbaugh, who is not presently married, should take Bristol and the baby in and make everything all right by bringing a man with principles and an income into their lives. He could easily reimburse the RNC for the cost of the Palin extended family convention wardrobe; he would make Bristol an "honest woman"and provide a radio venue and perpetual income for Bristol's mother, who is not likely to hold on to the governership for another term. Tidy. Devastatingly clever, I must say.

Governor Moonbeam Provides Full-Spectrum Light

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 17:03:45 -0500

“Fundamental rights in California are recognized and protected by our constitution, which declares in Article I, Section 1 that “all people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights” and “among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”

That’s Jerry Brown speaking, speaking as an informed citizen of the Republic of California, a student of American ethics, a lay-theologian, a sitting Attorney General, former Mayor of Oakland, Secretary of State of the Republic, and former Governor of California. He speaks with both experience and authority on what can and should work in his state. He has been clear about the truth that the citizens of California don’t get to foist their personal and cultural inclinations on their or executive or judicial branches of government. And this has, of course, become a national issue.

One of Brown’s most recent posts reads, “Jerry Brown Here at the courthouse in the Civic Center. There's excitement in the air. Supporters and opponents have spilled out into the streets.” It’s been a while—if there ever has been a time—since a “religious” right-wing constituency has not wanted to be in the spotlight. But now they are, and many are not happy about that. The problem is not that they “have spilled out into the streets,” but that their contributions and gift-giving are now out in the open. “Sunshine is the best disinfectant,” is what comes to mind here. Some of the supporters are very proud of their commitments, of course; but not all of them are, and my guess is that in the end, the hard business consequences of their support will affect the outcome of this matter as much as anything else. I don’t know when this will be over—when the hearing will be finished, that is—but while deliberations continue, attention is acutely focused, and we’re all learning lot.

To begin with, now we know one good bi-product of a “market-driven” economy: gifts to political action committees from both supporters and opponents are public records, as they always have been, and businesses whose owners or managers have contributed to groups and services who have supported Proposition Eight are being boycotted. Good—that’s what makes America great: economic pressure to change behavior. Supporters of the proposition are free to stay away from those businesses whose leadership have opposed it. No one seems to have noticed much of that.

Second: Social, political, and cultural historians are bringing to light what the true history of marriage is, which has not been a ”one-man/one-woman sacred institution that has been in place for the last 5,000 years,” as one vocal proponent has often said. Since Old Testament times, marriage has been a political and financial arrangement between two families; attempts to run an end-run around that occasionally ended in death--maybe, by today’s standards, often (the Biblical Cozbi, among others). And don’t forget the prevalence of polygamy (Solomon, for starters), nation-saving acts of sexual exercise and prowess (Esther), and half a dozen other reminders that marriage back then—and, to certain degree now—was all about finding power, appropriating power, and maintaining power. In the Western World, marriages were held outside churches in recognition of their secular, political nature for centuries. And if you must bring up Adam and Eve (“not Adam and Steve,” as that pubescent attempt at cleverness goes), let’s stop and think about where the next generation of children came from: if you take that story literally, you’re stuck with serious incest—not cousins, but the real, horrific thing. So maybe a few people have been driven back to scripture and history books (significantly different documents).

Third: Americans may have had to stop and recognize that that line of thinking does not address the truth that our nation is comprised of peoples who are not necessarily culturally or historically invested in Christian social traditions, to begin with. We are a country of many peoples, not all of whom buy into what is essentially a post-industrial, somewhat Victorian notion of family.

Fourth: We have had to look closely at the sociology of family, and many Americans have had to reconsider the value of “the nuclear family,” which is also a post-industrial, socially migratory, disenfranchising operation, unlike the traditional, historical expanded and extended family.

Fifth: Because so much of this Prop 8 argument takes us back to the “purpose” of marriage, which, admittedly, has had lot to do with lineage and inheritance, we have also been obliged to consider the place of children in a family and the “right” to bear children, the “right” not to bear children, the curious question of what a “father” is (as opposed to let’s say a simple sperm-donor), the value of adoption, and the meaning of parenting.

This all leads to the question of who has the “right” to love or not love someone else and what “rights” she or he has to implement that. Which brings us back to the California Attorney General’s opening remarks—the rights of all Americans to enjoy and defend life and liberty, “acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”

So here’s suggestion: render all unions between domestic partners—all of them—to be civil unions that provide all rights and privileges that are equal in all cases, same-sex, not-same-sex, but adults of majority. In order to receive those benefits, couple must be legally joined by the State. If “marriage” means something sacred to religionists of any sort, then let them determine what is “sacred” and perform and pronounce marriages—in churches, synagogues, temples, ashrams, holy springs, sacred mountains, or wherever an ordained, licensed official proclaims a marriage a marriage; many believing Christians, Jews, Buddhists and officials of other religions can and happily do that.

The State should not interfere with the practice of religion; but organized religion or religionists of any kind, should not affect or effect the determinations of the State. From now on: civil unions for everyone, no State-licensed marriages, at all, although those already on the books can be grandfathered in. Let the churches have their way, but please make them get out of ours.

Hate Was the Only Thing that Warmed Her

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:02:25 -0500

My “favorite movie of all time”? An impossible question to answer. But one film I can—and do—watch repeatedly is “Gilda,” which was the vehicle that defined Rita Hayworth for my father’s generation and therefore had a secondary but profound influence on me. Beyond that, however, “Gilda” is an extraordinarily beautiful and emotionally compelling film.

Unfortunately, the film has suffered from a lack of critical attention because uncoupling the character from the actor has historically been difficult: “Every man I knew went to bed with Gilda, but they woke up with me,” Hayworth famously protested, although this didn’t seem to dissuade a number of men from testing the case. Hayworth was one of the two ultimate American women—the dark, voluptuous counterpart to the blonde girl-next-door Betty Hutton. She was so closely associated with what was robust in this country that Hayworth’s likeness was painted on what was, at the time, the world’s most powerful weapon, an atomic test bomb named “Gilda,” which was detonated over Kwaljalein, thus giving the term, “bombshell,” a newly literal meaning. Hayworth’s image was everywhere, and men like my father adored her, or, at least, they adored Gilda, who, unlike “Casablanca’s” Ilsa, developed an identiy outside her vehicle. The film is also compelling to me because it had both the sparkle of the happy, dancing RKO films that had mesmerized me as a kid, as well as that dark, subtly evil and desperate element of estrangement that lies at the heart of film noir, the elements that when on screen—on the small screen, certainly—pulled the world in, like a stylish black hole; the worlds I saw there had a tightness and pressure that were somehow uncomfortably familiar to me.

Music and dance notwithstanding, “Gilda” forces attention on dialogue and light and shadow, on composition rather than action on the screen. When I look back on those evenings with Gilda on a twenty-one inch screen, I wonder how I saw what I did, and I think about how that film, among others, charged and then pulled the color out of the disorderly world around me and reconfigured it with sharp angles and rounded art-deco loops and curves, and the strategically placed stripes that organized the pictures on the screen.

“Gilda” was also part of my family history: My parents went to see the film when it was first screened at The Radio City Music Hall in March of 1946, six months before I was born. My father had newly returned from the Pacific theater, and they had been married for not quite three months. When the reviews came out, Bosley Crowther didn’t like the film much: “Charles Vidor, who directed; Virginia Van Upp, who produced for Columbia, and a trio of writers deserve no credit at all. They made out of ‘Gilda’ a slow, opaque, unexciting film,” reported Crowther, a few lines down from calling Hayworth’s dancing, “crude.” But my parents were taken by it, and I am taken by it, too, although I have never seen the film in a theater. I grew up with repeated references to the overpowering image of Rita Hayworth and her voluminous hair on the screen. Buenos Aries was compelling, as well: it was still a holding tank for residual German evil, but the city retained a highly romantic air about it; and it was a perfect place for Hayworth to be Gilda. Columbia made the film in Hollywood, of course, but spliced in travel footage for atmosphere and verisimilitude.

Crowther had it almost all wrong: He missed the purpose of the movie. Although “Gilda” is not a great film and lacks the artistry—on all fronts—of “Casablanca,” as well as the gravitas derived from international intrigue and self-sacrificing love in the service of the Free World, it shares a lot with that work and provides a mirror image of the Warner Brothers’ film by re-presenting the dark underbelly of heavy cash-flow ex-patriot life at that time. Both films take place in war-created communities outside of what we used to call first-world nations. In Curtiz’s film, "Casablanca" holds hopeful purpose for political agents and escaping refugees while the war is still raging. In Vidor’s, “Gilda”, Buenos Aires is a city peopled by those who are left over, scrambling for themselves: “A worm’s eye view is the only true one,” a peripheral character reminds us.

Both films take place almost exclusively in casinos filled with ventless white dinner jackets, reminders of the crapshoot unpredictability of The World Out There. Rick Blaine is a toughened and cynical American with a heart of gold; but Johnny Farrell is simply cynical. Victor Laszlo is trying to save a nation; Ballin Mundson is an egoistic, controlling German trying to maintain his hold on a tungsten cartel. Ilsa Lund’s attempts to balance passion with patriotism drive the film forward; Gilda is out for herself: passion and a brutal will move her through the film, which never reaches a believable, let alone uplifting resolution. She believes her life amounts to considerably more than a hill of beans.

Finally, Rick and Captain Renault walk off into the Moroccan mist, hopefully at the beginning of a beautiful friendship; Johnny and Gilda walk shoulder-to-shoulder out of Mundson’s nightclub with little to offer the viewer in the way of a possibly good future, since the only one that matters in the film is bound by self-protection and acquisition. The music swells, as it does in Casablanca, but not with La Marseilles. Instead, we heard non-descript, coercive overworking of the string section. So Crowther does have something to complain about. But he misjudged our response to what he mis-quotes a minor but significant character referring to as, “the most curious love-hate pattern I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing.”

      I don’t know what’s “curious” about the passionate hate and the extreme measures to which it drives all the characters in Gilda: the script is riddled with references to its transformative power, its drive to ownership, its potential to destroy. Even as a teenager, I was beginning to understand how this works. Hate makes you smart, for a while, clever in feeding obsessions; it can provide a near joy from temporarily giving up or giving in; it keeps you focused. When you can’t trust anyone, hating is easier than loving and certainly more exciting than indifference. And it’s all about you.
    “If you’re worried about Johnny Farrell,” Gilda says to Mundson, “don’t be. I hate him.”
    “And he hates you. That’s very apparent. But hate can be a very exciting emotion,” he replies, “Very exciting. Haven’t you noticed that? Hate is the only thing that ever warmed me.”

      Everyone, even tungsten cartel swindlers, wants to be warmed. The impossibility of living without passion makes hate preferable to none at all; and in this film, even desire is flamed by hateful obsession for another over whom one can never quite ensure complete power and control. Ownership and loyalty— unreasonable, forced, or feigned, or fabricated—to people, not nations, missions, or ideas, is a theme that runs alongside the passionate hate that drives Gilda and Johnny nearly back into each other’s beds. It is only Johnny Farrell’s vengefulness that keeps them out.
    “You do hate me, don’t you, Johnny?” Gilda asks, with as much hope as teasing irony.
    “I don’t think you have any idea of how much,” he replies immediately before they lose themselves to their passion.

We want to believe there is something more; but there isn’t. There is hate, there is passion, there is no trust, nor should there be: he left her, unannounced; she married for money without so much as a second warning. They wandered off and unexpectedly found each other again, gamblers of one sort or another, in Buenos Aires. Past and future figure minimally in this film, and all problems are addressed with immediacy; no happy Paris flashbacks, no deliberations about what would be best for Czechoslovakia. And one gets the feeling that there is no reason that either of them would stick around for long, swells of studio strings at the end, notwithstanding.

Here lies a major fault with the film: there is no happy ending, not even a resolution, because there can’t be, in spite of what we want to believe and what Vidor wants us to accept. It was too late for happy endings seventeen minutes and twenty-six seconds into the film, as Ford’s pupils subtly widen and his earlobes minimally drop when his character learns that, in his absence, Gilda found somebody else more reliable on the wardrobe and investment jewelry front and then married him; Gilda responds by offering Johnny a cinema cigarette, a reminder of what the relationship had originally been all about and was going to be again—smoking in “Gilda” works as it does in almost all films, as an index of sexual frustration or immanent fulfillment. “You smoke too much. I noticed only frustrated people smoke too much, and only the lonely people are frustrated,” says Uncle Pio just before Gilda deliberately induces a jealous rage in Johnny.

For years, the luxuriousness of the film, the beauty of individual scenes and long takes, the clothes (some of which Jean Louis cleverly designed to disguise Hayworth’s pregnancy), and the music, stood in the way of my understanding entirely what this movie is tackling. One reason, of course, is that I had to live a while before I learned to hate really well; and then, I had to live a little longer before I could think usefully about it. I didn’t have the opportunity to see the “Gilda” very often—“Casablanca,” with its high-minded theme and loyal following turned up more regularly; but Ingrid Bergman, a better actor in a better script with a better leading man, was no Rita Hayworth. Bergman, even with that full-screen, sincere face does not arrest attention the way Gilda does. And as beautiful as her gowns are, they drape as though they coalesced from the Allied atmosphere and clung to her out of respect. Gilda worked and bargained for her sequins and exhibits no sincerity save sincere fear, now and again: her full-screen face has always just recently flipped her billowing hair out of the way and is mockingly taking everything she can from us.

Even knowing the beginning from the end, I let Gilda do that, and I offer everything up.