July 9, 2013

Gena Barreca
The Hartford Courant
285 Broad Street
Hartford, CT 06115

RE: Even the movies! – Will there ever be relief for the long suffering sisterhood of perpetually dumped on feminist theorists who teach English literature at a New England university? Apparently not based on your column about how Lady Macbeth and Lucrezia Borgia were denied their rightful places in the movies.
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/hc-op-barreca-hannah-arendt-heat-movies-about-wome-20130703,0,1297672.column
Ms. Barreca,

As a Board Certified Life Coach, a curmudgeonly combo of Dr. Phil and Oprah with a soupcon of Miss Lonelyhearts for leavening, I seek to expand my envelope. I read of the knicker knotting knavishness of testosterone laden movie folk who deprive you of a magical sisterhood sharing moment at the flicks. All I can do is help.

Before I offer you the solution to your du jour angst I must comment on another part of your article. [By the by, is narcissism a gender driven thing?]

You mention Mary McCarthy without mentioning Lillian Hellman.

Ms McCarthy loathed, I mean despised, Ms Hellman. That alone grants Ms McCarthy many indulgences for her sins both of commission and omission, both real or imagined. That Ms. Hellman was the most despicable, most loathsome artistic figure of the 20th century there can neither be dispute nor can there be doubt.

Since she swung from both sides of the plate she also became the first successful cross bred incubus/succubus. That was so she could work in the daytime.

When she died, and you may remember spontaneous Te Deums sweeping the nation, I began both a 501C3 and a 501C4 to pay for an armed guard at her grave. The difference here is that the bayonets were pointing in so as to keep her from sneaking out at night to further infect the Republic. “By any means necessary” became our watchword. Anything to keep this bruja, this Hecate, in the eternal clutches of Mother Earth.

This cuno had the cojones to be a model for Black Glama mink coats. If the critters had known whose back they would going to be on they would have flung themselves into the nearest Cuisinart.

I can see how being paid only 79% as much as an equally credentialed male counterpart could drive you mad. It is obvious from the uni-sex shower in the English Literature teachers’ lounge that the only thing different between the two of you is that he doesn’t shave his legs.
I can’t help you with that save to say that maybe you should try shaving only one leg.

I hope that should Wide-Bottomed Hillary take over in 2016 that she will be able to change that. Hope & Change. Get it? Like Trollope, I revel in the quotidian ordinariness of life unfolding. Keep your chin up. Keep your powder dry. Don’t trip over any clichés but help is on the way.

As to your rom-com, chick flick sharp stick in your genderized eye the solution is at hand.

“Women buy half of America’s movie tickets. Let’s get more
women writing scripts where women have lead roles and,
while we’re at it, let’s get more women into director’s chairs.
The Sun Sentinel
Today
You

Tell the ladies to take a cue from Lysistrata. She told the chicks in the agora to Gorilla Glue their knees together so as to get their Hoplite husbands’ full attention. I think Thucydides wrote that was when ice water first appears in literature.

Tell the ladies to stop buying tickets.

In about 6 weeks you will see Juanita Wayne, AKA “The Duchess”, and Steverina Spielberg leading a SWAT team to rip out all the urinals in Hollywood.

No need to say thank you.

Just trying to be of help.

About your last meat loaf….




Kevin Smith

PS – I would have used “directors’ chairs” rather than “director’s”. Surely there must be more than one Martina Scorsese or Frances Coppola out there, right?