Of Babies and Bathwater

People who avoid the brick walls - all power to ya, but we all have to hit them sometimes in order to push through to the next level, to evolve.

Supposedly "the quote of the DAY" from Jennifer Aniston because that title makes it sound like important, erudite wisdom and never mind I see about SIX such articles per day.

First of all, "all power to you, but..." is faux respect while being dismissive of people who are conflict avoiders, people who prefer diplomacy and manners to unnecessary confrontation. 

I'm well aware that it's not possible to get through life without some friction but I don't harp on it because I'm a conflict avoider who would like to arrange a nice life for myself and wearing it on your sleeve that "friction is inevitable" in your opinion tends to actively attract unnecessary social friction from people who will use your words to justify being rude, confrontational and assholish.

This is a woman pretending to be brave and strong and pretending to have virtues and implying her strength of character in the face of adversity are why she's rich and you're not.

Because no one but her really knows what was involved in getting rich and if you suggest it might be something more like her looks and the casting couch, well you can't prove it and now you're the asshole. 

I was beautiful in my youth and at age sixty I'm still waiting to be old and ugly enough for men to stop viewing me as nothing but a piece of ass. I'm so fed up with the American standard that "socially acceptable" looks for a woman boil down to dressing like a street walker and good luck with finding a top that actually covers your cleavage so you can meet a business casual dress code that I fantasize about starting my own clothing line.

I'm currently homeless. Refusing to play that game is not opening doors for me career wise. 

While that's not the only factor in my poverty, it informs my views of claims made by other women. The phrase "casting couch" comes from the movie industry. I seriously doubt it's in the past.

Most likely, a lot of women in Hollywood are essentially forced to put out as the price of admission and it's not just a few outliers like Harvey Weinstein. He's probably just more offensive and consistent about it and his behavior is more objectionable and people coming forward hope that if they can nail the worst of the bunch, other people will think twice and be more hesitant. 

Someone making their money largely on looks like Anniston is probably getting work largely on her back or knees. 

There are beautiful women in Hollywood who also have talent and get talked up for their talents. They probably also get propositioned and deal with sexual harassment because of how they look or because they are female or because it's Wednesday and the producer hasn't had sex since Tuesday. 

I tripped across a clip recently on YouTube titled The I hate Rachel Green Club. That implies to me a lot of her coworkers didn't really like her.

Eddie Murphy "joked" about Bill Cosby and those jokes were based on something real:

his Cosby parodies which he began doing in the 1980s in fact reflected his real life animosity towards Cosby

I'm sad to hear that. I always liked both Murphy and Cosby and this detail is news to me.

But we all know most works of fiction have elements of truth to them and "ugly" humor is very often a polite cover story for genuine animosity that people don't really want to have to defend in earnest.

If you crack a joke with people very close to you that might sound ugly to outsiders, that may not be ugliness. There's shared history and context there which informs how they will interpret it. 

If they genuinely trust and like you and it's a mutually supportive relationship, being there for each other when you are drunk or sick or going through a bad time hits different than if you are casual acquaintances or work together and have to put up with them because you need your job.

I hated it when people at work would joke about firing someone to seemingly try to make light of something, to seemingly try to convey "It's not a big deal." People actually do get fired. I always felt like "What is wrong with you?"

But people seem to frequently try to use "ugly" things to imply "We're tight. This is a strong relationship that will endure minor hiccups." and it seems to normalize abusive bullshit.

It makes putting up with ugliness the norm, not something someone does because it's an exceptional situation and the other 99 percent of the time you were good to them.

Anyway, I don't personally like Jennifer Anniston and this quote rubs me the wrong way because I am a conflict avoider and I used to dream about facing a brick wall, reaching forward and finding a door knob and secret door in that wall. Because when faced with obstacles, I keep researching my options.

I like the Harry Potter image of run at the wall with confidence, passing through it and arriving in a magical train station to elsewhere. 

The title of this piece is about my intention to write about JK Rowling who is intentionally shit stirring and hurting vulnerable people with her public transphobic remarks. 

I desperately wish JK Rowling would stop her obviously malicious behavior that she is probably doing for petty reasons like entertaining herself from her sick bed without admitting she's sick.

My kids were hug fans of books. We went to see the movies in theaters. She improved the market for children's authors and improved child literacy globally.

I think the trans community is making a mistake to be vehemently against anyone who reads her works, quotes her works, etc.

I am strongly against JK Rowling's ugly hobby of causing the trans community problems. As far as I can tell, this is relatively recent and largely unrelated to her Harry Potter books.

I think it creates problems when you throw the baby out with the bath water and I wish I could write a piece on my parenting site that talks about brick wall metaphors and references the Harry Potter scene without feeling a need to first write something like this so I can link to it in proactive defense of myself. 

I write multiple LGBTQ resources, two of which are trans focused. Some part of me feels like I shouldn't have to justify or defend watching the Harry Potter movies or buying the books for my sons years ago when they were still children, before JK Rowling decided that in her final years, what she would like to be best known for us being a hateful asshole intentionally hurting a vulnerable population rather than her legacy as a groundbreaking female author.

We need better rubrics for distinguishing problematic behavior and shutting it down. And I'm a little sick and tired of Hollywood celebrities promoting themselves as erudite role models knowing that if you go "Oh, come on, Jennifer. Is that really how you got rich?" you're the asshole. 

I don't promote myself as a role model. I don't want to be a role model. But being wealthy and famous from making movies and TV shows doesn't mean we know you personally and acting like we do is PR bullshit with a manipulative agenda. 

Reality TV and social media make people FEEL like they KNOW these people. These people are very talented at scamming you into wanting to "be" like them and looking to them as -- cough -- "role models" that you enthusiastically emulate so you will stupidly buy their products.

If you like her movies and TV shows, whatever. But she's probably not telling you who she really is.

She's probably telling you who she wants you to think she is because that helps keep her a millionaire. And she probably has zero interest in how her "quote of the day" impacts your life and doesn't care at all if it makes your life harder because you bought her bullshit and have zero means to verify her implied claim that "I am a person of strong character and that's why I'm rich."

That's how we all think the world should work. We love hearing people claim that's how they got rich even though we know inherited it or slept with someone for it are more common explanations.