Posts Tagged ‘Celebrities’

Review: The Great Gatsby’s Social Commentary

05/19/2013

I have been looking forward to seeing the modern film adaptation of one of my favorite books from high school. I saw “The Great Gatsby” last night and it was good but not great.

In case you don’t know, this is the story of a man so desperately in love with a socialite that he becomes wealthy beyond imagination to lure her back after a five-year separation. It was a five-year period wherein she married a fabulously wealthy man–who is a philanderer–and has a little girl who is ignored while her mother lives the decadent life of the idle rich in the early 1920s in New York.

She is not unlike the celebrities who live in fantasy worlds today. My question is, why would Gatsby want her? He has gone from rags to riches–not in the most honest way–and could have any woman he wanted. But he wants a classy woman whom every man would want. She legitimizes that he is now a gentleman, one of them.

Except he isn’t. He may be a gentleman but not from old money. He tries to pretend but real old money sees right through him.

The wealthy and foolish husband of socialite Daisy is Tom Buchanan who is from money but likes to party with the trashy wife of a local mechanic. With his own wife, he is the polo player who thinks he is better than others; with his mistress he can be what he accuses Gatsby of being. Gatsby, however, tries to be elegant all the time but is plagued by insecurities because he knows he really doesn’t belong. Money cannot buy class but, despite his ill-gotten riches, he actually has both.

The only one who recognizes this–and who cares–is Daisy’s well-educated but poor cousin, Nick, who is the narrator and Gatsby’s new friend.

He has the ability to fit in with the rich and the beautiful although he is neither. And maybe that is why he can relate to Gatsby, who pretends to be something he is not and strives for what is supposed to be beyond his reach.

Nick facilitates the reunion of Gatsby and Daisy, who loves Gatsby but not as much as he loves her. When the moment of truth comes, the disparity in their loves makes all the difference. Ultimately, it may be that Daisy doesn’t know how to love since what she cares about is her position and her lifestyle. She wants a fun, glamorous life and she does not want to make tough decisions.

She is not who Gatsby thinks she is and all his efforts–over-the-top parties, a grand mansion, his proximity to her across the water–are for naught.

The movie does a good job conveying Gatsby’s love, even obsession, with this unworthy woman, but it takes too long to get there. Too much time is spent showing the glittering parties and demonstrating the impact of Gatsby’s dilemma on Nick, who becomes rather obsessed with the hero of the story. Except there are no real heroes in this situation.

What makes this story captivating is not only the love affair but its relevance to today. We live in a world where people, especially the so-called beautiful people, embrace shallow decadence and don’t know what true love is. We are so used to it that we don’t see it for what it is, but, in seeing this movie, we can be critical of these purposeless, selfish people just like Nick is.

The movie, like the book, shows that the glitzy lifestyle that so many admire is not what it seems and is really not the path to happiness. In that regard, it is a film worth seeing.

Criticizing the Classes

12/07/2012

In addition to a national obsession with diversity–what group do you belong to? Single mom? African-American? Gay male? Illegal alien? –we are extremely divided on the basis of class.

The campaign was purportedly about the middle class, the innocent taxpayer (well, hopefully) who needs help. The upper class, we were told by Mitt Romney, can take care of themselves. That is true enough. And, Mitt also told us, the poor are well taken care of by a myriad of programs. To the extent that they avail themselves of the programs, that is correct as well.

I believe that almost all Americans should look in the mirror and examine themselves. If they do so, they will find that very few have been economically innocent. We can blame the government for over-taxing and over-spending and over-regulating. However, we cannot blame the government for our own personal failings. Yet we can blame them for taking advantage of them to divide us.

First, one of the reasons the people hate the rich so much–despite wanting to be part of their ilk–is that many people of means are not nice people. They may do good things with their money but their elitist attitudes turn off the help. I recently saw a housekeeper who was angry at her wealthy employer because he failed to be generous in a moment of need. She asked for a small amount of money for an urgent problem and he declined. An amount he might spend on a bottle of wine. While he may be bothered all the time and has to draw the line, a spirit of generosity would probably serve him better.

Then there is the poor. I am talking about the non-homeless, non-mentally ill, non-substance abusing poor. So many of the poor are not technically poor in that they have things I cannot afford as a member of the middle class. Maybe they can barely pay their rent but they have smart phones, iPods and iPads. They have expensive jewelry and clothes.

Often they complain about not having what others have but increasingly they have what they need. Their kids eat free at school at breakfast and lunch. They have food stamps to cover their dinner. They have numerous tax credits and often pay nothing at the federal level. This must free up money for all the material things they have that normally they cannot afford.

The question is, are people really poor if they have all that they need?

Lastly, the much-discussed middle class. I think our problem is that we are not eligible for all the perks of the poor and yet we cannot live like the rich due to lack of means. However, we want to–desperately. Recall how people earlier this century were flipping homes and trying to make a quick profit. Many in the middle class were playing the stock market. And of course we know about people taking mortgages out that they could not afford if things turned bad.

And bad they got. The question is, will bad become worse after we go over the fiscal cliff?

I am being critical of all of us in the hopes we realize the problem common to all of us–materialism. Some of us have too much and lack generosity; others don’t have a lot but want way beyond our means; and others are envious despite having enough.

We cannot all live like Hollywood starlets. We have to live according to our means. We have to focus on what is important, which is spirituality, not material things. We need what we need but making our needs our only focus deprives our lives of what really is important and sustaining. We need things but more importantly we need God.

Is Bisexuality the New Gay Frontier?

12/01/2012

The gays have won. Certainly in the media. And amazingly in the country and most importantly among the young based on the election results.

It is accepted by the mainstream of American society–pushed largely by the media and Hollywood–that gays are funny and smart and talented and are entitled to the same rights we have. Meaning marriage and adoption.

Their “right” to marriage equality trumps the rights of religious people–particularly Catholics–to exercise their right to religious practice. Catholic adoption agencies have gone out of business rather than violate their beliefs in placing innocent children with homosexual couples.

And that is just fine with the media and more ominously the government, which has the job to protect our rights, not violate them or dictate which rights are more important than others.

Since gays have become fully accepted in society and dominate so much of it after relentless promotion of their agenda from The Golden Girls to Ellen to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to The L Word, the next step in promoting non-traditional sexuality seems to be bisexuality.

I think this is ironic since we are told that homosexuals are born with same-sex attraction and thus preventing them from marrying and adopting is unfair because they have to be who they are. But if people are bisexual, is that inborn as well or is that a choice?

The liberal jury is still out but bisexuality is usually advanced as being even better than being gay because one is attracted to the person, not the gender. It is so impossibly broad-minded as to make sexuality meaningless.

Two quick examples. On Revenge, part of ABC’s pro-gay agenda, the billionaire Nolan Ross has complicated sexuality. Basically friendless despite his massive wealth, he has had romantic interludes with a couple of men and at least one woman. On the most recent episode of flashbacks, it showed him kissing, in a politically correct way, a Latino employee whom he appeared to be dating.

(Source: fanpop.com)

Previously, he dated another employee, a woman who appeared to be Indian-American. He also had sex with a white man who was a grifter and Harvard dropout.

Maybe Nolan just likes diversity in every possible way imaginable?

The point is, he is presented as a good person who is not confused about his sexuality. He is exploring it and falling in love with the person. He is just too–wait for it–enlightened!

Then I was surprised to read an article in December’s Marie Claire about a woman who dated another woman for several years–before marrying a man and having a child! What? Instead of concluding she was having emotional problems that she outgrew, she determines that she is enlightened because in having a sexual relationship with a woman she has ”learned freedom.”

Ten years ago–maybe even five–I could not have made this up. But here is a woman bragging about falling head over heels for another woman. “It was as if my whole view of what was sexy, sensual, and possible had just turned on its axis.”

She further states, “I was bisexual and thought everyone else could be, too, if given the chance….The important element is chemistry….”

Now that the gays have fully penetrated society–pun intended–the next frontier of dismantling traditional sexuality is bisexuality. Our liberal leaders and opinion makers will not rest until sexuality is fully separated from nature and morality. Now that they have convinced us that sodomy is normal and righteous, they are moving to the next level and brainwashing us that sexuality is not determined by nature but by attractions that we can develop if only we would open ourselves up to them.

What we must do is not violate God’s law on human sexuality. We need to live chastely in accordance with our state in life. So single people need to zip up their pants and married men and women must only have relations with their spouses. Antiquated ideas I know but ones that have kept humanity moving forward for thousands of years.

TV Teen Star Tells the Truth About “Filth”

11/27/2012

I was delighted to see that Angus T. Jones, teen star, told the truth about his television show, Two and a Half Men. I have only seen the show a couple of times over the years. I have avoided it because it is exactly what Jones says; it is filth.

One can be watching TV and see a promotion for this show and know how indecent it is. If this is what they are showing on the commercial, then I can imagine what is actually on the program. The couple of episodes I saw showed virtual nudity and casual, meaningless sexual activity.

Filth is exactly what I have called it and I am pleased that, in finding Jesus, Jones sees it the same way.

The elite are mocking him by saying he doesn’t dislike the show so much that he is saying no to his salary. He has been cashing his checks. This is unfair. First, he only recently became religious. Second, he is a young man finding his way. Third, his parents are responsible for him being on the show. He was a minor when he was cast.

(Source: news.yahoo.com)

His mother, who is divorced from his father, an event which may have led the young man on his soul-searching journey of faith, has drawn the wrong conclusion about his recent statements. She expressed concern that he was being “exploited” by his church.

I am shocked that a mother could see the church as the exploiter as opposed to the disgusting so-called comedy on which he has been a key player. By being exposed to such immorality, this child was in effect being abused by Hollywood.

That is not right. Most kids who are celebrities do not turn out well. Impurity ruins many of them along with drugs and alcohol. This young celebrity has a chance because he realizes what is important. How many adults twice his age cannot even say that?

I salute Angus T. Jones for being brave even when it is unpopular and even though it subjects him to scorn and job insecurity. Being Christian can be difficult but nothing is more rewarding.

Election Disaster: America Says Goodbye!

11/07/2012

I was shocked by the outcome of the election because I had allowed myself to believe Michael Barone and Dick Morris and Fox News and my common sense.

President Obama–two words that should not be side-by-side–has been an utter failure as our nation’s leader. But, according to his supporters, he has tried. Even while playing golf and hanging out with the stars, he has been working hard.

If this is working hard, I shudder to think what his slacking off would mean.

A failed economy. Religious freedom under attack. Foreign policy scandals. The list goes on and on.

He has waited for his second term to finish what he started on this country. And finish it he will. We are well on our way to becoming Europe, to being Spain and Greece. Time is running out to prevent this and this choice has sealed America’s fate. Because the truth is we are already bankrupt. Obama has been borrowing and spending to keep us afloat and to get people addicted to freebies to vote for him again.

It is brilliant but diabolical. It is Rome’s bread and circuses. The old America was proud and would have none of it. The new America–completely unrecognizable–demands something for nothing. As if that were possible.

Those who work will continue to subsidize those who do not work. The non-workers don’t pay taxes, get food stamps, receive welfare and many other goodies (think free Obamaphones!). Why would they want to give up living on the dole to work for a living? And they are victims so they don’t have to feel bad about it!

(Americans celebrating Obama’s victory/Source: bradenton.com)

Except at some point, the workers will say they are fools for working while their brethren live off them and their productivity will decrease. And while taxes increase on the workers and the incentive to succeed decreases, the downward slide America has been on will continue and accelerate.

Worse, as I repeatedly have mentioned, the attack on the Catholic Church will get worse and we can expect no relief from the Supreme Court where the battle will eventually end. This alone is the worst thing that Obama can “accomplish”–taking away our religious liberty. And all the other amendments will soon follow. First they came for the Catholics

Ultimately, I think this election was not about the economy, but about social issues. Americans have become debauched and want abortion and sodomy and free contraceptives and recreational marijuana. Their desire for these things to facilitate their decadent lifestyles trumped their empty pockets.

Again, this is not your grandparents’ America. I don’t recognize this country, these people.

And that is why I was shocked by the results of the election and why I must say goodbye to the America of my (recent) youth that is but a fond memory.

To paraphrase our First Lady, last night was the first time I was truly ashamed to be an American. I literally weep for my fallen country, which I miss terribly.

May God have mercy on us!

Review: “Won’t Back Down” Exposes Unions

09/30/2012

When I first saw the ads for “Won’t Back Down,” a new movie starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis about a mother and teacher who take over a failing school, I thought it would be a liberal, Lifetime-style movie. After all, Gyllenhaal is a lefty who tends to make dirty movies.

But I was wrong I am happy to say! I read a review that the movie is actually in favor of school choice, exposing the teachers unions for what they have become: protecting teachers, incompetent and otherwise, at the expense of children.

So I headed to Manhattan’s ultra-liberal Upper West Side to see the film yesterday and was delighted. Not only does the movie have a good message about children’s rights, it is actually very well done and entertaining.

(Source: rainbowcinemas.ca)

Gyllenhaal plays a trashy-dressed single mother with a dyslexic daughter. She tries to get her daughter out of a class with a teacher who does nothing but pass her kids along. Bound by union rules, she will not stay late to help tutor the child. Frustrated, Gyllenhaal tries unsuccessfully to transfer her child to Davis’ class. She is a teacher who still cares but is confronted by problems with her own child. Resistant at first, she joins forces with Gyllenhaal to take over the school and free it from the union.

The path is next to impossible as it is heavily in the union’s favor. The school board, like any good bureaucracy, does not want change to disrupt the status quo. The road to pro-child change is long, arduous and riddled with technicalities requiring a legal team.

The story, “inspired” by actual events, features no such dream team. Instead, an uneducated woman and a dedicated teacher take on the powerful teachers union and the government bureaucracy with hardly a chance of winning and at great personal cost. The ladies are maligned by the union, which admittedly lies to trick the parents into resisting the much-needed changes. Reminds me of the media’s coverage of the Romney campaign.

It is an emotionally satisfying film that shows what people can do if we put our minds to it. The forces against us to discourage us from trying to do what is right can be defeated. We need to remember that lesson as we support positive agents of change like the Tea Party and innovators like Gov. Scott Walker, who has been unafraid to take on unions.

Obama, Romney and Likability

08/26/2012

I keep hearing stories about how President Obama, despite a dismal record, is even with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in most polls due to his likability. The implication is that Romney is not likable.

He is a boy scout Mormon who is handsome, wealthy and successful with a beautiful family. What’s not to like? Well, he is a little stiff on the campaign trail, but I cut him slack because he is a businessman, not a natural-born politician or entertainer. He is also wealthy due to hard work and business savvy. He didn’t make millions through inheritance. He also is not a celebrity with no talent who makes money for being famous for nothing.

So are people jealous? The Democrats regularly engage in the politics of envy and unfortunately it works.

But even if people are not enamored of Mitt–mostly because they don’t know him–I don’t understand the love affair with Obama.  Even if people like his personality–Al Green doesn’t sing “Let’s Stay Together” as well as Bam–does that qualify him to be president? He should have his own talk show. He is more than qualified to gab with celebrities and charm us. He just should not be setting policy.

(Source: edupics.com)

His policies thus far have been failures. Complete and utter failures. If one is on food stamps, collecting unemployment, unable to afford a house or save for the future, one should want more than a big bright smile and pretty words from one’s president.

Despite the positive portrayal of Obama in the media, he has actually shown himself to be arrogant, smug, and dismissive of others who do not share his views.

So why is he so likable to at least half the country? It seems to me that the people in the country who do not pay taxes are the ones who will vote for him again. It is those who want welfare, food stamps, and other government handouts who will vote for a second term. They want the freebies–although we have to borrow from China to provide them–to keep on coming.

But for the independents who have not made up their minds, I have to ask, do you want another four years of high unemployment, high gas prices, high food prices, and lower incomes? Even if you like him personally, it is against the nation’s and our individual economic interests to re-elect him.

I hope people take a serious look at Mr. Romney at the convention this week. I think they will like what they see and hear.

The Chick-fil-A Wake-Up Call to America

08/04/2012

I am so proud of the American people, the true believers who love this nation and are not looking to the government to solve all our problems. These are people who believe in America as it has always been, not in the America President Obama is creating with the help of his leftist allies.

It is bad enough we are intimidated about our belief in traditional marriage. We are told we are bigots and anti-gay for believing what the world has always believed. What every major religion has taught. What Christianity still teaches along with other faiths.

We have allowed the media and leftist politicians and Hollywood to paint traditional marriage support as being anti-homosexual. One does not equal the other. Saying that for a union to be called marriage it must include a man and a woman is just being factual; it is not bigotry.

When gays and their supporters insist on calling what they enter into marriage, they are deluding themselves. By re-defining marriage, they destroy the very concept. If two men can marry, why not three men or people and pets? Where is the standard?

In shoving this fictional view of marriage down the throats of the American people, the elites have tolerated no opposition. What started as seeking acceptance to an alternative lifestyle has quickly turned into a fascistic demand for compliance with penalties attached.

Enter Chick-fil-A. All that was expressed was a support for traditional marriage but such views are now verboten. The kiss-in was quickly scheduled to punish them, but before it could take place, there was an uprising of the American people who finally opened their eyes to the erosion of our precious First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and speech.

Thousands upon thousands of average Americans showed their solidarity by participating in Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day as suggested by Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

To their credit, this included people who don’t necessarily agree with Dan Cathy, the company’s president, about traditional marriage. But they realized that the time to defend our free speech rights is running short. If we do not challenge those who would silence us, we eventually will lose the right to do so.

This was different from other media firestorms because big government reared its ugly head, telling Chick-fil-A in a number of jurisdictions, including New York, that its leaders were not entitled to have different views on social issues. And insofar as they do, they cannot operate businesses in these locales.

City Council Speaker and mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn, in particular, showed that she puts her own feelings as a lesbian ahead of her sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. She told New York University which has the only Chick-fil-A location in the City that it should not be re-opened when school starts in a few weeks and should be replaced with a more gay-friendly business.

I am sure you have never heard of such a frontal assault on free speech by a government official in your life.

The headline for the week, however, is that the intimidation failed. The people–in the middle of the summer and the Olympics and vacations–rose up and made their voices heard simply by eating a meal.

What is more beautiful, peaceful or American than that? The culture war goes on thanks to Americans willing to fight for our birthright.

This is the most hopeful I have been about our nation in years. May God bless America and may we remain forever vigilant!

Don’t Blame Guns! Blame Hollywood!

07/21/2012

When I woke up Friday morning and saw the tragic and shocking news about the movie theater shooting, one of my first thoughts was that liberals would use this–as they do all such shootings–as a justification for renewed calls for gun control.

(Well, this is one way to bury the fast and the furious scandal–about guns and government. Not that it was getting much media coverage per my previous post.)

Anyway, one person allegedly re-enacted a violent scene inspired by Batman and similar movies.

I don’t see this as being about guns. In fact, it is about an overload of our senses with disturbing images.

While the vast majority will never become unhinged enough to shoot up a theater filled with innocent people, violent and sexual images with which we are constantly bombarded have an effect on us as individuals and as a society.

(Source: beyondhollywood.com)

The media give us wrong ideas about crime and violence. I have read that back in the day one could never get away with a crime on TV. I have watched enough Alfred Hitchcock re-runs from the 1950s to know that is true. The bad guy always got caught. Today many times the bad guy does not get caught and lives out the dreams we have been taught to want. In fact, good people doing bad things for supposedly good reasons is a common theme today. Getting away with it is a goal and it’s only wrong if one gets caught is a typical mindset.

And it is not just violence but sex. Somehow I don’t think aberrant sexual behavior such as threesomes was all that mainstream until glamorized by Hollywood. People see and they imitate. They think it is normal if everyone else is doing it.

But not everyone else is or was doing it. Media convinces us that the images are mainstream when it is simply not the case.

I just read about a study where girls as young as six years old see themselves as sexual objects. And teens are more likely to have sex based on what they see depicted in the movies according to another study.

In fact, the teens wanted to re-enact sexy scenes. No one wants to re-enact the results of reckless sex: taking penicillin for STDs, feeling crushed after one’s significant other uses then dumps them, facing an unexpected pregnancy.

Just as seeing sex on the screen can impact us, surely images of violence, with no repercussions, have the same effect. We see people get slaughtered in big budget films and cheer. But each person is a human being made in the image and likeness of God and should not be considered disposable.

But then again we are a society filled with narcissistic and selfish people who abort unplanned babies and hurry to off grandma when she is hanging on too long. We don’t value people the way we should.

And yet when one lone nut slaughters the innocent, we are shocked and scandalized. Perhaps we should examine what we tolerate and encourage as a society and we should be more mindful of the media we consume that impacts our very souls to our detriment.

Not All Rich People Are the Same

07/18/2012

President Barack Obama has been attacking Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for being really rich. Yet not as rich as some of Bam’s biggest supporters!

Mitt is loaded and that is an American success story. He is a self-made man. We’d all like to be that successful.

He is not an obnoxious rich man. He may like the finer things but he does not want to tell us how to live.

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, on the other hand, is the kind of wealthy individual we should disdain. He is an elitist of the worst kind. He is opposed to salt, sugar, cigarettes and then some.

If he does not think something is good for us, he will seek to ban it. He decides. No free will. Government knows best.

Obama has that attitude problem even if he is not super-rich. Although, in this time of alleged austerity, he is living like he is one of the wealthiest Americans. His family goes on vacation frequently from Spain to Martha’s Vineyard. He likes to golf, which is a rich man’s hobby.

(Source: gopusa.com)

No one thinks he is an elitist snob because he lives like a wealthy person. But he does live like he is Bill Gates or Donald Trump. He can have anything he wants plus he hangs out with celebrities.

The problem with the Bloombergs and Obamas of the world–rich elites and elites who live like they are rich–is they think they know better than the average man who works hard just to pay his taxes and get by.

The elitists don’t know better; they just think they do. And men like Mitt know that. Just because a man is rich does not mean he is a bad or evil person. Or an elitist.

The American dream is to go from rags to riches. Yet nowadays people hate the rich unless they are celebrities; it is merely petty jealousy. The rich serve a purpose; they create jobs, for example, and help the economy with their purchases. They also show us what we can do with hard work, persistence and hope.

But Obama and Bloomberg and their ilk want us to know our place. They want to tell us how to live and what to do and be and how much we should eat and drink and exercise.

Others like Romney want to set an example of how we can live the American dream. So we should differentiate between those who live their dreams and those who tell us what to think and feel.


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