Category: satire

Posted by Elizabeth McCarthy on in blog, satire, Uncategorized

Notes, ideas and unpolished pieces

Stragglers from the “ideas” file.

February 13, 2011 — sketch notes

October 30, 2008 — notes for Ch. 8 of first draft of novel

June 8, 2015 — Epistolary Satire between separated editor-husband and writer-wife as she travels for her new book; title??; Ch. 1

Ch. 2, jotting down opening prose

Theoretically, everything we learn is proof of something we already know. 

Her hand reappeared from the depths of her bag covered in oily black ink. She plunged both arms into the tote and swam around until she located the promiscuous fountain pen and straying cap. Her palms, fingers, knuckles, wrists, forearms and left elbow were soiled. A cartridge of ink had stretched itself far beyond anyone’s estimation. The Schaeffer Company would be proud. She brushed a gnat from her face and caught her nose. Smudge. This wasn’t a glamourous arrival. This was karma giving her the finger.

Charlotte Dorr, the famous writer, walked with her palms up, carry-on bag hooked under her elbow, the damp, capped pen held at a safe distance from her body, and searched for a bathroom. It occurred to her that writing was little more than staining a page with thoughts. Her skin was bathed in lost ideas.

When she returned from the loo the crowded hall had emptied. The conveyor belt shuttled one pathetic little bag in dismal circles. It was not hers. She set off to Customer Service. 

“Buonjourno.” 

This would be her first attempt at communicating in Italian in several years. She gave up immediately.

“I seemed to have lost…” she pointed urgently with light blue hands “…Do you have the leftover luggage from Flight 306?” 

A gentleman glanced up. He was seated at a low tabletop, in contrast to the high counters that shielded airline employees from the general public back at Heathrow or JFK. The English and Americans were up to their necks in work while the Italians were only up to their asses. Six employees gathered behind the desk with barely enough room to move, the women wearing neck scarves, the men in too-nice suits, studying an array of important papers that took precedence over Charlotte’s missing luggage. 

The youngest of the group, a bizarrely handsome luggage agent, gathered the papers and tapped them proficiently on the desk until they fell into beautiful order. Charlotte stared at his gorgeous hands. They were manicured. They rested the papers on top of the counter and spread all ten perfectly tanned fingers across the top page. 

“Si.”

She gazed at the nude, wanton hands and had the unreasonable thought that she was in love. Under the spell of jetlag every interaction was intimate and sexual or remote and surreal. For the rest of the day this warped sense of time and sex would control her. She loved his hands. 

“Signora?”

“I was on Flight 306 and my luggage isn’t on the belt…” She pointed again and held out her ticket. It was illegible, bathed in ink. 

***

Twenty minutes later, she was in a musty taxi speeding into Rome. 

Her head rested on the cracked leather seatback. She tuned out the driver who practised the urban Italian method of passing a day by free-associating with strangers until a topic caught fire. Every conversation on every street corner in Rome was a verbal stomping to put out such fires as these. She’d foolishly convinced the driver that she was Italian with five perfectly pronounced introductory words and now he felt uneasy because she wasn’t participating in obligatory banter. It’s a terrible idea to offend an Italian taxi driver, she thought. I’m going to find myself on the street. 

“Per favore…mi dispiace molto. Un longo volo.” She was sorry for her silence. It was a long flight. He sniffed loudly, sniffed again, and looked out of the side window. He was contemplating whether to leave her, she thought. The taxi appeared to drive itself in precarious bursts while the driver was distracted. He devised a truncated question for his reluctant conversation partner that she couldn’t refuse. Satisfied, he looked back at the road.

“Da dove?” 

“Los Angeles, via Londra.” 

His shoulders tensed and he sat up at the wheel. 

“Quante ore?” 

“Twenty-two.” 

He tipped his ear toward the back of the taxi on hearing her English. English! He muttered to himself in lyrical bursts and Charlotte closed her eyes to soak up the verbal opera. She gathered from his soliloquy that it wasn’t the first time a foreigner had tricked him, but she guessed that each instance was a successively worse injury to his ego.  

*

“Ciao.”

She said it to his face with a smile. The taxi driver swung her suitcase and dropped it too close to her toes. 

“Ciao.”

He slammed the door and was gone. She missed him. 

Charlotte looked at the building in front of her. It was the wrong colour. She gathered her bags close to her body, determined not to fall prey to petty thieves on this trip. She would survey the area, find her apartment and arrive there without paying a penny to the pinching gods. A young man leaned in the doorway of a gelato kiosk. He watched her without offering to help, a singularly European behaviour that made her homesick for New York. She wanted help. She wanted someone to want to help her. She wanted to be wanted here. 

There’s no goddamn numbering, she thought. She loaded herself up like a pack mule and lumbered along the cobbled street without a clue which direction she was headed. Her phone had a dead battery, much like her brain. The driver had to drop her in approximately the right place, she surmised. He wouldn’t show himself to be a poor loser. Perhaps if she wandered a few paces she’d find her building. It couldn’t be far. 

Unencumbered Italians moved past her like gazelles, everywhere a swish and splash of beautiful fabric and luxurious hair. Moped engines hummed unseen, European cars sped, and all she could think was that Rome sounded like an alloy of New York. Tin foil to cast iron. Light yellow stone to New York’s leaden cement. Her homesickness passed as she took in the city, walked too far and realised she hadn’t paid a bit of attention. She wanted to lie down. Where the fuck was her building? 

December 16, 2011 — hitch and america

In 2004, America was at war in Iraq. The Los Angeles Times’ Festival of Books held their second panel on the war, ‘U.S. and Iraq One Year Later : Right to Get In? Wrong to Get Out?’ that would be a seminal experience in my understanding of a longish list of topics: how a panel is conducted brilliantly, how intelligent people discuss issues when they’re actually listening to each other, how to disagree with someone and still marvel at their intellect, how to be persuaded, how to persuade, and how differently a conversation goes when the participants respect each other deeply.

The discussants were Christopher Hitchens, Michael Ignatieff, Mark Danner and Bob Scheer, and the moderator was Steve Wasserman. It was a powerhouse. Their stances weren’t opposing, rather each brought a nuanced perspective to the question of war. Hitchens was fully invested in his right-wing, go-war philosophy at the time (which he would later reverse); Ignatieff held a human rights view of calling for regime change, having spent time in the mountain regions with disenfranchised (then slaughtered) Kurds; Danner stuck close to discussing specific policies in the American political arena, holding a left-supporting view; and Scheer balanced Hitchens in rhetorical vigor with his signature left, anti-war stance.

At the center, Steve Wasserman effectively ran the best conversation I’ve witnessed to date. With an acute ear for threading these four perspectives, Wasserman was the ringmaster, leading Scheer toward Hitch, back to Danner, over to Ignatieff. That the four gentlemen permitted themselves to be led at all was quite a nod to their respect for Wasserman.

The debate ran over an hour, but it might have been ten minutes. Time flew. Ideas flew faster. In England, I had a steady diet of intense political debate, and years away from living there left me detached from a key part of democracy. It was incredible to see Americans debate well. Not sure I’d seen before. (Hitchens supplied the necessary gravitas, elevated the whole thing.) I’d forgotten that the format of debate is, when effective, an internal monologue externalised, analysed and considered.

agreed with something in each perspective

showed complexity of the issue…

April 28, 2016 — Mediocrity Acceptance Speech — use when blocked

Well, this is…embarrassing. I wrote an entirely different speech. For a different award, actually. 

Some of you might be familiar…In 1959, Elaine May presented Lionel Klutz with the Most Total Mediocrity award. It was before I was born, so I’d have to wait forty years to learn of the award, on youtube — which was appropriate — and it was at that moment I knew my life’s mission. 

It’s a balance. How mediocre is too mediocre so as to tip over into pisspoor uselessness? Does exceptional mediocrity push one into a category of too good to be considered blah? 

For years, my dream was strengthened. Every ignored phone call. Every email I sent that went unread. Every time I wrote a blog post that got nothing more than a “meh.” Every time I pitched an idea to someone with a frozen face and thought “Yes. I’ve done it again. I’m winning.” 

I foolishly thought if I devoted myself…that one day Elaine May was going to walk out from behind a big curtain and reward my outstanding, undeniable mediocrity. This…takes me out of the running, I think. It’s a tragedy, really. My whole life’s work just went down the drain.

June 18, 2015 — “Five Dollars: Net Worth”; satire putting woman on paper money

The honor of gracing the five-dollar bill would go to a woman, alive or deceased, straight, gay, or transgender, married or single, of any race, and bearing proof of physical birth on American or American Territory soil. Submissions arrived from across the globe. No physical address was provided, yet the postal service did its best to put a few letters in the right hands. The vast majority of contenders were emailed to the official address — ?? — and waited in an inbox each morning to be dutifully cataloged by Sean P. Frommer in a tiny cubicle he shared with a contract worker for Veteran’s Affairs whom he had never met. Sean had the desk every weekday from 9am to noon. He enjoyed his work. 

Sean’s favorite submissions included: 

Eve, from the bible

The Dixie Chicks 

JAWS 

George Clooney’s Wife (american now?) 

Sean set up an automated filter to delete further submissions for: 

Katie Couric 

Bruce Jenner 

Michelle Obama 

Martha Washington 

Amelia Earhart 

He set up an entirely separate filter to count the entries for: 

Oprah

The tally passed two million on the second day. 

Sean also kept a running list of questions that accompanied people’s submissions and forwarded them on to his boss, who deleted most of them and returned a handful to add to the future FAQs page on the Treasury Department’s website. Sean would be tasked with authoring the page once his time freed up after the initial flurry of submissions died down. 

Martha Washington was the first woman to grace a denomination of American currency, in her own right and as part of the First Spouse Program. [Technically not the first woman; lady liberty “flowing hair” on dollar coin; Martha Washington on a silver dollar coin? So — “First on Paper”]

Puts careful list together with suggestions; Word comes down his boss has left; Jack Lew has been reading his emails with great interest – so, who would Sean pick?

Sean asks for time to think about this; takes a walk around the capital; describes what he sees through new eyes; chooses an “everywoman” …who is that in America?

Conversation with a woman on a bench; takes her picture; suggests it to Lew; almost fired for it; asks for one more chance; back to the drawing board, this time thinking like a man…

??

January 9th, 2015

TRANSCRIPT OF THE MAYOR OF HOLLYWOOD’S REMARKS FOLLOWING THE FUROR OVER TODAY’S ALL-MALE OSCAR NOMINATIONS

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL, BEVERLY HILLS, CA 

Mayor: Thank you. [waits for applause to die down] Thank you. First, I’d like to address this year’s Oscar nominations because — oh my goodness! — there’s been a lot of nonsense printed in the press. Let me explain how this works. Here in Hollywood, we don’t reward people for their gender, we reward people for their work. And we don’t hire people for their gender, we hire the most talented, most qualified people for the job. Hollywood is wide open for lady business. I’m going to say that again because it’s important: Hollywood is wide open for lady business. It’s not Hollywood’s fault there’ve only been four Oscar-nomination-worthy female directors in a century of filmmaking. Only four women have made Oscar-worthy films in 85 years. Incredible. I don’t want to call women out, but clearly female directors aren’t working at a competitive level. If women want to be taken seriously they need to up their game. I don’t know a single guy in Hollywood who says “I won’t work with women” or “I don’t know any talented women” or “Women aren’t funny” or “Women are too difficult” or “Women make me uncomfortable” or “Women want too much” or “I never know what women want” or “Who’s going to cook dinner?” It’s a falsehood, complete hooey that the business is a boys club. We love women here and we want nothing more than to give them power if they’ll only demonstrate they can use it productively. We welcome the ladies with open arms. 

As a sidebar, my daughter suggested I do a little googling on my own and sadly I confirmed what I suspected was the case: Women have been making films for as long as men have. [pause while Mayor takes out piece of paper and puts on reading glasses] Now I think where women go wrong is to limit themselves to lady topics. I kid, of course, but just looking at this list here, these are mostly films I haven’t seen and never will see. [puts list away and takes off glasses]. 

I’d also like to address the unimportance of women in film, and before everyone loses their minds let me explain what I mean by that: There is no reason in the world why a young girl needs to look up to a woman. She can just as easily look up to a man and, in fact…I’m going off prompter here but we have time…I think maybe that’s what’s holding women back. What’s wrong with looking up to men? What’s wrong with wanting to be Steven Spielberg? I say to young women all the time “You don’t yell. You’re too nice. I can’t trust a smiling woman and I don’t want to argue with you about money. Be more like Steven. Or Marty. Or Cameron Crowe. He’s got a soft voice but he knows how to use it.” The harsh reality is that we can’t hire women because they don’t command enough respect to direct a movie. Simple as that. It’s not our fault if little girls ask for Barbies instead of cameras. You don’t see a lot of women plumbers, or electricians, or carpet layers, do you? Maybe they don’t like to get their hands dirty. It’s not my job to speculate.

[he winks to the camera; press corps laughs]

And while I’m at it, I’d like to speak directly to Geena Davis: Of course there are female characters in film. Plenty of them. They serve a real role. They brighten up the screen at just the right time. Stop saying “statistics etc., etc., female characters have less screen time, women always talk to other women about men, and so on.” Mean Girls was all white…excuse me…women. Geena, it’s fine to throw out numbers, but what are you personally doing about them? Get back to work. No one’s going to ask you take your clothes off now. You’re out of excuses.

Okay, that’s it for my prepared remarks. I’ll take a few simple questions. [pointing] Yes.

Female Reporter: You mentioned four exceptional female directors as potential role models for young women. Who are they?

M: Exceptional? Did I say that?

[laughter] Uh, [refers to notes]: Sophia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion and Carol Reed. I’d add Leni Reifenstahl but she was never nominated.

Female reporter: Carol Reed is…

M: And there’s our very own Angelina Jolie! How could I forget her? She’s directing now and we home grew her. She’s homegrown, so don’t tell me we aren’t doing anything about gender. We are doing something and it is working, but we can’t nominate her for anything because it will look like nepotism, and it will be nepotism. So today didn’t work for her, and it didn’t work for women, or for these remarks, but we’re all doing something important and Hollywood should be congratulated. Next? [pointing] Yes.

Male reporter: You referenced Hollywood’s role as the leader in cultural creation. Can you elaborate on that?

M: Sure. As I told J.J. the other day, guys just get it. Women enjoy it, some of them, but guys really get it. That’s why we think of guys first when we come up with storylines. The guys need that special extra something to get them into the theater, and the women always follow.

Female reporter (checking notes): You’re referring to J.J. Abrams.

M: He’s a director. One of our most important directors.

Female reporter: I know who he is, I was just…

M (pointing): Yes?

Male reporter: Transformers!

[applause]

M: Man after my own heart.

Male reporter: When is the next installment.

M: Well, I haven’t talked to Brad but we’re…there’s something special in the works. I wasn’t going to announce this today but since you’re stuck covering this other stuff I’ll give you the scoop…Hollywood is going to Shanghai.

[loud cheers, applause]

M: And we’ve signed on to build the world’s largest full-service studio in the heart of Beijing. We found the silver lining to the Chinese smog problem — no more day-for-night shoots. Costs slashed to almost nothing. Endless labor supply. I told President Xi this morning, “Je suis China.”

 [applause]

Thank you.

August 25th, 2015 — 20 Questions You Must Answer Before You Get Married

When you order takeout, which one of you lamely suggests it would be cheaper to go pick it up?

If it’s you, you’re probably okay. If it’s him, no. Run. Faster. You’re not running fast enough.

Do you shop at Barneys?

You’re not doing this for the right reasons. 

How often do you like to eat out every week? 

If your number isn’t exactly the same as your beloved, it’s okay. If your number is different by a factor of 2 meals and one snack, consider that your lives are on different paths…going in opposite directions…and that you might be happier with someone else. 

Astrology Intermission: Are you compatible? 

Scorpio, with no one. Leo, with anyone. Virgo, PITA. Everyone else, you’ll be fine, but you’re definitely not with the person you think you’re with. We’re all full of shit, but 75% of the world is too self-absorbed to realise it. Duh. The Stars. PAY ATTENTION.

Can you agree to store your DVDs and CDs that you must own a physical copy of in one 3-ring binder with addable pages, or does one of you feel strongly about disc packaging and cover art? 

This question is its own questionnaire. The answer can predict not only whether you should be getting married but, further, how long your marriage will last depending on who feels what about what. (Him: pro-package, 1 year; You: pro package: 5 years.)

Do you like your thighs? 

Not you. Him. He answers this one. About his thighs. Listen closely. It’s interesting stuff.

Do you need to drink a bottle of wine before you have sex?

It’s okay if you do, but you should ask yourself: can I afford all of this wine? Marriage is forever.

Do you have food poisoning all the time?

Marry a doctor only. No one else is capable of ignoring you.

Can both of you fake orgasms? 

If you’re tempted to answer this question in any way, do not get married. 

Bath or shower? 

Trick question. 

Tom Cruise or George Clooney? 

No matter your gender identification, this question is a shortcut to determining true compatibility. (Obviously, you don’t want to choose the same guy.)

Swingers: Lifestyle or Movie?

The answer you both say out loud is: Movie. It’s okay to change your answer after you’ve been married for a few years. Nobody’s holding you to anything. But today, right now…

Do you have any food allergies? 

The answer to this question doesn’t make or break a marriage. It’s just a vulnerability you must consider every time you fight with your spouse. 

Did you overshoot your engagement? 

The reason these 20 Question questionnaires are 100% accurate is their speed. You know in minutes whether you’re right for each other. If you’ve already spent months or years pondering marriage while people pressure you to plan a religious ritual full of life-altering vows, you’ve missed the boat. Take the next one.

September 17, 2013 – Fighting the Bad Fight cuts

At whatever age we leave school, we quickly discover that the classroom of life is unmanageably large once we’re wholly responsible for uncovering good information, infallible sources and, most importantly, trustworthy messengers. I’ve always taken this task seriously and become cranky (see opening satirical nonsense) when highly intelligent people of all walks of life lose sight of the following:

— the endgame

— the intermediate goals

— the tools needed to accomplish those goals

— that no one can carry a movement alone

— that knowledge dissemination is an art, not a job

— that building is constructive and aggression is destructive

— that intelligence exists in hidden layers and forms

— and that potential (potential advancement, potential awareness, potential enlightenment) must be nurtured or it dies

Killing potential is near the top of my list of crazy-making experiences. A missed opportunity for learning is the express train that blows through my station. I’m left with what I already know and a frustrating blur of what I don’t.

Decorum Will Save Us, You Moron
Posted by Elizabeth McCarthy on in blog, politics, satire

Decorum Will Save Us, You Moron

You’re a professional, you idiot. You’ve worked your entire adult life to achieve respect in the field of your choice and you were just getting used to seeing the term “expert” in your bio when the cataclysm-that-is-the-Internet came along and turned your dreams of contributing knowledge and insight to the progress of humanity into lowbrow waking nightmares. Now you spend your days online, which is to say that you’re physically somewhere in the world, everyone is somewhere, but your mind isn’t focused on your immediate surroundings, your walls, your floors, your children, you negligent imbecile. Instead, you’re emotionally elsewhere, pulsing thoughts with millions of other people’s thoughts, people who are equally there-but-not-there; people who’ve shown up, uninvited, just like you; people who’re anonymous and not of your choosing, who may or may not know things, and you engage them randomly depending on your mood and the scant remainder of your finite daily willpower, you unfathomably stupid jerk. You’re interacting with people you would never have crossed paths with if not for the internet, which would be a miracle and a blessing except that, day after day, hour after hour, they predominantly require you to correct their falsehoods and wrongheaded assumptions, and hold them accountable for their basest, most repellent prejudices, and you oblige them, you dumbass! You throw down facts and historical context, insights and morally sound thinking, but you don’t just leave it there, do you, you mindless cretin. No, you do what you never dreamed you’d do in all of those years of reputation-building that led to now: you publicly call a complete stranger an ass clown. In the absense of inspirational leadership and national identity, you cave, you schmuck, and sink to the lowest possible rung of human interaction, the rung where cruel, douchebag power mongers hang out. From down there, everything you shout into the ether sounds small, and less than, and angry, you worthless P.O.S. And all of the people who turn to you for expertise and role-modeling, they follow you down there because that’s where you’ve chosen to live, you slob. You’re leading alright! Leading millions of people down the drain, you weak, visionless, soft-brained piece of excrement.

If there was a shred of evidence, even a single study, that proved calling people morons and idiots and low I.Q. imbeciles had the effect of motivating them to reconsider their views, or bettered the lives of their victims, or just got them to plain shut-up, then your tweets would make perfect sense. You’d be a hero, you pathetic dope. Instead, time and again, the only reliable outcomes from insulting someone are fist-fights, exponentially more hate, and a swell of entitlement to the festering rage and alienation that sits pent up in all of us, ready to savage the next person who ticks us off and feel damn justified doing it. Well done! You did that! Way to be, you fetid piece of garbage.

Did it ever occur to you that the reason we need a police force is for the comparatively tiny number of people who can’t police themselves? That the vast majority of us choose not to break the law for the same reason we choose not to insult people — not because we’re masochists and we get off giving assholes a pass, but because we aspire to civility? Do you realize that anarchy is just one decision away? That what makes each of us better than the worst of our society is the ability to control our impulses, you deplorable reject? That you’re following the lead of the guy who separates kids from parents and holds them all in cages every time you call someone a moron, you stinking piece of trash? Did you stop just once to consider that no amount of fact-checking and moral-vetting matters if it’s accompanied by a black eye, you total, complete and utter dipshit?

What to do instead. Mmmm, I don’t know, jackass. Maybe climb back out of the sewer. Try deleting the insults and stick with the facts and perspective. It’s surprising how powerful the truth is when the messenger’s pre-teen angst isn’t butted up to it like a rapey locker room weasel. If someone says something so ridiculously stupid that you’re tempted to call them a name, take the high road instead, or zip it. Be a study in contrast. Don’t jump in the ring.

Meanwhile, if, deep down, you really do care about elevating public dialogue (and let’s be honest, that’s not too challenging these days, especially for you) then get creative. You’re an expert. You’re a role model. People are listening. React intelligently in the online space when someone behaves ignorantly or monstrously. You’re not an average joe who occasionally slips. You have a platform. Be accountable to it. People will amplify whatever you do, so set an example. Forget #BeBest. Just #BeBetter. Remember that person you wanted to be when you started out in life? #BeHer. #BeHim. #BeYou.

CORRECTION: The Apology Samantha Bee Should’ve Given
Posted by Elizabeth McCarthy on in blog, satire

CORRECTION: The Apology Samantha Bee Should’ve Given

Good evening, I’m Samantha Bee,

Last week, I used the c-word, as I have many times before, but this time all hell broke loose. I understand why. In the past, I’ve used the c-word to demystify the preciousness of female anatomy, to reclaim the word by using it humorously. It’s not my favorite word and if I wrote the rules the world wouldn’t need to hear it at all, except perhaps as a term of endearment or a compliment. “Sweetheart, I love your cunt.” “Thank you, honey.”

But last week I was faced with a news report so inconceivable, so beyond my understanding of acceptable behavior on the part of my government, that it struck at the core of my identity as a mother, as an American, and as a human being. I can’t remember the last time I was so enraged.

*thinking*

Okay, I can. When we adopted a shih tzu and she refused to be house-trained. Wouldn’t crap outside. Just didn’t care. It was 18 months of finding dog crap in the living room, dog crap in the kitchen, dog crap in the bathroom… I finally realized “This dog is trying to break me, and it’s working.” I secretly started calling her Shitty Shih tzu, and then one day I was eating breakfast and she walked indoors, turned in a circle and took a crap right at my feet, then looked over her shoulder and kicked it back at me.

It was at that moment I had the urge to kick the dog. I know! I know. The urge, mind you, because I have never kicked a dog in my life and I would never kick a dog…unless it viciously attacked a child.

People might say “Sam, it sounds like you’re trying to draw some sort of analogy between a gut-level response to a dog attacking a child and…how is that similar to grown men physically removing a child from the arms of her mother and putting her in a cage or in a home with complete strangers, with no plan to reunite her with her mother? That’s not terrifying for the child the way…the way an attacking dog would be.” Okay.

Ivanka Trump is part of the White House staff. I have no idea what her title is. I’m not sure she knows. She has an office above her dad’s. Americans pay for it.

I also have no idea if Ivanka’s staff of political strategists are paid by the American government. She probably doesn’t know that either. But I assume they are on the government payroll because they were definitely working overtime last weekend to get their message out on her instagram account and, you know, the Trump family doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to paying their workers. Would you work through the weekend if you thought you might not get paid?

Ivanka speaks to the president whenever she wants to, purportedly every day, and she travels abroad at the expense of American taxpayers to meet with foreign dignitaries on behalf of the American government. She is a highly recognizable face of the Trump administration. Which is to say: It’s Ivanka’s job to know what issues are in the news, what topics are important to the American people, and to doggedly promote her father’s policies when they have a PR crisis. She knows what she’s doing when she posts a picture of her child laughing, safe and happy on a weekend when people were outraged to learn about children being separated from their parents by American authorities at our borders. She was sending a political message. The left is worked up over nothing. We take good care of our kids. See?

To Ivanka, her staff, and the president, I am sorry I used the c-word publicly, in anger. It brought me down to your level. However, you should know that many of us….many, many, MANY of us…continue to use all kinds of unsavory words in private, because only a gutless, heartless, cynical nightmare of a human being would post that picture while American border agents are taking children away from their parents. Your immigration policy is revolting, and I speak for many Americans when I say: We don’t condone these practices. Find a different solution. That’s your job.

And to Ivanka, mother to mother, I say: Be a moral leader on this issue, honey, not a maniacal shih tzu.

Spectre’s Other M
Posted by Elizabeth McCarthy on in feminism, film, satire

Spectre’s Other M

The latest outing from James Bond serves up a host of Fleming tropes, from ski slope chases and black tie flirtations to the bad guy who just won’t die. While M and C don’t normally stand for Mouse and Cat, in Spectre perhaps they should. Size matters but smaller is better. I sat down with the Bond franchise’s lesser-known field agent, Millicent Brie-Jones, to chat about her latest role, the cat-and-mouse game, and why the Hollywood wage gap is such a big deal.

EC McCarthy: This is your first franchise film. How did it differ from past roles?

Millicent Brie-Jones: For the first time in my professional career, I’m portrayed in a realistic light. It’s a substantial part. I don’t eat cheese onscreen. Nobody enhanced my ears or overdubbed me in a squeaky voice. I stare Bond down, vulnerable and unarmed. With the sheer force of my gaze I convince him that peace is preferable to violence. I mean, without my character the plot just stops right there in that room. There’s nowhere to go. This is a watershed moment for mice everywhere.

ECM: You shot mostly on location in Tangiers. Do you speak Spanish?

Milicent Brie-Jones in Spectre

MBJ: I didn’t prior to this film, and I was admittedly a bit nervous, but that’s why I do this work! The studio got me a language coach, and Sam [Mendes] did ask me to improvise a bit on our second day, just for coverage. I also stood off-camera for Daniel [Craig]’s stuff, and we bantered to ratchet up the tension. It’s a subtle scene. I was happy with my accent, but in the end it’s the Jaws effect — the less you see of me, the more powerful I am.

ECM: Did you train at all? What was your workout regimen?

MBJ: I like to work out, and I love being outdoors. It’s never been an issue for me, so I just did what I always do.

ECM: What’s an average workout for you?

MBJ: Mostly I run up and down the tree on my property, perhaps increasing the intensity a bit, and lots of pull-ups. [flexing her biceps] Very proud of these. Michelle Obama is my idol.

ECM: In Spectre, it’s implied that a cat…

MBJ: I don’t want to comment on cats.

ECM: There’s been speculation that the cat…

MBJ: The press is always trying to stir up controversy. There’s nothing to talk about.

ECM: Did you meet Schmidt Redgrave [who played the role of Blofeld’s Persian cat]?

Milicent Brie-Jones and Daniel Craig in Spectre

MBJ: It was like so many films I’ve done, where I’m familiar with Schmidt’s work, and such an admirer of his family, but there was no crossover on the schedule. I think he shot exclusively in the desert? Look, I know you’re fishing for a sound bite, but I have to disappoint you. The wage gap isn’t a personal issue, it’s about what’s fair, and implying animosity between professionals does all of us a disservice. What I will say, and I said this to Sam and Barbara [Broccoli], is that I was disappointed there was no onscreen cat and mouse confrontation of any kind. I think audiences are ready to see me and Schmidt go head-to-head. They can handle it. I can do so much more — I’m a black belt, for crying out loud. And I’ve read that Schmidt is a crackerjack archer. This was a missed opportunity, as far as I’m concerned, but I understand the focus has to be on Bond. He sells the tickets.

ECM: Finally, as the lone mouse on set, did you feel welcomed and comfortable?

MBJ: More than [on] any other film I’ve done. The crew was amazing. Nobody freaked out when I hung out on the craft service table. The actors ate with me. It was collegial and I learned a lot. He’ll kill me for saying this, but Daniel drops an unusual amount of food because he talks when he chews. I’ll eat under him any day!

ECM: [laughter] He makes a mess?

MBJ: [chuckling] Raining crumbs.

ECM: Thank you, Millicent, for taking the time to speak with me.

MBJ: Any time!

Satire, Foreign Policy and the Sony Hack
Posted by Elizabeth McCarthy on in film, politics, satire

Satire, Foreign Policy and the Sony Hack

Personally, I would prefer to live in a world where Seth Rogen and James Franco aren’t our foreign policy drivers. Everyone who works at Sony probably feels the same way right now, and quite a few busy people at the State Department, too. North Korea is a loose cannon with a long history of erratic foreign and domestic policies, but the aftermath of the Sony hack has seen America making equally temperamental choices. America is playing down to a lunatic’s level and ignoring lessons it might have learned from 9/11. The notion that America’s free speech is being messed with because The Interview is in distribution limbo is the kind of histrionic overstatement that citizens of a superpower make when they don’t have an accurate self-image.

Prior to the hacking incident, I saw a trailer for The Interview and had a visceral reaction: putting this film out is a terrible idea. I work as a screenwriter now, but my college degree was earned at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service with a specialty in comparative studies of Asia and Europe. My thesis was on power in the Asian region. I lived and traveled extensively in Asia. From an admittedly dated knowledge base, I feel confident saying that anyone who thinks they won’t get a response from North Korea for depicting the bloody assassination of its leader, images that will be exported globally through the American marketing and distribution machine, is truly living in a fantasy world. If the tables were turned and a film studio in an adversarial country depicted the violent assassination of our leader as comedy and, most importantly, had the power to share that film worldwide, we’d be disgusted and outraged. America has resources and official diplomatic channels to respond to that sort of propaganda attack. We’d start by demanding an apology. In the case of The Interview, America is the perpetrator and we’ve gone after an isolated, unstable dictatorship. Sony foolishly picked a fight with a cornered, rabid dog and dragged the entire country into the alley with them. America has no choice now but to stand behind a questionable film on principle. This is not a strong position.

Satire has a goal. It’s not toothless. Americans frequently, maddeningly blur the line between satire and bad behavior. In the worst cases, racism, misogyny and hate are passed off as comedy. In the middling cases, comedy promotes the status quo, which generally isn’t a good thing. For material to be satirical the writers must have a firm grasp of the issues, be skillful at self-examination, and have the goal of shifting people’s perceptions toward greater clarity. The South Park series comes to mind as an example of great satirical writing, as does The Simpsons. Tropic Thunder was an incredible satire of the film industry, with an edgy script that pushed far beyond discomfort into outright offense and insult. Those writers put Hollywood under the microscope and dissected with aplomb.

In contrast, bad behavior is poking fun at something — a person, an idea, a philosophy, a moral precept — without self-examination. While I don’t know Rogen or Franco personally and I have not watched The Interview, I struggle to be optimistic that Rogen has written a politically self-aware satire of America’s relationship to North Korea. I really enjoyed Rogen’s frat comedy Neighbors, and his upcoming Sausage Party sounds like it will keep his fans happy, but they’re two of many reasons I expect The Interview is no Catch-22 or Dr. Strangelove. The synopsis reads like a couple of stoner writers thought “dictators are stupid and wouldn’t it be funny if…” Well, the answer is no. America assassinating the leader of a foreign country isn’t funny at all and we shouldn’t be in the position of defending it as humorous or entertaining. Now we’re stuck promoting an image overseas that we’ll wield our considerable power in defense of our right to spend Christmas Day laughing at Kim Jong-un’s dismemberment at our hands. The film is a propaganda attack on North Korea’s sovereignty, intentional or otherwise, and one that America really doesn’t want to instigate. There are too many other fires burning.

In touting the release of The Interview as a symbol of our right to say or do anything we want, the American public is trading free speech for common sense and confusing comedy with xenophobia. Further, the aftermath of the initial data dump generated an ugly public conversation about celebrity emails and then about censorship and the perceived cowardice of the victims of the attack. In this way, the public and the media abetted the attackers. To suggest that Sony is “caving” or “capitulating” to people who are threatening violence to their employees and the general public is essentially to say that Sony should ignore their hostage situation. Until Sony is “released” or has outside protection, the company has no way to push back against their attacker. “Free speech” as a concept is not remotely in danger. Individuals and a company are in danger. Sony employees have already been terribly compromised by this cyberattack, and they’re under continued threat. Sony made a mistake with this film, but the company needs the country’s support to get through the situation. It’s important to grasp how effective we could be in pushing back against cyberattacks if we’re all on the same page. Instead, the hackers have forced us to get behind The Interview, a movie that promotes a threatening image of American foreign policy. No one wants to be in that situation. That’s the precedent we don’t want to set.

People who worry about the future of free speech in this country can rest easy. The fallout from The Interview potentially has more long-term positive affects on free speech than negative ones once the danger is over. For one thing, our awareness of how to wield American power in a technologically interconnected world will be greatly increased. We can learn from these mistakes. The film industry needed a recalibration in how it assesses its output and true reach. While this incident may make the Hollywood community fearful initially, the way the country stands behind Sony and deals with the hackers will ultimately embolden executives and talent to make smarter, sharper political films once they’ve shored up their vulnerabilities. Defiance is the backbone of change.

9/11 threw America into a state of fear that divided us. We continue to be divided, and easily distracted. It’s time to regroup so we can address crises like these successfully. America’s power lies dormant in a unified voice we’ve forgotten. Without it, we continue to be vulnerable to even the weakest dictators.