Nora Ephron directed many romantic comedy classics. Ourselves, we're partial to You've Got A D&C and to her script for When Sally Aborted Harry . . .
What's that?
You're not familiar with those films?
That's because they only exist in the minds of raving lunatics Amanda Marcotte, Erin Gloria Ryan and Prachi Gupta.
Of all the useless carping about TV, we think it reached a new low last week, when the four malcontents decided to hop in their BMW (Bitch Moan and Whine) to go after Mindy Kaling and the sitcom she created and stars in The Mindy Project.
Why?
Because Mindy granted an interview to Flare magazine's Maureen Halushak who asked about abortion and noted Mindy "has no plans to address the American right's current war on abortion" and quotes Mindy stating, "It would be demeaning to the topic to talk about it in a half-hour sitcom."
As the BMWs pulled up, you would have thought Mindy had advocated for the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Instead, Mindy was just noting abortion isn't a topic that fits in easily on her show.
Why would it?
Mindy's sitcom is an ode to rom-coms. We're failing to place a single rom-com that Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Aniston or Jennifer Lopez starred in where their character 'met cute' with Hugh Grant, Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds or Gerard Butler when seeking an abortion.
It doesn't fit the conventions of the genre.
('But Obvious Child!' That film's ticket sales stand at $3 million -- that makes it a box office bomb.)
The genre conventions? Those are some basics that all the BMWs overlooked, didn't they?
They want to insist it has to be an issue because Mindy's character is an OB-GYN who's part of an OB-GYN practice.
Do the bitching, moaning and whining malcontents ever watch something before criticizing?
Exactly how many patients on The Mindy Project, which kicks off season three next week, have been the focus of any episode?
We're remembering only one.
A young woman who came in for birth control and ended up staying at Mindy's allowing her to meet (and do the romantic tango with) the woman's father (played by Tim Daly).
Are they thinking Staci Keanan is going to do a guest spot on a very special episode of The Mindy Project as a woman having an abortion?
We're really worried that Marcotte and company appear to have confused The Mindy Project with Marcus Welby and other medical shows -- not sitcoms -- which focus on medical issues every episode.
If they watched The Mindy Project, they might also grasp its set in NYC which really isn't a hot bed of anti-abortion sentiment. Before Roe v. Wade, abortion was already legal in NYC.
BMW Prachi wants the world to know that Mindy's wrong, wrong, wrong! And she provides a host of examples to prove -- or 'prove' it.
Maude!
Ah, yes, who can forget the rom-com sexiness of a late life Bea Arthur? Remember when Bea and Burt Reynolds co-starred in a string of romantic comedies in the seventies starting with . . .
Well nothing. Because Bea Arthur never was a leading lady in romantic films.
Maude had a late life pregnancy. She had an abortion. That was a story that worked on her show.
Do the BMWs think it would work on The Mindy Project?
(It wouldn't work, no matter what they think.)
Prachi wants you to know Buffalo Bill dealt with the topic!
No one watched that awful sitcom -- mainly because it wasn't a funny show.
Roseanne! Prachi rushes there! Shelley Winters' character announced she'd had an abortion! And, on Sex in the City, Carrie and Samantha said they'd had abortions!
Wait, a statement in passing gets these BMWs excited?
Are they watching for content or are they watching to have their own personal lives validated?
How insecure are these BMWs.
Prachi wants you to know Facts of Life 'tackled' the subject by letting Natalie Green write a story about abortion for the school newspaper.
Wowie!
Hard hitting stuff.
She wants it to be noted that, on Scrubs, two men talked about abortions. And she tosses out Degrassi High (not a sitcom).
And, most of all, Prachi wants you to know, "Abortion comes up in the second episode of Girls. The second. episode."
Girls?
Hey, sad gal, when does the first starring character of color appear on Girls? The. Never. Episode.
The Mindy Project, by contrast, stars a woman of color. And features Xosha Roquemore in the main cast as Nurse Tamra.
Prachi would do better than to invoke KKK Grand Dragon Lena Dunham as someone we should all aspire to become.
Prachi further reveals cognitive problems when she types, "If Louis C.K. can pull off an episode about sexual assault, Mindy Kaling can definitely say a thing or two about abortions."
Rape is a crime.
Prachi's likening abortion to a crime?
We're failing to see how such a comparison is either accurate or beneficial to a discussion.
Erin Gloria Ryan fails to help either as she insists at Jezebel:
And a topic's seriousness hasn't dissuaded shows from discussing war (M*A*S*H et al), death, sexual assault (Edith Bunker was sexually assaulted on her 50th birthday on All in the Family), racism, sexism, planetary annihilation (ever seen the finale of Dinosaurs? Literally everybody and everything dies. And that show starred puppets.)
Rape, end of the world, etc.
As two pro-choice women, we see abortion as a part of women's health care.
It's amazing that others see it in terms of crime and cataclysmic disasters. It's even more amazing that these comparisons come from the left and not the right.
Again, we're failing to see how such a comparison is helpful.
Amanda Marcotte's never helpful to any discussion.
That's part of the reason rumors spread, in 2007, that she was John Edwards' cohort, paramour, side dish, whatever you want to call it. The rumors were false and they may have been a bit sexist. But it is understandable that people would be confused why any politician would hire Marcotte who has never missed an opportunity to offend large portions of the public.
In addition to the ones where she may have spoken poorly, there are the charges of racism and theft of intellectual property.
She's really discredited herself.
And so have Prachi and Erin as well.
Who gave Lena Dunham a pass?
In season one, she faced real pushback for the Whiteness of her show and she insisted that she would add a main character of color.
Grand Dragon Lena then watched the s**tstorm go away and never brought on a main character of color but did insist to Terry Gross that it was, like, unfair and stuff, to like try to make her write about like non-Whites and all. So unfair to poor Lena.
So Mindy Kaling isn't interested in doing an abortion storyline on her rom-com sitcom and it's something for a gaggle of malcontents to get pissy over.
But Lena Dunham's now well established racism is something for them to ignore?
We also find it strange that Jezebel, among others, maintained that doing jokes about it would not suggest the subject wasn't taken seriously.
Have they not read the non-stop attacks on Mindy for this joke or that line on the show?
Season two of Mindy's sitcom came the same season that NBC offered not one new show which starred a woman. Not one.
And a gaggle of malcontents want to attack Mindy and her show?
And why is it that Mindy faces demands because she's a woman?
Men are the leads in most sitcoms. Why isn't the gaggle squawking about men?
Why hasn't, for example, the gaggle insisted About A Boy -- a show about nothing except casual sex -- tackle abortion?
Mindy's a comedian.
Her primary job is to be funny.
If she doesn't think she can pull off abortion in a humorous way, that's her right to take a pass. And it's not the end of the world.
There's no reason for these three malcontents to attack Mindy. But did you notice something else?
These malcontents will go so far to credit male characters on Scrubs for a line or two about an abortion but won't even note 2 Broke Girls.
It's a special kind of hatred for women that the BMW driving malcontents have -- a special kind of hatred which they repeatedly put out there and did so last week as the world mourned the death of comedy legend and pioneer Joan Rivers. To the malcontents, the perfect way to honor the death of one woman was to attack another.
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Note: Wow Ava and C.I., you sure use 'malcontent' a lot.
We used it in place of so many curse words we would have preferred to use.
Feel free to substitute your own words of choice every time you come across "malcontent" in the above.