Common sense is in short supply these days. That was clear all last week.
For example, MAY DECEMBER. Friday, it debuted on NETFLIX after a limited release. It's a prestige project -- limited release in theaters, straight to streaming and then, hopefully, Academy Award nominations.
We understand the process. Why didn't Natalie Portman?
The critics darling always seemed a bit suspect to us. For example, she was a pretty girl in BEAUTIFUL GIRLS. Girl. And the adult obsession (largely male) with her was off putting. She's since spoken of various off putting things that took place while she was working in the business before she was 18.
As an adult, she's struggled to find roles that showcased her talents. V FOR VENDETTA BLACK SWAN and LUCY IN THE SKY were three films in the last two decades that she really delivered. Sadly, she made a lot more than three films during that time period. In fact, she's been in 45 films released since the start of 2003.
She has talent, so what's the problem?
Watching in her in MAY DECEMBER, it was clear that she doesn't work very hard. She learns her lines and sometimes she identified with a character enough to cover for the fact that she's never developed her craft. She doesn't do work for a role ahead of filming.
That's a sad reflection on how she sees acting -- child actors with a gift sometimes fail to develop once they become adults.
MAY DECEMBER reteams Julianne Moore with director Todd Haynes. Most actresses knowing that they would be acting opposite Julianne Moore? That alone would be enough to make them seek out an acting coach to prepare for the role. Julianna is more than an Academy Award winner, she's a force of nature who repeatedly steals films going back to the start of her career. Between Julianne and Rebecca De Mornay, the third actress in THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, the supposed lead, was left being "Annabella Who?
Julianne's gifts shine in film after film. However, the ultimate pairing is Julianne with Todd Haynes. They first paired on 1995's SAFE and they worked together on 2007's I'M NOT THERE, 2017's WONDERSTRUCK and, our all time favorite, 2002's FAR FROM HEAVEN.
Again, most actresses would grasp that they needed to get to work before filming to hold their own with Julianne in a Todd Haynes film. Natalie Portman drifts through the film as though developing a character never entered her mind. At 42, she should grasp that there are a lot of other actresses who can be hired and she can't get by on her looks anymore.
Female teachers sleeping with their male (underage) students has been a news staple for decades now. MAY DECEMBER is about a woman (Julianne) who slept with her male student (Charles Melton) and now is preparing for (a) their children to graduate from high school and (b) an actress (Natalie) coming to her town to observe her for a forthcoming film about the illegal affair.
Julianne delivers a complex performance that's both touching and repellent. As the actress studying her, our sympathies should be with Natalie but Natalie never registers as complex or layered and the one dimensional character she produces comes off like a user with no redeeming qualities.
In the script, which we read before viewing the film, there are moments for Natalie's character. She apparently recognized the story in the script, if not the nuances. The scripts notes that Natalie's character begins picking up on mannerisms from Julianne's so Natalie does that. She's very good at doing what the script says -- she was good at that as a child actor. She's just not an artist and can't expand and create a role.
Let's look at some other women in the news.
Let's start with Buffy Sainte-Marie.
The singer-songwriter has written many songs over the year. Disclosure, one of us knows her (C.I.) and has never trusted her word. That may seem like a premonition these days. A few weeks ago, the CBC did an investigative piece and concluded that despite her claims to be Native American, she is not Native American. They argue she was born in the US and was not adopted.
Is it true?
They seem to think they have demonstrated that it is. Let's say it is, why the money spent on the investigation into an 81-year-old woman's life? She may be telling the truth. We don't believe the US family and wouldn't for reasons we'll go into in a second. But let's note that she emerged at the same time as Bob Dylan. Bob lied about his life as well. He got exposed, in the sixties. Today, everyone forgets that. Bob wasn't the only one. That group of people, of that era, often lied. They often had privilege and wanted to deny it.
Now why we're not exclaiming, "The CBC is right!" includes the fact that they didn't prove anything. If Buffy was taken from a Native American family in Canada, we're not trusting US record keeping from the 1940s. B-b-but her uncle, in the 60s, wrote a letter to a newspaper saying she wasn't Native American.
So?
It might have been embarrassing to a family that presented an adopted, Native American child as their own biological child. That would explain the letter. Later, in the 70s, her brother -- from her adopted family or her biological family -- told PBS that Buffy wasn't Native American. And? Why would we believe him? The one thing (one of us who knows Buffy) has always believed she was truthful about was that her brother molested her. So this brother who molested her (he's dead now) said she wasn't Native American and his daughter (whom Buffy has never met) says the same. So what? We're not taking his word over Buffy's word. He has every reason to lie.
And being molested?
It gives Buffy reason to lie as well. That's what's bothered us so much by various people who have attacked Buffy -- like the aggrieved Native American woman who keeps popping up to call Buffy a "Pretindian."
Huh?
You're a piece of crap. You think that's funny? Because all we're hearing is that you've made a rhyme with Indian and Buffy's not from India. We thought we'd all moved
on from using the term "Indian" to refer to Native Americans.
All you really are is a bully bitch glaring down at Buffy when you yourself are standing on a mountain of hypocrisy.
Buffy was molested, we believe her. Guess what, being molested by a member of your own family? Not anything fun. And being molested as a child f**ks with your head. We've never heard Buffy addressed this in therapy. So what's the most likely outcome for a woman who's molested by a family member as a child? To do anything to lessen the betrayal.
So she could say her "adopted brother" molested her, for example. It wasn't her actual family. As bad as what happened was, it wasn't her actual family. Because facing the truth means acknowledging that your biological brother did molest you which honestly means your family knew about it. Being molested is not a minor thing. It is hateful and it is destroying. And when it's done by your own family, you may grab onto anything -- even a lie -- to lessen the devastation that you feel. So Buffy may be lying about being Native American. She may not be. But you want to be the one to determine that she's lying and you want to base that on the remarks of the man who molested her?
If you don't understand how hurtful that is, we feel sorry for you and encourage you to learn about this topic.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the CBC considers Buffy or what some idiot woman who thinks she speaks for all Native Americans considers Buffy. She was adopted by Native Americans in 1964 and is a member of the Cree Tribe. That's really the end of the story. Unless you want to note the many years she has given to Native American causes. She's 82 years old. We wish she'd gone into therapy. But she didn't. And she may or may not be Native American by birth (she clearly is by adoption and has been for over five decades now -- adopted by the Cree nation). But if she lied about her birthright, we can certainly understand why a woman who was molested as a little girl by a family member would want to do everything she could to deny any blood ties to that family. Grasp that molestation is bad, wrong and evil
but what's worse than that is incest.
We have sympathy for Buffy. We have none for idiots and liars like Julianna Margulies and Mayim Bialik. Disclosure, we did our part to get hideous Mayim's CALL ME KAT cancelled. We did two dinners with two FOX execs. We noted that the third season saw even further audience erosion, that the show had lost Leslie Jordan, that when the suits suggested Vicki Lawrence's one-shot as Jordan's mother should be expanded into a recurring role or even part of the permanent cast, this struggling show refused to take the 'note' ('hint'), that the people behind this awful show didn't seem to understand what a sitcom was (a sitcom does not, in one season, announce that regular cast members' character is going blind, does not make the love interest a drunk with an alcoholic problem, does not . . .). We made the case and we made it effectively. It was past time for FOX to cut their losses and Mayim's on set behavior was addressed as well (we knew of it from two directors of CALL ME KAT episodes) but we played dumb at the dinners and said, "Really? Wow, she really doesn't appreciate all that FOX has done for her."
Mayim is garbage as she demonstrated recently whining about a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE skit from decades ago. Mayim, you haven't gotten better looking with age. The reality that you were an ugly girl shouldn't have been shocking to you. It's shocking to us that, last week, Mayim again tried to lie and shame others.
Women's groups, she Tweeted, have not called out the rapes of Israeli women by Hamas.
What rapes?
We'll come back to that. But who the hell is Mayim to talk about other women abandoning rape victims. Or have we all forgotten her bitchy remarks to women in the US -- the country she was born in, lives in and has made a life in? As #MeToo was getting attention, Mayim decided the country needed a column from her. THE NEW YORK TIMES stupidly published it. Mayim has not been raped or harassed. Why? Because, as she wrote, she didn't flirt with men and she only dressed modestly. In other words, rape and assault victims were actually begging for it.
Survivors rightly rebuked her and her garbage.
One strong example? Maisha Z. Johnson's "How Survivors Feel Reading Words Like Mayim Bialik's Victim Blaming" (MEDIUM):
Which means it’s all the more dangerous that Mayim doesn’t “get it” at all — she just has a platform to share her opinions. Those opinions can reach far, influence a lot of people… and make women and other people who have been targeted by sexual harassment or violence feel really terrible about themselves.
I know this because of my work around abuse. I know this because I’m a survivor of sexual violence.
Many of us know that Mayim’s approach to these issues amounts to victim-blaming. But I know some people will be skeptical about the criticism of her approach. What’s the big deal? They’ll say. Isn’t she just talking about how women can use common sense to avoid harassment?
There’s a lot I could say about Mayim’s assertion that women who aren’t conventionally attractive, and who don’t make an effort to look a certain way, can avoid being targeted. But right now, I just want to speak for myself as a survivor — and maybe I can bring some more understanding to what other survivors go through.
Because if you have opinions on how women can protect themselves from sexual assault, coercion, or harassment, but you don’t actually know about how cycles of abuse and self-blame work, then guess what? You have an uninformed opinion.
And here’s the impact of spreading those opinions far and wide. Here’s what survivors and people who have been harassed might say to themselves as they read Mayim Bialik’s piece.
Here’s the real impact of those opinions that some see as a simple matter of common sense.
“I’m so stupid.”
Mayim seems to believe in a false dichotomy of sexy or smart. There are the pretty women who men target for harassment, and then there are the smart ones, who have priorities other than being pretty, and who avoid getting harassed as a result.
So where does that leave the people who have been targeted? Many are left beating themselves up for being “too dumb” to avoid it. If only we could all have PhDs in neuroscience like Mayim — surely then, men would take us seriously instead of treating us like sexual objects, right?
The high rates of harassment in STEM fields suggests otherwise.
Making smart choices is no guarantee for protection, because we’re not the ones who choose to be targeted. The person who makes the choice to harass or abuse a victim is the only person responsible for that choice.
“Was I flirting?”
Mayim writes that she makes choices every day that she thinks of as “self-protecting and wise.” For example, “I don’t act flirtatiously with men as a policy.”
I wonder how many women have the same policy, but end up cornered by men anyway. How many of us have set boundaries with men, only to be met with something like: “But I know you want me.”
It’s enough to make you second-guess yourself, no matter how clearly you set your boundaries. I used to think that men harassed me relentlessly because I was “too nice.” Even if I told a man I wasn’t interested, he’d take any possible sign of friendliness — a polite smile, for instance — as an opportunity to persist.
We wonder, “Did he target me because I was flirting?” even when the obvious answer is hell no.
And even when we do flirt, that’s no excuse to violate our consent. But the idea that not flirting means not getting assaulted can lead us to blame ourselves, as if simply existing as free beings in this world means we’re asking for trouble.
“Is this why no one believes me?”
Mayim’s piece has a big focus on appearance. She writes, “As a proud feminist with little desire to diet, get plastic surgery or hire a personal trainer, I have almost no personal experience with men asking me to meetings in their hotel rooms.”
From her perspective, it’s the traditionally pretty women who have to deal with these problems, while the others get overlooked.
If this were true, we’d be able to identify entire groups of women who are supposedly free from sexual violence — the women of color, fat women, disabled women, gender non-conforming women, and more who fall outside of Hollywood’s narrow ideal of a “perfect ten.”
But in reality, many of these women can’t escape gendered violence, no matter how they look. This myth that someone could be a target simply because of their appearance or clothing contributes to the inaccuracy of the public’s ideas about sexual violence.
Harassment and sexual assault do not happen simply because a perpetrator finds someone attractive. But this idea helps cover up the truth. It helps cast doubt on real, everyday victims who have to convince others they that, too, experience sexual violence — even without the plastic surgery.
Grasp that Mayim now wants to talk rape? She should be banned forevermore from the topic because of the very real damage she's already done.
Instead, this hag wants every US woman and woman's group to be up in arms over the mythical rapes Hamas carried out on October 7th. If you missed it, her gal-pal Bari Weiss is also repeating the lie. That is why we took down Mayim's show -- her gal pal Bari. Bari is a transphobe. When Mayim felt the need to get cozy with Bari and promote her on Mayim's bad podcast, that's when we decided we were taking her lousy show down.
Sorry, uninformed Mayim, we'll always trust Nora Barrows Friedman over you. Nora's worked on delivering the truth for decades now and we've been fans since she was on KPFA's FLASHPOINTS.
This is from the MONDOWEIS article mentioned in the video:
On November 18, 2023, CNN aired a report by journalist Jake Tapper. The report claims to provide testimonies on “rape crimes” against Israeli women that allegedly took place on October 7, 2023. Within a few hours of the publication of the CNN report, an international media campaign by Israel and pro-Israeli groups was launched. Other media outlets, including The Washington Post, based their reporting on CNN’s report. Feminist activists and groups who have been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza were also targeted as part of this campaign. Samantha Pearson, the director of the Sexual Assault Centre at the University of Alberta in Canada, was fired from her job a few hours after the airing of the report. She had signed a letter on October 25 that stated that the accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence remains “unverified.” The letter did not say that sexual violence did not occur but that there was no sufficient evidence yet to support these accusations.
The CNN report represents a serious breach of professional conduct, which we detail in this piece. The most concerning aspect of the report is the fact that every single witness and “expert” in the CNN report proves to either be lacking in credibility or have ties to Israeli government officials and institutions. A deeper examination of the CNN report shows a series of manipulations and professional failures, including the fact that all witnesses that CNN claims to have “found” were featured in previous reports pitched and coordinated by the Israeli government, calling into question how much original reporting or fact-finding went into the CNN report. CNN’s failure to adhere to professional and ethical standards of responsible journalism also raises questions regarding CNN’s possible complicity with a political campaign orchestrated by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office to perpetuate unverified claims of mass rape, and a larger effort to dehumanize Palestinians in order to justify the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza.
The CNN report begins with an interview with Cochav Elkayam-Levy. She is identified as an “expert in human rights law who organized a civil committee to document evidence.” The speaker is indeed an expert, but not of human rights law. In her former positions, including a post for the Israeli government’s Attorney General’s Office in the International Law Department, she provided the legal justification for Israeli officials committing human rights violations against Palestinians. She had previously published a “guidance for policymaking, government officials and legal advisors in the management of hunger strikes.” There, she provided a detailed legal manual to “standardization through legislation and regulation” for forced feeding – a brutal act of torture used to break political prisoners. In the same year, Israel legalized and regulated the “forced feeding” law to oppress and torture Palestinian prisoners protesting their administrative detentions through hunger strikes.
Yet, CNN considered it appropriate to bring her as a human rights expert. In her interview, which opens the CNN report, Elkayam-Levy presents nothing but justifications for the absence of evidence and facts. While Elkayam-Levy claims to speak under the auspice of the “civil committee,” CNN hides the tight connections between her and the National Security Council for the Israeli Prime Minister. Elkayam-Levy is also the founder and director of the “Dvora Institute,” which works as a close advisory body to the Israeli prime minister’s “National Security Council.” The advisory committee for the Dvora Institute includes a former director of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and three former officials in the National Security Council.
The report then claims that CNN “found witnesses to the atrocities.” The report then presented a video of an Israeli soldier, showing his back only, identified by the letter “G,” claiming to be a paramedic of unit “669” – the Israeli Air Force Special Tactics rescue unit.
In his testimony, the soldier says that during a search in the houses of “Kibbutz Be’eri,” during combat, he opened a door of a bedroom to find the bodies of two girls aged between 13 and 15, both killed, one of them naked with semen remains on her lower back.
Upon examining the names of all the girls killed in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 71 to match the facts, no pair of Israeli teenagers meeting that description were found dead together.
It's not been verified. And the current Israeli government has a real problem when it comes to be seen as credible on the topic of rape. Let's just look at three things. WIKIPEDIA notes:
Moshe Katsav (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה קַצָּב; born 5 December 1945) is an Israeli former politician who was the eighth President of Israel from 2000 to 2007.[1] He was also a leading Likud member of the Israeli Knesset and a minister in its cabinet. He was the first Mizrahi Jew to be elected to the presidency, and second non-Ashkenazi president after Yitzhak Navon.
The end of his presidency was marked by controversy, stemming from allegations of rape of one female subordinate and sexual harassment of others. Katsav resigned from the presidency in 2007 as part of a plea bargain.[2] Katsav later rejected the deal with prosecutors and vowed he would prove his innocence in court.[2] In an unprecedented case,[3][4] on 30 December 2010, Katsav was convicted of two counts of rape,[5] obstruction of justice, and other charges.[3][4] On 22 March 2011, in a landmark ruling, Katsav was sentenced to seven years in prison. Katsav appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court of Israel. On 10 November 2011, the Supreme Court affirmed Katsav's conviction and punishment.
On 7 December 2011, Katsav arrived at Maasiyahu Prison in Ramla to begin serving his seven-year sentence.[2] He was released under restrictive conditions on 21 December 2016, having served five years of his sentence.
Wow. He committed rape while he was the President of Israel. Not real sure, Mayim, how the mythical wowie of the Israeli government impresses you.
Judah Ari Gross (TIMES OF ISRAEL) reported May 27, 2016 the reaction to Netqnyahu attempted to politicize a woman's rape:
In response to Netanyahu’s first post, Labor MK Shelly Yachimovich said the prime minister should “be ashamed of yourself” for having “zero empathy for rape victims until there’s a window of opportunity to incite” hatred between Jews and Arabs.
Yachimovich accused the prime minister of ignoring issues of sexual violence thus far.
“We never heard a word from your mouth in the case of the rapist Katsav [Israel’s eighth president currently serving a seven-year prison term for rape], no moral statement on the horrifying investigation [into assault accusations against the late IDF general and right-wing politician Rehavam] ‘Gandhi’ [Ze’evi], no comment on the fate of the raped, harassed and persecuted each day and every hour… or on sexual harassment in the IDF,” she accused.
“All of a sudden you take an interest in rape victims?” she asked. “When the rapists are Palestinians. And when there’s an opportunity to exploit the rape for purposes of incitement.”
July 12, 2016, THE TIMES OF ISRAEL reported:
Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot on Monday nominated a rabbi who once appeared to condone rape during wartime to take over as the IDF’s chief chaplain. Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim has also maintained that it is “entirely forbidden” for women to serve in the military for reasons of modesty and has opposed female singing at army events.
Karim was embroiled in controversy in 2012 for his response to a question posed to him (Hebrew link) on the religious website Kipa, asking in the light of certain biblical passages if IDF soldiers, for example, were permitted to commit rape during wartime despite the general understanding that such an act is widely considered repugnant.
In his response, Karim implied that such practices, among several others that were normally prohibited — including the consumption of nonkosher food — were permitted during battle.
Karim now heads the Military Rabbinate of the Israel Defense Forces. And, Lie Mouth Mayim, do you want to share what he said about women? No? Suddenly the cat has your tongue? Because you don't want to explain to US women's group that Karim -- a part of the Israeli government to this day -- has said women shouldn't serve in the Israeli military and that they shouldn't sing in public at military events. We could do a dissertation on Karim and Netanyahu and their true policies and their actual remarks about girls and women. Go whore somewhere else, you dirty piece of trash. Don't you have kids not to vaccinate and other lies to spread?
For Julianna -- simple minded fool -- the Israeli government and the Jewish people are one-in-the-same. At one point, during the podcast, she can be heard accusing African-Americans ("the Blacks") of being brainwashed for not standing with her (Israel) after all Israel did during The Civil Rights Movement. Idiot, Israel and the Israeli government didn't do a damn thing to help African-Americans during The Civil Rights Movement.
That I.Q. challenged fool wants African-Americans to stand with the government of Israel because of all it did for them. It didn't do s**t. Have you been brainwashed or are you just a natural born liar?
She'd do very well to think before she speaks again. She is a deeply stupid and uneducated person. Her offensive remarks should have made clear exactly who she is. See Ann's "Bald headed Karen Julianna Margulies is also a racist" and Mike's "Idiot of the week" for more on the idiot Margulies. Common sense is in short supply these days. Violence? It's not in short supply. Instead of creating and inventing claims that can't be verified, how about we focus on stopping the actual violence that we know is taking place?