MEDIA: YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS and your non-friends too!

Last week, we noted SUITS LA and how awful it is.  And it's awful.  We were reminded of that as we watched YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS.

 

 

No, not Neil LaBute's 1998 film classic starring Amy Brenneman, Catherine Keener, Jason Patric, Aaron Eckhart, Nastassia Kinski and Ben Stiller.  The same title is also the name of the new APPLE TV+ series starring Jon Hamm, Amanda Peet, Mark Tallman and Olivia Munn.

 

Jon's becoming the Nicole Kidman of male actors.  He wrapped up an amazing performance on FARGO in 2024, GOOD OMENS in 2023 and he's currently in this APPLE TV+ series as well as as LANDMAN  for PARAMOUNT+.  He's also done ten episodes of APPLE's THE MORNING SHOW in 2023 and he's also done five live action films since 2022 which is not counting his voice work on TV and in film. When you're doing that volume of work, you have to choose wisely.  

Otherwise, expect the yawn that's greeted Michelle Williams' latest TV wreck -- a pioneering study of the effects of chemo -- is Robert Kennedy Junior a co-producer --which finds the cancer treatment actually increases your sex drive but neither bloats you nor makes your hair fall out. 

Who knew?

 In the first ten minutes of episode one of YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS, you know you're watching something special.  Coop (Hamm) and Mel (Peet) have broken up and she's got custody of their two kids and the house which is often visited by Nick (Tallman) who is Nick's former friend and the man Coop caught Mel in bed with as their marriage ended.  Coop loses his job on trumped up charges and will be lucky to last six months without steady income -- a big problem since his former boss has blackballed him and Coop also signed a contract with a two-year non-compete clause. 

Coop could have come off an overgrown manchild and Mel a bitch ex-wife.  But the writing is much more layered than that as are the performances.  So you care about them and get involved in, caught up in, the dynamics -- so much so that you may forget the first scene in the series -- a scene in the future -- is Coop waking up on the floor next to a dead body

 

If a show wants to pull you in, they have to make you care about the characters.  

 

Empathy.

  

We've caught two important discussions on empathy in the last weeks.  One was on THE KAREN HUNTER SHOW.

 

 We'd love to tell you that we're prone to empathy for all.  But we're not.  

People in need, absolutely. 

But cheap whore hustlers who preach hate -- who attack empathy to justify their racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, et al?  We have nothing but contempt for them.

 

Elizabeth Grace Matthews reminded us of that last week.  She's a fat, balding, ugly woman incapable of any real thought or even a fleeting idea.  She demonstrated that at THE HILL last week when she decided to write another series of lies and to attack Jane Fonda.  Attack Jane Fonda?  Yes, it's how Liz Grace Matt gets her revenge -- remember, she's fat, balding, ugly and incapable of thought so Jane Fonda frightens her like no one else can.  Jane's the body and the brain, Jane's the can do and the reach.  

 

Just the thought of Jane terrifies a hate monger like Liz Grace as she wallows in her own filth waiting for some volunteer to show up and hose her off.

She's offended by Jane's recent speech.  Seeing Jane get the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, sent Liz Grace into a rage because her own life has been devoid of applause, absents of pats on the back and lacking even someone calling out "have a good day."  

 

Realizing that, at this late date, her joyless life is unlikely to change, Liz Grace decided to write her own speech full of what she'd say if anyone was ever stupid enough to hand her a Lifetime Achievement Award

She entitled her hogwash "Yes, masculinity can be toxic, but so can femininity" and no link to trash but do GOOGLE it if you're in a need of a good laugh.  

Picture her heaving her tiny bosom and nodding to Jon Voight as she insists, "Fonda is right: Empathy is not weak -- or woke. At least, not per se. It is best understood as the impulse and ability to feel and identify with the feelings of others. Correlated with agreeability, empathy is a characteristic disproportionately evinced by women."  For more fun, picture her pronouncing "per se" as "Percy" because she truly is that stupid.

Just what we quoted should be enough to let you know she's a hatemonger, she's dishonest, and she's a right-wing Christian Nationalist. 

Empathy, she wants to lie, is killing the country.  Empathy is bad and, to make sure she sells that point in a sexist society, she identifies it with the feminine.  

There are books we've noted repeatedly here over the years.  Four that we mention the most often?  Susan Faludi's BACKLASH: THE UNDECLARED WAR ON AMERICAN WOMEN is one -- and it's famous enough that we doubt it needs any summary but we'll note Pulitzer Prize winner Faludi looks how culture shapes work, entertainment and perceptions.  We also have repeatedly noted here Lucy Hughes-Hallett's CLEOPATRA: HISTORIES, DREAMS AND DISTORTIONS which is another amazing book.  That one focuses on how society imposes their values and standards upon the historical figure Cleopatra and how she changes for various generations.  Stephanie Coontz's THE WAY WE NEVER WERE: AMERICAN FAMILIES AND THE NOSTALGIA TRAP which documents how false narratives distort the reality of our lives -- past, present and future.   Carol Tavris' THE MISMEASURE OF WOMAN: WHY WOMEN ARE NOT THE BETTER SEX, THE INFERIOUR SEX OR THE OPPOSITE SEX -- a book that debunks a lot of 'science' that is not true science.  

We recommend all four of those books often and if you've read even one of them you probably raised an eyebrow when we quoted Liz Grace, "Fonda is right: Empathy is not weak -- or woke. At least, not per se. It is best understood as the impulse and ability to feel and identify with the feelings of others. Correlated with agreeability, empathy is a characteristic disproportionately evinced by women."

 

Informed feminists grasp immediately the problem there.  Who's defining empathy and how are they defining it?  

 

Feminists are common sense people.  We're also informed people.   Unlike Liz Grace who thinks she's cribbing the second part of that sentence from a 2014 'study' but its roots are pure Leon Trotsky. 

 

 

Empathy, despite the many useless words Liz Grace offers, is not a feminine trait.  It's a trait that all humans share.  Some are conditioned to exhibit in one way, some in another.  Historically, the most empathetic figure spoken of would be Jesus Christ.  

 

Maybe Liz Grace doesn't believe in Jesus?  Even if she doesn't, she should be aware that the concept of Jesus has been used throughout history to teach empathy. In fact, THE BIBLE is filled with empathy -- even if she's a non-believer, we would encourage Liz Grace to read it -- such as Romans 12:15 which has the Lord declaring, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

 

Here's Liz Grace: "What Fonda is really implying, though -- and what today’s most vocal leftists uniformly believe — is that empathy is a virtue unto itself when indiscriminately deployed on behalf of the systemically marginalized. Or, as Fonda put it: 'Woke just means you give a damn about other people'. "

 

Again, here's what the Lord states, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."  

 

Sorry, Liz Grace, hope you're not thinking you're headed to heaven because the Lord may need to have a word with you first.  It's Jane Fonda's remarks that line up with the teachings of Jesus, not your own.

 

Enemies of empathy make up the Christian Nationalist front in this country just as they made up the Nazi Party in the Germany.  

 

You can't kill innocents and embrace empathy.  You have to scorn empathy and you have to 'other' (as a verb) human beings in order to send them into gas chambers.  

 

 

 

The second video we saw in the last weeks that was really good on the topic of empathy was this one by Dan McClellan . 

People rightly express concern over the 'bro' podcasts.  But is anyone paying attention to the vile the fright-wing hate mongers are putting out there?  There is an attack on empathy and they have to launch that attack because without it, they're not going to be able to do all the evil things they hope to do.  They can't destroy Social Security without destroying empathy, the can't destroy Civil Rights without destroying empathy, they can't deports thousands without destroying empathy.

 

So they work overtime to attack empathy and to insist that this basic virtue, preached by Jesus, is a bad thing.

 

They have to tell that lie and they have to convince others of that lie in order to destroy, main and kill and, yes, that is their end-game.

 

Empathy is not an emotion Liz Grace possesses.  She makes this clear:

This is the false belief that makes today’s elite left and its predominantly educated, female adherents so out of touch with everyday Americans — and, as I have written, so apt to hurt the very people they purport to help. For example, in the name of fighting institutionalized racism, they agitate to eliminate the tools of law and order that majorities of people of every demographic are depending upon to keep them safe. 

Or, for another example, they welcome male athletes claiming a transgender identity onto female teams, and thereby endanger and disenfranchise the women for whom those teams exist.

Leave it to the deeply stupid Liz Grace to rally against the "predominantly educated."  Give them the chance and they'll always confess to more than they ever realize. Their compulsion to confess might be interesting but nothing about the Liz Graces themselves is fascinating, wanted or needed -- which would make them perfect for cast members on SUITS LA.