TV: History betrayed, common sense assaulted

As March winds down, we find ourselves looking back at one of February's most laughable moments.  For those who don't follow the US calendar, March is Women's History Month and February is Black History Month.  DISNEY+ decided to 'honor' Black History Month by noting, among others, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG.  Ah, yes, 2009's animated film about the struggles for equality, about the march on Selma and how Rosa Parks . . .

Wait.  The film doesn't focus on that.  It's about New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and how people of color were more likely to have been impacted by . . .

Scratch that.  But it is set in New Orleans.  And The Princess falls for Christina Applegate's lover interest in Jesse -- who, for the record, is neither African-American nor Black.  Well it's directed by a person of color so that's worth noting during Black History Month and . . . Hold that thought.  Turns out that it's directed by two White men.  Well an African-American man wrote it!

Or was tacked onto the project, if we're honest.  April 20, 2007, there was big pushback on the film.  The name ("Maddy") was said to be possibly racist (too close to "Mammy") and The Princess of the title had her name changed to Tiana.  Others things were done as well.  Oprah Winfrey was soon aired as a ''technical advisor" -- let's hope she was an expert on princesses because adding Oprah to the film did nothing to make the movie more accurate when it came to race relations during the time THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG was set in (see Sasha Panaram, Hannah Rogers, Thayne Stoddard. "Contemporary Film and the Black Atlantic").  A few months after Oprah became "technical advisor," Rob Edwards was added (August 13, 2007) as a writer alongside listed writers Ron Clements and John Musker -- two writers who also were part of creating the story and concept.  Unlike Clements and Musker, Rob Edwards is an African-American writer and he did end up working almost three months on co-writing the script.  Too bad the music couldn't come up with a new writer or a co-writer (Randy Newman once again rewrote the same animation score he forever offers in film after film). 

But with all the problems the film had before it started filming and all the problems it had after, as well as the fact that this is not a true story, count us among the many still rolling our eyes over DISNEY+ featuring this animated film as part of Black History Month.  

As Women's History Month winds down, we're not seeing a lot to point to without laughter from the streaming services.  AMAZON is offering NINE TO FIVE ($3.99 rental, $4.99 purchase).  Patricia Resnick came up with the story idea and co-wrote the script with director Colin Higgens.  Jane Fonda produced the film with then-business partner Bruce Gilbert. Dolly Parton wrote and sang the theme song. And the film starred Jane, Dolly and Lily Tomlin as working women oppressed by the work force system who get a chance to implement the changes that they and many other women would put forward (including on-site daycare and flex schedules).  So at least that had some sense of history and power.  

But too much of it was just misguided.  

Take the awful limited series THE PRINCIPLES OF PLEASURE which NETFLIX just started offering.  Using the theme of 'sex,' it did briefly skyrocket into NETFLIX's top ten -- and, then people watched and it quickly fell out.  But, hey, it made it higher than THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES.  People want to watch sex, apparently.  At least until they see how badly it's pulled off.

Former MTV vee jay Niharika Desai doesn't have a lot on her cv ao having directed this series probably won't help her out too much since it's both dull and meaningless.  Michelle Buteau does a fine job hosting the three episodes.  But there's just nothing there.

 

The series wants to address -- or says it does -- the "orgasm gap."  No, not up there with pay equity or the second shift so many women put in each day -- the unpaid second shift of work where they not only have to work outside the home but then come home and work some more -- childcare, cooking, cleaning, what have you.  It's not addressing rape.  It's not addressing anything.

 

Michelle is a very funny comedian.  It's a shame she wasn't allowed to cut loose.

 

We'd love to hear her let rip about the so-called "orgasm gap" that supposedly finds "no one orgasms as much as the straight male."  Really?  Even more than two gay males in a relationship?  

 

Men may orgasm more (they may not) because of the fact that they start beating off long before their bodies are able to produce cum.  They're forever touching themselves.  We're not knocking it, we're not making fun of them, we're just noting reality.  

 

Our "orgasm gap," if it exists, is due to socialization, to be sure.  It's also about our bodies.  If a woman is excited and engages in sex -- solo, in a duo, in a group scene -- she may or she may not orgasm.  The bodies are set up differently.  The male?  If the penis goes hard and begins thrusting, it's going to reach orgasm unless a fire breaks out in the bedroom forcing a speedy evacuation.  

 

Some men (and a few women) also have no clue as to how to get a woman off.  None whatsoever.  And that's an issue.  

 

But these aren't huge issues.  In the end, we need to all be responsible for our own bodies.  And we may be doing something tantric -- delaying release -- and that's okay too.

 

It's not an issue that needed a documentary.  

 

Not the way that love needs one.  It would be great if the streamers could do something for girls and women about love in Women's History Month.  This is not our saying, "Women prefer love to sex."  That's not true of all women.

 

But we don't do crazy things for sex in most cases while we do really crazy things when we think we're in love -- think we're in love -- often we're not.

 

Evan Rachel Wood is a 34-year old idiot [see "TV: 'No one was looking after me!' (that includes you yourself)".]  She was with Brian Warner (Marilyn Manson) for approximately four years.  And she wants to whine, on HBO MAX, about all the things he did, things she insists were "essentially rape."  No, Evan, your boyfriend, your lover, making a music video with you and deciding he wanted to make the sex real is not rape -- essentially or otherwise -- when you did not tell him "no," when you did not stop him, when you did not try to stop him.  Take accountability.

Women do crazy stuff in the pursuit love.  Some men do as well but women really do.  We put on a pair of adult diapers to drive cross country -- tossing aside our NASA career -- because we're convinced that if we make it cross country. from Houston to Orlando, without stopping for a bathroom break, to track down our rival.  We do this why?  In part because we are conditioned to believe that being in love is the only validation that matters for women, that if we're not in a relationship, we are nothing.  We have moved a little, as a society, away from the notion that all women must be mothers but we haven't moved away from the notion that they must all be paired up like animals on Noah's Arc.  We place so much emphasis on this that we are willing to victimize ourselves.  

Evan wants to play like, "Woops! Four years later!"  No, you, idiot, stop lying.  You're not helping anyone.  You elected to start an affair with a newly married man.  That was your first bad decisions.  You soon learned he loved Nazis.  And you stayed with him.  That was your second bad decision.  He wrote "kill all Jews" on the wall above your side of the bed.  And you stayed with him.  That was your third bad decision.  Go down the list, Evan, you made one bad decision after another.

You had a very bad relationship.  But we're not seeing the assault you're claiming today.  You weren't raped -- as you describe it -- and the brief aside, single sentence, in the whole two-part 'documentary' where you suddenly insist that he would have sex with you while you're asleep is something that requires further elaboration from you before any sane person can comfortably say either "that's rape" or "that's not rape."  

You had a bad relationship.  Find a woman who hasn't and she must have been very lucky in life.

And we need to learn about bad relationship and learn from them.  

We need to learn how to stick up for ourselves to ensure that we're not losing ourselves in some romantic addiction that we try to pass off as love.  And if you're addicted to romance, hey, go for it.  But learn that's your addiction and stop trying to pass off bad dating as assault.  You're disappointed things didn't work out as you wanted and you're upset over the time you've wasted -- time lost now.  We get it.  But don't try to #MeToo it when you're not dealing with assault.

Evan Rachel Wood looks like the essence of White privilege.  She was a celebrity who didn't have to worry about money -- no going behind the counter of Taco Bell for her -- so she could follow her boyfriend, her lover, around the country as he gave concerts.  He didn't rape her.  Not as she reveals it in her 'documentary.'  Say Brain Warner hurt you.  Say he was a bad boyfriend.  Say many things.  But stop pretending that he did this or that to you.  You went along.  You were part of it.  You could have said no at any point.  Take responsibility.  

We get really upset that some women refuse to take accountability for their own actions.  

 

FRESH is Women's History Month's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG and HULU is this month's DISNEY+.

 

The film is pure garbage, absolute garbage.  If Roger Corman had made this trash, we'd all be appalled.  But because Mimi Cave directed it and Lauryn Kahn wrote it, we're supposed to celebrate these two women as somehow empowering.

 

They're nothing to applaud.

 

They've made torture porn.  They should be ashamed of themselves.

 

Torture porn.  A man woos a woman -- again, we need some documentaries on love to educate us all -- and then takes her away . . . to a human veal pen.  He's in the business of providing human meat and he's going to harvest her as he does other women.  The woman's best friend will try to rescue her and get caught to be harvested as well.  The woman will lose her butt when it's sliced off for food.  

This is garbage and Mimi has no excuse for directing it and Lauryn should be watched very closely by all who know her because not only is her theme disgusting but there's no redemption to it.

They claim it's a horror film -- it's torture porn -- but there's no Jamie Lee Curtis role.  

There's just pathetic Daisy Edgar-Jones. 

She really does hate women, doesn't she?  Fresh off PAMELA AND TOMMY LEE about Pamela Anderson who did not want anyone playing her or the project made, Daisy's now eager to do more damage.  Her bad acting ensures a lot of damage.  She's pathetic onscreen and you really want to root for Sebastian Stan's character after she whimpers and whines and is so pathetic that, on a first date at the beginning of the film, she can't even stand up to the man across the table who is insulting her and all women.  She's that pathetic so it's no surprise, when Sebastian's character emerges, that he's able to torture and victimize her.

If she were playing Sebastian's role, you might understand her taking the role.  There would be something to it, something to bite into.  But this is just a pathetic and generic victim role.  How desperate was she for cash that she took the role?  

Women's History Month will be ending soon and, with what the streamers served up, we can't wait for it to end.  But let's hope next year, for Black History Month and Women's History Month, the streamers offer some documentaries, series and films that really have something to say -- not fairy tales and torture porn.

 

 

 

Truest statement of the week

Last year, National Public Radio admitted that the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic and not Russian disinformation. It appears to have taken the New York Times even longer to move along that journalistic path of the Kübler-Ross process of grieving.

The Times has now expressly and unambiguously stated that the laptop was abandoned by Hunter Biden, contains authentic emails, and is part of the basis for the ongoing investigation of Biden by federal authorities.  Even with this admission against interests, the Times is downplaying the possible criminal charges in coverage strikingly different from its coverage of Trump officials charged on the same grounds.

For those of us who have written about the laptop for two years, it has been a constant barrage of criticism of spreading “Russian disinformation” or discussing manufactured emails.

Notably, the Biden family never outright denied that the laptop belonged to Hunter. They just kept repeating that it was Russian disinformation. It did not matter that recipients of the emails confirmed the authenticity of the messages detailing extensive influence peddling schemes by the Biden family. The Biden campaign assembled the usual list of experts to shut off debate by declaring that this was all false. It was a mantra from President Biden to a legion of reporters.

 

-- Jonathan Turley, "The New York Times Admits Hunter Laptop was Authentic and Possible Basis for Charges" (JONATHANTURLEY.ORG).

 

 

 

 

 

Truest statement of the week II

When Hunter Biden’s book came out, the media largely lionized him for his brave account of personal debauchery while largely avoiding questions about millions in alleged influence peddling with foreign interests. Reporters allowed Biden to claim, for example, that he had no memory of the long-night stand with Roberts despite emails contradicting that claim. They also did not confront him with his disgraceful and protracted litigation to refuse to support his child.

With the rising possibility of an indictment, the media has to try to clean up its long promulgation of this false claim. It is not, however, addressing what those now authentic emails say about the influence peddling schemes of the Biden family.

It is also refusing to address the fact that, even if influence peddling is legal, this is a pattern of gross corruption by the family in cashing in on Biden’s tenure as vice president. This allowed President Biden to repeatedly and falsely claim that “no one has suggested that My Son did anything wrong.”

The media is also avoiding the obvious question of why Merrick Garland (who pledged to be apolitical) has steadfastly refused to appoint a special counsel in the case.

As with House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) and the 50 “experts” who pushed this false claim, there appears little interest in confronting those who assured voters that the laptop scandal was nothing more than Russian disinformation. It appears that spreading disinformation about Russian disinformation is not viewed as news when done in the name of a good cause.

 

-- Jonathan Turley, "White House Mum on Hunter Biden Story as DOJ Acquires Additional Financial Records" (JONATHAN TURLEY.ORG).

 

 

A note to our readers

Hey -- 

Still Sunday morning on the west coast. 


Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen, Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And what did we come up with?

 

• Truest statement of the week
• Truest statement of the week II
• Editorial: How it turned 19
• TV: 'No one was looking after me!' (that includes ...
• Ty's Corner
• "Essentially raped?" (Dona)
• Music mix not to miss
• For years, we told you Amy Goodman was a fake ass

 

Peace.

 

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

 

 

 

 

 

Editorial: How it turned 19

The Iraq War, the ongoing Iraq War, just hit the 19th year mark.  How did that happen?

The same way it was sold -- thanks to a whorish press.

Remember THE NEW YORK TIMES 'mea culpa'?  Forced on them by the work of the then-public editor Daniel Okrent?

They promised in that little note that they would be exploring their 'errors' (lies) in the future.  They never really did.  Like a US politician, they made a promise and expected that when it all died down, they could slink away.

So it was no surprise that THE TIMES and the other whorish outlets that sold the Iraq War would ignore the anniversary of the war that they helped start and that they kept going.

 

 

 

 

 

TV: 'No one was looking after me!' (that includes you yourself)

"Sometimes the most loving thing that you can do,"  Evan Rachel Wood insists, "is hold someone accountable."

It's an interesting statement to feature in HBO's 'documentary' series PHOENIX RISING considering how free of accountability Evan  is when it comes to herself.  

We're not fans of Marilyn Manson.  One of us warned Jimmy Iovine in 1996 that Brian Warner (aka Marilyn Manson) was not someone to be in business with and that what came out of his brain was not something that would result in pride  twenty years from now.  Jimmy didn't listen.  And here we are with Evan Rachel Wood and four other women accusing Warner of abuse. Rose McGowan and his ex-wife Dita Von Teese state they were never abused in their relationships with Warner -- with Rose noting that one woman not being abused does not mean that the person would not abuse in another relationship.  If Brian is guilty of abuse, we're not surprised.

 

But, at this point, nothing has been confirmed in court and maybe things would be better for everyone if people stopped lying.

 No rain will mar your tall tales.  Except . . .

 

If you try to make them public.  And if you do, we have every right to stand with truth and call you out on your s**t.  Which is why we called out ROCKET MAN/  As we've noted Elton John loved and actively sought rough trade in the 70s.  So the abuse angle in his 'biographical' film is less than honest when it doesn't inform you that Elton liked S&M and surrendering control.  That's why he ended up with John Reid.  And that's fine and dandy.  If certain things are what turn you on, pursue them.  But don't play the cowering victim years after the fact and pretend like you never had a clue.  

Or don't insist, as a woman we called out here did, that her husband abused her and that it was so bad and during all of this Barbra Streisand was attempting to get you to write the soundtrack for A STAR IS BORN.  This abuse, took place in 1979.  We're not naming her here because we're told she cried and cried over what we wrote here and that she thought we were her friends.

Let's deal with the last part first.  We're not her friends.  We've never been her friends.  We know her.  One of us has known her for almost 20 years, the other for over 30 years.  We've never lunched.  We've never visited one another's homes.  We are cordial when we bump into each other but we don't even talk on the phone.  So don't deliver a guilt trip to our door about how we betrayed you.

On the former, we're sorry you cried.  But you were defending someone who is in a position of power and who was being called out by the world press for what she was doing (Aung San Suu Kyi).  We take a government attacking and arresting reporters seriously.  We take cracking down on a people seriously.  

You felt something, we don't know what, and we were forced to evaluate you.  Yeah, we did it here, but we're explaining our process.  Both of us, we accept you as you are, we don't question you (this is anyone we meet up with for the firs time) and we know that if you say something it might not be literally true but  emotionally true.  

If you're someone we meet, we're not spending our time discussing you or evaluating you.  You're someone we know and we may become good friends or not but we're fine with who you presented as . . .  up until the point where you do something that makes us recoil.  That's when we analyze.

And when the woman started defending the awful Aung San Suu Kyi, we immediately went through our brains about everything she had ever told us.  What we published?  Based solely on what was already public and she can consider herself lucky for that.  

But, yeah, you lied about the abuse at least in terms of the timeline.  Other details about it never made sense.  All the details added to paint you as the true one, the loyal one, the one who didn't lie -- strange considering your husband was a man and you would then admit to being a lesbian years later, but whatever, you were there for him 100% and would have stayed with him forever and blah blah blah, you insisted.

Sorry that we blew the lid off your memoir.  Maybe next time don't provide 'documentation' that has abuse happening in 1979 as Barbra's trying to get you to write the music for A STAR IS BORN.  

For those who don't grasp the problem, Barbra's film A STAR IS BORN came out in 1976 -- there would be no reason for her to ask anyone, in 1979, to write a soundtrack for it.  (And the woman we're not naming this time was neither married to nor dating this man in 1974, 1975 or 1976.)

 

We're not fools and we're not fond of 'documentaries' that only work if the audience is foolish.

 

So, no we're not fans of PHOENIX RISING.

 

What's the purpose of this HBO limited series?

 

To celebrate Evan Rachel Wood?

 

For what?  She's not that good of an actress.  She should be studying her craft.  She's a child actress who recites exactly what is on the page and makes her face match whatever she's saying.  That's acting to her.  Characters with internal conflicts?  Ones who shake their heads "no" while saying "yes"?  Things like that don't enter her empty head.  This despite the fact that she's beaming on camera with a wide grin while recalling a fight her parents had when she was a child that caused her and her brother Ira to flee the house and how "we could still hear the yelling from outside the house."  When performing, Evan  can only offer the most literal take and that's why she's not much of an actor.  As a child actor, that made her incredible to some.  (We think her performance in 13 is both brilliant and ignorant -- it's spotty and the only thing holding it together is Holly Hunter's reactions as Evan's mother.)  It doesn't cut it as an actress once you become an adult.

 

Her beauty?

 

She's not pretty. She was wrongly considered it when she was younger.  She was shiny.  And, this matters in a racist society, she was blond.  Shiny and blond passed for pretty when people weren't paying attention to things like bone structure.  Now you can't avoid and it looks a bit like Dr. Frankenstein manufactured it.  Shiny is all gone now and it's hard to believe that's not the result of too much booze -- look at her face in close ups and then note the skin of her brother Ira who is actually older than her but has better skin.

So she's not a great actress, she's not a great looker, what's left? 

Her activism.  We could applaud her for that.

But part of the activism is the self-narrative she constantly tells (and tells again in this series).

And there are just too many problems with it.

 

She was ''groomed'' and other things.  She was the victim.  Poor Evan.

If all the things she said happened did -- if even only half did -- ti's still hard to admire her when she constantly stretches the truth, when's she's forever unaware that she's no unique flower in the garden and when she won't take responsibility for her own actions.

At one point, she's explaining -- boo-hoo -- that she didn't know about sex and was even fearful of her own genitals.  Boo-hoo.  You know why that was?  She was home schooled!!!!! 

That's what she tells you.

Okay.  So at the age of 12, she finally learned reality when she found an old nudie magazine on a street and looked inside.  

 

Problem?

 

She went to public schools.  A detail she forgets.  She went to them until she was -- wait for it, 12.  That's not in the series.  You have to do the work because no one's working for the truth in PHOENIX RISING.  So the same year she begins her home schooling, she also learns about her genitals.  Her mother, she explains, wouldn't tell her and she couldn't, she explains, count on school because she had been home schooled.

 

What is it with these lies?

 

If we were sitting across from Even in the past and she shared that,  we would have just nodded.  (Today, we would not sit across from her.  We're not consumers of self-created drama.)  But she's not sharing this as conversation, she's putting it onto the public record and it's not the truth.

 There are things she says in the 'documentary' that don't strike us as truthful but we give her the pass for it in many cases.  That's not something that she ever does for the man she's accusing. 

He called her his "soul mate" and that's something he did to others!

What guilt does that prove?  Or how is that a shortcoming?  Most non-writers have a limited amount of terms they use in their daily lives.  Equally true, someone who uses "soul mate" is someone who thinks they found one.  To find one, you have to look for one.  And so he may very well have thought that Evan was his soul mate and then, after that was not the case, met Glenda or Brenda or Shonna or Donna -- or all and many more -- thought that she was his soul mate.

It's really something to watch how the 'documentary' tries to make almost every action and word from Brian's mouth seem to be proof that he's evil, guilty and a sociopath.

 

"He studied," Evan's  mother snarls to the camera.  "He studied how to manipulate people.  He's a predator.  He's a predator."

 

Apparently, Sara Wood believes that the best way to convince is through repetition.

 

Well, when you don't have the facts on your side . . .

 

Sara's lucky that she has Amy Berg on her side.  Amy's all about blaming Brian and all about elevating anyone who will blame Brian.  Which is how many viewers will miss who harmed Evan but gets off scot free: Sara Wood.

 

Sara hates Brian Warner with a passion.  Because of what he did to her daughter?  If so, that's only part of it.  What she mainly hates is that she couldn't rip her daughter off anymore.  Brian ended that.

 

It's a fleeing moment in the series.

 

Brian, Evan insists, was isolating her.  He was trying to keep her away from everyone.

 

Isolation does exist.  It exists in very abusive relationships.  That's isolation imposed.  When someone, however, chooses to isolate themselves, that's really not about anyone else.  Evan chose to isolate.

Why did she stand away from her mother?  Brian had warned her, she briefly notes to the camera, that she was too trusting and that if she called her business manager and looked into what her mother was doing with Evan's money, Evan wouldn't be happy.  

 

Brian being the villain of this 'documentary' and it being directed by a moron means that everything must be reduced to the most simplistic and cartoonish terms.  So Evan doesn't elaborate on what she found, just notes that Brian was correct and she took control of her own money.

 

Leaving aside the assault charges (which we'll get to) we found nothing unique in Evan's story of her relationship or in her story of herself.

 

She thinks she's some rare flower because she didn't know who she was when she was a young adult.  She wasn't ready, she whines, for the adult world and "had no core identity."  And then, "I just remember feeling completely lost, looking for a direction to go."  Apparently, Evan never had any friends.  Early adulthood is all about not knowing who you are for approximately 90% of people.

 

But she wants to be special and a little princess and that's what left us gagging the most while watching PHOENIX RISING.  If Evan ever once took responsibility for her actions, it could deliver a powerful message that would help future victims of assault.

 

Because assault can happens to anyone.  Not just the pure, not just the noble victims, it can happen to anyone.

 

Instead of serving up that reality,  she has to present herself as pure, pure, pure and Brian as evil, evil, evil.

 

 "It didn't matter what Evan wanted, it just had to be done," she says at one point still convinced she's a one-of-a-kind.  No, Evan, people are raised to believe that.  Guys especially are told to toughen up, to be tough, to keep it inside. 

 

At one point, she's insisting that this lack of a ''core''  created "the perfect target" for Brian.

 

No, what makes her "the perfect target" as she retrospectively tells this tale is the lies and omissions she repeatedly offers.  

 

At one point, she admits that she hooked up with Warner in 2006.  She also suggest it's earlier than 2006 when she talks of the warnings Jamie Bell gave her as her then-boyfriend, warnings about Warner -- she and Bell broke up in 2005.  Which would make her 17 or 18.  Facts don't always line up in these so-called 'documentaries.

If you don't get that from watching it, let's steer you to the garbage Even spewed and 'director' Amy Berg captured but neither seem to have processed.

Evan states he kissed her at 18.  That's what she says.  Then, with animation of a 12-year-old girl having some snake like tentacle going into her mouth, Evan explains it was all just so hard on her.  She felt flattered and she felt nervous.  And he had said he was going to miss her and she had replied he was going to miss him and he kissed her and blah blah blah.

Set aside the garbage -- which includes that awful animation -- and use your damn b8rain just once -- which is more than Evan or Amy do.  Ignore the ecstatic look on her present day face as she tells the camera that "It was like being kissed by a god."  Zoom in on her excuse for how it progressed.  She's not at fault, you understand, because it was her first time being kissed.

Freeze frame.

First time being kissed, she explains, that wasn't for a role.  

Hmm.  So exactly what did she and Jamie Bell do while they were seeing each other throughout 2005? 

In what world does that make sense?  Though it's not read aloud, there are passages on screen of Evan's manuscript where she writes about Jamie.  Jamie was 19.  We're really supposed to believe that he was with Evan for nearly a year, dating her, and that he, a 19-year-old man, never even kissed her?

Oh, Evan, you and your mother have worked so hard at creating one lie after another.  And Amy Berg made herself a sadder joke with this film than she did with OPEN SECRET. (OPEN SECRET is a strong documentary.  Berg made herself a joke by refusing to promote the film and by other actions she took with regards to the film in what we have always seen -- and said -- was an effort on her part to make sure calling out Bryan Singer didn't hurt her own career.  She took the money to make the film but then turned coward.)

You can see Evan struggling on camera to make that lie appear true.  She quickly adds that, on kissing, she means not on camera.  Then she adds that before Manson she'd only dated boys, teenage boys, before that.  Bell wasn't a boy.  He was a 19-year-old man.  Old enough to vote.  Old enough to drive.  

Why does she have to lie?

 

That's the real question that emerges from PHOENIX RISING. 

 

In this case, 'innocent and pure' Evan began her affair with Brian when he was married.  He had, in fact, just gotten married the year prior.  Despite the fact that Evan and her mother, in front of the camera, reach back through the years to find things that were wrong about Brian  but the two women never point out his being married at the time as anything that should have raised a "red flag" (to use Evan's favorite term).

 

According to Evan, Brian had a Nazi fascination.  "He always said," she declares, "that Hitler was the first rock star." That wasn't a "red flag" for Evan -- not then or after.  If we are to believe her.  If we are to believe this woman raised Jewish by a mother who practiced Judaism, sleeping with a man who had multiple Nazi illustrations and artifacts was no big deal and nothing that, even now, she feels should have been alarming.  Nor when he made fun of her for being Jewish.  Not even when he wrote "Kill all of the Jews" over their bed.

 

She's forever sharing details about him and you have to wonder about that, especially when she declares, "From what I gathered, his mother battled with mental illness."  Is this a documentary or a dish session?  

Let's talk abuse which brings us to 2007's "Heart Shaped Glasses."  That's a song by Marilyn Manson and Brian and Even appear in the video together.  She was drugged and she was abused on the set.

Her mother wants you to know that.  Evan does as well although mother indicates it was more than just booze.  "He was giving her absinthe and whatever else," insists Mom.  Absinthe, they both agree, was flowing.  And it was just so odd.

Huh?

In the same documentary, Evan tells the camera, of when they were first getting to know each other, over a year before the video was filmed, "We did what we normally did, drink absinthe."  

 

At any rate, here's where the assault happens or, as Evan says, "Cut to filming the 'Heart Shaped Glasses' video."

 

Brian and Evan are lovers of over a year by now.  They're supposed to simulate having sex for the cameras.  According to Evan,  Brian actually stuck it in while they were being filmed.

 

She insists that these were "things that were not what was pitched to me" ahead of filming and Mommy's declaring that this was being done, "When she cannot consent!"

It was a set with a crew.  She could have stopped at any time.  She also could have said "no."  She didn't say "no" and she didn't stop it.  She did not attempt to push him off her.  They were lovers at this point and if it did happen we're not understanding where it's all Brian's fault.  

If a man tells us he wants to make out on camera for a music video and then starts sticking it in during the filming, we can say "no" and we can push him away and we can certainly call for help.

 

"I did not feel safe," huffs Evan before making one of her most annoying -- and telling -- statements in the 'documentary,' "No one was looking after me."

 

She insists that Brian, after she was "essentially raped," forced her to tell the press it was "romantic."  She also told the press -- not in the documentary -- that there was no penetration.  

 

The abuse was that "essentially raped" event at the video.  It also included, according to what she is shown testifying in a hearing before government officials, her waking up to him having sex with her -- that is rape.  She doesn't claim how many times that happened. 

All Evan wants now, she maintains, is "to tell my truth."

Well we've watched two episodes of PHOENIX RISING and we're still waiting for her to start doing that.

   

It's really pathetic and so is Evan who seems to think she's a princess and unique and someone that the world has to rush to rescue.  Though she didn't cry "Rape" or even "No" during the filming of the video, it was -- in her mind -- the job of the crew to come between a couple -- a real life couple -- as they were making out on camera.  Time and again, she reveals just how pathetic she is.  Such as when she relates being on tour with him early in the relationship and his having throat problems so a doctor has prescribed liquid vicodin.  He's flying high on drugs at this point.  She explains 

 

And after the show, we were on the bus and he didn't even know where he was.  I started getting really scared because he started getting violent and throwing things and I just thought now is when the handlers step in and defuse the situation and no one did. We showed up at the hotel, the bus parked and Manson just grabbed me by my arm and yanked me and, in front of everybody, he's dragging me by my arm into the hotel and, uh, no one's doing anything.  And he goes in and he immediately starts wrecking the room and smashing things and yelling.  And I looked back at the crew member like "You're not just going to leave me here?" You know, "You got to help me.''  And I remember him starting to slowly close the door and me going, "No, no, no, you can't leave me here."  And this guy I thought was my friend.  We had been on tour for a couple of months.

How damn pathetic.  Grow the f**k up.  No crew members owes you anything and "we" were not on tour.  Marilyn Manson, the rock group, was on tour and that's who pays the crew.  Evan thinks because she's a celebrity -- one few have ever seen a performance of -- that she's owed this and she's owed that.

You don't want to go with him, after you get off the bus, walk off. Need a moment to think so you walk into the hotel with him?  Okay, once you get into the lobby, run for the counter and tell the staff you need them to get a cab for you now.  Do any number of things but do not walk with him into the hotel, into the lobby, and accompany him to his room and then blame someone else for your being left in the room with him -- for your being left in a hotel room with your lover that you've decided to follow around the country as he works in one city after the next.

Take some damn responsibility.

 

And while you're at it, don't just take responsibility for the past, take it for this awful series you're a part of right now.  Take responsibility for animation in the series that sexualizes a young girl.  How does that belong in a series about assault?  How does putting an animated 12-year-old girl in a skirt so short it barely covers her ass fit into a series about assault?

It's all so pathetic and all so dishonest.

Evan Rachel Wood, if everything she says Brian did wrong to her was done to her, is a victim of many things and many people: Brian, her mother, society and, yes, even herself.  Letting young viewers know now that they can make some dumb decisions and end up with the wrong person would be helpful.  Letting them know to get the hell out when warning bells go off would be helpful.

Being stupid enough at 34 to whine that, while you did not cry rape or stop him, it was a crew's job to stop whatever you and Brian were doing on camera ("essentially raped," her words) or that it was a crew member's job to keep you from the hotel room of your then-lover?  That's not taking accountability.  Evan ended up where she did due to many factors and until she's willing to talk about her own role in it, she's not helping anyone.

 

 

Ty's Corner

 

 

We really need professional voices and not the ding bats that we have.  That's true on supposed cable 'news' and it's true on documentaries.

 

HBO is offering PHOENIX RISING which is supposedly about assault and abuse.   It's a mini-series, HBO insists.  Or a limited series.

Or how about this: It's crap.

Actress Even Rachel Wood is just the latest to proclaim she's a victim.  And she well may be.  What she's not is educated.

A series billing itself as a documentary should never include a statement like this that goes unchallenged, "It's the difference between remaining a victim or becoming a survivor.  You either have the mind set to get help and face those demons and to want to change or you go the other way and you stay in the trauma and you never face it and you never deal with it and you take all the pain that you feel and you perpetuate more and more abuse."

Uh, excuse me, who's blaming the victim because, bitch, it ain't me.

Evan Rachel Wood is an example of home school ignorance (I'm sure there are many who excel at home schooling, she is not one) and yet because she says a man did something abusive to her, she's now an expert on abuse?

She's not an expert on s**t.  And she needs to shut her damn mouth and stop speaking of others.  She is not trained in trauma, she is not an expert.  She's an idiot grasping at fame who wants to tell everyone what is what when she doesn't know s**t.

Her statement, if you really apply it, says any victim is a potential abuser.

That's what it says.

So before you embrace the idiot, think hard on that.

She's not helping anyone.  Not even herself.

 

"Essentially raped?" (Dona)

When Ava and C.I. sat down to watch HBO's PHOENIX RISING, an alleged documentary about Evan Rachel Wood's claims of abuse at the hands of Brian Warner, Ty and I rushed to watch with them.  At the end of the two part mini-series, we were all dismayed.

 

Ava and C.I. began crafting their piece Sunday morning.  We watched and talked with them as they worked on the piece and saw some things fall out due to the need for transitions or other demands the piece made.  To cover every point would require a series of essay and what they ended up with was already a lengthy essay.

Ty wanted to cover one point -- where Evan Rachel Wood's uneducated and inane remarks appeared to suggest that a victim of abuse will abuse others.  Well, Evan, if that's what you believe, maybe we should strip you of custody of your own child?

It was a stupid thing to say and Evan says many stupid things in the documentary.

For me, it was her being "essentially raped."

Dear, you're either raped or you're not.  There's no such thing as "essentially raped."

Evan was in an affair with Brian Warner of Marilyn Manson.  She started that affair while she had a boyfriend and Brian was in year one of marriage.   The "essentially raped" moment comes when she's doing a video with her then-boyfriend Brian Warner.  According to her now -- not what she said back then -- he penetrated her when they were supposed to b stimulating sex.

"I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses," she insists.

No, you weren't.

You and your boyfriend wanted to play at having sex in the video and then he decided to take it futher and you went along.  You didn't yell "Cut!"  You didn't stop it.  You didn't push him away.  You didn't tell him no.

This was your own boyfriend and you couldn't tell him no?

That's on you, Evan.  Start taking responsibility.  If you can't tell your partner that something makes you uncomfortable, you shouldn't be in a relationship.  You certainly shouldn't be blaming him for doing something you refused to object to.

From the mini-series, it's obvious that she was engaging in 'racy' boundary barrier breaking with him.  Hence, her tolerance of his anti-Semitic behavior and statements (Evan is Jewish) and his love of all things Nazi.  That didn't send her reeling.  His other boundary breaking behavior -- wiping his ass on the US flag, etc -- was considered cool and arty by Evan.

They were always headed down the road of sex on camera.  

 

Two narcissists desperate for attention and publicity?  Sex on camera was always a stop on the road they were traveling.

Evan Rachel Ward needs to take responsibility and HBO needs to stop turning time over to women claiming that they were victims, women who are not experts but babble on with no proof.  

Many women are raped (men as well) and they are not "essentially raped," they are raped.  They don't deserve the babble Evan passes off as knowledge.  And those of us paying HBO for entertainment don't deserve these one-sided interviews that are being passed off as documentaries.