"How to Marry a Millionaire" When You Decide You Don't Want to Write a Thesis Anymore But Would Still Prefer to Eat

Oh hi!

Holy shit it's May.

I open with this because seriously, what happened to April?  It's like the month didn't even exist.  Sometimes, especially sometimes like these, I remember how long a minute felt when I was little (really really long), and then I think about how fast time seems to go by now (really really fast), and it makes me realize how people lose whole years (and maybe decades? yikes) as they age just because for some reason the more time you spend on the planet, the more quickly-passing it feels.  Apparently.

In some ways this is really awesome.  It is particularly awesome when I hate school.  When I hate school, I think to myself, "But look!  So much of it's already over, and it doesn't even feel like that took so long!  So maybe the rest will feel like that."  And then I feel better. 

The problem is, as weeks and months (and semesters) fly by, they don't always take my work with them.  A (lazy, magical thinking) part of me thinks that all I have to do is endure grad school and I'll pop out the other end after 5 years and just be handed my degree.  Kind of like going to the dentist, but with a PhD instead of a filling.

It does not work like that.  Why not: 1) thesis, and 2) dissertation.  If I don't finish those, I don't get my degree.  (I just corrected that from "If you don't finish those, you don't get your degree," because I realized that even as I was exposing this magical thinking part of myself, I noticed that I was still distancing myself from my anxiety-inducing research obligations.  I am not talking about *someone else's* thesis and dissertation.  I'm talking about MINE.  The ones I HAVE TO DO.)

(The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem.  In parenthetical asides.)

I digress.

Really what I'm saying is that it's kind of intense that my second year is essentially over (minus a final tomorrow that I'm (apparently) not studying for and a project due Monday (don't even bother wondering if that's written)).  That happened fast.  And yet my research projects still loom.

I suppose I should be reasonably happy with myself on this front.  I have a complete data set, a completed first draft of my proposal, and some pretty clear ideas of how I'm going to interpret my data.  It's not like I'm behind.  I just don't want to do it.  I don't.  And I have to.... like really a lot.  I just need to get over myself.

ANYWAY.  It's possible that April went by really quickly because I watched SO MANY MOVIES and I'm really excited about it.

I watched:
13. Awful Normal (3)
14. The Witches of Gambaga (5)
15. The Deliverance of Comfort (5), Taharuki (Suspense) (4), and Phyllis (3)
16. The Machinist (3.5)
17. The Other Guys (2)
18. Chop Shop (3)
19. How to Marry a Millionaire (5)

Wooooooooooo!

Note: I lumped the three films in #15 together because they're short films, and last year I watched a series of shorts and counted them as separate films, which made me feel guilty.  So now I'm correcting for that. 

Anyway.  When I saw the films listed in #14 and #15, all the filmmakers behind the films were present at the screening and answered questions afterward.  They were brilliant and wonderful and I enjoyed (almost) every second of it, but the best second(s) came as a pleasant surprise.

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I've been to a couple of film screenings at which someone heavily involved with the film at hand is present (not to mention some "talk-backs" at plays, which often also include the cast of the production in addition to the director and/or playwright), and one thing always holds true: There is always at least one asshole in the audience who asks a stupid/painfully pseudo-intellectual question, often at great length.  Sometimes, when you're really unlucky, there are many many of these people.  But there's *always* at least one.

There was definitely one at this screening, and he was particularly long-winded.  So long-winded, in fact, that the moderator attempted to cut him off multiple times (and failed!), and the audience became audibly uncomfortable as his monologue unfolded interminably (lots of nervous giggling and shifting in seats to stare).  I don't even remember what he was asking, really, because I was too busy feeling embarrassed for everyone, but I think it somehow originated from the fact that all of the filmmakers were African women, and weren't they inflamed about the state of women's rights internationally, and what can be done about it???  Which is a perfectly interesting question, I suppose, but also so absurdly broad in scope that it came off as more than a little silly... How can four directors be expected to solve the problems, centuries and centuries in the making, of the world's billions of women??

A woman in a "witches' village" in Ghana, portrayed in "The Witches of Gambaga".

The questioner finally ran out of unused words, and a profound and awkward silence fell over the theater.  The moderator sheepishly prompted the filmmakers for a response, and at least one of them was so (understandably) exasperated that she rolled her eyes and made a face.  It seemed an unsalvageably uncomfortable situation.  There seemed simply no way to respond in a way to neutralize the awkward without making someone feel like an idiot.

AND THEN.  One of the women (the one on the far right in the first picture, whose name I desperately wish I had caught) took the microphone, and with the beautiful zen calm and magnanimity of a thousand humans, said, "Thank you for your outrage."

...I can't imagine this comes across here like it did in that theater, but she knocked my fucking socks off with her graciousness.  In one fell swoop she validated the (insanely verbose) questioner's worry for the women of the world AND reclaimed the conversation so that normal humans could again understand it.  She talked about how not only bearing witness to the women in the films we had just watched but also supporting women in positions of power in the arts (as directors and producers) are a means through which women can attain greater empowerment.  And she's right, of course.  But WOW did she make fabulous and intelligent lemonade out of those cray-cray lemons.  It made me feel smarter just sitting in the room with her.

Other women in "The Witches of Gamabaga".

The shorts might be harder to find (but are absolutely worth seeing if possible!), but hopefully some of you might be able to track down "The Witches of Gambaga" (2010).  It's brilliant, fascinating, surprising, and very much worth watching.

SPEAKING of women in film.  For an abrupt transition: Marilyn Monroe.

She's pretty awesome too.

Boyfriend and I watched "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953) a few nights ago largely on a whim, and it was a potent reminder of a hard truth of film: you can't fuck with good writing.  It may be incredibly backwards in its gender stereotyping, but in spite of that, the movie is simply hysterical.  We were both surprised at how entertaining it is, in spite of being almost 60 years old.

Lauren Bacall is delicious, but Marilyn.  I'm sorry.  She just steals the freaking show.  She is utterly luminous. 

It seems strange that she's retained such power, as celebrities go, in spite of only appearing in a handful of movies.  But once you see her in anything, it's not hard to understand why: she's completely riveting.  She's beautiful (duh), but also so delightfully funny.  She cultivated the silly-girl persona so expertly and endearingly that you can't help but adore her.

I mean come on.  She's too precious for words in those rhinestone cat eye glasses.

The movie is so much fun.  You should see this one, too.

And with that... I really, really should probably study for this final.

Bonne soirée!

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