Tag Archives: analysis

Why I would make a better mobster than Tony Soprano.

Posted on by
Reply

Me: I want to buy a motorcycle and shoot my guns from it!
Gail: Turn off Sons of Anarchy. 

Me: I just found a Shake and Bake Meth Recipe on Google! All I need are the batteries.
Gail: Ugh. You’re going to blow yourself up. How many episodes have you watched?
Me: Like one. Breaking Bad isn’t really doing it for me.
Gail: Your search history is going to get you on some kind of list. 

You know, good friends support each other, GAIL. Just this last week, you were appallingly negative about my attending a simple party.

Gail: “Well, for one, judging by how often you leave your drink unattended, I would say you definitely should not go to a frat party. Two, while I’m sure you could pass for 21, no one’s going to talk to you when you excitedly open with ‘Hi! I’m Belle and I’m 21!'”

Ugh. What am I going to do with you?

Recently, I’ve decided to break up my Gossip Girl marathon with The Sopranos. I had actually planned to watch the latter first, but I couldn’t find it to rent and I’m too cheap to purchase anything I haven’t seen. Because libraries are the coolest, I was able to get it from work, through Interlibrary Loan. After two episodes, Gail, once again, decided to crush my dreams.

Gail: Surely you’re not the first person to think ‘I’m a librarian.That’s practically Al Capone.’
Me: Was Al Capone technically the mob? Hmm… I’ll need to catch up on my trivia.

I can’t wait until you have kids, Gaily. They’ll run in and joyfully share their desire to be an explorer…

“Oh, honey, that’s not practical. Everything’s been discovered already and you’d probably just be bitten by some kind of exotic bug and die. Also, keep the desire to leave the country under wraps. The president can hear you right now.” 

conspiracy theory

So, despite obvious Mean Girl Sabotage, I plead my case for exactly why I would not only make a good mobster, but in fact, a better mobster than Tony Soprano.

I could carry out a vendetta, without getting caught, at a very young age.
When I was in the second grade, I got a cool new kind of glue, with a sponge applicator. Everyone thought it was the neatest… until it went missing. A few days later, as I was walking by Sammy’s desk, I noticed a suspiciously similar brand of glue. Of course, I promptly declared that she stole it and told the teacher. Ultimately, Sammy confessed, Mrs. Green  made her apologize and return the glue, and likely issued a reasonable punishment… as I seethed. An apology and some missed recess, when the little bitch wronged me?!?!?

Naturally, in a lawless society, I took matters into my own hands and meted out justice like Batman. I waited two weeks, to throw off suspicion, and graffiti’d the bathroom stall with Sammy’s name during recess… first and last, so no one would be mistaken. Mrs. Green was livid and all Sammy’s friends thought she was lying when she said she didn’t do it. Not only did she have to scrub the wall clean, but she missed a lot more recess, as well. I actually managed to earn her a greater punishment, and also completely discredit her as a person, exactly as the little thief deserved. 


Lord help me when I have children, because that was just plain awful.

I can cuss better.
No, really. Isn’t the seventh “fuck”, in a sentence, a little superfluous, Tony? I mean, there are a lot of things I could suffer from while being held at gunpoint: rape, robbery, blackmail, torture. Do we really need to add redundancy to the list? I’m not offended by your usage of the word “fuck”, but it’s a little tired, what with the 13-year-old in the corner using it. The key to swearing with impact is to mix it up a little. Not everything has to be HBO-worthy. “Mountain of dicks” is totally prime time appropriate and still gets the point across. It doesn’t even have to be that adult. You throw in a “zetus lapetus” or an “oh em jingles” and those f-bombs really pop.

tony soprano strangling
“I’m gonna drape your intestines over the trees like Christmas garland!” See. I win.

I know where feelings belong.
Say it with me now: “With the last fucking Horcrux.” Now, I’m not too far into this show, but I feel it’s in poor judgement for Tony to see a therapist. So some ducks flew away? Bee eff dee. You don’t talk about your feelings. This is an HBO crime drama, not a sitcom about a recently widowed father raising his three young girls. Get your fucking genre right, dude. I mean, were I a therapist treating the mob boss of Jersey, I’d shut my cakehole and all, sure. The thing is, all it takes is one time for this chick to talk. Yeah, you’ll cut off her arm and rape her with it, or whatever mob bosses do, but the FBI will still have proof that you’re the guy laundering money, selling coke, moving stolen DVD players, and cutting off people’s arms and raping them with them. The therapist will be dead. It will have hurt. It will still be all Tony’s fault for being such a vagina. Need to vent, but find you’re a crime lord? DON’T. That’s part of the fucking gig. Just hide in fiction until the problems go away. 

jennifer melfi

Overall, I would be a lot more discreet. 
Okay, seriously dude, I know you’re like a household name in this world, but maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t be if you didn’t wear that mobster costume every day. You’re a chubby Italian man with a thick accent, obvious anger problems, and an income level that’s completely incongruent with your claimed profession? Wow. Your Etsy store must be doing great! I, however, have pink guns, denim dresses, pearls I actually wear, and country music blaring from my car. The only indicator I might give of my mob involvement, would be that I’m Catholic. Granted, this is a bit more brow-raising in the Midwest than it is in Jersey, but I assure you, the flowered dress, peep-toes, and usage of the word “y’all” will more than conceal my secret station and crime ring.

southern belle
“Hello, there, Sir. I’m here for my gats.”

What do you mean I “think too much”?!?!?

Posted on by
12

Every now and then, I Facebook stalk myself. It’s not that I just think I’m brilliant and must have had something hilarious to say over the past few weeks or anything. No, no. I re-read my own blog for that. You see, though I keep my Facebook private, I’m still pretty conscious of the things I post, because I work in a very public field. I can’t risk an influential person seeing something inappropriate. There’s a reason this blog is anonymous and there’s a reason I say nothing but glorious things about my jobs, regardless. So, just in case, every few weeks, I read back over my old Facebook posts and delete anything that could be misunderstood or maybe had some kind of political tone to it, as the library is a very liberal place and my head is not. It is during this chore I made a discovery: a good 80% of my posts are media critiques and humorous self-analysis. I’m not exaggerating. I am either a delightful and entertaining Facebook friend, or those who felt obligated to keep me on their feeds hid my exhausting updates months ago. I’d wondered why I’ve gotten the comment “you think too much” more than once. Perhaps it’s because of the following status updates I’ve made in just the last few months.

gaston

“NO ONE says no to Gaston!” Sounds a little rapey, Disney.

You know, Rapunzel really could’ve fashioned a rope out of that much hair, all by herself. Prince not necessary.

I was always sad when Binx turned into a stupid boy, instead of an immortal talking cat.

When you watch American Beauty, pretend it’s the sequel to Hocus Pocus.

thora birch

Daisy, you suck. If you didn’t want to be with Gatsby, maybe you should’ve kept your dress down.

I never finished A Child Called It, so I’m pretending Harry Potter was the ending.

Rereading Harry Potter has me seriously doubting the child protection system of the U.K.

“Only a person who wanted to find the stone… find it, but not use it, would be able to get it.”
So, what you’re saying Dumbledore, is that Harry isn’t a hero at all, because the Sorcerer’s Stone was never in danger. Amiright?

You see that, J.K. Rowling? That thing between Ron and Hermione? That’s called “build-up.” It’s what you completely skipped with the convenience of Harry and Ginny.

I don’t care if Snape WAS “protecting” Harry. He broke a cardinal rule of teaching by mistreating an abused child, based solely on misdemeanors committed by his parents twenty years prior. What are the requirements for a degree in wizard education, anyway?!?!?

Sometimes, I feel like artists today KNOW that they’re releasing an offensive and morally objectionable product and must be making a statement about the values of society today. Wouldn’t it be cool to find out that Miley Cyrus is just involved in a complex case study?!?!?

I’ve gotta admire the killer from You’re Next. The man knows his contractions. That’s really more than I can say for MOST Americans.

you're next

L’oreal uses “my skin looks airbrushed” as a positive testimonial. I do not consider this a plus.

I agree with Buddy the Elf’s dad. The nun DID miss the payments. She shouldn’t have bought the books if she couldn’t pay. That’s akin to stealing. That’s why the Church isn’t in favor of buying on credit. I resent the implication that Santa was a socialist, who would’ve expected a business to give non-essential items free of charge, just because he chooses to do so.

nun from elf

I’m not buying it, American Horror Story. I totally would’ve mentioned my elderly maid’s age to my husband, if only in concern for her health. How self-absorbed ARE these people?!?!? I call BS.

Sometimes, I realize what a good cover it could be to be a librarian. Like, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND blames the librarian for all that vigilantism that’s cropped up in the city?

I probably come off less threatening when I yell at traffic with a sucker in my mouth.
“The light is GREEN! GO! I’m not even running late. You’re just annoying! Cinnamon is DELICIOUS!”

Wait. How is dancing to blame for a car wreck? 80’s movies are so stupid. Five minutes. That’s how far I made it into Footloose.

Who are these snobs in the commercial who’ve never eaten a Wal-Mart steak?!?! I’m pretty sure that 80% of the steak I’ve eaten IN MY LIFE came from Wal-Mart, Princess.

“Ladies: buying a new vehicle isn’t just for men.” Well, I didn’t think you were being sexist until you said that, Car Salesman.

Game of Thrones: There are seven kingdoms. Why can’t there be seven thrones and they just SHARE the world? I’d prefer a ruby throne to an iron one ANYWAY.

throne

So I’m in this abandoned cabin in the woods, right? Then I find this chained-up book in a room full of dead animals. I figure, I’ll totally open this sucker and read aloud from it. It’s gotta be good if it’s banned, right? No. No, I do not, because that’s STUPID.

You don’t have to stay with an angry, abusive man, just for his library, Belle. I can recommend several good Master of Library and Information Studies schools that are accredited by the American Library Association.

If you watch 7th Heaven after a Sons of Anarchy marathon, you will become convinced that all of those girls Matt dated disappeared into a pit of fire and that’s why you never saw them again.

If Barbie is making your daughter insecure, you’re not spending enough time with your daughter.

The true villain in Hansel in Gretel was not the witch, who was just an innocent victim of vandalism and had a right to protect her home. The true villain was the totally whipped dad who’s all “Yeah, honey. I’ll just go abandon the kids in the woods, right quick.” How has everyone missed this?!?!

Every time I watch the movie Twister, I think ‘What former storm chaser has liability only?!?’

twister

I would not even care about the zombies in The Walking Dead. Those people have no electricity. EVER.

When I was little, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory really freaked me out, because I thought all the kids died in the end. I’m still not sure.

I like to pretend Sin City is a spin-off of Gilmore Girls.

Lorelei Gilmore does not budget AT ALL.

In all these suspense novels someone asks “license plate number, make, and model?” I would be so screwed, because my only answer would be “blue… or black… maybe green.”

The night I watched the latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie:

That girl was not 38. She’d have to be since the original was filmed in 1976 and they had iPhones. I suppose I could’ve missed the futuristic element of the first one.

What brand of chainsaw does this guy use?!?! Does it have a uranium core or run on magic? I haven’t seen him put gas in it even once and it cuts through like EVERYTHING.

Puh-leez. That guy has neither the dexterity nor the medical know-how to cleanly cut off a person’s face.

texas chainsaw massacre

In defense of E.L. James… from an unlikely source.

Posted on by
11

So, if you follow my blog, you know it’s no secret that I, like many bloggers, enjoy a good Fifty Shades roast… and by that I mean:

roast

/rōst/
Verb

Cook (food, esp. meat) by prolonged exposure to heat in an oven or over a fire.

burning books

If you follow my blog religiously, you are awesome. You are also aware that I was abused for a good portion of my life; so, I fully recognize the abusive relationship chronicled in this swill. I recognize that it triggers  survivors and it’s painful for them, because the “murcurial” moments of Christian Grey stressed me the fuck out and that whole belt scene was just damned hard to read for personal reasons. I seriously almost stopped reading the first book, despite my curiosity, because it was making me physically sick and giving me nightmares. So I get it.

I’ve also read reports of E.L. James’s response to the claims that this book romanticizes abuse, which pretty much amount to “Nuh huh!” before she blocks them. This and… oh, I don’t know… her writing… are proof that she’s an insensitve moronic twat. I am intensely enjoying this hilariously spot on, chapter by chapter analysis over the entire series. So… maybe I just made a really good case for the execution of E.L. James. All that being said, however:

All she did was write a book…
I’m certain I’m not the first to say that E.L. James did not create domestic violence. Sure, it’s super disturbing that she thinks it’s sexy, but apparently, so do a lot of women. I did read the trilogy, from the library’s e-media collection, because I didn’t want to touch the paperback. I didn’t purchase the book or any of its paraphenalia (I saw that display in the sex store), because I didn’t want to further support E.L. James in her degradation of women, but I was curious. I pretty much came to the conclusion that Fifty is just sexy to people who’ve never been abused or manipulated ever, because I didn’t get the appeal… at all.

Where’s the personal responsibility in the Fifty Shades of Domestic Violence discussion, though? I am absolutely not referring to the idea that women need to be more vigilant about not-getting-hit. I’m referring to the fact that we’re grown ass women. We schedule our yearly gynecological visits, report the broken faucet to maintenance, pay our bills, make sure there’s food in the kitchen and the oil gets changed, do something-with-children if we’re moms, and oh, I don’t know… hold full-time fucking jobs, but we’re not capable of putting poorly written erotica into perspective and realizing that it’s only good in a fantasy? It’s like when you fantasize about something that would make your grandma cry while you masturbate, but in actuality, you know you’d feel disgusting and degraded if you did that in real life. Fifty Shades of Grey is exactly that… unless you’re stupid and irresponsible.

How is it the fault of a woman who couldn’t come up with another word for “crap” with a gun to her head that our teenagers are secretly reading what has always been dubbed “erotica” cough:: porn:: cough on their Kindles? How is it the fault of a shitty fan-fic writer if we fail to further research the whole dom/sub thing before giving it a go with that guy off Craigslist? If the concern is that this is “normalizing” domestic abuse, then we need to be talking more about what constitutes abuse in society, so people can differentiate fantasy from reality and realize that this book is not a fucking how-to guide. It’s been advertised as one, but again, we’re at fault if we don’t understand how advertising works.  We need to monitor our children’s media better and sit down with them and ask what they’re getting out of Twilight and explain what’s wrong about it. However, we also need to let adults take responsibility for what they’re reading and the ideas they’re getting from it, because they’re fucking adults.

“So help me God, Anastasia, if you don’t eat, I will take you across my knee here in this restaurant, and it will have nothing to do with my sexual gratification. Eat!”

I don’t even kind of fucking get what’s so hot about that, even in a fantasy, but in an actual restaurant, it’s a reason to blow that rape whistle. I think the majority of women who read Fifty do get that.

… that’s been written a hundred times…
This is my biggest defense of E.L James. Sure, it’s been a few years since we heard the whole dom/sub thing, but the Alpha Male shit is prevalent across most romance novels and every other media. It’s not new. From Darrin Stevens to Edward Cullen, this shit is hold fucking hat. Samantha Stevens literally gave up the power to provide for herself so Darrin could feel needed. That’s from an actual damned episode where she conjures herself a fur coat and he’s livid. Edward Cullen regularly told Bella what she was and was not allowed to do and she swooned. E.L. James adding some handcuffs to the mix, doesn’t create a new genre. Men have been abusing women to cheering crowds since caveman days. Does that make it right? Fuck no. It also doesn’t make E.L. James any worse than all of those other authors of books, spanning all genres, where men overpower women who secretly want it. Such as in:

Twilight – young adult
Club Dead – mystery: Bill fucking rapes Sookie in this book and it slips her gee dee mind.
A Hunger Like No Other – paranormal romance
Dark Lover – paranormal romance
Bared to You – erotica (to be fair, this one came after Fifty)

Those are just off the top of my head, but let’s see… how about every single book on this Good Reads list titled “Alpha Male“?

The fact that this book is BDSM related isn’t what makes it abusive. It’s the way he talks to her and treats her and threatens and belittles her. Sadly, though, E.L. James is still no trailblazer in this.

… and that no one was forced to read.
Fuck yeah, it gave me nightmares and made me want to vomit… because I chose to read it. I saw the movie The Collection with the guys not too long ago. It was absolutely disgusting, but I sat through the whole thing, because they were watching it and I wanted to know what totally anatomically implausible thing would happen next and couldn’t stop wondering what the popularity of this gore said about society. That right there is exactly why I read Fifty Shades of Grey. It was offensive and upsetting and I’ll admit, it was a trigger for me in a lot of ways. I could’ve put it down. I didn’t. That is not the fault of E.L. James. That’s the fault of the moron who started it in the first place, knowing what it was after Googling it and loudly asking a coworker “What does BDSM mean?” even though she’s twenty-fucking-five. I swear, I may as well be a virgin.

Ultimately…

Fifty Shades is one of my favorite things to hate, as you can tell, since I said so here, here, here, and here. This post, however, was brought on by reading some blogs trashing E.L. James. Don’t get me wrong. I read what she said about domestic violence and her book…

James says she “freaks out when she hears people say that her book encourages domestic violence. “Nothing freaks me out more than people who say this is about domestic abuse,” she says. “Bringing up my book in this context trivializes the issues, doing women who actually go through it a huge disservice. It also demonizes loads of women who enjoy this lifestyle, and ignores the many, many women who tell me they’ve found the books sexually empowering.”

… and I’ve read reports of her just refusing to discuss this issue with the people who’ve basically said “Um… I don’t feel trivialized by those people. I feel like you’re high-fiving me in the black eye.” I find her horribly inconsiderate. I’ve also been convinced for a while now that she sold her fucking soul to make these books popular, because they’re not even good porn. There is no plot, which is standard for erotica, but even the sex is redundant and awkward. As someone who’s been there, I can admit that yes, it’s upsetting when people call abuse sexy. However, E.L. James is not responsible for domestic abuse and has never actually compared the battered wives shelter to a brothel. Sure, it might be nice for her to come out and say “This book is not a how-to guide. It is meant for your enjoyment, not your replication,” but credit should be given where credit is due.

It’s not the porn industry’s fault that your marriage collapsed. It’s your ex-husband and his chafing dick that resulted from all of those downloads.

It’s not Alpha Male erotica that punched you in the kidneys. It’s a husband with anger problems who needs professional help.

Teenagers are not misinformed about sex because of an inaccurate erotic novel. They’re misinformed because their parents let them read it at 13.

It’s not the fault of a poorly written and irresponsibly advertised novel that someone ended up in the E.R. after misusing a spreader bar. It’s their fault for not taking advantage of the wealth of instantaneous information to research possibly unsafe bedroom activities.