Entertainment & Sports: January 2005 Archives

Playing Trivial Pursuit last night with my friends reminded me of how annoying the game can be at times. There were several questions that didn't make sense, and whose answers were matters of opinion and/or weren't correct.

And example of the first was from the "Innovations" category -- billed as "inventions, medical breakthroughs, and electronics": "What do you do when you fail to stifle a sternutation?" They could have just asked for the definition of the word directly rather than being coy, but the obvious answer is still sneeze. But how does that have anything to do with "innovation"? It doesn't. So my team wasted several minutes trying to think of another answer that made sense; failing to do so, we answered with the obvious response and got it correct. That's stupid.

As for my second complaint, questions that are just plain wrong: "What country discovered in 2000 that it had underestimated its coastline by 16,000 miles?" Oh please, that's absurd. 16,000 miles is enough to take you two-thirds of the way around the earth's equator. The answer was Norway, presumably because they hadn't bothered to measure all those tiny indentations in their fractal coastline, but the back of the card gave no explanation and I was skeptical. Rightly so. According to the CIA World Factbook, the coastline of Norway is only 13,623 miles in total, and I doubt their earlier estimation was -2,377 miles. Plus, there are only 10,000 miles of indentations -- which coincidentally is about 16,000 kilometers, so maybe that's what the game meant. Anyway, there are lots of questionable cards like that, and the fact that the answers have no explanation is doubly irritating.

I think Mel Gibson is doing the right thing by not pandering for Awards from the Academy for The Passion of the Christ. There are several organizations, such as Passion for Fairness, that seem outraged that the movie is unlikely to win many award, but I have to wonder why they care. I agree that The Passion is worthy of acclaim and recognition for being an excellent movie, but winning awards wasn't really the point, was it? Mr. Gibson seems to realize that lobbying for an Oscar for his film would be like Jesus Christ mounting a campaign for the American presidency.

Sean Penn fails to take my earlier suggestion, continues to not shut up, and proceeds to compare himself to Ronald Reagan.

"But the bigger issue is that it's an absolutely stupid notion that you should take the title of someone's profession and attach it to what they should not do. It has nothing to do with citizenry. I think they should shove it with their hypocritical Ronald Reagan standard right up their ass."

I may be growing forgetful in my old age, but will someone please remind me whether or not Sean Penn has ever been elected to any public office in his life, even something as trivial as the Presidency of the United States? If Sean Penn has served as President then I certainly think we should pay attention to his pronouncements on foreign affairs -- after all, even ruinous terrorist-enablers like Jimmy Carter catch our attention when they pontificate, solely because of their previous tenure in the Oval Office. On the other hand, if Sean Penn has not been elected President (or governor, or even Senion Class Treasurer) then pretty much all we have to go on is his profession as an actor. How about if we agree that Sean Penn is a better actor than Ronald Reagan was, and that Ronald Reagan was a better everything else than Sean Penn is or ever will be? There -- no more double standard.

Anyway, if you're too lazy to go read my first post on the topic, maybe this will whet your appetite. Violent womanizer Sean Penn is the only person I know of who has referred thusly to Uday Hussein.

I've quietly arranged (the less my whereabouts are known, the better) to switch cars at the Hunting Club, a private social club that traditionally hosted a who's-who of Iraqi society. Saddam Hussein's son Oday was known to pick up girls there.

By "pick up girls" he of course means that Oday (who? Uday?) kidnapped them, raped them, and often murdered them. Pshaw, minor details -- to Sean Penn anyway.

This guy is an idiot. He's a rich actor who can afford to travel to Iraq, wander around with a hefty security detail and write in a stupid journal, and because he's famous it gets published. That doesn't mean his opinions have any merit or value or substance, it just means that people will pay money to read them. Wooptie doo.

Actually, I feel bad for Penn and his ilk. I can see how it would be easy for someone to grow confused over time and to begin to think that they're actually important just because people pay attention to them. In reality, the only reason they're listened to is because they make money for the surrounding head-nodders.

(HT: The Daily Spork.)

Sorry to break it to you newsreaders and weather persons, but you aren't much more than a pretty face.

A storm of controversy has engulfed The Weather Channel, after a 40-something former anchor accused network brass of washing her out of a high-ranking job to make way for a hot front of sexy young weatherwomen.

Marny Stanier Midkiff, 42, this week filed a lawsuit claiming she was booted in the fall of 2003 as part of a reputed "reorganization" of the storm channel, which she believes was really an excuse to get more young female weathercasters on the air.

Gosh, do you think so?

Midkiff says that, in the months before she was let go, her boss allegedly spoke of female staffers as "matronly," "dowdy" and "nun-like" and asked that female on-air talent turn up the temperature on their look with more revealing "V-neck" shirts.

Midkiff and her attorney claim The Weather Channel also began hiring new young weathercasters starting in 2003 as part of this effort, and the then-41-year-old, who spent 16 years reporting on sun and rain for the network, was left out in the cold.

"She got tossed aside because The Weather Channel wanted a younger look," said Midkiff's attorney, Daniel Klein. "She was one of the top [meteorologists]. She was one of the best they had, but she didn't fit the image they had in mind."

It's television, an industry that's built entirely on image. Everyone knows this. You don't see strippers or models sue over lost jobs when they get old, do you? No, because that's how life works. If you make a living off your looks, then some day you're going to have to find a new job. Similarly, if you base your self worth on your looks, some day you're going to become very depressed.

Looks are looks, people. Yes, looking good is nice, but it should be seen as a bonus to everything else. I try to look good, and I like being around people who look good, but it's far from the most important consideration. Unfortunately for beautiful people, they tend to get used to getting by on their looks alone (because it's easy, at first), and when their looks disappear they don't have the social or mental skills to keep up with the crowd. (That goes even for beautiful people who aren't in 100% image-dominated industries like television.)

Good looks are a double-edged sword, not only because other people can view you as nothing more than a pretty face, but because eventually you may begin to see yourself that way, too.

This Stanley Crouch article is good to see: more women are beginning to stand up to rap music.

The most successful black women's magazine, Essence, is in the middle of a campaign that could have monumental cultural significance.

Essence is taking on the slut images and verbal abuse projected onto black women by hip hop lyrics and videos.

The magazine is the first powerful presence in the black media with the courage to examine the cultural pollution that is too often excused because of the wealth it brings to knuckleheads and amoral executives.

This anything-goes-if-sells attitude comes at a cost. The elevation of pimps and pimp attitudes creates a sadomasochistic relationship with female fans. They support a popular idiom that consistently showers them with contempt. We are in a crisis, and Essence knows it.

I've long wondered how women I know and respect can listen to and enjoy music that so completely trashes them for profit. Good, Christian women just shrug it off and say they don't take the lyrics seriously. The songs are singing about other women, not them, so who cares?

Well, I certainly wouldn't patronize an industry that held men in contempt. I think many women underestimate and misunderstand the way men view them as sexual objects to be dominated and penetrated; when women give their tacit approval to things like rap music they also demonstrate to the men around them that they accept their designated sexual role as well. Which, of course, maybe they do.

In addition to being busy not providing a way to listen to the radio on my cell phone, every radio station in Los Angeles is forcing upon me the "top XYZ songs of Whenever!!!", where XYZ is equal to their radio frequency. Thus, we have the "top one-oh-six-point-seven songs of 2004!!!" from KROQ, the "top ninty-eight-point-seven songs from the 80s!!!" from STAR, the "top one-oh-one-point-one songs of all time!!!" from K-Earth, and so forth, ad nauseum.

Hey geniuses, get a new schtick. Plus, it's not even possible to have "point-seven" of a song. Holy crap.