So, like every other American who’s not a Porcher, I watched TV and went to the movies over the Thanksgiving holiday. Here’s the best I heard and saw:
AN EDUCATION is a genuinely erotic, sophisticated, conversational movie about a brilliant, beautiful girl of sixteen who learns important lessons–some quite positive–from a “wandering” older man–a witty, clever, and romantic criminal. But she’s finally no victim and moves on to Oxford to read English. One thing she learns, from her first sexual experience, is to wonder why so much poetic ink has been spilled over something that takes so little time. This is a story about feminism rightly understood, and so the anti-Woody (Allen) movie.
BLIND SIDE is the anti-Porcher movie. It displays with grace and humor the interracial, inter-class charity of a rich, Republican, McMansion-dwelling, southern, evangelical family that made it big through sports and acquiring a huge number of fast food establishments (mostly Taco Bells). It was charming to see their new black son choosing Old Miss because that’s where his family has always gone, and even more so having the dad played by Tim McGraw show us that it’s possible to be southern, sports-watching, and entrepreneurial while still being endlessly loving, patient, and open. Needless to say, this is a sleeper hit. It easily sold out the first show last Saturday night in very southern and Christian Rome, GA.
THE FOUR HOUR HBO SPECIAL sponsored by the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME featuring a impressive variety of old men and women credibly performing their classic tunes is guaranteed to warm the (diseased) hearts of middlebrow Americans in their fifties and sixties (such as myself). The Boss and Clarence managing to do justice to JUNGLELAND one more time is a wonder. Billy Joel shouting the lyrics on BORN TO RUN not so much. METALLICA, by the way, has aged particularly well, although I still don’t like Bono. B.B. King, despite having diabetes for a half century or so, never changes.
December 1st, 2009 | 3:36 pm
I must respectfully disagree, Professor Lawler, with the assertion that the Blind Side is anti-Porcher. Insofar as it is proper to speak of a Porcher view of things, it seems to me that they are concerned with structural barriers to virtue. They see virtuous living as a rarer and harder thing in the modern world, not as something that has completely disappeared. The story of an awesome, charitable, and Christian family that is nevertheless fully integrated into wealthy suburban culture does nothing to disprove this.
I think a closer look reveals a serious, if understated, dissatisfaction with the lifestyle of the family, especially during the Thanksgiving scene. “Thank your mother,” says the father, “for picking up all this food from the store.” No extended family is present. And when the greatful Big Mike gets his food, he sits at the dining table rather than being distracted by the football game like the rest of the family is. Seeing him, the mother has a moment of self-realization. What poverty and crime have taken from Michael -a strong family- can also be threatened by wealth and the distractions of technology. Sitting alone at the table as the family is glued to the TV, it’s clear that Michael can never be integrated into a family when the family takes the form of a mere conglomeration of individuals. It’s quite the wholesome moment, then, when the mother then wisely forces the family to eat together at the dinner table. Any Porcher would love that.
December 4th, 2009 | 5:23 pm
On the Sunday after the repast, this particular “Porcher” went to the British Museum @ Yale and it’s fellow Luis Kahn treat across the street, the Yale Gallery, both a lot cheaper than the cost of a movie because they are, well…free, and then rounded off the day with a Clam Pizza @ Pepe’s. Anyone who has not enjoyed the combination of African Sculpture with Kahn’s masterpiece should do what they must to see it. I drove there too.
Pepe’s is very old school. The first time I went there was many moons ago, urchins in tow and as the drill sergeant waitress put pencil nub to pad with a look of impatience, I said “can we look at some menus?”. To this, the imperious matron took a step back, looked at me over the rims of her glasses and barked “PIZZA”!
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