(no subject)

Last night I finally watched "A Fish called Wanda". I was 12 when the movie came out, but I remember my dad really liking it, and telling me scenes from the movie.

I think part of the reason my dad liked it is because Kevin Kline is basically a sillier, over the top version of my father.

While watching, I started thinking about the pressure someone like John Cleese or Robin Williams must feel. I think it would be weird to have people come up to you all the time expecting you to be funny. I can occasionally be very, very funny, but part of it depends on my mood and my audience. I wonder if any of these comedians ever get tired of people assuming that they can be funny 24-7.


When I saw the Dalai Lama last September, someone asked him how we could achieve world peace.

His answer? "I don't know."

My bet is that sometimes, the Dalai Lama would just like someone to ask him what he wants for lunch, and whether he prefers apples or oranges.

Is this what we're coming to?

Last night, I couldn't fall asleep, so I flipped on the tv. It was about 1:00. and I was flipping through some channels. I flipped by late night "Showcase". "Showcase" is a Canadian channel that shows some artsy HBO programming. They show a lot of reruns during the day, and advertise their "Fridays without Borders" which basically means that they show softcore.

Now, I've never really seen a porn. I've seen movies, and have read many books and seen random clips on the Intenet, but have never rented or been around a rented porn movie.

So last night, I was surprised to catch a glimpse of a show called "Porno Valley." It's some kind of reality porn show, featuring porn actresses competing to be "Last Girl Standing." I guess it's also meant to show people more about porn production companies, since they had a few scenes with weirdos coming in off the street wondering how they could star in porn, talking to some of the production people etc.

In some of the "reality" segments, the porn star girls were naked and getting it on with each other. There was a scene in which the girls were supposed to stimulate an all girl orgy with each other. To get past censors, their vaginas were "blotted out" during certain scenes. I found this funny, because, yeah, that blotch really hides EVERYTHING. It's not like I couldn't see that another girl was putting her hand, tongue or other objects inside the blotch.

What really got me were the women's bodies. I'm a straight woman, but I tend to think the naked female body is quite beautiful. I love nudes, both male and female and tasteful nudity in art or film is a plus. (ANd I'm not just talking about Ewan McGregor's bits)

But these women weren't attractive at all to me; they had pneumatic fake breasts which seemed ridiculously out of proportion, no waists or curves and plastic looking faces and skin. I didn't really like their personalities during the "talking" segments, and so that made them even less attractive. Some of them didn't even have butts, just flat asses.

I found these nude bodies really disturbing. Is this what is supposed to be hot? Who is creating and marketing this fantasy?

I think about the Playboy books that came out a few years ago that featured models from the 60s and 70s. We had some at Chapters- There was a blondes, brunettes and a redheads book. I thumbed through them a couple of times. The women had real curves and looked interesting. How have we gone from those women to the women I saw on tv last night?

I know I don't see a lot of naked women, but this porn concept scares me.