Light and hearty observations from a fat and ugly guy. Home of hackneyed drivel and ersatz-existentialist effluence. Choleric biliousness a specialty, since 1958.

Emmanuelle Beart or some Old Fart? Choisissez!

So I see this movie Searching for Debra Winger: a documentary created by song-inspiring ("Rosanna" by Toto), rock-star-dating (Peter Gabriel) actress Rosanna Arquette. In the film, Arquette talks to talented actresses, women of a certain age, who variously muse, complain, explain, whinge, and/or pontificate about the lack of parts in movies for women over 40...due to, um, sexism, objectification of women, obsessiveness with breast size and youth, blah blah blah.

These yentas gab on and on, so earnest and serious and completely blithe to the real issue which is: studio movies have but one purpose, and that's to make money. Studio films are demographically targeted young, because older people don't go to movies much. And younger audiences, particularly guys, generally like to look at younger women. Ya think?

Here's a test: which of these two faces would you prefer to look at during the course of a 2 1/2 hour movie? Think hard. If you need to take an extra minute to make up your mind--by all means, do so:


Thought so.

In fact, the real issue here is that the "Winger" actresses are spoilt goods. Their prior Hollywood experience got them used to all the trappings associated with high-dollar movie making: the make-up/hair assistants and the trailer and the catering and the limos and the premieres and on and on ad nauseum. The whining is really because all that is no longer being laid at their doorstep.

Ladies, ever hear of "independent films"? Interesting scripts, great characters, freedom from sexist producers and studios obsessed with breast size. Here now, my modest suggestion: get off your formerly perfect but now, with age, slightly enlarged and sagging rear ends, and make a frigging movie on your own! If you wanted, you could even make an independent film featuring lots of really old actresses. You know: using "Depends", taking out their teeth, playing bingo, breaking their hip, smelling of that "grandmother smell"...the sky's the limit, because (and here's the risky bit, sweethearts, the "put your money where your mouth is" part)--you control the content, but you also bear the responsibility for the success or failure of the picture.

Oh, and btw, Rosanna? If Emmanuelle Beart (who for some inexplicable reason is in your film, and is the lovely creature pictured above at left) would like a personal, deep, probing consultation relative to this topic, I will happily oblige. Have her peeps call me--I'm in the book.

Otherwise, you know what you can do--buff my scrotum.

posted by Nigel St.John Regina Smegmatica Howle-Raines @ 9:50 AM