In the pink?: The NFL and women’s health

September 27, 2014

Oct. 1 begins Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and as usual the NFL will be up to its helmets in pink paraphernalia. But pardon me if it’s seems more than a tad hypocritical this year with all the domestic abuse scandals rocking the league.

It’s great that the NFL is concerned about advertisers, er, women getting cancer. But a woman with a cracked skull might have more immediate concerns, you know?

In the meantime, domestic abuse organizations are keeping up the pressure. Hope’s Door in Pleasantville recently issued a “Call to Action” as we mark the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act.

“Unfortunately, the recent horrific incidents involving the NFL remind us that domestic violence continues to be a major societal problem that can no longer be ignored,” said Jane Aoyama-Martin, executive director of The Pace Women’s Justice Center said. “I am encouraged by the public outrage, since years ago it would have been swept under the rug and ignored.” ...

Is soccer playing the gender card?

September 22, 2014

The NFL domestic abuse narrative took a twist Saturday as that other “football” game – soccer – got into the act.

Or didn’t. Hope Solo – goalie for the U.S. national women’s team – extended her shutout record to 73 even as she’s facing charges of punching her sister and 17-year-old nephew at a late-night, alcohol-fueled party, leaving them with head and face injuries. (Ironically, she was involved in an incident in which her husband, former football player Jerramy Stevens, allegedly assaulted her. A judge dismissed the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence.)

This as Roger Goodell...

Lassie came home

August 18, 2014

Like a star who’s found new life in the age of the Internet, Lassie’s on the comeback trail as pitchdog and charity ambassador. And I’m among the millions who are thrilled.

As with many a boomer, I grew up with the TV series (1954-73), still in syndication, and the various movies that found their way to the tube. And, not surprisingly, I had a Lassie and later on Lassie 2.0, whom we called Sassy. (Yes, I know, lame, but I loved that dog, who was a rescue, and all the animals we had and ah!, don’t get me started.)

I also had the pleasure of interviewing Bob Weatherwax – son of dog trainer Rudd Weatherwax – whose pooch, Pal, played “Lassie” in the 1943 film “Lassie Come Home.” Bob told me fascinating stuff about how trainers use physical commands to elicit seemingly emotional responses from canine actors. He also confirmed what is one of the most intriguing aspects of Lassie...

Is new PBS series a ‘Vicious’ stereotype?

June 29, 2014

In the show “Vicious,” which bows on PBS Sunday, June 29, Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Ian McKellen play two bitchy old queens, for want of a better description – indeed the Britcom was originally titled “Vicious Old Queens” – who’ve been lovers for 50 years.

Both are among the greatest actors of this or any century and long out of the closet. And the series was picked up in its native England for a second season. But some critics complained – and some here wonder – whether it plays into gay stereotypes, or whether we’re all too sensitive to political correctness.

“It’s actually a sign that we’ve all matured, and now it’s perfectly respectable to have an exaggerated, farcical representation of two people who are gay,” McKellen said in Dave Itzkoff’s piece for the June 29 New York Times’ Arts & Leisure section. “And for us to accept that they can be figures of fun, just in the same way as a farce about straight people would be.”

Maybe so, but I asked myself...

The rose and the sword: Laurel Gouveia, an appreciation

June 17, 2014

The arrival in movie theaters of the film “Maleficent” marks the return of the archetype – cliché might be a better word – of the Wicked Stepmother but with a twist.

Post-feminist Hollywood is no dummy. It knows in the 21st-century that its filmmakers cannot afford to reinforce the sexist notion of the older woman out to get the Pretty Young Thing, which is the basis of “Cinderella,” “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty.” So there has to be a subplot about how the Pretty Young Thing’s daddy did Maleficent wrong when she was a pretty young thing.

You can revise a fairy tale to make the villain more of an antiheroine. You cannot, however, change history. The classic fairy tales, like much of culture, were created by men, who have feared the power of women, particularly the power of older women.

As they age, women develop a certain wisdom, a sophisticated, fluid sexuality – to say nothing of a disposable income. They’re no longer waiting to be rescued or impregnated by men, if indeed they ever were. They are free, and that’s powerful and frightening, particularly to the sex that has always held all the toys in the sandbox.

Because of their bodily cycles, women remain, though, the more visible reminder that we are all, if we’re lucky, going to get old. And we’re all going to die. Men don’t like that. With the Pretty Young Thing, they can pretend to be virile forever. With the powerful Crone archetype, eh, not so much.

I’ve been thinking a lot about stepmothers and female archetypes this past weekend with the passing of my own stepmother, Laurel Gouveia, after a long illness.

On ‘Words and Pictures’ – and words and pictures at The Lionheart Gallery

May 21, 2014

We’re all patterns in the universe, swimmer Daniel Reiner-Kahn reasons in my new novel “Water Music.” But sometimes it’s only when we’re at the end of a journey – maybe even life’s journey – that we understand how the strands came together. At other times, we recognize how the strands fit as they’re being woven.

Last week, I had an onstage conversation with film critic Marshall Fine at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck, N.Y. about the relationship between language and images after a screening of “Words and Pictures,” which opens this Friday, May 23. It’s the story of a tempestuous rivalry between a prickly artist (Juliette Binoche) and a showoff writer (Clive Owen). Four days later, the writer (me) and the artist (David Hutchinson) came together more happily at a reading from “Water Music” at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge. After, I opened up the floor for a discussion about David’s paintings and drawings there, which are based on the perverse writings of Jean Genet.

First, a few words about “Words and Pictures,” a rather contrived but nonetheless absorbing movie about a love-hate relationship that sparks a contest between the artist’s students and the writer’s. It occurred to me after that the only arena in which men and women compete is the intellectual one.

Leaning in – and falling over

May 17, 2014

So what do we think? Is Shelly Sterling in cahoots with disgraced hubby Donald to retain ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers by divorcing him and secretly allowing him to run the team?

Or is she a woman who recognizes her moment and, sensing his vulnerability, has decided to divorce him and make a power play for control of the team?

“I think the latter,” a male friend said the other night over dinner.

OK, so Shelly Sterling is seeking to become the principal owner – the team is actually owned by a family trust – at the moment when two women have lost prominent journalism positions. Jill Abramson was dismissed as the first female executive editor of The New York Times May 14 while Natalie Nougayrède, the first female editor of France’s Le Monde, announced she was stepping down from her post. And while Abramson apparently confronted her bosses about making less in salary and benefits than previous executive editor Bill Keller, the bottom line in both cases is that she and Nougayrède were considered controlling bosses who had lost the confidence of their employees.

But were they really controlling bosses, or were they perceived to be controlling bosses, because we expect women to be the “nice” sex?