Beer - If You're Tough Enough

Beer

Director: Patrick Kelly

Men will drink the beer that makes them feel more like men. –B.D. Tucker

You have a slight image problem. […] You’re just not black enough. –B.D. Tucker

Whip out your Norbecker. –Merle Draggett

We have a film to make, beer to sell. There’s 220 million Americans out there can’t wait to have their minds twisted and bent. And if I can’t do it, by god, nobody can. –Buzz Beckerman

You did it, honey: you fooled them with a goddamned bottle of beer. What an old fool I am for making movies, making people laugh, cry. It’s crap compared to what you’ve done. –Buzz Beckerman

It was a hell of a ride, B.D., but it just doesn’t seem right anymore. –Merle Draggett

To quote Netflix.com:

With her client's beer sales falling flat, ad agency executive B.D. Tucker (Loretta Swit) is desperately trying to come up with new marketing ideas and senses an opportunity when three losers receive unwarranted credit for preventing a bar from being robbed. The agency quickly hires the overnight heroes for its new campaign -- which turns out to be as successful as it is tasteless. Dick Shawn's send-up of talk-show host Phil Donahue is a must-see.

This movie stars M*A*S*H's Major Houlihan, Boy Meets World's Alan Matthews and Dodgeball's Patches O'Houlihan. It satirizes the advertising industry, a bit like Thank You for Not Smoking and Josie and the Pussycats, both of which came out more than 15 years later.

B.D. Tucker (M*A*S*H's Major Houlihan) is given the task of bolstering beer sales by designing an ad campaign that appeals to the working man. The first spot is an exaggeration of the bar holdup that made the three soon-to-be commercial stars famous. And the subsequent spots depict the men as chauvinistic, sex-crazed "men's men." The more offensive the commercials, the bigger the sales increase.

It makes me think about the commercials of today. It's common knowledge that "sex sells." But today's ad agents  are much more sensitive to political correctness and to walking the fine line of what is sexy to women and what is sexy to men. Products are less and less geared toward one sex, with some exceptions of course (I'm pretty sure the commercials for feminine hygiene products are under no illusions that men give two shakes about them). Even products like perfumes and colognes are less likely to focus on only men or only women as consumers – they often appeal to the opposite sex, aiming to entice purchase for a loved one.

What's the reason for the change to at least political awareness, if not complete political correctness? I believe it's affected, at least in part, by social media and the power of the consumer. While word-of-mouth has always been a factor in brand advertising and credibility, companies now have to worry about word-of-tweet, word-of-Facebook and word-of-blog. One person's negative response to an ad can soon infiltrate the minds of hundreds, thousands or millions of people via social media. Companies have to watch their POVs and react quickly to negative comments left in any number of places. Pissing someone off does a lot more damage today than it did in the '80s.

But, of course, this movie isn't a literal depiction of the advertising world in the '80s; if it were, it wouldn't be considered satire. It is, however, an entertaining caricature of it. While I doubt any agency (or the FCC, for that matter) would allow a commercial with such a blatant allusion to oral sex as is in one of the commercials created in the movie, there isn't much else that they won't do.

My takeaway: We are a media-driven society, often showing our manipulability to others' influence by believing what the advertising agencies tell us we believe, value and stand for. And real men drink Norbecker!

The Red Tent - Dinah's Rite

The Red Tent

Author: Anita Diamant

If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter. –Dinah

My world was filled with mothers and brothers, work and games, new moons and good food. The hills in the distance held my life in a bowl filled with everything I could possibly want. –Dinah

In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month’s death, preparing the body to receive the new month’s life, women give thanks — for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that life costs blood. –Dinah

Amazon.com's description of The Red Tent by Anita Diamant:

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that tell of her father, Jacob, and his twelve sons.

Told in Dinah's voice, Anita Diamant imagines the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of the mothers--Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah--the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through childhood, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past.

I don't really know what to write about this book. There were some beautiful parts: Dinah's first experience with the flowing water of a river; her relationships with her mothers, with Tabea and with Meryt; her love for her son. But there were some very disturbing moments, as well: the few references to men fornicating with uncooperative sheep; the ceremony that takes place when a virginal woman experiences her first menstruation cycle; the vicious slaughter of a whole palace of people.

These moments – especially the first blood ceremony – left me feeling uncomfortable and voyeuristic. Sure, the whole book could essentially make the reader feel like a voyeur – and really, couldn't any first-person narrative be considered voyeuristic, when you get down to it? – seeing into the life of the narrator and the lives of her family. But this was different… it was… private. And the customs of Biblical Israel are far from the American culture I am part of today. What happens today when a girl first gets her period? She's shown how to use a sanitary pad and a tampon and told that heating pads and Midol can help with the cramps. Though there are still some women who "celebrate" their daughters' first period with a day of pampering and bonding, it's certainly not the trend I'm used to.

But this ritual was far more invasive. And the first blood was reserved to offer to the gods of the women, which makes me incredibly happy that my God does not require such – for lack of a better word – gross sacrifices from me. It’s hard for me to see the ritual in the book as anything but "weird." I know that my objectiveness is clouded by my grounding, to use a word from my linguistics studies in college. Because of who I am and what my personal experiences have been, it is not easy to approach such different rituals as a normal practice.

There is, of course, a lot more to the book than a ritualistic rite of passage for a young woman. The book expands on the life of a character who is afforded very little mention in the Bible as I know it. The author takes liberties and creates a realistic life for her narrator, with the ups and downs, tragedies and victories we all experience in a lifetime, proving her prowess as a Historic Novelist. I can see why Anita Diamant has received such recognition for the book, even if it won't be making my list of re-reads.

My takeaway: There is beauty and power in storytelling – it was the duty of the daughters in Biblical Israel to carry their mother's stories as legacy; Dinah, being the only daughter of her father's four wives, was granted the gift and burden of carrying all four women's stories as well as her own. And we have come a long way in menstruation sanitation... thankfully.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - HeLa lives!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Author: Rebecca Skloot

HeLa cells were one of the most important things that happened to medicine in the last hundred years. –Donald Defler

This was the era of Jim Crow – when black people showed up at white-only hospitals, the staff was likely to send them away, even if it meant they might die in the parking lot.
–Rebecca Skloot

I started imagining her sitting in her bathroom painting those toenails, and it hit me for the first time that those cells we’d been working with all this time and sending all over the world, they came from a live woman. I’d never thought of it that way. –Mary Kubicek

Henrietta was chosen… And when the Lord chooses an angel to do his work, you never know what they going to come back looking like. –Gary Lacks

Amazon.com:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Henrietta Lacks. I’d honestly never heard of her before I read this book, at least not that I could recall. It sometimes boggles my mind to think that someone or something that is so important in the big picture of life can be so far from my exposure. If she were so important, why hadn't I heard of her? That, of course, just makes me realize how small I am and how large this world really is. Big names in my corner of the world mean nothing to other people, just as big names in, say, physics or gymnastics or militia or forensic psychology mean nothing to me. I’m not sure I can even adequately describe the feeling… incredible, really.

I could have gone my whole life not knowing the name Henrietta Lacks (or HeLa!), even as the advances in science attributed to those cells touched my life. And yet because of this project, I was introduced to her -- incredible both in life and after it -- and my mind has been opened up and exposed to the innumerable things scientists and geneticists can do with a few simple cells. Well, “simple” is probably the wrong word. From what remarkably (and embarrassingly) little I remember from high school science classes, cells aren’t exactly simple.

My point, though, is that I learned something with this book. Sure, I like to think that I learn something from every book I read, but let’s be honest; there’s only so much you can “learn” from a Mary Higgins Clark or Janet Evanovich book. Don’t get me wrong: these two ladies are fantastic storytellers and I’d likely be reading their collected works if not for this project. But those books are purely entertaining and not so much what I’d call “educational.” This book, however, was equally well-written and it made me think.

I still know very little about science or cell mutations or how scientists use her reproducing cancerous cells to perform so many tests and come to so many conclusions. What I do know is that they do use them still today. The cytologists and geneticists and oncologists and epidemiologists continue to use those cells to discover valuable information that touches humanity. And if a cure to cancer is ever found, you can be certain that HeLa cells played a part. I don’t need to know how or why or when they helped; I just have to know that they did.

But this book isn’t just a dry dive into the world of cytologists. Rebecca Skloot set out with this book to introduce the world not only to the cells but to the woman who unknowingly contributed those cells to the world. And though Henrietta has been dead for many, many years, Rebecca used every resource at her disposal – and many of those resources came only with patience and persistence – to piece together what little is known of this woman. She also depicted for the reader Henrietta’s living relatives, warts and all. I think her biggest goal – and ultimately, her most successfully completed one – was to show the humanity in the cells and in the story.

The quote above from Mary Kubicek, one of the workers in the first lab to handle and reproduce the HeLa cells, proves just that. It is one of my favorite quotes of the book. Scientists, used to living in a microcosm where specimens are de-humanized may not always associate a living, breathing person with the cells in their petri dishes.

My takeaway: So many wonderful advances in science and medicine were made due, at least in part, to Henrietta Lacks, a woman who did not know she was donating cells to the cause, and whose family finally came to understand Henrietta’s legacy due, at least in part, to the intervention of Rebecca Skloot. And sometimes all it takes is one woman to change the lives of many – thank you, Henrietta; and thank you, Rebecca.

Freakonomics - Feelings of Superiority and Inadequacy

Freakonomics: Revised Edition

Authors: Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work; whereas economics represents how it actually does work. –Stephen Dubner

If you learn how to look at data in the right way, you can explain riddles that otherwise might have seemed impossible. Because there is nothing like the sheer power of numbers to scrub away layers of confusion and contradiction. –Stephen Dubner

It wasn’t gun control or a strong economy or new police strategies that finally blunted the American crime wave. It was, among other factors, the reality that the pool of potential criminals had dramatically shrunk. –Stephen Dubner

When people aren't compelled to pay the full costs of their actions, they have little incentive to change their behavior. –Stephen Dubner

Amazon.com describes Freakonomics:

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? How much do parents really matter?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.

I listened to the audible.com version of this book, read by one of its authors, Stephen J. Dubner. A few times while listening to it, I experienced a bit of déjà vu. A few years ago I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, which also uses data to examine questions I’d never thought to ask but wish I had. Books like Gladwell’s (Blink and Outliers are two of his other works) and Freakonomics are fascinating to read. I have a hard time putting into words exactly how they make me feel, but it’s somewhere between ravenous and insufficient. Listening to even ten minutes of any of these works makes me hungry for more – I can’t seem to stop, as if I’m consumed by a need to find out more, delve deeper, eat up every word dropped from the mouth of the author.

But as fascinated as I am by everything they say, I find myself feeling completely insufficient as a human being. Why hadn't I looked at these questions in this way? Why hadn't I thought to ask them? How is it that everything they say sounds so obvious, yet they’re the first person to have broached the question and gotten those exact results? When will I find the magic question and answer that propels me to the status of Levitt and Gladwell? For surely there has to be some as yet unasked question with as yet un-examined data that will clearly lead me down the path to discovery.

I listened to every second of Dubner’s 6 hour and 55 minute reading of the revised edition of his book, eyes wide and mouth agape head shaking and nodding furiously with each point he made. I marveled at the simplicity of the words and the complexity of the data. Yes, of course the legalization of abortion in the 70s aided in the decrease of crime in the late 80s and 90s. Yes, of course sumo wrestlers are driven by the same motivation as schoolteachers to cheat. Yes of course realtors will undersell your house more often than not.

Rationally, of course, I know that everything Dubner says and Levitt determines can likely be argued against by economists of a different school of approach. But data presentation can be mesmerizing to someone not constantly surrounded by it. And I was sucked in from minute one.

I checked out some of the reviews of the book, post-listen, on Audible.com, from whence I’d downloaded it. The first one is titled "Good, but be careful." I didn't have to read the review to know what the writer was warning against. It’s easy to be pulled into Levitt’s and Dubner’s point of view because that is the one being presented. It is much harder to listen objectively and realize that everything – even cold, hard data – can be seen and explained from more than one angle. Heck, Dubner even says something to that effect within the book!

The second review that appears is titled "Interesting yet lacks unity." Now this subject-line made me laugh: Dubner flat-out says in the introduction that this book does not have a unifying theme. He says there is no thread that runs through each subject matter attacked, unless you count "Odd Questions Asked & Answered" as a theme. There is no single rigid approach to the data or subjects addressed – the book tackles education, Sumo wrestling, gangs, drugs, real estate, crime control and the importance of parents, among other things.

If, my friend, you choose to read this book – or to listen to it, as I did – go into it knowing two things: 1) it will lack unity; and 2) it will make you feel both incredibly intelligent and sufficiently stupid at the same time. I don’t know how you will respond to that combination, but I for one, loved it, and I’m pretty sure I now hold the keys to the universe and to the void, keys for which I will never find the right locks.

My takeaway: Sometimes it takes more than having the right answers – it takes asking the right questions! And yesterday’s 'Britney' is tomorrow’s 'Waverly.'

Gone with the Wind - Adaptation at its Best (or at least not its worst)

Gone with the Wind

Director: Victor Fleming

What gentlemen says and what they thinks is two different things. –Mammy

With enough courage, you can do without a reputation. –Rhett

As God is my witness they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this… as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again. –Scarlett

I’m not in love with you anymore than you are with me. Heaven help the man whoever really loves you. –Rhett

She’s the only dream I've ever had that didn't die in the face of reality. –Ashley

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. –Rhett

I’m not sure I need to post the Netflix description of this movie, since I included a description of the book only a two posts ago, but I’m not one to stray from tradition, so here it you go:

Director Victor Fleming's 1939 epic adaption of Margaret Mitchell's novel of the same name stars Vivien Leigh as self-absorbed, headstrong Scarlett O'Hara, a Southern Belle who meets her match in Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) just as the Civil War breaks out. Living on a large cotton plantation called Tara in rural Georgia in 1861, Scarlett sees her beloved home and life as she knows it go up in flames -- but will her true love be lost too?

I can understand why people take to the movie so much. Had I not read the book, I might have even liked the story of Scarlett and Rhett and Ashley. Whoever it was that adapted the book to make the movie made some wise decisions in choosing which parts to cut. There are, of course, some choices I would question, but overall, the scenes included portrayed a very different Scarlett than the one presented in the book.

While some minor characters were not included in the movie version, the writer and casting director did a great job working with the ones that were kept. The best two characters – minor though they are – are Aunt Pittypat and Prissy. These two women added some timely humor and color whenever they entered the scenes.

One contention I had with the characters was Melanie. While I like that she was portrayed as a much stronger person mentally and emotionally in the movie than she was in the book, I didn't care much for the way the actress feigned weakness, grasping feebly onto railings, furniture or people every time she tried to move. Melanie is supposed to be a delicate creature, no doubt. But the way it came across, at least to me, was that Melanie was capable but chose to act otherwise. The pain and weakness that should have been written on her face wasn't there, making it look like she was just being lazy, not struggling against herself to do something she was not physically able to do. I don't know whether I should fault the actor for not being convincing or the director for not demanding more intensity.

There was one aspect of the movie that I found extremely lacking realism – akin to Melanie’s facial display of strain – that I felt actually did work to the story's advantage. Throughout the movie, the actors were set against ridiculously fake backdrops. Yet, as unbelievable as they were, they somehow seemed fitting. Maybe it’s because, had they been more realistic, the movie would have been downright depressing: the grays of a war-torn country, the blood and fire and smoke, the permeation of death, despair and poverty. More realistic scenes would have darkened the mood of the movie, serving to remind the viewer that the war was real, as were the poor combat conditions, the emaciated soldiers, the towns' scarcity of clothing, food and even living conditions. All of these sights would have detracted from the love story, which, at its simplest, Gone with the Wind truly is. I think the bright reds and yellows of the bold backdrops served to add to the romance, the rapture, the heat of the story. Not only that, but it somehow added a softness that the book often lacked, particularly to Scarlett. For even a character as sharp and selfish as Scarlett can benefit from good lighting.

However, even lighting did not make me warm to the interactions between Scarlett and Ashley. Every time they came on the screen, I cringed. The immaturity in the love they claimed to feel for each other, especially in contrast to the genuine love Rhett obviously held for Scarlett, angered me. I never bought into the story that he was her one true love or that they were meant to be together, each suffering silently (or, in Scarlett's case, not so silently). I think it was perhaps worse in the movie than the book, where Ashley’s love was concerned. The movie contained a few scenes where Ashley appeared to genuinely love Melanie. He rushed to her, kissed her, hugged her, all unprompted. So the viewer could foresee his epiphany that Melanie was the "only dream" he’d ever had that didn't "die in the face of reality"; it made sense. The book, however, showed Ashley as less openly affectionate toward Melanie – always instead showing her as the initiator of physical contact. Quite honestly, neither of those takes on the love triangle worked for me. Was it better when I could see Ashley's love for Melanie while he claimed love for Scarlett (movie), or was it better when I was led to believe Ashley only feigned interest in his wife while he stoically pined for Scarlett (book)? I don’t know – the end result was the same: disgust for both characters.

My takeaway: Sometimes a movie, with its decisions of when to adhere to and when to deviate from a book’s realism or character development, can be more satisfying than the book. And I still hate Scarlett… and Ashley.

Duck Soup - Followed by Naptime

Duck Soup

Director: Leo McCarey

Hail, hail to Freedonia! Land of the brave and free! –crowd

Mister you no understand. Look, he’s a spy and I’m a spy, he work-a for me. I want him to find out-a something, but he no find out what I wanna find out. Now how am I gonna find out what I wanna find out if he no find out what I gotta find out? –Chicolini

           –Pinky

Gentleman, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot. But don’t let that fool you; he really is an idiot. –Rufus T. Firefly

The Netflix description of Duck Soup:

Thanks to the patronage of well-heeled widow Mrs. Teasdale, Rufus T. Firefly becomes a dictator of the tiny country of Freedonia. But when the ambassador of the bordering nation of Sylvania declares his love for Mrs. Teasdale, Firefly declares war. The Marx Brothers are at their sidesplitting best in this raucous political satire, in which Chico, Harpo and Zeppo co-star as spies and counterspies.

This was my first Marx Brothers movie. And it exhausted me. Their style of quick wit and quick bits left my head spinning as I tried to catch up again and again. I’m absolutely sure I missed some funny comment, a double meaning and a sidelong glance or two.

I don’t know anything about the Marx Brothers except that they’re funny. So I don’t know if the roles given to each of them are typical of their careers. I don’t even know if Harpo, who played Pinky in this film, is always mute in his appearances. I chose not to investigate them further until I’d experienced the movie. I feel like there is so much information available out there on anything and everything, that it’s sometimes nice to ignore it all and go in with a completely open mind. The over-inundation can be very distracting when trying to enjoy art for art’s sake.

This movie reminded me, at times, of any number of cartoons. The scene in particular where there are three characters dressing alike, all interacting with the same person but in very different styles, looked like it was pulled straight from an episode of Looney Tunes. Pinky dresses up like Rufus T. Firefly but remains silent; Chicolini dresses up like Rufus T. Firefly but speaks with an Italian accent; and Rufus T. Firefly appears in the scene as himself, not knowing that Pinky or Chicolini has been imitating him to Mrs. Teasdale just moments before.

This leaves Mrs. Teasdale thoroughly confused, as she is presented with each of these versions of Rufus T. Firefly, and tries to assimilate in her mind how the three versions fit together as one whole person, for of course she does not know or question that it is not the same person she keeps interacting with. This is something unlikely to happen in real life, as most people would be able to distinguish one person from another, no matter how similarly they are dressed. But of course, this movie is not exactly striving for realism.

Exhausting and unrealistic as this movie was, I had a great time watching it… rewinding sections… and re-watching for clarification. This post is short because I'm still trying to stop my head from spinning. Hail, hail to Freedonia!

My takeaway: In movies, as in life, wars of many scales can be waged, won, lost or ended by a woman. And when you can’t think of anything else to say, object!

Gone with the Wind - My Scarlett Rant

Gone with the Wind

Author: Margaret Mitchell

I love you, Scarlett. Because we are so much alike – renegades, both of us, dear. And selfish rascals. Neither of us cares a rat if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we’re safe and comfortable. –Rhett

God intended women to be timid, frightened creatures. And there’s something unnatural about a woman who isn’t afraid. Scarlett, always save something to fear, even as you save something to love. –Grandma Fontaine

Babies, babies, babies. Why did God make so many babies? But no, God didn't make them. Stupid people made them. – Scarlett O'Hara

And, you, Miss, are no lady. –Rhett

I'll start with the story's description, as found on Wikipedia [for such a renowned and widely-read book, it is hard to find a "description" of the book that sticks to the story's content and doesn't instead focus on the popularity of the book or the praise of its author:

The story is setin Clayton County, Georgia and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and depicts the experiences of Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of the well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to come out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.

Never have I hated a protagonist as much as I hate Scarlett O’Hara. “Hate is a strong word,” you say? Then I’ve chosen correctly. Without fail, every time I felt her renewing herself with a thought or an action, she said or did or thought something to the contrary that just made me remember how strongly I hated her.

I chose the audio version of this book due to its length. And for a brief, fleeting moment, I thought perhaps it was the reader’s depiction of Scarlett’s voice or haughtiness that appalled me. But, it was not. The words, no matter whose voice read them, were the same.

I often found myself yelling at the recording as I drove to or from work, to or from a doctor’s appointment, to or from my parents’ house. I yelled at Scarlett; I yelled at Ashley; I yelled at Margaret Mitchell. I wanted to know how she could create such a horrible, horrible protagonist and such a god-awful supporting character (for I hate Ashley almost as much as I hate Scarlett, but more on him later).

Never have I read a character more selfish, manipulative, shallow and downright evil as Scarlett O'Hara. She does maybe two things in the whole book that do not somehow benefit her – and even those things, I’m sure, were done accidentally. Even at the end when she finally realizes how very much she loved, needed and depended on the dying Melanie, Scarlett’s thoughts scream out to God to know why he has done such a cruel thing to her, Scarlett, by taking away her friend. Not even on Melly’s deathbed does Scarlett allow the celestial spotlight to be removed from her head.

And then there’s Ashley. I tried to like him. I tried to appreciate the fact that he shunned Scarlett’s love in favor of his morals, as he was first an engaged, and then a married man. I yelled at Scarlett that he didn’t really love her and she needed to get over him and let him be. She was so convinced that he loved her and wanted her and would do anything for her, that he was silently suffering because of his upbringing and moral integrity. And I tried to tell her she was wrong.

And then came wood-splitting Scene where Ashley, irresistible to Scarlett’s charms and apparently finally giving in to his suppressed desires, takes her in his arms and kisses her and professes his love for her. And that’s when I lost all respect for Ashley and deemed him almost as wretched as Scarlett herself.

This book is always touted as one of the greatest love stories of all time. I’m not entirely sure if this supposed love affair is supposed to be between Scarlett and Ashley or Scarlett and Rhett or Melanie and Ashley. Each of these affairs ends in tragedy. But as far as I’m concerned, the only true love affair in this book is Scarlett’s love affair with herself.

My takeaway: Just as the saying goes, there are two sides to every story, and there are two sides to every war; the American Civil War is no different, in that the only point of view I remember being taught as a legitimate one was that of the Union – the winning side, and the side with which I’ve most associated with – which makes it hard to remember that the Confederates felt just as strongly about their own views, and saw the Union as ones in the wrong. And Scarlett is a bitch.