Naomi Alderman

I think you probably can't understand modern America and recent elections without understanding that:
1. evangelicals have more kids
2. they vote
3. they sincerely believe that all the Jews have to be in the Holy Land in order to trigger a big war & all convert/die so that Jesus will return

I do think it should not be discounted how much wars in the Middle East are specifically targeted to a very strong, very 'gets out and votes' evangelical bloc in the US.

I think this: "don’t just catch the arrows. Stop the archer" is almost certainly something that comes from Israeli talking points. It has a poetry to it, and Biblical resonance.

She's grabbing onto strong images and using them. But does not apparently feel that she needs an analysis behind that.

I get the impression that she has a particular modern affliction: she is able to assimilate quickly whatever are the 4-5 key points being made on Twitter on a given subject and the 2 facts needed to back them up.

And she thinks that is her job: to attack, not to actually think.

point of order: they did it because they were collectively intellectually incapable of plotting together successfully to make sure James Cleverly got through to the final round.

I mean I guess it all demonstrates that ballet and opera fans can do 'confected offence rage discourse' just as well as eg those people who thought Winston Churchill's statue was under attack.

yeah who knows? I had to turn it off. I thought it was about - felt it was marketed as being about - an annoying do-good student and the teacher who wants to prick her bubble. but maybe that's just in the way that Starship Troopers is about "how great it is to kill the bugs".

she's "annoying" in the way that traumatised victims can be "annoying". will not stop standing up for herself and advocating for herself. can't allow any emotional hinterland in whatever, cannot stop achieving for a moment or she might start thinking about it all.

they have her say that her dad left when she was young and she knows she has 'daddy issues'. in other words she's very vulnerable.

all of her 'good girl' overachieving comes over as a way to protect herself from her emotions about what's happened to her

I think it relies on the audience not immediately going "oh your friend is a rapist". Which I am sure that a large number of the audience in 1999 could be relied on for.

If you never saw it in 1999 (as I never did) and you come to it fresh today, it is *incredibly* about the aftermath of rape.

also what is up with this attic that the moment people spend five minutes in there they are suddenly incredibly thirsty?

Yeah I get that about the other victim, I also felt weird about it. I thought in general it was a good movie - I liked the bit where they went "is that the thing?" "yeah I think that's the thing". I liked the sense of staying close with her experience so she never knows about the other victim.

at least we tell those stories differently now, I guess. even this stupid stupid movie does not go "that teacher seducing me was great and I really did ask for it, and I'm terribly pleased with myself, and also the movie lets us know early on how pleased the teacher was with how wet my pussy gets"

sidenote but: I have now read/watched four things in two months where the inciting incident is "older male teacher seduces/rapes female student"

(this, Margo's Got Money Troubles, Sorry Baby, Bring The House Down)

oh and Election (1999) which I only got through 15 minutes of

yes I am ill at home watching stupid movies.

(also relies on "women have never read Jane Eyre, or seen a movie of it" obvs. which I guess you can do if you are deliberately doing a 'modern take on'. But less so if you're not willing to own it.)

god it would be so much of a better movie if she picked up on all of the *obvious signs* and the script just put her under more specific pressure to go along with it all anyway. and if she were being clever about it but <spoiler> were even more clever.

The Housemaid is one of those 'women movies' that relies on "women are just incredibly stupid" for its plot to basically function.

what happened in the past 12 months or so that made casting from devices to big screens SO much better? I think it's something in iOS maybe, that means it suddenly works without stuttering, doesn't have trouble finding the device, connecting or holding the connection.

“You wanted loans with interest to boost your economic growth. You made the Jews do it and called it “moneylending” thus morally condemning the Jews whose financing you had insisted on to bankroll you own pleasures.”

It’s all very John Berger. “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.”

Not to mention Christian antisemitism is incredibly linked to the ways European Christians used Jews as moneylenders. “We can put the sin over there! They can be the root of all evil!”

I am wondering whether “money is the root of all evil” as a doctrine made the church unusually vulnerable to not being able to perceive priests as child abusers actually. “This person rejects luxury and money, therefore they’re OK re: evil, just can’t happen there.”

Yeah I agree very strongly. It’s a strange little outlier religion compared to global historical norms and that’s invisible to most people because it got so big. It is very unusual to treat belief so seriously that it outweighs practice, ritual and community.

(Every religion has some strange stuff in there. It’s just not great for any religion to be the most powerful one in the world because it’s easy to start thinking that all its kooky beliefs are just “true”.)

“The love of money is the root of all evil” is a very strange doctrine. Like, I am pretty sure the love of money has nothing to do with child abuse.

the teacher at the start has slept with her.

my mistake, I think. the cast and "high school comedy" vibe made me think it would be a cousin of Ferris Bueller.

Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is also on iPlayer, a much better movie to cough and doze to.

no the teacher who gets fired at the start begins by talking about how wet her pussy gets.

I think it is possible that I should not watch any more of this film.