That was the phrase that woke me at 6:22 AM.
Actually, to provide some mitigating context, I woke up with a filmography of Katherine Heigl parading across my semi-conscious mind; the last item before the appearance of this world undissolved was "The Big Lebowski". It turns out my semi-consciousness is neither reliable nor a big reader of the IMDB. In 1998, it was Julianne Moore who played the beautiful female lead in yet another hilarious, "quirky", and lucrative Hollywood blockbuster. Katherine Heigl was probably not even old enough to drink at that time.
Anyway, it seems more important to address my semi-conscious mind's potential as a racist than its poor fact-checking abilities, so let us move on. As I woke, the realization that Katherine Heigl was young and pretty and starring in a lot of movies - albeit it now turns out, NOT The Big Lebowski - struck my just aroused mind as infuriating. I have nothing against lovely young starlets, but the formulaic nature of Hollywood films, its sexism, ageism, heterocentrism, and copy-cat-ism, all seemed, at the nubile hour of 6:22 AM to represent the very essence of the decay of Western civilization.
After another moment, I realized it's more like the bedrock of capitalism. Sex sells. Young women are considered sexier in America. It's true that older actresses have lately been cast in more than just supporting roles ("As Good As It Gets" ironippropiately comes to mind), coincident with the terms MILF and Cougar. However, as a nation, Hollywood is a far cry from, say, the BBC, or the French, for casting interesting-looking people of all ages in non-cookie-cutter roles.
(Incidentally, if anyone can define the age range of these terms referring to the sexual desirability of older women, please share your knowledge with the rest of us... I can't figure out where a 40 year old female scientist would fall on this spectrum and the lack of an appropriate label is very disconcerting.)
Where do the Jews come in? I'm terribly embarrassed to say that once, many MANY years ago - possibly in 1998 - I overhead someone use a phrase along the lines of "the Jewish autocracy" when referring to the movers and shakers in the California movie industry. It had something to do with the "ethnic" names attached to some of the prominent studios and influential movie executives. It's not my fault I overhead this label, but I have to take responsibility for the concept lodging itself deep enough in my neural circuits that it could be coughed out of the synaptic recesses of my mind some twenty years later.
So while "The Big Lebowski" was being revealed as utterly lacking Katherine Heigl, I mourned for the Julianne Moores of this world, whose prospects for leading roles inversely correlate with their experience, and then for a film industry where a movie about a bowling alley bum is considered avant garde and finally, for the American public whose brains wither as we speak, in multiplexes across this great land.
Why can't we have genuinely creative movies? Character actors? Non-predictable plots? The Jews, my mind said, frustrated and ill-advisedly, are BORING.
In the non-light of 6:52 AM (it's January in Seattle... even if it is dawn, I would have no idea, thanks to the 364/24/7 cloud cover that shields us all from overdosing on vitamin D or those of us with Celtic ancestry from losing that silvery shade of white that can be seen from space), my second thought was: "what a bizarrely racist statement" - so naturally I compounded the evil by blogging about it.
I amend my waking thoughts for political correctness and accuracy: the conservative, wealthy, largely white men who run Hollywood... are BORING.
PS Katherine Heigl was 20 in 1998 - not old enough to drink. Take THAT anal fact-checkers of people who dream up stupid shit. Also that makes her 32. Not a 20-something starlet. So good on you, Katherine Heigl, and all that makeup that allows the lens to believe you are still a dewy 20-something. Poor Julianne Moore has to rely on botox.
PPS Hollywood insider malcontents speak up here: http://fadeinonline.com/articles/minority-report/
