Yaaas! Like how Thomas Jane’s character grabs the 8D truck battery and RUNS up the stairs with it. Or how the helicopter can’t vertically lift the guy on the stretcher out of the water because all of a sudden helicopters can only fly horizontally. Or how they can’t wear the life jackets because they would take them to…

And Bette Midler sings in the background my grandma’s fave song: “You are the Pit Beneath My Wings.”

Speaking of peak whiteness....

I hadn’t heard about the weekend warrior idiots that you mention, but I did read that some of the people who go to Chernobyl to live are deserters from the Russian military because they prefer the radiation to the extreme, brutal hazing.

She’s making me think of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. How great would it be if the alien burst out of Barry’s chest at the end?

Or: Oh to be Young.... :-)

Or Zoe Saldana in black face.

I was impressed with how the author confronted the openly racists travellers—Not sure I’d do that, especially since they were drunk. But why didn’t he confront the allies just as strongly like you said? Instead he admits they walked away thinking they had some great, validating part in his anti-racist take-down. His…

When I was sixteen a counselor at school tried the same thing with me that you describe. I was an outsider at school but at least I had the brains to enlist the help of other girls to make sure I was never alone with the guy. They stepped up to the plate to help me and so did their boyfriends, but the girls put the…

Along similar lines is: Too bad you’re so linear.

Thanks! It was kind of funny after I realized how he’d taken it. But what’s weird to me now is that when I told other women that story at the time, they’d laugh, too, but say, “Oh, that’s just So-and-So, he’s a sleazebag,” and act like I needed to toughen up, I was still wet-behind-the-ears about what life was like…

Of course sometimes it’s more than looks. In one of my first jobs my employer’s husband followed me around like a puppy making compliments and trying to flirt. I told him flat out “I don’t flirt.” His response? “Everyone flirts. And you saying you don’t flirt is the cutest flirting ever.”

How about “nice sweater” versus “niiiiiice....sweater.” With a long, X-ray look in between the words.

I haven’t seen The Last Jedi and have no interest in seeing it from everything I’ve read about it, particularly all of your points in this thread. But the movie you describe here I would watch in a heartbeat. Give us the old archetypal hero and the new/nuanced grey antihero to play off each other. THAT would be a…

This was delightfully written and a joy to read. Thank you.

Many people including Trump might suffer from generic white-man racism as Damon says here, but I think there’s more going on. Racists are often narcissists and narcissists don’t lie like other people. They weaponize lying.

This is actually why I feel that The Last Jedi (and other movies that are supposedly pro-female) are anti-feminist. It’s as if the only way a woman can hold her own is if she’s perfect and all the men around her are weak and flawed and have to be helped in some way. No way could a woman hold her own if she was flawed…

Yeah, now that you mention it, that is rom-com “gold.” And thanks. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, right?

Agreed. I’m neither a fan or hater where Oprah is concerned. I’ve somehow managed to rarely ever see much of her or know much about her. So if we’re only going to go by the photo, Oprah’s body language is not shoving the girl at HW. The girl is pressing against Oprah, O has her hand on the girl’s in a comforting, or…

Thank you for saying this. Now I know to look for all of this writer’s articles with the trust that they will be as remarkable as this one.