Crazy White Folks

With the state of white America in a frenzy still over the Obama--Gates--Crowley beer summit, which is merely symptomatic of the real issue: "the inexorable transformation of America into a white-minority country in some 30 years — by 2042 in the latest Census Bureau estimate." This transformation is causing serious jitters, if not panic, in some white people's bodie, according to Frank Rich in this morning's New York Times. These notions that the Republicans have to defeat Obama rather than save the nation's economy, I believe, are linked to this premise that white men have to make sure that a man of color does not succeed as president, especially where they have botched everything up.

However, as Linda, as irate partygoer at a 60th birthday celebration quipped last night: Obama's half white. Don't we get some credit for his genius and extraordinary talent? Afterall, he was raised by his white mother and white grandparents!

Frank Rich continues: The birth-certificate canard is just the latest version of those campaign-year attempts to strip Obama of his American identity with faux controversies over flag pins, the Pledge of Allegiance and his middle name. Last summer, Cokie Roberts of ABC News even faulted him for taking a vacation in his home state of Hawaii, which she described as a “foreign, exotic place,” in contrast to her proposed choice of Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the real America of Dixie.

Perhaps this will placate nervous white people: the entire cast from the Seinfeld series will be reuniting this season on Curb Your Enthusiasm, according to creator and world's number one cranky Jewish guy, Larry David. This year's script "theme" is the reunion, and members of the cast will appear in five episodes. Will that make it better?

Whatever Works Doesn't

Woody Allen's new film, Whatever Works, brings Larry David into the character once held by Woody himself, and the similarity between the two men becomes all too familiar very early. Obviously Allen has had an enormous influence on David (who appeared in minor roles in two prior Allen films before Larry gained his reputation as co-creator of Seinfeld and then creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm).

This is essentially a film, clever in parts, about cranky, old Jewish men obsessed with death and existentialism, but with stagnant and infantile sexual fantasies about beautiful, young, stupid women whom they insult by feeling superior and don't miss an opportunity to admit throughout the film.

Now when Woody was younger, i.e. in the Annie Hall days, which I just rewatched and let me tell you, it held up and is still a delight, his fascination with stunning women, the schlemiel and the beauty, was humorous. The short, unattractive, but brilliant Jewish man and his shiksa--Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow-- made for the humor that made America laugh in the 1970s. We all adored him, because inside we were as insecure as Woody, perhaps not as funny, however.

But now, with Woody Allen at the age of 74, and Larry David, his alterego in the film at 61, this obsession with stupid, beautiful women over whom they have magical powers, it isn't funny. It's closer to pathetic.

Don't get me wrong: there is some interesting writing, some surprises in plot, and Patricia Clarkson is dynamite. But it's all about male fantasies, and frankly, since 1965, when he wrote his first screenplay, What's New Pussycat?, we have seen the same Woody Allen film over and over (except for Match Point). And as an aging woman myself, that he hasn't changed his obsession is illustrative of what's wrong with male-dominated media: women as crones are discarded, invisible, disappeared.

Well, Woody, I'm very much here, as are my beautifully aging friends, who happen to be less rigid, none of whom are cranky, and who seem more delighted in the freedom of aging than the men you portray in your films. And the cruelty of the Larry David character is not cute, it's misogynistic. I adore Curb Your Enthusiasm, but taking Larry for more than a half hour is trying on my nerves. So maybe, Woody, it's time to retire?