Celebrity Nitwits

Also, You Should Watch "Kitty Foyle" and "The Worst Person in the World"

[I have changed the name of this Substack to Resting Norwegian Face. When I began here, I spontaneously chose This is Just to Say in tribute to William Carlos Williams’ famous poem - I wrote a pandemic version of it - but assumed that down the line I would make a change. Done.]

There is courage out there: Iranian women (and some men, it should be noted); Ukrainians fighting on; Russians refusing to do what Putin insists they do. And, of course, the courage it takes for a celebrity to be a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy, knowing they will reveal to the world how incredibly stupid they are. I’m a big Jeopardy fan and from my couch, am quite good at the game. One thing that is clear is that the questions on the game’s celebrity version are dumbed down enormously, and with good reason. The category could be “Days of the Week” and the clue could be “the day before Saturday” and it would still be unlikely that any of the contestants would guess the correct answer. Lest you think I exaggerate, a couple of weeks ago, the category was “‘R’eligion” - it was explained that each response would start with ‘R’. One of the clues was about how the Pope was also called the “Bishop of” this place. One of the celebs guessed “Vatican City.” Good grief.

These are not bright people, for the most part. This does not, unfortunately, discourage most of them from blathering on about politics, even after death. Case in point, Alan Rickman. I adored this man in movies, from Die Hard (hell yeah!) to Truly, Madly, Deeply to Sense and Sensibility. He is so charming here. The air is full of spices. I would have fallen in love with him on the spot - silly Marianne!

That voice! It might be silent now but his thoughts live on in his released diaries. Here’s a sample, from September 14, 2001.

Watching more coverage. Still trying to understand something. Cannot remove the fact of 4 million starving in Afghanistan not to mention the innocents in Iraq. There is such political naivety in the US that it only takes one image of five Palestinians dancing in the street to obliterate the bigger picture.

What is he trying to say here? That immense suffering in Afghanistan and elsewhere mean that 9/11 is not significant? Who cares when it happens in the United States? That there is some connection between American “naivety” and the fact that many Palestinians were joyful at the horrors of that day? That Israel is to blame for all of this? Or that somehow the United States caused these problems and therefore deserved the slaughter? Or all of the above? I suspect the latter. It’s truly vile and sophomoric (and I know so many people who speak similarly).

Another, from February 15, 2003, the day of the huge anti-Iraq war march in London:

At Hyde Park (having seen 1m people behind us) there was Bruce Kent & Tariq Ali at the microphones but Minnie Driver & Tim Robbins to remind us that celeb rules, really.

Smug much? I’m all for peaceful protests, but does he mean that celebrity in general rules, with the platform it gives performers to lecture the rest of us? Or did he muck up the grammar - does he mean that celebrities rule with their genius and insight? Either way, it’s insufferable. Sheesh. And there’s more of the entirely predictable variety - attacks on Bush, Blair, the United States, Bush, Blair, Americans, his delight at Obama’s victory in 2008, blah blah blah. I should not be surprised - I had a vague memory of this. Of course, Rickman was more than his political views and he most certainly had a right to express them and act on them as he saw fit. I just wish I did not know about them. It won’t stop me from watching him in movies or admiring his talent. But it does make me grateful that my beloved Al Pacino keeps private his opinions on political or historical matters.

Which brings me to Kitty Foyle. My father had a crush on Ginger Rogers, which means that I have seen every film she ever made, not just the ones with Fred Astaire. My dad once told me that he had had a crush on Rogers as a teen, but that he discovered she was “a fascist” and became disillusioned. Now, I did some reading on Rogers, and she was not a fascist. She was a Republican and not a fan of the New Deal or FDR. That said, when the war started, she abandoned the Republican isolationism of the era and became a full-on supporter of the war effort – she owned a ranch that donated milk to soldiers and she performed in numerous USO tours. But my father was apparently ahead of his time, dismissing in the harshest terms anyone who did not share his ideas. His crush must have lived on, however, or I would not have sat with him as a child and teen watching, among others, Romance in Manhattan, Tender Comrade and Kitty Foyle.

That last one: what a story! A woman’s story - a dramedy, but leaning more to drama. Rogers is simply wonderful. It was well-received at the time, though one should also take it as being “of its time.” There are, for example, a couple of cringe-worthy references to skin colour, including a scene where Kitty says that she is “free, white and 21.” Oy. Objectionable dialogue aside, our heroine is torn between two “pills” - to use one of my mother’s favourite words. (A Wall Street Journal piece of mine about this.) In the end - spoiler alert - she chooses the pill who wants to marry her, rather than the pill who wants her as a mistress. It’s a smart choice, I suppose, though one senses Kitty preferred the latter pill - ain’t it always so?

Here is the original trailer of the movie, in which you can see both pills, and Rogers rocking the role of a white collar gal. (I also like to think of myself as a “sassy mick,” but one with a resting Norwegian face.) By the way, her style of dress in this film became trendy and known as the “Kitty Foyle dress.”

The received wisdom is that women in classic movies were weak and silly, looking to male characters for help. Um, no. See above, among others. I would argue that female characters/roles became sillier with the advent of feminism and the sexual revolution, but that is for another post (or maybe for a doctoral thesis?). This is why I was in awe of The Worst Person in the World, the 2021 Norwegian movie that received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for best International Feature. There is nothing silly about Julie, the real and heartbreaking (and, at times, heartbroken) heroine, played by Renate Reinsve. Her story is not far from Kitty’s: a woman torn between two pills, struggling with outside pressure and timelines, though because it is the 21st century her choices are not as foreseeable. Highly recommend, no matter the worldview of anyone connected with this delight.