Stuff I Love: Using Your Power for Good

It's February! Before the world completely explodes, it's time to focus up and talk about stuff I love. This year, rather than focusing mostly on pop culture, I'm going to mix it up a bit. A little politics, a lazy movie weekend, a little fun. All stuff I love.

We've become a nation of people who genuinely believe only some people are allowed to have opinions. This isn't a recent thing; it's been a part of the fabric of our collective lives a very long time. What's also constant is resistance to this idea; civil rights, women's rights, gay rights - any modern social movement is built on the idea that opinions and beliefs need to be heard even if they are unpopular or challenging to the status quo. This is one of the things I love about being an American.

One group who always seem to be on the wrong side of this debate are celebrities and famous people. No matter what the political climate is here in the US, there's always one thing all Americans are able to agree on: celebrities and famous people should keep their opinions to themselves. We non-famous people seem to believe that because they're famous they can't be educated or have opinions or, I don't know, exercise their right to free speech just like we can. Famous people aren't real people; they are here simply for our entertainment and in many cases, derision.

Personally, I think this is bullshit. I don't always agree with the things that come out of celebrities' mouths and sometimes the stuff they say is bananas or downright hateful but I'm not going to stop them from saying it. What I do instead is stop paying attention to them or giving them my money. When Tom Cruise made all those comments about mental health a few years back, I stopped watching his movies. I haven't seen one since and don't plan to watch one in the near future. I boycott Tom Cruise. A more recent example is my feelings about Madonna at the Women's March. I've loved Madonna ever since I learned all the choreography to "Lucky Star" and I was super glad she was there just as I was glad to see many of the famous people who spoke or performed. She was being the feminist icon we all know and love BUT, I was disappointed in her comments about blowing up the White House. It was inappropriate and completely against the spirit of the event. I'm not boycotting Madonna but she gave people something completely ridiculous to point to as a "problem" with the Women's March.

That's where I believe celebrities and famous people (I'm using these phrases interchangeably although they're not the same thing) could improve. It's not that they're not allowed to have opinions, it's that they need to think about the way in which they share those opinions. We advise young people to think carefully about the way they portray themselves on social media and in public. Famous people need to remember this applies to them too. They have an audience regardless of what they're doing and whether they like it or not, everyone is listening all the time. That's what so many celebrities get wrong; it's not just about what they're saying, it's the power behind it. Beyonce announced she's pregnant with twins this week and 8 million people liked her photo. That's power. It's like Uncle Ben tells Peter Parker, "with great power comes great responsibility." Use your power for good, celebrities. Many celebrities do, getting behind great causes and things they believe in. From Audrey Hepburn to Bono to Emma Waston, there's great work being done out there by the famous people among us.

One of the reasons I enjoy Twitter despite it frequently devolving into a festering dumpster fire of human awfulness, is celebrities on Twitter. I'm picky about the celebrities I follow; they tend to all be artists I admire and enjoy not people I'm hoping will do or say something stupid. I can still remember the day Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy had a tweet exchange that made me long for the days of watching Pretty in Pink on repeat. This is why Twitter exists! I think George Takei may be one of my favorites; he's funny, political, smart, and stinging all at the same time. So good. Comedians on Twitter are also a delight; most of them have been training for the 140 character limit their whole professional lives. Patton Oswalt is among my favorites. He's a national treasure and I will fight anyone who wants to fight about this. Twitter also gives us all access to small nuggets of content in quick fashion. It's almost like it was designed to be a meaner, slightly more cat video filled version of the highlights reel style shows on ESPN; we get the things we need without having to watch an entire broadcast of anything.

Which brings me to the main point of today's post (I know, I've been rambling). But first a quick reminder:

It's no secret that I love Chief Jim Hopper from the Netflix series Stranger Things. He is the true hero of Hawkins. I am patiently waiting for season two. Where did he go in that car at the end? Why was he taking Eggos into the woods? Is he going to hook up with Joyce (please say no)? Does he ever go anywhere without his hat? Are mornings truly for coffee and contemplation? I need answers.

David Harbour, who portrays Hopper, is a phenomenal actor and another wonderful addition to the Twitterverse. He, like so many of the celebrities I follow, has a good handle on how to mix politics, commentary, and humor into his social media presence. I enjoy his exchanges with Patton Oswalt and his updates from the world of Stranger Things. He admits his privilege and appreciates when his fans call him out on this, something we can all appreciate. I don't watch award shows all that often anymore so I missed the Screen Actors Guild Awards broadcast last week. However, Twitter let me know that not only did Stranger Things win the award for outstanding ensemble drama series (an upset apparently), but that Mr. Harbour delivered an impassioned speech about the responsibility of actors to use their craft to change the world. If you haven't seen the speech, watch it now (try to ignore Winona Ryder's weird facial expressions):

This is my favorite part:

“We will shelter freaks and outcasts, those who have no home. We will get past the lies. We will hunt monsters! And when we are at a loss amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions, we will, as per Chief Hopper, punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the weak and the disenfranchised and the marginalized! And we will do it all with soul, with heart, and with joy. We thank you for this responsibility.”

How awesome is that? There's nothing overtly political, no selfish motivations, no crazy philosophy. It's a person, albeit a famous one, speaking eloquently about his work and the power that art has to change the world. This is the perfect example of a celebrity using his power for good. He could have gotten up there and said ridiculous things or hateful things but he didn't. He used the platform he has to make a powerful statement of inclusion and the power of art. Since the speech, Harbour has been lauded for his comments from the famous and not famous. Since I follow him on Twitter, I see some of this in my Twitter feed and it was remarkably pleasant. I'm sure there were critics but I haven't seen many. Harbour was able to use a very public platform in a very political way without being overtly political or divisive. This gives me hope.

If David Harbour isn't your style (and I'm questioning your life choices for that one), check out another very responsible celebrity, Sam Waterston, writing a piece for The Washington Post. I had no idea my second favorite person on the original Law & Order series was this involved in working with refugees. He comes very close to calling the President "a lying liar who lies" (one of my favorite phrases) but that would seem childish and we wouldn't want that.

Thank you David Harbour for using your power for good. Keep at it and please get season two here as quickly as possible (I realize this is not really within your control).

Next week: Stuff I Love continues with a look at fashion and how to dress like a woman, Lazy Movie Weekend style.

My Dream Man image

We Need a Hero

To get you in the mood for today's post, we begin with a song...

Or maybe you'd prefer the spoken word version...

If you haven't seen The Way Way Back, check it out sometime when you're not binge watching whatever it is you have to binge watch to keep yourself entertained before the Gilmore Girls revival begins.

Anyway, I probably shouldn't watch television. That's not entirely true; I probably shouldn't watch television in which I will become attached to one or more of the characters on the show. I can't help myself with certain shows. I become so invested with a character or characters that watching the show becomes stressful. Or I get irrationally irritated with a character because he or she makes a choice I deem is a bad one. My poor neighbors have heard me yell "Make smart life choices!" at my television more times than I care to admit. And when a character dies? No thank you. This is the worst part of watching any halfway decent show; a favorite character will always die. I believe this is related to being a very dedicated reader; the same thing happens to me when I read a book or series. I become so invested in characters that I don't want the story to end OR I want them to be real. Such is the life of a fan.

Among my invested characters we have Rory Gilmore (seriously wanted to shake her most of seasons 5 and 6), Lane and Zach from also Gilmore Girls, Terry and LP from Treme, everyone on Firefly, Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Detective Mike Logan from Law & Order (before he was Mr. Big). I love Detective Logan so much I watched the movie NBC did featuring him trying to redeem himself or some such nonsense. Mike Logan was and always will be Law & Order. Everyone else is just an imitation.

There are others but these are really my go-to list of fictional friends. I have very specific opinions about them (#TeamLogan) and will argue with other people for hours about minutia within the universe of the show. I would like to believe that these opinions will serve some purpose for me later in life but I'm not entirely sure how that will work. More than likely, it'll just be more information to store away for trivia or when I go to an Escape Room with interns who weren't born in the 1980s and I need to use my knowledge of the era to solve the puzzle to get us out of the room. This is how the world works.

I recently finished watching the Netflix series Stranger Things. I don't normally binge watch television shows even on Netflix. Sometimes I get into a Gilmore Girls binge but that's about my level of tolerance for the practice. I like the unfolding of a show over the course of season. I like looking forward to something each week as I anticipate a new episode. To me, that is the beauty of watching serialized television. I realize I'm in the minority on this. However, with Stranger Things I definitely binge watched the show. I watched four episodes last Friday and the second four episodes last Saturday. It is a remarkable and enjoyable show, made better by watching it all at once.

I don't want to talk about Eleven (who is amazing and badass) or the boys (also wonderful) or Barb (#justiceforbarb) or even the fact that I want to smack the smug off Steve Harrington's face so badly every time he's on screen. No, we have more important things to discuss. And by more important things, I mean Chief Jim Hopper.

Chief Hopper is the true hero of Stranger Things. He is the glue that binds this crazy town together and he is the man that gets shit done. No one else broke into a secret government facility with the cool and attitude he did...multiple times. No one stared down the creepy blonde government agent and dared her to disagree with terms of his plan. No one else faked his way into the morgue to make sure that his suspicions about "Will" were right (this was a hard scene to watch). No one else didn't call the librarian after they hooked up and then thought she'd help him with research for the case. No one else agreed to go with Joyce to multiple locations that could have gotten him killed. And frankly, no one else really believed Joyce until Chief Hopper did. I don't know where that car was taking him in the last episode but you can bet he handled whatever it was like a boss.

Side note: The actor who plays Chief Hopper, David Harbour, is a fantastic actor and is so perfect in this role. He also feels really bad about Barb according to this Buzzfeed post.

If I lived in Hawkins, which I would never do because it is truly a terrifying place to live, I would want Chief Hopper to be in charge and protect our town. Despite his drinking and other poor life choices, he gets into the investigation and gets into some real police work. I love shows and movies set in a pre-cell phone age; everyone manages to live their life and accomplish things. One of my favorite scenes with Chief Hopper involves him and Officer Powell sitting in the library scanning through microfiche. Microfiche!? There are people reading this blog who don't know what that is and probably had to look it up while watching the show. That's just sad. And what about the hat? Normally, I have ambivalent feelings about hats in terms of men's fashion, but the hat is as much a part of the character of Chief Hopper as his cigarette, his sense of humor, and his perpetual hangover.

And let's admit it, he's hot. Chief Hopper is, by far, the hottest dude in Hawkins. I'll give you the cute factor of Officer Callahan; he's cute in a "nerdy boy you date in your first year of college" sort of way. Hopper is the older gentleman you move onto after you realize nerdy college boys will always be a disappointment. Yes, he's a womanizer but I'm okay with this for some reason (normally I would not be) and I've come to terms with it as a part of his character. I want to sit around with Chief Hopper listening to Big Star records and talking about life and love. I don't know why Big Star because I don't actually think Chief Hopper would be a Big Star fan but that's how I feel. 

I don't condone smoking but I approve this image:

Or maybe this is better:

Of course because Chief Hopper is my new television show crush (Is a Netflix show considered a television show? I don't know how that works.), I spent a large portion of every episode suffering anxious feelings because I thought that he was going to die. (Spoiler: he doesn't.). This is what a good character does to us. We get so wrapped up in their life, we can't help but only want good things for them. Television (or a movie or book) becomes stressful. It's not normal. I never felt this way about any television character before I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Was it the shows that changed or was it me?

Chief Hopper & the boys
Smoking Chief Hopper
Hopper and Indy
My Dream Man
Someecard 

The Brownie Friendship Song

I was never going to be a good Girl Scout. I'm not good at selling things, we moved a lot when I was younger, and I'm not a fan of the outdoors. I was in Brownies (girls aged 6-8 I believe) but never made it past there. We moved and I moved on to do ballet, gymnastics, softball, and eventually found a true home in theatre. I support the Girl Scouts despite my failure as one.

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the Brownie friendship circle song "Make New Friends" pops into my head. If you're not familiar with the song, take a moment to listen:

We used to sing this song at the start of our meetings and yes, we sang in a round. Our meetings would typically end with another friendship circle with the added bonus of a friendship wish. Basically, a friendship wish is making a wish and passing it on to the girl next to you by squeezing her hand. That's how Brownies roll. The squeeze thing also happened when I joined the theatre department; we did something very similar during our pre-show circles. Friendship is friendship no matter where you are.

Anyway, this song gets in my head randomly from time to time. Sometimes I know why the song pops into my head; there was that time I found my Brownie sash and it had my friendship patch on it. Or another time when the Girl Scouts were out selling cookies and were having the best time hanging out with one another despite the fact that it was 10 degrees out. Other times, it's a lot of little things that make the song appear. This week has been one of those week; stressful, kind of stupid, and the type of week that needed to be over the second it started. I decided to treat myself to some new books for my Kindle (for gym reading) and stumbled upon the thing that finally caused me to hum "Make New Friends".

There is a fifth Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book.

I had no clue. It's called Sisterhood Everlasting and takes place about ten years after the last book. If you're not familiar with these books or the two films based on the first two books, the story is centered on four friends who literally grow up together. Their mothers, all pregnant and due around the same time, meet in a fitness class for moms and become friends. While the moms drift apart, the girls remains friends throughout school and into college. They share a "magical" pair of pants that fits each girl perfectly despite each one being a different shape and size. There's drama, heartbreak, humor, trips to Greece, nerdy boys, and above all else, friendship. The first book was released in 2001 (the year I graduated from college). I didn't read any of the books until later, maybe around 2008. By then, the first four books were all out and I was able to read them back to back.

The books are solid YA fare but aren't patronizing and don't feel totally like YA novels. I liked many of the characters, particularly Tibby, Carmen, and Brian, and even though I was much older than the main characters when I started, I could see myself in them and in their struggles and successes. I felt for them and laughed with them. I had friends sort of like the girls in the book. At the time, I was moving a lot, first back to Virginia following Hurricane Katrina, then out to California because everyone should move to California once in their life. Adult friendships are challenging. As a slightly more introverted person, they're downright stressful. I've written about this before; adult friendships are almost as stressful as dating.

What I liked most about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books was that they followed female friendships in a realistic way. The girls fought, they shared secrets, they kept secrets from one another, they just knew when one of the others was in trouble or needed the rest of the group. They were jealous of one another, which does happen. Sometimes friends move past it; sometimes they don't. This group always found a way to work through the bad things without diminishing them or making light of something sad or upsetting. They also celebrated when things went well and laughed and had inside jokes. Ann Brashares, the author of the series, captures all the complexity of friendship in a way that many novels fail to do, especially when the characters grow up.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a fifth book exists. It was released in 2011, well after I stopped reading the original series. I don't remember hearing about it but am excited I found it. I'm only a few chapters in and already I'm back in the world of Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget. Already, I'm a bit of an emotional wreck (a very sad thing happened already to a character I really love). The book picks up as the friends are approaching their 30th birthdays and they're all in various states of unknown. They're still friends but maybe not as close as they once were, maybe not as in each others' lives as they were back in the day. And of course, they're spread around the country and the world.

This is exactly what happens in real adult friendships. Whether you've know a person since preschool or met in college or at work, eventually everyone has to start their lives. People get married, they have kids, they move for jobs, they get divorced, they grow up. Friendships shift and change and sometimes, they fade. It's sad but it doesn't mean you failed as a friend or a person. I've struggled with this over the years; losing touch with friends or investing time into friendships that I shouldn't anymore, not because of anything negative but because they've come to their natural end. I don't expect Sisters Everlasting to solve all of the problems of changing friendships. But I like the comfort of the story more than anything else.

On the same day I started reading Sisters Everlasting, I watched the first four episodes of the Netflix series Stranger Things. I won't spoil anything about the show but in the first episode, the boys, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas are explaining to Eleven what a friend is. She's never heard this term before and is genuinely confused by the concept. Mike tells her, "A friend is someone that you’d do anything for … and they never break a promise … that’s super important because friends tell each other things; things that parents don’t know." I had no idea this show that so many people love for so many reasons would get friendship, at least for the group of boys and Eleven, so right. The fierce dedication they have to finding Will and the protectiveness of the boys towards Eleven and her towards them makes me think of the girls of the Sisterhood too. My only other comment on Stranger Things, for now, is #PoorBarb.

I don't expect Sisters Everlasting or Stranger Things to solve all of the problems of changing friendships. But I like the comfort of the stories more than anything else. Sometimes my fictional universes make me feel better about my actual universe.

You may now form your own friendship circle and sing "Make New Friends" in a round. Now that song is in your head...you're welcome.