On March 25th, MyCatholicFaith.org was blessed to attend and broadcast the Archdiocese of Seattle's 2010 Chrism Day celebration. The event featured a presentation on "Marriage and the Domestic Church" by Most Reverend Archbishop Kurtz of Louisville, KT, head of the USCCB's ad hoc committee for the defense of marriage.
And now this sad news out of Hollywood: Melissa Etheridge has filed to end her domestic partnership with Tammy Lynn Michaels. The pair held a commitment ceremony in 2003, and registered in California for a domestic partnership in 2005. In 2006, Michaels gave birth to twins by an anonymous sperm donor. These two children joined two other children Etheridge has with her former partner, Julie Cypher. (Well, not really joined, because they don’t live with Etheridge, they live with Cypher, who, after being dumped by Etheridge, hooked up with a man. To be fair to Cypher, this wasn’t a complete 180 – she was married to actor Lou Diamond Phillips before she was swept off her feet by Etheridge.) Is your head spinning yet? Wait – there’s more. After much hype and speculation, the father of the children carried by Cypher was revealed to be none other than singer, songwriter David Crosby, of Crosby Stills and Nash. Crosby, who has struggled with drug and alcohol addictions and received a liver transplant in 1995, is married to another woman, who reportedly consented to his fathering the children. I’m assuming it was by sperm donation, but we’re talking Hollywood here, so let’s just say the field of possibilities is wide open.
Etheridge is an outspoken proponent of same sex marriage, and threatened to withhold her state income tax payment to the state of California when Proposition 8, a resolution to change the definition of marriage to include same sex couples, failed in a vote in the general election in November 2008. Such conviction. In a television appearance on The View, Etheridge argued that the issue was just about equal rights for a minority, and that is was really about her family. It was about her children - her children’s right to have a family. “I wanted to stand in front of my community of family and friends and declare my promise to be committed to my partner, now my wife, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health,” said Etheridge in her blog on The Daily Beast in November, 2008.
One argument that you often hear by proponents of same sex marriage is that gays are just as capable of committed, loving relationships as straight people, and they should be allowed to establish families in the traditional manner, just like heterosexuals. Yet often the most visible activists for same sex marriage are far from stable, and, instead, have followed the path predicted by those fighting to protect the institution of marriage from assault by secular progressives. Rosie O’Donnell, another loud, and particularly abrasive and obnoxious voice for same sex marriage, left her partner and “wife” Kelli Carpenter after several years and four children, and is now partnered with a lesbian mother of six children. Ellen DeGeneres, currently “married” to actress Portia de Rossi, left a live-in girlfriend of four years for de Rossi, and before that was involved in a very bitter and public break-up with Anne Heche, an actress who married a man and gave birth to a child following her relationship with DeGeneres.
Maybe this is just what you get when you have Hollywood stars advocating for a change in how marriage and family are structured. Actors, entertainers and artists are not known for their love of the traditional. In fact, some would argue that artistic genius is born and bred in instability, a creative chaos, unfettered by the ordinary and mundane. The artistic world is one where the established order is challenged and corrupted, for the glory of art and the celebration of the different and unusual. This produces some great art, but is anathema to entities requiring stability and structure to flourish – like, say, a family. I look at that statement of Etheridge’s and watch her appearances on shows like Oprah and The View, and I wonder how anyone can find her a credible advocate for any type of committed relationship. Pray for those kids. Their mommies have moved on to find . . . two more mommies. Now if those relationships don’t work out (and who are we kidding here, what are the odds?) how many mommies can these kids potentially end up with? Come on all you Hollywood eggheads - do the math and stop the insanity.
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As a movie lover, I am very fond of movie trailers. If I can’t get to a movie in time to see the previews, I won’t go. Don’t get the wrong impression. I’m actually pretty laid back. For me, “fussy” is used to describe the Ralph Lauren linen blouse in his Equestrian line that has one too many ruffles. But I digress.
I have developed a highly complex critical paradigm that I reserve for movie trailers, with categories such as: “I don’t need to go to that movie, as I just saw and understood the entire plot and/or dramatic/comedic arc in 30 seconds.” Or, “I have seen that movie a hundred times.” Or, “Hmm, that looks interesting.” And then there are what I call the "Leo" movies, for Leonardo di Caprio, where you're pretty sure the main character will die in the end.
I’ve now viewed a trailer twice that generated a reaction (although “critique” sounds so much more well-reasoned) that is usually reserved for any preview with the promise of unbridled nudity/sex, too much violence or any movie with “Saw” in the title. I refer to this genre as “Ewwww, that looks disgusting” or “Okay, I’m offended”. In other words, trailer trash. The most recent culprit? A movie called Dinner for Schmucks. It’s not come out, I haven’t seen it, and I’m not presuming to judge the thing on its merits. It’s the premise I’m objecting to. From what I can gather from the trailer, two suave, successful corporate or financial types play a game where they try to outdo each other in finding the weirdest person they can and inviting them to a dinner party. At the dinner, the “guests” are encouraged to be their strangest selves, and the two hosts will laugh at, make fun of, and ultimately sit in judgment of the invitees. In the movie, the two friends enlist a new colleague (Paul Rudd) to join the game. Anxious to be accepted as “one of the guys” he sets out to find the oddest oddball he can find (Steve Carell). Now I like both those actors, and I have a hunch that the weirdos will triumph in the way of Revenge of the Nerds, and either physically hurt or embarrass the corporate game players, or affect some miraculous change of heart, but the premise of the movie as shown in the trailer continues to bother me.
This movie is built around the idea that deliberate cruelty is funny. Further, the implication is that to be successful in terms of what society deems success to be, you had better be prepared to do what it takes, and what it takes is often disgusting, callous and cruel, but you know, cool. Funny. This is junior high on steroids, where you have grown-up power, authority and money to perpetrate your little humiliations. I can’t think of a worse message to be sending to young people.
This is the age of cyber-bullying, sexting and Face Book feuds that can result in physical and psychological harm to insecure, impressionable teens and young adults. Why build a movie around the idea that it’s funny to humiliate those that may not fit the profile of what society says is cool and hip?
I may be wrong. I haven’t seen the movie. It could be a charmer, a real heart-warming tale. But it’s not marketed that way, and the studio must believe that the strongest selling point, the way to get people to see the movie is to lead viewers to believe they are going to see some real weirdos acting really strangely while we get to sit back and laugh with the big boys over dinner. I don’t think I could sit through the hour and 45 minutes of set-up to get to the fairy tale ending where the “cool guys” are proven to be the schmucks of the title. The damage is done by then. Heck, the damage was been done in the 30 second trailer.
