"Go Set a Watchman" - Thoughts and Reactions from a Die Hard "To Kill a Mockingbird" Fan

When I was in elementary school, a community theater where I had done a few shows was doing a production of To Kill a Mockingbird. I had never heard of the show before, but I knew about half the cast because I had done shows with them. I have vague memories of the show, being only ten or eleven years old, but I do remember key scenes, like parts of the trial, and the ending scene with Bob Ewel. The next thing that happened is a source of contention in my family. I maintain that my father said the ever popular, "Oh the book is so much better," which then convinced me to read it. But several years ago, when we went to see the movie in theaters for it's 50th anniversary, to my amazement and indignation, my father said that he had never red the book. But however I was convinced to do so, I bought a copy of the novel at one of those school book fairs. The summer after 6th grade, after I got home from summer camp, I grabbed a bag of Chex Mix, a pitcher of lemonade, a glass, and my book, and headed out to the back yard.

To say I devoured that book would be an understatement. I remember swinging in the hammock, delighting in the antics of the young Scout, Jem, and Dill, wishing that I had playmates or siblings like that. I remember (vividly) my shock and disgust at Bob Ewel, and seeing a sentence as disturbingly vicious as, "I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin' on my Mayella," in black and white for the first time. I remember my indignation at the injustices of the world mirroring Jem's as he walked home from the courthouse. I remember the respect and admiration swelling up in me for Atticus. To this day, I open up that same copy of the novel, see the finger prints made in Chex Mix seasoning, the wrinkled circles from the droplets of condensation from my glass, and I'm instantly transported back to one of the best summers of my life. To quote the end of the film, "I was to think of these days many times. Of Jem, and Dill, and Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson, and Atticus."

After that first time I read the novel, it became a part of me. I was the geeky kid who went to the library and borrowed the book on tape almost every other week. I was the walking Sparknotes for the novel who every student in freshman year English class loved.  I was the nerdy high schooler who carried around the book with her all the time until it started falling apart. I was the strange college kid who went up to the circulation desk and cried hysterically at the librarian when the book on tapes I grew up with were replaced by a special 50th anniversary edition with a new reader. I was the aspiring young actress who was willing to drive three and a half hours away to audition for a production of To Kill a Mockingbird.  I was the starstruck young woman who met the actress who played Scout in the film and asked her to sign my novel.

I was the wide eyed fan girl who preordered her copy of Go Set a Watchman in February, and counted down the days until July 14th.


I was wary when I first heard that a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird was being released. I had been let down by sequels many times before, and the thought of having it happen with my favorite novel of all time was terrifying. But when I learned that it was not really a sequel, but a first draft of a story that eventually became Mockingbird, I was intrigued. I scoffed at critics who said, 'If I want to hear what Harper Lee has to say on x, I'll go to my bookshelf and pick up To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't need another version of it." This was a part of Mockingbird's literary history. How could you not want to read it?

To say that I was disappointed by Go Set a Watchman would be unfair. Being that it was an unedited first draft, I should not have had much in the way of expectations going into it. And while I did keep my expectations to a minimum, I thought that if anything was going to disappoint me, it would have been the writing itself. Maybe it would be poorly written or very slow. But that wasn't it. Harper Lee's style was there, alright. It shone through in the scene with Jem and Dill, and the high school dance. (Bravo to the editor who noticed this and told her to go rewrite the story from the child Scout's point of view). What bothered me so much were the characters. Alright, one character.

Atticus.

Atticus Finch. The character who earned the #1 Hero spot on the American Film Institute's list, "100 Years... 100 Heroes & Villains."  To read the things that a pro-segregation Atticus was saying in Go Set a Watchman tore my heart in two. I thought, 'No, there has to be more to it than that,' and my head swirled with wild explanations of covert missions, in which Atticus was undercover, spying on the enemy. When I finished reading the book (which I did in one night), I sobbed. I, like Jean Louise, had witnessed one of my idols, my heroes, turn on everything he had ever taught me. I couldn't come to grips with it. It just wasn't right.

The next day, I saw several other readers' comments about the book. Things like, "I always suspected Atticus had a dark side to him that Scout didn't see because she was a child," and "This book is about fallen idols, and we, like Jean Louise, have to accept Atticus for what he truly is." These only made my mood worse. I felt betrayed by the book. How could they do something like that to Atticus?

Then I remembered that this book is not a sequel, it's a first draft. A first draft that went through major revisions and changes. And I have to believe that one of those changes was Atticus. The Atticus who got an unnamed black man acquitted of the charge of raping a 14 year old white girl and then had to literally wash the case off of himself, and the Atticus who knew he had no chance of getting the innocent Tom Robinson acquitted of the charge of raping Mayella Ewel, but fought to anyway, because he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he hadn't, were not the same man. Go Set a Watchman didn't do anything to Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird did. The revisions to the character made him a cultural icon for human decency. They made him a man who makes you want to be a better person simply because of how good and pure his motives are. They made him a hero. My hero.

In conclusion, Was this the great literary find of the century? No. Did it live up to all of the hype surrounding it? No. Did the book need to be published? Probably not. Am I glad I read it? I really can't tell yet.

Do I still want to name my first son after Atticus? Yes I do.

Influenster Reviews - Reese’s Spreads

So I got my first ever VoxBox from Influenster to review and it came with one of the most delicious surprises! Reese’s Spreads! 

Image from hersheys.com

I didn’t even know these things existed! I’m so glad I got to try it. It is HEAVENLY! It tastes exactly like someone took Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and mashed them up into a peanut butter consistency. Anything that you would normally put peanut butter on, Reese’s Spreads makes it that much more awesome. 

Spread it on toast for a quick and yummy breakfast, make Reese’s Spreads s’mores or Fluffernutter sandwiches, pair it with fruit for a tasty snack (my favorites are apples and bananas), or, try it in a smoothie! There really aren't many things that don't go with it1

Know the FAQs

You know how a lot of websites put up FAQs for you to read so that you don't have to call them and ask? Here are some things I would like to add to ours. (And yes, I have been asked every one of these questions multiple times. Seriously.)

Do you have a comedy show this weekend?

We have shows every weekend.  

Every weekend?

Yes, EVERY weekend.  

What is your cover charge?

We don’t have a cover charge. In order to come in and see a show, you purchase a ticket for the show, and then pay for food and drinks separately.

Well then how much are tickets?

Our ticket prices vary from performer to performer. If you want to tell me what show you'd like to see, I can tell you the ticket price.
Well can you give me a range?
We've had shows that are $5 per ticket, and we've had shows that are $45 per ticket. 

Do you have anyone good performing?

Depends on what you consider good.

I’ve never heard of _______. Would I like him/her?

I don’t know. It depends on what your taste in comedy is.

Is he/she funny?

Again, that depends on what you find funny.
Is he/she appropriate?
My suggestion would be to look him/her up online and watch some of his/her material and judge for yourself. Only you can decide what you find appropriate.

What is your minimum age to enter?

Our minimum age to enter is 16.

Okay, can my 11 year old cousin come to a show?

No, our minimum age to enter is 16.

Even if she sits with us?

Yes even if she sits with you, she has to be 16 to come in.
Well I want to bring my son, and he's 14. But 16 year olds don't have any kind of ID, so what's to stop me from buying a ticket for him and bringing him in?
Well sir, seeing as I'm the one you'd be buying the tickets from, I just won't sell you a ticket for your son who you just told me is under 16.
But I'm his father. Shouldn't it be up to me what's appropriate for him? 
You can decide that in your own home, but just like any other private establishment, we have the right to decide what the minimum age to enter our club is. 

I was looking online and it says there’s a two item minimum? What does that mean?

It means that you have to purchase two items while here. Anything off of our menu, food or drinks, counts as an item.

Well that’s stupid. Why is that?

Almost all comedy clubs have a drink minimum. Since our minimum age to enter is under the legal drinking age, we can not impose a drink minimum, so our minimum includes food or drinks.

Okay, so those two items are included in the price of the tickets?

No, they are not. They are ordered a la carte off of our menu.

And we have to order something?

Yes, each person has to order at least two items.

On your website it says "Show Type: Stand Up". So what does that mean? You don't have seats? We'll be standing for the show?
No, "stand up" as in "stand up comedy". You don't have to stand for the show, you'll be seated at a table.

What time do the shows start?

We have 7:30 shows and 9:45 shows.

But what time do they start.

The 7:30 show starts at 7:30 and the 9:45 show starts at 9:45

So if we’re coming to the 7:30 show and we get there at 8:00, will we miss anything?

Yes, you will miss the first half hour of the show.

What time do your doors open for the 7:30 show?

Doors open at 5:30.

And what time should we get there?

All of the seating is done first come, first served, so the earlier you get here, the better your choice of seats would be.

Right, but what time should we get there? Like, what time does it start filling up?

I really can’t say. It depends on the night. Sometimes there’s a line outside the door at 5:30, sometimes it doesn’t start filling up until about 6:30. It depends on what time everyone with tickets decides to get here.

I wanna order tickets for a show. You want my credit card number?

Eventually. Why don’t we start with what show you want to see, your name, and how many tickets you want?

I have a gift certificate that says it’s good for a Thursday show. Can I use it on a Saturday instead?

I have a free ticket that says it’s good for any Thursday or Friday show. Can I use it on a Saturday?

No, you can only use it on the day that’s indicated.  

I’m trying to buy tickets online and it’s saying there are only [number] tickets. I need [more than that]. Can I get [more than that]?

No, we only have [number] left.

So there’s no way I can get more than that?

No, because we only have [number] left to sell.

The website says the show is sold out. Can I still get tickets?

No, if we are sold out, we have no more tickets to sell.
So if the website says the show is sold out, I can't order tickets over the phone?
No. We don't set aside a certain number of tickets to sell online and another number to sell over the phone. We have one number of tickets to sell, no matter what way you order them.
But a bunch of my friends already bought tickets and I want to go with them.
I'm sorry, but we have no more tickets to sell.
Ah man..... uh.... ah jeez.... huh............ *deep inhale*... *sigh*....... wow........ aaaaaah....... *tongue clicks*...... hmmm....... oh man.......
 ........ 

So there’s no way I can get tickets for that show?

No.

I’m coming to the show on _____, I want to make a reservation for a table.

We don’t reserve tables. Our seating is done first come, first served upon arrival.

But I have a group of [number] coming.

We do alert our seaters to larger parties, and they keep that in mind while seating other groups, but the seating is still done first come, first served.

Well, I can’t get there until right before the show starts but I want to sit up front.

I’m sorry, but we don’t reserve tables.

What if I paid you more money?

That would only be an option if we had a block of VIP seating tickets available for that show, which we don’t. But even if we did, that VIP section is still seated on a first come, first served basis.

Well why don’t you have that option available for this show?

Because we don’t.

I see you have a dinner and show tickets?

Yes.

And the website says that ticket includes [either an all you can eat buffet or one entrée from the menu]?

Yes.

So if I want that, do I buy a general admission ticket and the dinner and show ticket?

No, the dinner and show ticket includes your dinner and the show.

I want to buy tickets but your website is asking for the security code on my credit card.

Yes, it needs that to complete your transaction.

I don’t want to put that in. Can I order my ticket over the phone?

You can, but I will need the security code in order to complete the transaction as well.

But I don’t give that out.

Then unfortunately, you won’t be able to purchase tickets over the phone or online.

Can’t you just try to do it without that? You shouldn’t need it. Most places don’t need it.

Our site requires that code, so if I don’t enter it, the transaction will not go through.

Why not?

For your own security. It asks for that code to make sure that you are in possession of the card you are using and you are not just using a stolen credit card number. That’s why it’s called a security code.

Well can't you just make up a number and put that in?
If I make up a number it will not match the one on your credit card, therefore the transaction will not go through. 
 

I bought tickets to tonight's show but I can't make it. Can I have a refund?
I'm sorry but all of our tickets are final sale, we don't give refunds unless we cancel a show.
Okay, well then, I'll just call my credit card company and dispute the charge.
Okay, but when they call us to verify, they'll see that it's a legitimate charge and you will have to pay it anyway. Our refund policy is clearly stated on our website, and our phone staff explains that all tickets are final sale.


I've never been to your place before, so, how does it work? Is it, like... how do I.... or is it just like, whatever?
I'm.... I'm sorry what?

Back in the Day: The Disney Store

Those of you who don’t remember the Disney Store before the early 2000s, you really missed out. 

Nowadays, if you want Disney merchandise, all you have to do is go to DisneyStore.com. 

But in the 80s and 90s, it wasn’t that easy. Until the first Disney Store opened in in the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California on March 28, 1987, Disneyland and Walt Disney World were really the only retail locations Disney had. In a world before online shopping was as easy as it is today, having a retail store that sold Disney merchandise outside of the parks was amazing. The stores were an extension of the parks, and they strove to capture that same atmosphere. 

I can remember dragging my poor mother through the mall to get to the Disney store. It was the center store in a large, 2 story high rotunda. 

The facade of the store was big and inviting, with a film motif and large display areas for promoting new movies and sales, just like the original store at the Glendale Galleria below.  

Photo courtesy of The Walt Disney Company

The store had shelving along all of the walls, and above the shelving, there were more statues and scenes. 

These photos are from Loren Javier.
Head over to Flickr to see more of his photos.

All along the sides of the store were walls of shelves perpendicular to the side walls, which formed little nooks. Each nook had a theme to it: One would be for a certain movie or character, the next would have stationary supplies and coloring books, another would have t-shirts, another would have dolls, and so on and so forth. 

But the best part of all was the back wall. 

Photo courtesy of the Disney Store's official blog

I am amazed that I was never yelled at for running in a Disney store, because I always booked it to the back wall, which had a pyramid of stuffed animals piled up to the base of a movie screen.

The movie screen showed clips from Disney movies and announcements of new products or movie releases, and would also play clips from the "Disney Sing Along Songs" videos. I would actually sit on the floor at the base of the stuffed animal pile and watch the screen like I was in a real movie theater. 

Photo courtesy of the Tampa Bay Times

Looking at photos now, the pyramid was probably only about 4’ high, but in my memories, this thing was a mountain! Stuffed animals piled so high over my head, I’d never be able to get to the one up at the tippy top. 

By 2001, there were 700 Disney Stores operating worldwide, and mounting cost of operation and the loss of key executives who had driven the success of the Disney Stores led The Walt Disney Company to convert Disney Stores into a licensed operation. In 2002, the Japanese stores were sold to Oriental Land Company (which owns the Tokyo Disney Resort), and most of the North American stores were sold and licensed to The Children's Place in 2004. 

In my opinion, when this happened, SO much of what made the Disney Stores special was sucked away. Hoop Retail, the Children's Place subsidiary operating the Disney Stores, bought the stores with the intention of making money, not keeping the feeling of the Disney parks alive. Almost all of the stores were remodeled and lost all of the statues and character displays, and in an effort to keep prices down, the company cut back on the quality and quantity of merchandise. 

By 2008, Hoop Retail filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sold the Disney Store back to The Walt Disney Company. (The Oriental Land Company sold the Japanese stores back to Disney in 2010.)

In November 2009, Disney announced that they were planning a massive "re-launching" and re-branding of all Disney Store locations, spearheaded by Apple's Steve Jobs, who pioneered the Apple Retail Store concept. They wanted to go back to the days when going to the Disney Store was an experience, but in a much more modernized way. Many of the new stores, including the new Times Square New York Flagship Store, now have interactive displays and technology, such as hidden Mickeys that pop up every few minutes, or mirrors that have images of the Princesses pop up and tell you how beautiful you look in that Cinderella dress. 

Photo courtesy of Mel, from her blog.

When Hoop took over, the store in my local mall moved from the extravagant storefront in the middle of the mall to a generic storefront next to The Children's Place and behind an escalator. 

It moved into a new space and was updated and it's opening tomorrow. I'll be there with my friend Kevin of 2 Men and the Mouse to cover the event, and I'm excited to see it. Hopefully it will bring back some of the old feelings from the original store. We'll see tomorrow :)

My New Job

I really need to get better at posting about these things as they happen, but...

I GOT A NEW JOB!!!!!!

AND I LOVE IT!!!!!!

I'm working at a comedy club, and while it's not the part of the entertainment business that I grew up in, it's at least entertainment. If you haven't heard of The Stress Factory, it's an awesome comedy club in New Brunswick, and we get some seriously awesome comedians in here. Pretty much all of my favorites have performed here at one time or another.

I had to take a slight pay cut from what I was making at my other job, but both AJ and I felt that my sanity was worth it. And now that my schedule has shifted to Tuesday through Saturday, I have Mondays all to myself to go grocery shopping, or do laundry, or cook, or anything else that I was too tired to do on Saturdays. Basically, it's my day to be Little Suzie Homemaker :)

My work days basically consist of answering the phones and selling tickets, updating the club's website, running their social media sites, send out email blasts, and helping to get the club ready for the comics. And while that may sound easy, it isn't always. During the day I'm the only one there to answer a multi line phone system, and to answer the door for deliveries, and to update the Facebook and Twitter account every hour. Earlier in the week, it's not too crazy, and I have some time to do stuff like blog, but on a day where we have a show that night, it can get nuts!

And it doesn't help that I'm not naturally that funny. You try posting something funny on Twitter every hour and see how fast you run out of ideas. And I'll find things that I think are funny, but then I sit there for about five minutes debating whether the majority of our audience will think it's funny.

It's interesting, because looking back now, I really did like my job at the Y. It was cool to be the supervisor and to be trusted with that much responsibility and left alone to do my work. And I had time to read or write or do whatever while nothing was going on.  I thought that I hated it because what I wanted was a 9-5 office job where I got to wear skirts and pantyhose and be professional. In reality, it really was just the people that populated that particular Y that ruined it for me. I'm too much of a creative person to work in a strictly corporate environment where I'm expected to act like a robot, especially a medical one. And being an actor, I'm too emotional a person to deal with a work environment where anything that goes wrong gets blamed on me or bosses take out their frustrations on me.

I feel like I've found a job with the perfect balance of being full time but in a relaxed environment. A job where I have a lot of freedom during the day, but still have duties to perform. Plus, I have the bonus of being one of the first to know when a comedian's coming in and get free tickets :) I've been here three weeks now, and I love it. I got an email the other day from the girl who took over for me at QDx (I told her that I have no cellphone service here, but I have wifi, so if she has any questions she could email me) that started out with "Hi Corinne, you lucky girl." All I can say is that I have absolutely NO regrets about leaving there.

Double Standards and Disney Princesses

I have always been a defender of the Disney Princesses, and Disney in general. Disney is a big deal for me. But it’s really about more than loving the movies; it’s about respecting them for what they are and what they taught me growing up.

The Disney Princesses get a lot of harsh criticism about everything from the designs of their bodies to their personalities, but the thing that they’re criticized for most often is the supposed negative messages they give to little girls. People see the first three (Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty) and instantly think, “These movies tell girls that all they have to do is wait around for a man to come and save them.” That’s an obvious view to take if you don’t look any deeper, but more on that in another post. There are two Princess movies specifically which came out back to back that get a HUGE amount of criticism for their heroines’ actions; The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. I’ll look at each one individually to start. (And just so you know, this criticism really does upset me. My face was hot by the time I was half way through writing this.)

The Little Mermaid

So, let’s set up the story first. A young mermaid named Ariel who is obsessed with human culture wishes that she could become a human herself. She’s constantly going up to the surface to watch them and collecting their artifacts, even though this gets her in trouble. One day, she sees a ship passing overhead and goes go up to the surface to check it out. On the deck, she sees and instantly falls for a handsome human prince named Eric. When a storm suddenly comes up and Eric is thrown overboard, she saves him from drowning and returns home, wishing now more than ever that she could be a human so that they could be together. Her somewhat over protective father finds out about her hoard of human things and after trying again to dissuade her fascination with humans. After she blurts out that she’s in love with the human prince, he decides that the only way to get through to her is to destroy all of her collection, including the life-sized statue of the prince that also fell off of Eric’s ship, leaving her devastated. An evil sea witch named Ursula uses Ariel’s emotional state to trick her into trading her voice for the ability to be a human for three days. If she can get the prince to fall in love with her and kiss her by the third day, she’ll remain a human. If not, she’ll turn back into a mermaid. Ursula obviously has ulterior motives for doing this, but we’ll skip that for now. So Ariel agrees, gets turned into a mute human, and ends up being taken back to the prince’s castle when he finds her in distress on a beach. During the course of two days, it’s pretty obvious that Prince Eric is falling for her, but he is stubbornly intent on finding the girl who rescued him and sang to him (which he obviously thinks can’t be Ariel, because she can’t talk). But just when he’s decided to give up the search and let himself fall in love with her, Ursula decides to stop Ariel from getting that oh so important kiss by transforming herself into a human and using Ariel’s voice to magically entice Prince Eric into marrying her. Hilarious hijinks ensue when Ariel’s aquatic friends stop the wedding, Ariel gets her voice back, Ursula’s spell on Eric is broken, and he realizes that Ariel really was the girl he was searching for all along. But unfortunately, it’s too late, and Ariel turns back into a mermaid and is taken back under the sea by Ursula for a final battle for control over the ocean. Ariel and Eric take turns saving each other, the good guys win, and Ariel’s father, sees that she really does love Eric and that maybe humans aren’t really that bad. He uses his power to turn her back into a human, and the two live happily ever after.

Now, there are a lot of great lessons one can take away from this movie; There’s the typical good triumphs over evil and love conquers all, but what about other, more subtle messages, like when you stop looking for who you think is the perfect person for you, you might see that you already have that perfect person standing right in front of you? Or how about don’t be afraid to go after what you truly want?

But what message do the haters take away from this movie?

Really? THAT’S message you see?

First of all, let me clear something up here. Ariel wanted to be a human BEFORE she even knew that Prince Eric existed. She sings a whole damn song about how much she wants to be a human and have human experiences like walking and dancing and wants to be “Part of Your World”. THEN she sees Eric and falls in love with him, and that’s the extra umph that Ursula needs to get her to agree to make the deal. Secondly, Eric fell in love with her as a human, yes, but he never knew she was a mermaid before that. He only saw her head and upper body, not her tail. He thought she was a human from the beginning. But when he watched her turn into a mermaid right before his eyes, he didn’t go “OMG GROSS WHAT WAS THAT HALF FISH THING I ALMOST KISSED?” He said, “I lost her once, I’m not going to lose her again,” and went into the water after her to save her and her father from Ursula (how he held his breath that long I’ll never know). And then afterwards, he woke up on the beach to her as a human and they were married. He never said to her, “Girl, I think you’re hot, but only from the waist up. If you want to be with me, you’re going to have to do something about that tail.” He didn’t ask her to change for him. You never know, maybe he was ready to be a merman for her but she beat him to the punch.

Let’s move on to the second movie.

Beauty and the Beast

Again, we’ll set up the story: We get an exposition about a young prince who was turned into a beast for being “spoiled, selfish, and unkind.” This spell was cast on the entire castle and everyone who lived there, and the only way that the spell could be broken is if the prince could learn to love someone other than himself, and get her to love him in return, within a time limit. Fast-forward to present day, and we meet a young woman named Belle. She lives in a small town where everyone thinks she’s weird because she reads all the time and doesn’t think that the town hottie Gaston is all that great, because he’s an egotistical jerk. One day, her father, who is apparently her only living relative, gets lost in the woods and stumbles upon the enchanted castle, and the Beast promptly puts him in his dungeon for trespassing. When the family horse returns home without her father, Belle decides to go looking for him, and the horse brings her to the castle. She goes in, and even after seeing how terrifying this beast is, she willingly takes her father’s place as the Beast’s prisoner so that her older, sickly father can live. The Beast is obviously affected by her selflessness, but doesn’t really know how to respond to it, other than by not locking her in the dungeon and giving her a room and free reign of the palace, with one exception; she can’t go into the west wing, which is apparently his private sulking grounds. Belle breaks this exception, and he (to put it mildly) loses his temper with her. She flees from the castle, and he realizes that he’s just blown it with probably the one person who he could get to break the spell. He decides to go after her, which is a good thing, because when he finds her, she’s about to be ripped apart by wolves. He saves her, getting very badly hurt in the process. When he falls over unconscious, Bell starts to get back on her horse and head for home, but realizes that this guy just saved her life, she can’t leave him there to die in the snow. So she somehow gets him up on her horse and takes him back to the castle. She starts nursing him back to health, and they get into a fight about who’s fault his injuries were. Now the Beast has never been called out on his shit before, so he’s kind of taken aback by it, but then starts to soften up. They start spending more time together, and she notices that he’s changing, becoming more gentle and acting less like an animal and more like a person. He realizes that he’s falling in love with her, and that he’s never felt this way about anyone before and doesn’t know what to do. So he gives her the castle’s library, knowing how much she loves books. After a night of dinner and dancing, the Beast asks Bell if she’s happy there with him. She says yes, but that she misses her father. He shows her is magic mirror, which shows Belle her father, lost in the woods yet again after attempting to come back and rescue her. The Beast tells her to go and find her father, that’s she’s no longer his prisoner (although it’s clear that he hasn’t thought of her as that for a while). She thanks him and leaves, taking the mirror with her so that she can remember him. Watching Belle leave, the enchanted objects in the castle realize that he’s finally learned what it means to love someone. After Belle returns home with her father, incites a mob riot to go kill the Beast, and breaks out of the basement she was locked in, she returns to the castle to stop Gaston from killing the Beast. Once he sees that she came back for him, the Beast loses his ‘just go on and kill me’ attitude and starts fighting back. He gains the upper hand, but rather than following his animal instincts and dropping Gaston off of the side of the castle, he puts him down and tells him to get lost. But just as the Beast gets to Belle, Gaston stabs him, and ends up falling off of the castle anyway. The Beast apparently dies in Belle’s arms, but she tells him that she loves him just before the spell’s timer runs out, and he’s transformed back into his human self, along with everyone else in the castle, and they live happily ever after.

So, what are the lessons we can take away from this movie? Again, good triumphs over evil and love conquers all? Sometimes you have to really look to see the good in people? Don’t judge a book by its cover? If you let down the walls you’ve built to keep people away, you might let the love of your life in? Don’t be afraid to be different? Don’t be a selfish ass hole or an enchantress will make you learn your lesson the hard way?

Nope.

First of all, Stockholm syndrome is a form of traumatic bonding, “which describes ‘strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.’ One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be a threat” (source: Wikipedia.org). I don’t really see Belle going through that much trauma or abuse, and I don’t see the Beast as an aggressor. She wasn’t violently kidnapped or forced to stay in the palace, she willingly gave up her freedom to take her father’s place. And yes he freaked out on her when she went into the West Wing, but he didn’t do anything more than yell at her and scare her. I really don’t think those are grounds for a Stockholm Syndrome diagnosis for Belle. And okay, I get it that it’s a little awkward that she starts out their relationship as his prisoner. But she really stops being a prisoner the first time she leaves the castle. After he saves her, she almost gets on her horse and books it again. It’s her compassion that makes her stop and think about what it would mean to leave him bleeding and unconscious in a snow storm. And she could have plopped him back on the bed and said, “Well, I’ve done my good deed, I’m peacing out before he gets up”, but she starts nursing him back to health because she is a good person and wants to thank him for saving her life, and THEN begins to fall in love with him when she notices the change in him.

And look at the Beast. Here’s a man who was turned into a “hideous beast” when he was eleven years old (Yes, eleven. Do the math people. The rose will bloom until he’s 21, and Lumiere sings “Ten years we’ve been rusting”) for being selfish and mean. And we never hear any mention of his parents, so he’s either an orphan, or they were taken away from him as part of the curse. Can you imagine all that as an eleven-year-old? I don’t blame him for being angry and bitter!  Then Belle comes along and she is the first person who isn’t a servant and afraid of him to treat him with any sort of kindness in ten years, if not more. Because of her kindness and compassion, he falls in love with her, and becomes a better person. And Belle falls in love with him because she recognizes that he’s changing and making an effort for her, and that under that terrifying exterior and bad temper he truly has a good soul.

(The other argument against this movie that I’ve heard is that Belle doesn’t know about the curse, and falls in love with a beast, therefore it’s a movie about beastiality. And to that argument I say fuck you, stop trying to ruin childhood for everyone. She’s in a castle were almost every inanimate object talks, ruled over by a beast who talks, wears clothing, and has a portrait of a human in his west wing, where she’s not allowed to go. She’s a smart girl, and I think she can put two and two together.)

We’re always told that relationships are an equal partnership, and that they require compromise. So in the first movie, we have a girl who makes a compromise to be with the man she loves. And it’s not like she gave up a lifelong dream because her new boyfriend didn’t like it, it really was a question of logistics. One of them would have to do something if they wanted to be together, otherwise they’d have to build some kind of pool/river system in the castle. But we criticize her for making that compromise (and fulfilling a dream of hers in the process). Then in the second movie we have a woman who is selfless and compassionate, and a man who recognizes that and wants to change his selfish ways and become a better person for her because he loves her, and we STILL FEEL THE NEED TO CRITICIZE THE WOMAN! Why don’t we criticize the Beast the same way we criticize Ariel?

Because the Beast’s change is seen as a positive one because he did it for a woman, and because Ariel’s change is seen as a negative one because she did it for a man.

Double standards are alive and well, people. Even in something as simple as how you react to a children’s movie. And even if they are geared towards empowering women by saying that she shouldn't have to change for a man to love her, it's still a double standard if you say that it's ok for a man to change for a woman to love him.

Sorry for the venting, but here goes...

So remember that awesome job that back in February I was so excited to have? Yeah, well... not so much anymore.

Back when I first started, I had heard nothing but complaints from pretty much everyone that worked there. Everyone would grumble and groan whenever they were asked to do something, they would stand around and talk about how horrible our bosses were to them. And back then, I didn't see where it was coming from. Everything seemed fine. Sure, the day could get a little hectic at times, but hey, that's any office, right? I heard that there had been five people in my position in the last two years, not including the person doing it before me, who had the responsibilities of my job tacked onto her actual job. But I didn't know why. It just seemed like maybe people gave up too fast. Now looking back on that time, it seems like they were taking it easy on me, getting me sucked in to the system before they started showing their true colors. Since then, I've become just like everyone else in the office. I grumble and groan, I cry in corners, I come home drained every day, I dread going to work every day, and I've just become a zombie. And why have I become this way? I'll tell you.