I read SOTI that there is a better-than-50/50 chance that the bloated and loathsome Hollywood mogul [some overlap] Harvey Weinstein may not be convicted for #MeToo DoublePlusUngood Sex Crimes after all.
I have no idea if this is true, of course, but should this happen, Evil Kim is cackling his ass off at the probable feministical reaction.
Hasten the day…
Me: Okay
We often imagine how things might have turned out if instead of X, we’d done Y or Z, and so on. Imagine how TV show Gilligan’s Island might have turned out with this cast:
Whoa. In fact, all the above auditioned for those parts in the show, but were rejected. And here’s Mary Ann in the alternate universe:
For the record, I’ve only ever watched a few episodes of Gilligan’s Island because boredom, and not since because brain bleed. With the above cast, I might have been tempted to watch more, and not just because of Raquel.
Here’s an exercise. Put your favorite modern actors (at any age) into those roles, and imagine how the show would have changed.
Here are my suggestions, by way of example, which I think would have made the show not only more grown-up, but more watchable (and funnier):
…but I can’t beat
Go on, it’s your turn (and it’s harder than you think).
Some Brit toffs just got married at the groom’s future digs (which he gets when his dad snuffs it), said shack being so vast that no ground-level photo can quite do it justice :
Now ordinarily I am disinterested in the couplings of nobility; the nuptials of Lady Fontinella Waxwork-ffolkes and Lord Beastly Stiff-Upper-Lypp pass by my gaze unnoticed, and even Prince Harry’s marriage would have been disregarded by me but for the fact that the poor royal ginger ended up with some foul feminist Hollywood slag and was therefore only worthy of comment insofar as I predict that this unfortunate alliance will not end well (you heard it here 455th).
Anyway, the thing which caught my idle glance in the above report was this unfortunate description:
“George, the Marquess of Blandford, 26, married childhood sweetheart Camilla Thorp, 31”
Say what? I’m assuming / hoping that he wasn’t 5 years old, and she 10 when they became sweethearts… oh wait, it turns out that they met ten years ago when he was 16 (not really a “child”, was he?) and she ummmm…. carry the two, 21. That’s a fair age difference but not overly so.
Phew. I am relieved. Of course, had this liaison been consummated in Murka, she’d have been facing statutory rape charges at some point (assuming that they’d started bonking soon after first meeting, as seems to be the custom these days), but I suppose the aristocracy has a much more benign attitude towards this kind of thing so it’s okay, albeit risky. (Remember that Chinless Charles married Super-Sloane-Ranger Di when he was in his thirties and she yet in her teens, and we all know how that turned out.) Also, the Dukes of Marlborough are outrageously wealthy, thanks to Great-Grandpappy Marlborough marrying a Vanderbilt girl, so maybe there’s a different rule for the rich when it comes to bonking sixteen-year-olds.
Anyway: congratulations and good luck to the happy couple, who seem to be quite charming. And as wedding pics go, you have to admit that this isn’t one of yer ordinary backgrounds:
And all over Britain can be heard the gnashing of desperate debutante teeth as another eligible “catch” escapes their hooks.
Another age-distinct couple got married recently, and their backdrop was also rather special:
That’s the Umaid Bhawan palace in Jodhpur, but it’s not likely to be owned by either the bride or groom anytime in the future, as they are neither royal not even noble. Like we couldn’t tell (note the bride’s ceremonial hand tattoo UGH):
Anyway, he is someone called Nick Jonas, a one-time (or current?) pop star of whom I know nothing except that like the future duke (above), he’s 26. His bride, like the Royal Ginger’s wife, is some houri actress named Priyanka Chopra, and who like the Marchioness Blandford is older than her husband, but she by some ten summers.
At least this couple are not “childhood sweethearts”: the thought of a twenty-one-year old woman bonking an eleven-year-old boy… well, you know.
This marriage, I give a couple of years. Call it a hunch.
I’ve never been involved in the movie business at all, so I’m not really qualified to comment on this story (not that this has ever stopped me before):
Alexa Chung has revealed how she was once ordered to strip by a movie producer while being auditioned for a role. In a worrying #MeToo moment, the model was told to remove her clothes so that the exec could see what she looked like naked.
Addressing the Oxford Union, Alexa said: ‘He told me to strip because he needed to see what I looked like naked for a scene that required it.’
Okay, let’s all accept the fact that the whole casting thing could just turn into an opportunity for men to catch a free look at naked women. (In other news, Gen. Custer seems to be having some difficulties with the Sioux.) And yeah yeah, that’s just awful and terrible etc. etc.
I have some parallel thoughts, however: if you are auditioning for a part where you’re going to be filmed in the nude, don’t be shocked when you’re asked to show what you look like naked. If you’re Julia Roberts, for example, you can turn down such demands because you’re going to get a body double anyway — they’re casting the face, not your ironing-board body. But if you’re a nobody, you can’t really turn it down because appearing or performing in the nude is one of the reasons you’re being cast at all and if we’re going to be blunt about it, if you have some blemish (e.g. saggy boobs or a large birthmark), the producer is not going to hire a body double for a nobody.
The other thought is that the director has to be sure that when he films a scene — any scene, let alone a nude one — he has to be sure that viewers concentrate on what he’s trying to show, not on the fact that Second Actress From The Left has one breast considerably larger than the other.
So while I can sympathize with this Alexa Chung (whoever she is) because of the voyeur thing, I can also see things from the other side of the desk, so to speak. I should also point out that this woman is an ex-model, and didn’t seem to have too many qualms about being naked anyway:
And here’s another thought: a producer asking to see what you look like on the nude is not a Harvey Weinstein/#MeToo moment; a producer wanting you to fuck him to get the part, is.
We can also talk about why nude modelling or nude scenes in movies are necessary at all, but that’s a topic for another post.
I see that singer Michael Bublé has decided to quit singing and the limelight. I can quite understand why. At a time when his beloved son was close to death from cancer, Bublé found himself in a blizzard of “well-meaning” Press attention, with articles sensitively entitled “Michael’s Torment“, “Michael Looks Depressed As He Leaves Hospital” and the always-popular “Will Michael Bublé Ever Be Able To Sing Again?” (“No” being the eventual answer to this question, as it happens.)
Under those circumstances, Bublé discovered that while his fame sold albums and made him rich, the price he had to pay was the complete loss of privacy and even dignity. For attention-whores like the Kardashians and their ilk, this celebrity and attention might have been accepted, even welcomed; for him, facing that most awful and personal of tragedies, the scouring of his anguish and its parade in the tabloids must have been torture — and his desire to quit the spotlight both literally and figuratively is both understandable and even laudable.
And good for him, say I. His wealth is secure, his family likewise; but should his young son ever get nailed by cancer again — a horrible possibility — I can only hope that he and his wife can deal with whatever happens in solitude and isolation. I don’t even want to hear about it, for that matter. Whatever happens, Michael Bublé deserves his privacy, and I can only hope that the Media Vultures leave him alone from now on.
I for one will refuse to read anything about him and his family ever again. I can’t escape the future headlines, should they occur, but I don’t have to reward the Jackals Of The Press by reading about the details. He deserves the anonymity he craves, and I’m happy to grant it to him.
Michael, I wish lasting happiness, health and peace to you and your family; and thank you for sharing your magnificent talent with us while you did.