My unusual thing for the second day of the challenge was to go to the movies. Alone. During the day. I never had any hangups about doing things alone but I almost never go to the movies, so I’ve never gone on my own. This was plenty unusual for me!
It takes a lot of effort to be spontaneous at my age. I had to get up at five am to make sure I could go to a daytime showing. A lot of planning went into this endeavor.
So I get to the movies and I have to decide what to watch. And I see that a movie called Unplanned is about to start. Those who know what the movie is about have already died of laughter. But I don’t know movies, so how was I supposed to guess? It was between this and something called Dumbo, and Unplanned seemed to fit the challenge a lot better. The theater was full, so I was hopeful.
So I got me a hot dog and a huge bottle of water, and I’m all ready to do something unusual by watching my movie. And yeah, it proved plenty unusual. More unusual than I ever wanted. It was an abortion movie. With a graphic abortion scene in the first five minutes, so the fate of my hot dog was… unplanned. The water helped, though.
The acting was stilted, the structure ridiculous, but that’s why I hate movies. They are always like that. I’m glad I did something unusual and fulfilled the challenge but why, why did it have to be an abortion movie?
OK, day 2 is done.
Clarissa's Blog 
It’s an ANTI-abortion movie.
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Well, it’s not like it communicates anything anybody doesn’t know. I can’t see anybody changing their mind about anything after watching. Nobody thinks abortion is pretty, which is why we always say it should be safe, legal, and extremely rare. The criticism of Planned Parenthood in the movie is nowhere as strong as the ones I’ve made, and I’m completely, fanatically pro-abortion rights.
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You are an inspiration, Clarissa! I need to have an unusual month, too.
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Thank you! Just thinking about what the unusual thing can be every day already helps to get out of a mental rut.
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Dumbo was one of my favorite movies as a kid, but why is it in theaters now? I hope they didn’t do a remake. Or worse yet, a live action remake.
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First of all, kudos for a month of unexpected moves!
Second, I wonder what you think about the following: Based on the examples of my own international graduate students, I find that guys have a far more difficult time integrating into the new society than girls. For example, several of my male graduate students have made what I would call far suboptimal job decisions just so they’d go to a part of the country where their friends from back home are. The women were all much more likely to go with the best jobs, perhaps optimizing for family, but never for friends. The women seemed more stable and psychologically tough during grad school (there are inevitable ups and downs in research), while the guys suffered from a whole palette of destructive behaviors (working all night and sleeping all day, generally disregarding personal hygiene plus physical or mental health, falling into the pattern). I wonder what you and the readers think about whether young male immigrants have a harder time integrating or assimilating into a new society than young female immigrants and what the reasons are. Thanks!
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Definitely, 100% true. People need community. Women are socialized into knowing how to make a community around themselves. Men normally aren’t. They need somebody to organize a community around them. It’s the same reason why old widows do a lot better than old widowers. Or elderly people in hospitals. I once had a chance to visit, and the male ward was the saddest place ever. The old men just sat there, in silence, looking completely lost and depressed. Some of them wouldn’t even pull up their pants. The female ward, on the other hand, was upbeat, the ladies were all chirping at each other, their bedside tables were decorated. These were people of the same age and with the same kind of illness.
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I wonder if this is an American phenomenon. I haven’t seen this lack of community among men in India.
For example: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-did-touch-between-male-friends-become-taboo_b_59034d03e4b084f59b49f845
Norms for physical touching between male friends are different in India and I have pictures from college days that would brand me gay in the US. (I’m not.) I have a close male friend from childhood and we talk a lot on the phone. An ex (American) once remarked if ‘he is a little gay for me’. I found that comment really odd.
Of course, I’m using physical intimacy as one example. This seems to extend along other socio-cultural dimensions.
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Of course, Indians are notoriously relationship oriented so it’s not surprising men do better over there. 😀 😉
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I’m not knowledgeable enough about India but it’s exactly the same in my part of the world.
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Sometimes The Atlantic has good articles. Sometimes they have this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/04/megan-stack-domestic-workers-role-family-life/586282/
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Since people leave links, wanted to offer a new topic for a post or a comment what you think about this kind of justice:
Justice Denied! – A Tale of Two Criminals
http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2019/03/justice-denied-tale-of-two-criminals.html
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The murder does seem undercharged. But the fraudster never hurt or killed anybody? By defrauding a bank in St Louis? In 2009?
It’s like saying that the MMM guy or the Vlastilina fraudsters never hurt anybody.
Maybe one needs to see St Louis to understand. Financial crimes are not victimless, far from it.
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You said the acting and structure sucked and that’s why you hate movies – they’re always like that.
I’m not claiming you’re wrong about this one, I’m just curious in general. Are there any films you think are good, with good acting?
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Of course! The ones not made in the US. :-))))
I actually watch a lot of movies but they are all old Soviet ones or Spanish from the 1960s to around year 2000. That is real art.
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