Sadly, Not the Last

“What was the last word I chose?” Fred asked, having determined it was his turn to pick a random word to blog about.

“Butter,” answered John. There was a murmur among the group.

“I don’t think I wrote butter.”

“I don’t remember, butter.”

“Did I do butter?”

I hadn’t been part of the group the last time Fred chose a word, but all this butter uttering brought a different image to mind. Not the dairy product, but a movie I’d seen years ago. What was it called? Brando and some young French actress. Had I seen her in anything else? No. I wouldn’t have seen her in anything else. The movie had ruined her.

I didn’t like the movie. Didn’t get it. That scene, particularly, made me feel uncomfortable. Sick.

I read later that Brando and the director, oh what was his name, dreamed up the scene over breakfast when a waiter brought butter and a baguette to their table. Apparently, they just looked at each other, and the butter and the baguette, and decided without speaking that, “this movie needs a rape scene!”

What’s-his-name said later he wanted her humiliation and rage to be “real,” which is why Maria Schneider wasn’t consulted and what was done to her, with cameras rolling, was tantamount to rape. She was 19 years old. She later suffered a mental break down and tried to kill herself. She was an actress who wasn’t allowed to act because men in power didn’t see her as a professional or even a person. They saw her as an orifice.

The movie was made in 1972. Now, nearly 50 years later, women still struggle to be defined by their achievements rather than their body parts. A very powerful man suggests a certain part is up for grabs. A whole “hashtag movement” has formed to convince us to believe the people who’ve been abused by powerful men.

This coming Sunday, the Oscars will celebrate excellence in the film industry. According to Forbes Magazine,[1] a year ago, the average salary of the top 10 highest paid actors was nearly three times the average salary of the 10 top earning actresses. Of the eight movies up for best picture this year, male producers outnumber women six to one and not a single woman is nominated in the best director category.

What was the name of that 1972 movie? It was on the tip of my tongue.

“I’ve got it!” said Fred.

Something about Paris, I mused to myself. The last something. The last …

Putting on his coat, Fred threw his arm forward with a delightful flourish and declared: “Tango!”

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2017/08/22/the-worlds-highest-paid-actors-2017-mark-wahlberg-leads-with-68-million/#50270cba3f92

Comments

In the Manger with Jesus

Young children have a hard time understanding complex ideas and things they can’t see. This is why they say the darndest things as adults struggle to explain concepts like God, death, and the small microbes that live on their grubby little fingers which they should wash before supper. My nephew, we’ll call him Sebastien, was four years old when my father passed away. Dad had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and while he had trouble breathing and didn't have much energy, he always had time to read a story or share some red grapes with Sebastien. There were lots of naps in the big easy chair with Grampa. When Dad got sicker, the chair was moved out of the front room to make way for a hospital bed. Dad died on December 24, 2009, as my brother and I held his hands and my mother stroked his face. At Sebastien’s house, his mother struggled to explain what had happened. Why there would be no more naps, stories or grapes with Grampa. “His get-better-bed didn’t work,” s...

Red

Mother summons me to her office on Monday morning to scold me and I’m transported back in time. I’m five years old. Her red pinched lips are shouting and her red-tipped finger is wagging at me. You horrible bad girl, where is Mother’s sweater? What did you do with it? I’d taken it to bed with me, to feel something soft that smelled like her mix of menthol cigarettes and Chanel Number Five. While she and the rest of the family were skiing in Mount Tremblant, I’d explored our big empty house, including Mother’s walk-in closet. The sweater, cashmere, lay crumpled on the floor. I hid there, amongst her clothes, shoes, purses and scarves, missing my family – my father who was rarely home but smiled and sometimes told me stories; my boisterous teenage brothers, who were rarely home but sometimes played games with me; and my mother who was always home and whom I tried so very hard to emulate and please. I hid the sweater under a pillow in my frilly pink bedroom. Rosi...

The Fall

“It’s not the fall that kills you,” Tom Rafuse always used to say. “It’s the landing!” Millicent Dunbar – Millie – heard Tom tell the gag many, many times. He had an easygoing manner, a penchant for pocket protectors, and the meaty paunch and polyester wardrobe of a much-beloved high school shop teacher, which he was. Tom’s wife, Rose, was downright dim – always at his side, looking up adoringly. Millie watched their delightful backyard barbeques through her kitchen window. Tom’s monster hamburgers and stupid repetitive jokes; Rose’s exquisite potato salad and chilled cherry cheesecake. Of course, the laughter stopped when Rose was found dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs, her blood pooling under shelves of raspberry jelly and pickled beets. It was, indeed, the landing and not the fall that killed her. The coroner ruled the cause of death a broken neck. The manner of death she left undetermined. A tall detective with an odd moustache came to question Tom daily fo...

Words By Whittall

Search This Blog