Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Everything's Better with Bangles

My goodness, I wish I had a single thing to add to this, but I don't. Every nail's been thoroughly pounded, every joint seamlessly aligned, every surface smoothly sanded--and just look at that finish:

If Darwin and Henry Higgins were thrown in a cage pit and ordered to fight to the death, Darwin would win easily. This is because Henry Higgins was never actually alive. In fact, he’s a character in a musical, a genre generally unconcerned with the deeper philosophical issues. One could even say he’s a right bastard character in a musical, a pouty, self-obsessed elitist who should rankle the audience right up until he learns his lesson. Which he does.
But I admit I am a fraud and a liar: It isn't the evisceration of Hoff Sommers that prompts me to link this post. No! No, it's the gleeful abandon with which jokes pretending to confuse Christina with the former Bangles lead singer are thrown around within it that make my linking to this post mandatory. Because in my world, as you probably already know, these jokes never, ever get old. They are lit with An Eternal Flame.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

If one sex is significantly better than the other, then perhaps we should be looking for ways to help the lesser sex improve.

Or we could, I dunno, deal with people on an individual level, since people are different from each other. Hoff Summers makes my teeth itch.

I really did like the "Hazy Shade of Winter" remake on the Less than Zero soundtrack, though.

Anonymous said...

And I kvell, knowing that I had a tiny part in pointing you toward the Bangles Way.

They were such a great group, too. I'd pony up for their reunion tour.

ilyka said...

I really did like the "Hazy Shade of Winter" remake on the Less than Zero soundtrack, though.

I know! Such an improvement over the original!

And I kvell, knowing that I had a tiny part in pointing you toward the Bangles Way.

Indeed you did. :)

You know, in the film version, Higgins not only doesn't get his comeuppance, but it appears that Eliza has acquiesced to his Manly Superiority.

Somewhere out there in the feminist blogosphere is a whole thread where women discuss that very thing, how horrified the ones who saw the play first were when they saw the film ending. Well, one more way in which Hollwyood turns all it touches to shit.

margilowry said...

I always thought that Higgins looked really, really GAY. I mean that in the homosexual sense, not the happy sense. (I have no idea what the sexual proclivities of Rex Harrison were, nor do I care.) I mean, when they're singing (singing!) the diatribe against wimmins to each other, didn't you think the real relationship was between Higgins and Col. Pickering?

Fetch me my slippers always hacked me off, too. Dumbass. That's improper English usage. Foppish asshole.

The worst part about this whole comment? I have an overwhelming sense of deja vu. . .like I've had this conversation before.

Huh.

margilowry said...

Oh and I suppose Ms. Hoff Summers would turn to THAT MOVIE for her theses; it's generational. You know, the way a younger generation might look to "Pretty Woman" for, say, relationships? Oh and fashion, too.

*snorrrrt*

Anonymous said...

You know, come to think of it, neither Pickering nor Higgins were married.

I sense utter resentment of women as the key force behind their bet and attitudes.

Hubris, if you got a Bangles CD, I think it would affect other women the same way that "Turn the Page" affects me.

We really like the Bangles. Well, a lot of us, anyway.

You'd be a scoring machine, man.

ilyka said...

You'd be a scoring machine, man.

Oh, Meryl, you have no idea the extent to which he already IS a scoring machine. Just wait 'til I start making podcasts out of our phone calls!

ilyka said...

You know, the way a younger generation might look to "Pretty Woman" for, say, relationships?

Good point. Me, I'm somewhere in-between the two. When I write MY thesis, it's going to revolve around "Pretty in Pink."

Susan B. said...

FWIW, I was always very disappointed with the ending of My Fair Lady. I could never understand why she didn't marry the nice, good-looking guy (Freddy) and went back to that old fart Henry Higgins. I didn't know that the actual play had a different ending.

And the Bangles were great!

Anonymous said...

Rob, that's why I can never run for office. I tend to take the direct approach.

Rob said...

I'd vote for ya.

Craig R. said...

The usage of a musical comedy (especially that one) for the back-fill of how "heroic" men or women are is simply strange.

On the subject of reality checks, I'm reminded of the line John Stewart gave when pseudo-con talking heads were accusing him of somehow "letting down journalism" because he didn't "ask hard questions" on his show.

"Dude, the lead-in to *my* show is a collection of puppets making prank phone calls."

ilyka said...

"Dude, the lead-in to *my* show is a collection of puppets making prank phone calls."

Yes! That was when he was on Crossfire and he called Tucker Carlson a dick, right? I loved that bit.

Craig R. said...

Yes, that was the time he went and belled the cat, on Crossfire.

Just before The Powers That Be realized that Stewart was right, and that Crossfire should be an ex-show.

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