1. Celebrity privilege — Sorvino openly states the belief that she is different from other ladies: If only Pete knew she was Mira Sorvino, a famous person, he would get how sweet and kooky and funny it was for her to "stalk" and "sidle" up to him in a car.We just saw Pete Davidson on the highway and my daughter and I stalked up until we could sidle up next to his car and screamed we love u Pete!! He obliged with a slightly strained smile- Pete hope someone tells u that the crazy lady was only me and we meant it! @nbcsnl
— Mira Sorvino (@MiraSorvino) December 23, 2020
2. Gender privilege — Switch the gender around. It's easy to see how terrible it would be for 2 males in a car to "stalk" and "sidle" up to a female in a car and yell "We love you" and say her name. What male would tweet that he'd done this and think that it was cute? If a famous man did this to a famous woman, it's more likely that the woman would call him out with accusations that could wreck his life.
By the way:
1. Pete Davidson has a very serious mental health condition — borderline personality disorder — so doing something that confuses and intimidates him when he's out in public alone is particularly bad.
2. Mira Sorvino — though she often plays a ditsy character (see "Might Aphrodite" and "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion") — is one of the most intelligent, educated actors in the U.S. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
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This little situation could certainly have gone unremarked-upon. Kind of nice if we could all turn down the sensitivity to privilege signals a little.
The great dilemma of celebrity:
1. In the formative stages of his career, the celebrity hustles relentlessly for PR and recognition and whores himself out without limits.
2. Once saturation celebrity is reached, he bitches that people won’t leave him alone.
1) I'm glad we got beyond the days when people could be involuntarily committed to madhouses on somebody's whim, but Pete Davidson sort of makes me rethink that a little.
2) Not to take anything away from big Paulie's little Mira, but when she graduated Harvard College 91 percent of the degrees were cum laude or better.
I'll file this under the National Enquirer tag.
All of Hollywood has a slight mental problem.
Pete Davidson has very serious mental health issues.
Pretty obvious from all the tats.
Never heard of either one of them and don't have a twitter account. I am truly blessed.
Ooooh! Magna cum laude from Harvard! ...Wait, isn't that the same institution that doesn't hand out anything lower than Bs?
Let's stop placing Harvard on a pedestal. They have very uneven standards for admissions, a significant percentage of the student and professor populations are now based on social engineering criteria, less on research or teaching quality, and their grading might be considered hyper inflationary these days.
You should add Harvard Grad Privilege to your tags too.
I'll accept the gender privilege concept of stalking a man and screaming "we love you" to them in public. But I'm failing to see the celebrity privilege from "was only me". I know who Mira Sorvino is, but I could see any woman wishing to let another know "if you know me, see him, then tell him that person was me". The level of celebrity is only the person that you already know and the hope that person can explain who you are to the other person.
Ms. Sorvino was in probably my favorite episode of "House," which I probably enjoyed because her character was a brilliant doctor who could go toe-to-toe with House. Remotely, on video.
As for Ms. Sorvino herself, I swear there's something in the water in LA (what water in LA? I know; I know...) that turns otherwise-intelligent people into blithering idiots.
What model and year of cars were they driving? Not SUVs, I hope.
This is only true if both parties acknowledge the other's celebrity status. I am pretty sure Sorvino doesn't meet the celebrity standard for anyone born after 1990.
Don't assume intelligence because someone has a degree from Harvard.
"Mira Sorvino... is one of the most highly-credentialed actors in the U.S. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard." FIFY.
Isn't Harvard the school that took in little Social Justice boy David Hogg because of his celebrity and not his grades?? "David Hogg is heading to Harvard despite an SAT score of 1270. The bottom 25% at Harvard have an average SAT score of 1460."
"magna cum laude" "From Haavad" doesn't mean much.
In fact it is a pretty good indication that her antics in this episode are indicative of her overall empathy ability and attempts at self reflection.
For the lawyers out there I am calling her stupid.
Looking at her Twitter feed, it seems she has her own mental issues.
Doctor Who?
So 98% of the people that get into harvard graduate from harvard.
Must be super tough.
I know that look. I was standing with a group of people from work in Harvard Square and Mira Sorvino popped out of a shop on Brattle Street. A woman in our group pointed and yelled, “That’s Mira Sorvino,” as she approached us at a distance of about 15 yards.
I have no idea who either of these people are. Had to look them up. I still don't know
"who" they are.
Graduating from college is not the feat it used to be. It doesn't make you either intelligent or educated.
"... one of the most intelligent, educated actors in the U.S. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard."
You drop that 2nd sentence there as if it's evidence for the first.
David Hogg goes to Harvard.
She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
She has my sympathies.
They can't be too famous if I've never heard of them. I'd guess tennis players from the names. The women play with different rules.
"Doctor Who?"
That's what I thought.
Interesting. I got 1460 on my SATs (680/780). Enough to get into Harvard, apparently.
I'd rather have my spine surgically removed with a pickaxe than to subject myself to the total immersion of leftist indoctrination that is the only thing Harvard actually bequeaths on those stupid enough to attend... well, that, and assurance of entry into the Swamp as a gold star member.
Not that there's even a handful of colleges left anywhere that haven't been infiltrated to the same degree.
It's rather liberating that the institutions have become so utterly corrupt that there really isn't any part of them worth preserving. And if rough men should take it upon themselves to burn them all down so that we may continue to sleep safely at night, who besides the swamp, and China, would shed a tear?
Women throwing panties is old news, they have panty privilege.
"Graduating from college is not the feat it used to be"
Feat of clay.
Our four-year-old granddaughter has a poster up in her room, "She is the perfect combination of warrior and princess." Her parents would never put up a poster in her brother's room saying, "He is the perfect combination of warrior and prince."
Had to look up who Pete Davidson was. (He's on Saturday Night Live, a show I haven't watched at all in this century, which explains why I don't know him.)
I'd like for people to stop using the word source as a verb.
In the world before social media, this 'story' wouldn't be news; it would be gossip that we would happily ignore. I miss that world.
Thank God, I don't know who either of those people is.
Isn't Harvard the school that took in little Social Justice boy David Hogg because of his celebrity and not his grades??
Yep. They also threw out conservative Kyle Kashuv for something he said on Facebook when he was 16. Though Mira is in her 50s, so maybe Harvard wasn't so corrupted at that point.
So, what does it mean that, like others, I had never heard of him?
Raising your daughter with the idea of "Woman Power"...or gender privilege is a big mistake.
Showing unrealistic role models..like the Woman Nijas kicking the asses of all the men, Warrior Nun, Warrior Princesses, etc etc etc. Gives your daughter unrealistic goals, or worse delusions of grandeur.
Ditto for raising your son's to the ideal of Rambo and other unrealistic goals.
It is destructive and depressive to those children who know that they can't really live up to this or don't want to be Warrior Princesses. It is also dangerous to those who think that they now have license to go out into the real world and be a "bad ass".
Sadly, they will find out that they aren't as "bad ass" as they think. AND that there are a lot of other "Badder Asses" who will be willing to teach them a lesson. One that their parent should have taught them instead of encouraging delusions.
The SAT was dumbed down two or three times since most of the people posting here took it.
I think they call it re-scaling the scores.
The first time was in the mid-1990s and scores from before that scale about 150 points higher than scores after the revision.
At this point, I would guess you need to add 300-400 points to the scores to understand where you would be.
Gone are the analogies.
They added some SOH-CAH-TOA trig. (The easiest bits.)
Back before these changes I missed a question in the SAT.
I blame the public schools I attended.
Isn't Mira Sorvino the one who's career Harvey Weinstein wrecked because she wouldn't be his potted plant?
Stepping in to brag that you have no knowledge of current pop culture comes across as kind of pretentious. I am very confident that every one of us devotes a part of our mental energy to something that other people would consider frivolous.
Tom T,
Like commenting on blogs about the comments of others?
Meta-meta-meta!
I have but one concern regarding this storm in a teacup, and that is for both of them to stay in the places I assume they are right now. If my assumption on where they both reside is correct, their remaining there like potted plants is an objective good for the rest of us.
I wish them both well in their coincidental highway sightings of one another.
Mira was probably wearing the LA uniform of shades and a ball cap with the pony tail hanging out the back, so as not to be recognized as a Big Star. No wonder he didn't know (or care) who she was.
Okay, okay, people don't know Mira Sorvino. But do you really not know Paul Sorvino? Goodfellas? Really?
"...one of the most intelligent, educated actors in the U.S."
-----------------
When you look up the phrase "low bar" this should be the first example.
I often confuse Mira Sorvino with Marisa Tomei. I think it is unwise to interact with other drivers in an unusual way, especially on an LA freeway. I also think a college degree doesn’t come with good judgment although we keep hoping it will.
The first time was in the mid-1990s and scores from before that scale about 150 points higher than scores after the revision.
I remember it was a very bad week for Bill Clinton, and to distract us all, Eleanor Clift piped up on McLaughlin, "But look at the rise in SAT scores!" probably knowing full well that the points scale had been rejiggered.
Great moments in fake news and media misdirection.
Lurker21 said...Okay, okay, people don't know Mira Sorvino. But do you really not know Paul Sorvino? Goodfellas? Really?
If I saw his face, I 'might' remember him from some show or another.
(I rarely can remember the names of actors or what movies/shows they were in. Unlike my husband who is a whiz on faces, names and what they were in) I never saw Goodfellas either...among the hundreds of movies or shows that I have not seen.
However, they don't look much alike as far as I can see 🙂
But..interesting fact!...after looking him up I see that he is an opera singer.
A person with a borderline personality disorder is the kind of mental health disorder that is worse for other people than it is for the patient. If he has borderline personality disorder, he probably appreciated the attention.
Mike’s Sorvino ... is one of the most intelligent, educated actors in the U.S. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
Other commentators have pointed out that once one gets into Harvard, achieving cum laude status is no biggie. But c’mon folks. The population from which we are sampling is Hollywood actors.’
FWIW women — and men — who normally play ditzes are often quite shrewd and ultimately financially quite successful. Think Lucille Ball founding her own studio. Goldie Hawn is another who’s been successful at playing ditzes but also as a producer and director. This will go over most people’s heads, but Tommy was the smarter Smothers brother.
"If a famous man did this to a famous woman, it's more likely that the woman would call him out with accusations that could wreck his life."
Oh bullshit. You mean, "If a guy did this to a feminist". A totally different proposition from "a woman", famous or not.
I hear they are both moving to Texas soon after they take up temporary residence in Georgia vote for the Democrats then move on like the disgusting carpetbaggers that they are.
Unlike most here, I appreciate what Althouse is doing here.
1 a small but clear example of actual privilege
2 preempting the “ditz” defense which Sorvino is attempting to deploy by making her tweet ditzy
Maybe Sorvino knows Davidson, but she forgot she was wearing a mask.
"Isn't Mira Sorvino the one who's career Harvey Weinstein wrecked because she wouldn't be his potted plant?"
Yes.
She is so hot in Barcelona as well, for any Whit Stillman fans, although the character she plays is morally empty.
Weirdly her Romy and Michelle co-star Lisa Kudrow is also reputed to be somewhat intelligent and level-headed, at least by the unimpressive standards of Hollywood.
"But do you really not know Paul Sorvino? Goodfellas? Really?"
Better: Det. Phil Cerreta in Law & Order
She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
.....and she became an actress?
Let's agree to dump the overt class trope: a Harvard graduate or High IQ. Potential does not equal Actual and being able to afford exclusive bourgeois finishing school tuition does not equal education.
Some of the smartest and most intelligent people I have met get their hands dirty in grease and shit on a daily basis without the benefit of a university degree.
Birkel said...
Tom T,
Like commenting on blogs about the comments of others?
Saying "I don't know any of this pop culture that you all concern yourselves with" is a dig -- a small insult to others. I think it's reasonable to call that out.
Mira Sorvino: “Pete, do you know who I am???”
Must be a slow day for anything interesting on the Internet.
"1. Pete Davidson has a very serious mental health condition..."
Yes, it's called being a complete and total asshole, and unfunny to boot.
I'm afraid it's terminal (said in a 'Star Trek' 'Bones' McCoy kind of way).
There are a few 'celebrity' sons/daughters of actual celebrities that have talent, but they are few and far between.
Mira isn't one of them.
They get by solely on Hollywood nepotism.
She probably got into Harvard based upon her father's name and the expected donations he would provide.
Fuck Hollywood and everyone in it.
Mira worked with Woody Allen. She should be blackballed forever.
I remember Sorvino in her role as Daisy in the A&E version of the Great Gatsby. That's still my favorite version.
In which Karen B declares Ximself, once again, better than us.
And I thought it fair to call you out, Tom T.
Mine is a mirror and I see that you turned away when asked to reflect.
Who are these people? Mean nothing to me.
While 5593 page of garbage are ignored by the hack press, and that garbage will line Pelosi family pockets - lets all fawn over some hollywood celebrities.
Serious question - if a particular behavior is unacceptable when directed by a man towards a woman, does that mean the same behavior directed by a woman towards a man must also be unacceptable?
“ Sadly, they will find out that they aren't as "bad ass" as they think. AND that there are a lot of other "Badder Asses" who will be willing to teach them a lesson. One that their parent should have taught them instead of encouraging delusions.”
We are facing this right now with our 16 year old grandson. He really needs to get his ass kicked a couple times. His grandmother is kinda pushing his idea of going into the Marines after he graduates from HS. His 3 year older cousin loves it, but is very different. His mother, of course, is horrified. We shall see. I am thinking that he would do as well living at his grandfather’s ranch in MT, and competing with guys his age who throw hay bales around, instead of playing video games. He is lifting weights, and filling out well. Probably will end up like his genetic grandfather, at 6’2” and 210 or so. Big guy, but not massive, like the one who has the ranch. Nice having him around, because he humps big boxes up and down our stairs, if grandma asks him nicely. Boxes I struggle with. Except that he is currently moving his great grandmother on the other side in with his grandparents on that side, so I keep adding to my list, and getting extra cash every time I am at the store (he does like money, and is perfectly willing to work hard for it, contrary to his older brother who thinks that he just has to flash his dimples at women for it).
But that does bring up some humorous recent goings on. It looks very much that AntiFA, etc, fascist thugs learned all about fighting from video games. Recent videos of female ninja warriors getting belted once, after attacking guys, and going down hard. Wake up. Your super ninja moves aren’t going to mean much to a guy twice your size who has grown up in a much more physical environment. The guys they attacked had maybe twice the musculature, a higher percentage of fast twitch muscles, and more leverage due to their bone structure. Plus experience being hit hard and knocked down. Then, a couple days ago, a video of AntiFA attacking a proud Boy. He ended up putting the gaggle of them to flight, with his buddies trying to calm him down, as he attacked one laggard after another.
She was hot in her younger days. Tall, long legs, athletic, blond hair and black eyes. A pretty face with a nice smile. Funny. I liked her as an actress too.
"She was hot in her younger days. Tall, long legs, athletic, blond hair and black eyes. A pretty face with a nice smile."
You forgot 'huge...tracts of land.'
I'd grant her the privilege of sidling up next to me.
Being with daughter (teen?) Important part of story.
Is it a safe assumption a Harvard magna cum laude graduate is actually well educated and intelligent?
"Being with daughter (teen?) Important part of story."
Assuming the daughter was of legal age, sounds like old Pete missed out on some possible mother/daughter action.
They are showbiz folks, after all...
Never heard of him.
I'm not sure how celebrity privilege works. It's my understanding that a celebrity higher up on the celebrity chain is allowed to initiate contact with a lesser celebrity, but that it's kind of lese majeste for someone lower down on the chain to initiate contact. This raises difficult questions of precedence. Mia is an Oscar winner and has a celebrity dad, plus she was a victim in an A-list scandal. These are impressive credentials but none of them are current. Pete Davidson is on SNL so he's part of the zeitgeist. All in all, I'd give Davidson a somewhat higher score for current celebrity buzz, although, to be sure, Mia's credentials are more solid. Also, I'm not sure if strict rules of protocol are in effect in passing cars. There are many vexing issues at play here and I will not pass judgement until these issues are further clarified. We should not be in any rush to judgement here.
"Is it a safe assumption a Harvard magna cum laude graduate is actually well educated and intelligent?"
Relative to the general population, yes. It's one of the safest assumptions you can make. If you had some sort of celebrity or legacy angle beforehand (say your older brother was the center on the basketball team), it lowers the estimate of your intelligence, but it's still above average because even with grade inflation, it would be hard to fake it at Harvard if you were a complete idiot. All of the commenters talking about how Harvard degrees aren't worth as much as practical accomplishments and how lots of Harvard grads are completely lacking in common sense are correct, but the basic point that people who attend Harvard are smart still stands.
"Assuming the daughter was of legal age, sounds like old Pete missed out on some possible mother/daughter action."
Pete Davidson has dated (or 'dated' depending on your celebrity gossip take) the daughters of both Cindy Crawford and Andie MacDowell, so he's probably down for 2nd generation female celebrity action. You could almost say he has a type...
Is Sorvino Asian? Because as an Asian you gotta be really smart to get into Harvard. Maybe Jews, too. The rest . . meh.
"...She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard..." That means nothing in Hollywood! Moreover, Sorvino did have a chance to turn down those "ditsy" roles?
But I guess here so-called intelligence deserted her. I've always said, being academically great means shit. Give me a poor driven kid from the streets and they'll run over any super performing college graduate in a heart beat.
I will always respect Sorvino for telling Weinstein no.
Joe Smith said: Assuming the daughter was of legal age, sounds like old Pete missed out on some possible mother/daughter action.
The Sportsman's Special
Also! this is a dumb story. It's just something that happened privilege or no ...
"...She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard..."
Trixie Cum Laude would be a great 'porn name.'
next time we see Meade on the highway we are going to stalk'n'sidle
up to him and scream "We love You!"
...just to see what it's like to be Ann.
He would get how sweet and kooky and funny we are. We just know it!
I don't know much about 'gender privilege', but I do know this. I'm a man. I act unapologetically.
Women viscerally get that.
Some women hate that, and complain about 'privilege'. They can put all the initials behind their names that they want, but...
...there is a Yin...and there is a Yang. The two join and create balance. A free-floating Yin, without her Yang, is a pest to everyone else.
"A free-floating Yin, without her Yang..."
Exactly...
These days, who's to say the 'she' doesn't have a Yang.
As Hercules points out, and as indicated by half a dozen jokes on the theme of Ms Sorvino's attractiveness in her prime, gender privilege isn't really a thing.
Men and women are different. Men who sidle up to women uninvited may frighten them. Because they may actually be a threat. The other way round, not so much. No amount of nitpicking, that very very occasionally it's the wife who beats her husband to death with the croquet mallet, is going to change that.
Gender or sex equality is a comcept from moral and political philosophy, not an observation about reality.
It's fine to point out that the shriekers of "gender privilege" are inconsistent. But the point is not to insist that "gender equality" should be enforced ever more shriekingly. The point is that gender equality and sex equality are fictional constructs for alternative realities. They have no application to this one.
Which reminds me, I reread Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness recently. Now that's a cracking good story, with a splendidly constructed fictional society of sequential hermaphrodites. Well worth the reread.
Whoops, forgot to say that the one "privilege" thing that really does exist is of course the one that never gets mentioned; and that's "Attractive Privilege".
It's kinda gender neutral in that Attractive Man and Attractive Woman are each able to work it to good advantage. But also gender non-neutral in that :
(a) in male estimation, 50% of women are of below average attractiveness, and
(b) in female estimation, 80% of men are of below average attractiveness
This is not a girls struggle with math thing, it's a mean / mode thing.
Simply knowing that 80% of men are below average in attractiveness - which you can learn in as long as it takes you to read it, gives you more actual knowledge about human society than any number of years studying anything from the grievance studies curriculum.
Davidson seems retarded to me, but he gets the girls. Kaia Gerber, Arianna Grande, Cazzie David, Margaret Qualley, even Kate Beckinsale. Mira would be an old cow to him.
"but the basic point that people who attend Harvard are smart still stands."
Only if you define "smart" as "presumed well educated". There are just as many people who have never gone to college who are as smart or smarter than those who did. Going to college costs many things (money and time) and offers you (in most cases) lots of stuff to ingest. What you do with it, or NOT do with it, defines you and your "common sense" approach to life.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
THEOLDMAN
People who graduate from Harvard look down upon graduates from CalTech. I'd wager any graduate of CalTech could sail through Harvard. OTOH, most Harvard graduates wouldn't make it through 4 years at CalTech. Or MIT, RPI, or Stevens Institute of Technology. Harvard graduates plat with words- that can mean anything. Graduates of the others have to actually know things and demonstrate that knowledge.
Thanks to Facebook, I'm still in touch with many people from my 1973 HS graduating class. The ones afeared of the dreaded covid all have liberal arts degrees- some of us who aren't also do- mine's in PoliSci. But no one with a technical degree or who understands numbers worried about it. Which is the smarter group? The one willing to evaluate their own risks? Or the ones who want government control to protect them?
"Only if you define "smart" as "presumed well educated".
I'm defining "smart" as "smart" and I am correct.
"There are just as many people who have never gone to college who are as smart or smarter than those who did."
Not in 2020. We've been using standardized testing for 3/4 of a century and the remaining quantity of overlooked talent is pretty low. Not saying that no person who has never gone to college is smart, but nowadays, if you don't go to college, it's probably just because you're not that smart.
"People who graduate from Harvard look down upon graduates from CalTech. I'd wager any graduate of CalTech could sail through Harvard. OTOH, most Harvard graduates wouldn't make it through 4 years at CalTech."
While I think you would learn far more useful stuff at CalTech than you would at Harvard, if you are capable of getting admitted to Harvard, you are mostly likely capable of passing CalTech as well.
I don't think most of the commenters realize how far above average Harvard students are in terms of standardized test scores and how much this means in terms of raw academic ability. Sure, they may be mostly pompous nitwits but they're brilliant pompous nitwits.
Jokah Macpherson said...
"Only if you define "smart" as "presumed well educated".
I'm defining "smart" as "smart" and I am correct.
"There are just as many people who have never gone to college who are as smart or smarter than those who did."
Not in 2020. We've been using standardized testing for 3/4 of a century and the remaining quantity of overlooked talent is pretty low. Not saying that no person who has never gone to college is smart, but nowadays, if you don't go to college, it's probably just because you're not that smart.
me: This comment indicates you are an idiot and therefore, not smart. Carry on, fool. Most people don't go to college because it costs too much fucking money and it's simply a leftist indoctrination pit. Your ignorance is on display.
"...is one of the most intelligent, educated actors in the U.S. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard."
Well, Althouse, you have your credentialism in order, although I think you have made a lot of assumptions about both Mira Sorvino and the quality of a Harvard education.
I think I'd trust Meade's judgment on most things a lot more than I would trust the judgment of some show pony like Sorvino. I loved her Dad on Law and Order, though.
Lisa Kudro & Mira Sorvino.
That's a three way I'd hard-illy endorse.
Fuck this privilege analysis. This supercilious analysis of the pedestrian loonies Iis tedious.
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