"Whether or not to take a spouse’s name is a personal decision. But the personal is political — now more than ever, and especially for celebrities."

"Like every star, or every mortal with an Instagram account, Ms. Affleck has constructed a persona for public consumption. She has used her platforms to tell the tale of the upward trajectory of a strong, independent woman, a woman who has gone from backup dancer to global superstar. Her brand is intense competence and hard-core self-sufficiency — 'in control and loving it,' as she sings in 'Jenny From the Block.' Whoever Jennifer Affleck is in her private life, J. Lo is a woman who might love a man but doesn’t need one. Imagine if, in her newsletter, she had said, 'I love my husband. Right now, though, women are under attack, and I won’t participate in a tradition that’s historically rooted in women relinquishing their identities and their legal standing. I’m giving my husband my heart, but I’m keeping my name.' Imagine if Ben Affleck had become Ben Lopez."

I'm reading "Why It Matters That J-Lo Is Now J-Aff" by Jennifer Weiner (NYT). 

"His gut is pooching outward in a way that, in a more enlightened country like, say, France, would perhaps be considered virile, not unlike the lusty Gérard Depardieu in his prime but, in fitness-fascist America, tends to read as Homer Simpsonesque."

I like that sentence — even though it uses the verb "to pooch" (which I find very annoying) — from "The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck" by Naomi Fry in The New Yorker.

I already railed against "pooch" back in 2013, so I'm not going to do it again.

"All of you Hollywood 'A-list' golden boys are LIARS. We have just begun. #ROSEARMY."

All of you Hollywood “A-list” golden boys are LIARS. We have just begun. #ROSEARMY pic.twitter.com/r5yPL2A3bC

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 10, 2017

Rose McGowan was on fire on Twitter these last few days...

@benaffleck “GODDAMNIT! I TOLD HIM TO STOP DOING THAT” you said that to my face. The press conf I was made to go to after assault. You lie.

... but now: "Rose McGowan Suspended From Twitter After Ben Affleck Tweet" (NYT).

It was not clear which tweets had resulted in the suspension. However, on Tuesday, after Mr. Affleck tweeted that the allegations against Mr. Weinstein “made him sick,” Ms. McGowan called him a liar, saying he had long been aware of what Mr. Weinstein had done.

There's still Instagram:

rosemcgowan TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME. THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE MY VOICE. #ROSEARMY

By suspending her, Twitter created evidence that confirms suspicions that there is a conspiracy of silence surrounding the people who enabled Harvey Weinstein. The evidence — suspending McGowan — can be interpreted in different ways. It might be that Twitter has neutral rules and would suspend anybody who attacks anybody as specifically and severely as Rose McGowan attacked Ben Affleck, but I think Twitter is foolish to take down Rose McGowan, when it lets President Trump take his shots.

Here's what Twitter PublicPolicy said about not censoring Trump's tweeted attacks on Kim Jong-Un:

We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules

Among the considerations is "newsworthiness" and whether a Tweet is of public interest

This has long been internal policy and we'll soon update our public-facing rules to reflect it. We need to do better on this, and will 

Twitter is committed to transparency and keeping people informed about what's happening in the world

We’ll continue to be guided by these fundamental principles

So, the same rules for everybody includes a rule with an exception: newsworthiness.

The system of facilitating and protecting Harvey Weinstein is newsworthy, and Rose McGowan has personal experience and passionate energy giving something important to those of us who read and comment on Twitter.

If you don't apply your exceptions in a neutral fashion, they're not exceptions. They're loopholes.

ADDED: Right now, Rose McGowan's Twitter is working for me. And — for balance — here's Ben Affleck's Twitter feed. The top post is:

I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize

The above-linked NYT story does not mention "Ms. Burton."

You can get more background on Burton — Hilarie Burton — in this Daily Mail piece: "'I would also love to get an apology from Ben Affleck': Makeup artist now claims Batman star and Weinstein protégé 'grabbed my a**' at a Golden Globes party' in 2014/Makeup artist, Annamarie Tendler, claims Ben Affleck 'grabbed her a**' in 2014/Tendler said she was attending a Golden Globes party when incident happened/She demanded Affleck apologize for 'pressing his finger in her crack' on Twitter/Affleck recently apologized for groping Hilarie Burton on TRL in 2003/Burton tweeted about the incident in light of Weinstein sex abuse scandal/She wrote 'I didn't forget' on Twitter & said she was forced to 'laugh' off incident/Affleck, who is currently in rehab for alcohol addiction, admitted his 'inappropriate' behavior and apologized to the actress on Twitter/It came hours after Affleck said he was 'saddened and angry' over 'sickening claims' of sexual assault made against his benefactor Weinstein/He was slammed by many, specifically Rose McGowan, who called him a liar."

PBS might drop Henry Louis Gates for doing a show about Ben Affleck that avoided the unpretty news that he had slave-owning ancestors.

A PBS internal review has concluded that Gates (the eminent Harvard professor) used "improper judgment" helping the big movie star avoid an unpleasant confrontation with the information that might be seen as harmful to his image. I don't really see why it would hurt him, since we are not our ancestors, and Affleck could have used the occasion to show us the right way to respond to the legacy of slavery.

If he'd handled it well, it would have been to his credit. Affleck didn't know his email would be leaked, but we now know he just said he was "embarrassed." Embarrassed. That's so pathetic. So weak. To hear that his reaction was embarrassment and that he would prevail upon Gates to censor the information to spare him embarrassment... that's embarrassing.

UPDATE: "PBS will not run the show’s third season until staffing changes are made, including hiring a fact checker...."

"Ben Affleck has admitted he was 'embarrassed' about a slave-owning ancestor..."

"... and said that’s why he lobbied television chiefs to hide his story in a documentary about his heritage."

The Hollywood star said he regretted trying to influence what went into the programme and was now glad that his family history would be part of the discussion about the impact of slavery in America....

Affleck spoke out after hacked emails from film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment, leaked online, revealed that he had asked producers of the television programme Finding Your Roots to suppress details of the ancestor. The revelations have provoked a censorship scandal in the US: the programme’s producer, Henry Louis Gates, a history professor at Harvard, had to issue a statement insisting he retained “editorial control.”

Affleck's efforts to control PR are what you'd expect from an actor. The focus should be on Gates. He's the one with the serious obligations here.

"Your credibility is really remarkable because of the depth of your commitment."

Said John McCain to Ben Affleck.

Which would be fine, if they were chatting at a cocktail party, but Affleck was a witness before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He's "stale, hairy and vanilla."

The reasons — according to the NY Post — why 100s of 1000s of people think Ben Affleck should not play the role of Batman.

What Ben Affleck said about marriage at the Oscars and why people are criticizing him.

Accepting the award for Best Picture, he said (addressing his wife):

"I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good, it is work, but it’s the best kind of work, and there’s no one I’d rather work with."

What's wrong with that?

The criticism centers around this statement as lacking in cuteness, and focusing on the negative. It wasn’t the “right forum” for this type of declaration, it was a possible indicator that “something is wrong” in the marriage, he should have just stuck to “I love you and adore you and you’re perfect” -- basically whining that a major Hollywood star was uncomfortably honest about his relationship and said overly blunt things about marriage in one of the most public forums on the planet.

Obviously, that's a summary from someone who doesn't agree with the criticism.

The critics are imagining themselves in the position of the wife and thinking they'd want to hear a nice compliment. But I bet Affleck planned his speech, with the help of his wife Jennifer Garner, and that the 2 of them decided they had an excellent opportunity to speak to everyone about marriage and this was the message they wanted to give: Work on it everyone. We — the pretty people, who seem so ideal — we have to work on it and we do work on it.

The line is crafted. 10 years was edited into 10 Christmases. It's been years and it's included family traditions and deep values that take a lot of attention. The first sentence creates some tension. Is he saying that the wife took care of the home front, making his life stable and pleasurable, while he went out in the world and furthered his career? The second sentence prolongs the tension — It’s good, it is work, but it’s the best kind of work — and we finally get to the resolution: there’s no one I’d rather work with. That means he is also doing this work. And that's subtly stated. He didn't praise himself as he said those last few words which reveal that he is a partner in the work. It's all carefully about her.

Well, there's also the "no one" — the nonexistent person he would prefer to "work with," that is, to have a marriage with, because it's marriage that equals work. The temptation of adultery is that it looks like a vacation from a marriage that seems like work. Imagine the opportunities strewn in front of Ben Affleck. There's a twist on that last line that creates anxiety for the sensitive listener: There's no one other than Jennifer that he'd like to work with (be in a marriage with), but does he ever play?

"The best in business is on 'Argo' right now. She’s like Rahm Emanuel."

A non-random sentence from an article with the first sentence: "Political movies are expected to rake in the trophies at Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony."

So... "political movies" is supposed to refer to movies with political subject matter, but they win awards because people wage a political campaign for the award.

Too much politics! Remember when it seemed like movies were counterculture or art or something like that?

The "she" in the quote in this post's title is Sasha Stone, who's quoted predicting the award winners this year won't appropriate the occasion and make political remarks: "You don’t want to turn off half of America by making jokes about Republicans."

Oscar nominations.

Here.

Observations: Quentin Tarantino punished. Who's Benh Zeitlin? Benh Zeitlin gets a director nomination and QT is out. Ben Affleck shunned as well.

"Zero Dark Thirty" punished.

The award ceremony is set up to be a solemn struggle between 2 inspiring models of virtue: Lincoln and Pi.

What is "Beasts of the Southern Wild"? Isn't that the question everyone's asking. Here:



"I see that I'm a little piece of a big big universe." Blech!

Obviously, it's Inspiration Year.

This is why I don't go to the movies.

Leave me alone, Hollywood.

Catching up on the news about Elizabeth Warren.

1. "The University of Pennsylvania, where Warren worked from 1987 to 1994, listed her as a minority in a 'Minority Equity Report.'  The report comes after Harvard Law School claimed Warren as a diversity hire in 1996."

2. "There is nothing left of the claim that Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 Cherokee. The documentary sources have been debunked, and the genealogist and genealogical society which originated the story and upon whom the Warren campaign relies are not talking."

3. As for Warren, she says: "I feel like Scott Brown is raising ugly insinuations and I think he is doing it because he doesn’t want to talk about what is happening to Americas families. Middle class families are getting hammered and 72 hours ago Scott Brown voted to hammer them harder. And that is what this campaign should be about. Whose side do you stand on?"

4. Meanwhile: "Ben Affleck, Matt Damon to host Warren fundraiser."