Howie Mandel लेबलों वाले संदेश दिखाए जा रहे हैं. सभी संदेश दिखाएं
Howie Mandel लेबलों वाले संदेश दिखाए जा रहे हैं. सभी संदेश दिखाएं
18 मई 2020
"You touched me! You want to kill me! Touch can kill!... You coarse, clumsy, stupid FOOL!"
An old movie clip, blogged before — back in 2014, examining the subject of bodily integrity and the need to get consent before touching another person. The movie — "David and Lisa" (1962) — depicts a man with a severe mental disorder.
I thought it was interesting to look at that clip now, in our time of social distancing, as we think about how to get back to normal or — to put it more accurately — to move forward into a new normal. I'm thinking the new normal will have us manifesting symptoms that once got us classified as mentally disordered.
I remember when Michelle Obama said: "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual...." I'm thinking: Coronavirus will never allow us to go back to our lives as usual.
All these things we used to do: Eat together in restaurants, sit together in theaters, scramble about on playgrounds, hug our friends, get on an elevator with a stranger, shake hands, sing together, shoulder our way through a crowd. There will be a David living in our head, always on edge and ready to scream You touched me! You want to kill me! Touch can kill!
ADDED: I just noticed that Bill Maher said this on his last show (on Friday):
21 अक्टूबर 2014
"Don't touch me"... "Don't touch my girlfriend."
Who says "Don't touch me"? Most famously: Jesus. He said it — "Noli me tangere" — to Mary Magdalene, in a scene depicted many times in art:
That had something to do with the fragility of the fleshly body in the immediate aftermath of resurrection. A very special case. In modern times, I think we tend to think of a woman saying "Don't touch me." But Howie Mandel wrote a book called "Don't Touch Me":
He was writing about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Maybe you remember pre-"2001" Keir Dullea as David in "David and Lisa" with his mentally disordered fear of touching:
"You touched me! You want to kill me! Touch can kill!... You coarse, clumsy, stupid FOOL!"
The truth is that we all have a right to sovereignty over our own bodies. It's not just something for women to demand from men. It's something we are all entitled to as human beings. We are now encountering the defense of female integrity embodied in the rather muddled campus policy known as "Yes means yes," but it applies to men too. Women care about our bodily integrity, but too many of us believe that our sexual favors are so universally desirable that a "yes" from a man can be presumed, that a woman can impose upon a man. But that's wrong.
And now, today, we see this story of the President of the United States, Barack Obama, making the kind of assumption that is more typical of the female — the assumption that the person he chooses to touch must necessarily want to be touched. Obama is caught in a relationship with a man who postures as the woman's boyfriend and says to the President: "Don't touch my girlfriend." The President proceeds to grasp at his own dignity by demonstrating to that man that he most certainly can touch that woman, but what of the woman, that woman possessed by two men? It was her choice whether to be touched by the President, and her choice whether to be owned by the man who said to the President "Don't touch my girlfriend," and yet both men assumed ownership over her autonomy — the boyfriend because he had a past with her and the President because, like too many woman, he thought of himself as so universally desirable that a "yes" from any woman can be presumed.
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper? My heart breaks to see how she saw her best hope in coming to the aid of both men, both men who, within seconds, claim sovereignty over the territory of her body. What history lies behind this instinct to protect these 2 men, these 2 exemplars of male power — the boyfriend and the President of the United States? Cooper didn't even want to stand next to the President: "I was like, 'do I have to stand there? I don't really want to stand there.'" And after the incident in which Cooper defended her boyfriend and acceded to the Commander-in-Chief's command "You're gonna kiss me," Ms. Cooper reached out to the President's wife: "I wanna meet Michelle... Hopefully she doesn't think anything about me, but I really want to meet her."
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," Jesus said.
That had something to do with the fragility of the fleshly body in the immediate aftermath of resurrection. A very special case. In modern times, I think we tend to think of a woman saying "Don't touch me." But Howie Mandel wrote a book called "Don't Touch Me":
He was writing about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Maybe you remember pre-"2001" Keir Dullea as David in "David and Lisa" with his mentally disordered fear of touching:
"You touched me! You want to kill me! Touch can kill!... You coarse, clumsy, stupid FOOL!"
The truth is that we all have a right to sovereignty over our own bodies. It's not just something for women to demand from men. It's something we are all entitled to as human beings. We are now encountering the defense of female integrity embodied in the rather muddled campus policy known as "Yes means yes," but it applies to men too. Women care about our bodily integrity, but too many of us believe that our sexual favors are so universally desirable that a "yes" from a man can be presumed, that a woman can impose upon a man. But that's wrong.
And now, today, we see this story of the President of the United States, Barack Obama, making the kind of assumption that is more typical of the female — the assumption that the person he chooses to touch must necessarily want to be touched. Obama is caught in a relationship with a man who postures as the woman's boyfriend and says to the President: "Don't touch my girlfriend." The President proceeds to grasp at his own dignity by demonstrating to that man that he most certainly can touch that woman, but what of the woman, that woman possessed by two men? It was her choice whether to be touched by the President, and her choice whether to be owned by the man who said to the President "Don't touch my girlfriend," and yet both men assumed ownership over her autonomy — the boyfriend because he had a past with her and the President because, like too many woman, he thought of himself as so universally desirable that a "yes" from any woman can be presumed.
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper? My heart breaks to see how she saw her best hope in coming to the aid of both men, both men who, within seconds, claim sovereignty over the territory of her body. What history lies behind this instinct to protect these 2 men, these 2 exemplars of male power — the boyfriend and the President of the United States? Cooper didn't even want to stand next to the President: "I was like, 'do I have to stand there? I don't really want to stand there.'" And after the incident in which Cooper defended her boyfriend and acceded to the Commander-in-Chief's command "You're gonna kiss me," Ms. Cooper reached out to the President's wife: "I wanna meet Michelle... Hopefully she doesn't think anything about me, but I really want to meet her."
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," Jesus said.
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