I find garbled apostrophe usage extremely irksome. "Your" is NOT the same as "you're." To illustrate, if I may: if you write "you're an asshole," you are calling someone an asshole, but if you say "your asshole" you are, in fact, directly referring to their actual asshole. Notice I said "their," which is possessive, and means the asshole in question belongs exclusively to them; rather than "there," which refers to a place their asshole might be, somewhere in the vicinity. Of course, technically "his" or "her" asshole would be correct, unless I were referring to a collective asshole.
I realize that, although most of us learned grammar and spelling in elementary school, not all of us retain all that info after a certain point. I suppose it depends on the kind of info your brain tends to keep, and the kind it discards. I learned algebra years ago too, but now I couldn't calculate an equation for all the hunks in Hollywood. And for some reason, my brain has hung onto grammar and basic sentence structure, but I find myself needing spellcheck more than I used to. Spelling is apparently one of the first things to go after 40 or so, soon to be joined by one's lips. We seem to lose our lips after 40. Where do they go? Do they get swallowed up by our teeth? Perhaps they go to that mysterious place where lost underwear goes. Somewhere in an alternate universe, there are all these young body parts floating around with someone's boxer shorts.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Barbie Envy
Do we still aspire to Barbie? To be blonde, svelte, perfect, with a tall dark man with thick hair and a perfectly muscled body by our side? Barbie manufacturers have come up with revised versions of the original Barbie, that more accurately reflect the current reality of most women’s lives. Barbie can now be found in various sizes, shapes and ethnicities, and wearing business attire.
I say they haven’t gone far enough. How about PMS Barbie – Barbie with her hormones run amok? Or Bleary-Eyed Barbie – at six in the morning after a night on the town. Or how about Erotically Challenged Barbie – just not interested anymore. Or her alterego, Nympho Barbie. Then of course, there’s Self-Validated Barbie, who doesn’t need a man to feel good about herself.
Do little boys aspire to G.I. Joe? Personally, I think perfect-looking men are boring as hell. Why a kid would want to play with a Hollywood-handsome action hero is beyond me. I think GI Joe should have a beer belly or a few long hairs flung over his balding scalp (not that I find either of these attributes particularly alluring, but at least they're real).
Of course, little boys don’t tend to obsess about how their hair compares to Aqua-Man’s, or care if their ass is bigger than Superman’s. But still, I would think that a chubby pre-pubescent boy with braces and glasses would feel some sense of inferiority when faced with the physical perfection of Batman. Even his sidekick is good-looking in a vanilla-Republican kind of way.
As far as inanimate role-models go, the glorious imperfections of a Barbie with a crooked nose and a bit of cellulite co-habiting with a bald Ken sporting a few acne scars would certainly be a refreshing sight. They could be marketed as “Reality Barbie and Ken,” and have their own show on NBC. I wonder what their ratings would be like.
I say they haven’t gone far enough. How about PMS Barbie – Barbie with her hormones run amok? Or Bleary-Eyed Barbie – at six in the morning after a night on the town. Or how about Erotically Challenged Barbie – just not interested anymore. Or her alterego, Nympho Barbie. Then of course, there’s Self-Validated Barbie, who doesn’t need a man to feel good about herself.
Do little boys aspire to G.I. Joe? Personally, I think perfect-looking men are boring as hell. Why a kid would want to play with a Hollywood-handsome action hero is beyond me. I think GI Joe should have a beer belly or a few long hairs flung over his balding scalp (not that I find either of these attributes particularly alluring, but at least they're real).
Of course, little boys don’t tend to obsess about how their hair compares to Aqua-Man’s, or care if their ass is bigger than Superman’s. But still, I would think that a chubby pre-pubescent boy with braces and glasses would feel some sense of inferiority when faced with the physical perfection of Batman. Even his sidekick is good-looking in a vanilla-Republican kind of way.
As far as inanimate role-models go, the glorious imperfections of a Barbie with a crooked nose and a bit of cellulite co-habiting with a bald Ken sporting a few acne scars would certainly be a refreshing sight. They could be marketed as “Reality Barbie and Ken,” and have their own show on NBC. I wonder what their ratings would be like.
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