In business, success is sometimes connected to who you know and not your professional or academic background. The same could be said for politics.
The latest brouhaha from Washington D.C. is that Representative Matt Gaetz, one of you know who’s butt kisser’s, is in trouble for paying women and young girls for sex. He is also rumored to have openly and proudly shared images of these women while being the only one to have voted no on the Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act back in 2017. While this is happening, the former President whom this Representative gave so much support to is silent.
Anyone with half a brain would have figured out by now that you know who is only out for number one. If you are of use to him or have some sort of power over him, then he pays attention to you. If neither of those are applicable, you are persona non grata.
Aside from all that, I personally find it disgusting that a man who is nearly 40 years old purposefully goes after girls who if they are not underage, are nearly twenty years his junior. If he wants to pay to have sex with an adult woman, that is his business. But to set his sights on a sixteen or seventeen year old is disgusting and immortal. If these allegations are true, he deserves to be thrown in jail for as many years as the justice system can send him away for. If this is the caliber of politicians that we have in this country, we are properly and fully screwed.
I apologize for the delay in the publication of the new character review posts. Life, as it does, got in the way last week.
*For the foreseeable future, some Character Review posts may not be published every Thursday as they have in the past.
*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the characters from the television series The Nanny. Read at your own risk if you have not watched the show. There is something to be said about a well-written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front of us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations. When it comes to ethnic or racial stereotypes, there is line that can be easily crossed into a gross misrepresentation of the culture that person represents. However, it can also be subverted to reveal the human being who exceeds the image they represent.
At first glance, Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) is your typical Jewish woman from New York City. She has a thick Queens accent, is obsessed with finding a husband and adores Barbra Streisand. When her fiancé dumps her, she has no choice but to go back to selling cosmetics door to door. One of the doors she knocks on is Maxwell Sheffield’s (Charles Shaughnessy). Maxwell is a Broadway producer and a widower with three growing children. Though she is a square peg in a round hole, Maxwell hires Fran to be his children’s nanny. Over the years, Fran becomes much more than the hired help. She is a mother figure to her charges and encourages them to see beyond the limited reaches of their Park Avenue mansion.
Fran brings much more than herself into the WASP-y Sheffield household. She brings her entire family. Her mother Sylvia (Renee Taylor) is preoccupied with the fact that her younger daughter is both single and childless. She is also known to nosh wherever and whenever she can. Fran’s best friend Val Toriello (Rachel Chagall) is not the brightest bulb in the box. Sylvia’s mother and Fran’s grandmother Yetta Rosenberg (Ann Morgan Guilbert) is sometimes senile and sometimes not senile.
The relationship between Fran and Maxwell is not exactly the most professional relationship between employer an employee. There is a palpable chemistry between them, resulting in a will they or won’t they question that hangs over the characters for five years. When they finally get together, it is to the delight of Maxwell’s children (whose relationship with Fran is of a pseudo-parental/child nature) and the butler Niles (Daniel Davis). It is only C.C. Babcock (Lauren Lane), who looks upon the relationship with disdain. Her numerous attempts to create romantic sparks with Maxwell, her business partner have never succeeded.
To sum it up: Though Fran checks all of the boxes when it comes the stereotype of a Jewish woman, she is more than a list of expected traits and interests. She is warm, adventurous and when she loves, she loves completely.
Love can be a strange thing. We may think we know who we want to spend our lives with. Then the right person walks through the door and everything we think we know goes out the door.
In the classic 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor, Tammy ( the late Debbie Reynolds) is a girl from the country with a big heart, but little experience in the world. After she saves Peter Brent (the late Leslie Nielsen) from a plane crash, Tammy’s grandfather is sent to jail. With no one to care for her, she is sent to live with Peter’s family. Though she is akin to a fish out of water, her time with the Brents changes them. Tammy also falls in love with Peter, but he has a fiancé.
I think from the 2021 perspective, this particular movie may seem a little quaint and old fashioned. Yes, it is entertaining, but it is also very fitting for the late 1950’s.
Writergurlny 