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Entry from April 29, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012

For a forthcoming issue of The American Spectator I have been writing about Lena Dunham’s brilliant but painfully funny HBO series "Girls," whose power to generate buzz on the media’s ever vigilant distaff side is almost more impressive than the series itself. Most fascinating to me has been the way in which female journalists tend to read everything that strikes a nerve with women, as "Girls" certainly does, in feminist terms — even though, like "Girls," it may also be read as anti-feminist — at least as feminism is understood by most people today, as the yoke-fellow of the sexual revolution. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times is one of the few who sees that Ms Dunham’s portrait of the daily humiliations suffered by young women experiencing the reality of what they imagine as the "Sex and the City" lifestyle "could easily be interpreted

Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012

The former satirist Morgan Spurlock makes the mistake of taking on a subject to which he is more sympathetic than he is to McDonald’s, the Bush administration or product placement

Entry from April 23, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012

Everybody knows the old definition of chutzpah. It’s the guy who murders his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. Well, now we have a new definition, courtesy of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian nut-case who murdered 77 people last summer and is now undergoing a kind of trial in Oslo. I say a kind of trial, because his guilt is not in dispute. He himself brags of his deeds and says he would do them again. The trial is meant to decide the case not against him but between two lots of psychiatrists, one of which claims that he’s a paranoid schizophrenic while the other claims he’s not. It’s not just an academic question either because, if he’s not crazy, by Norwegian law he can only be sentenced to 21 years in prison, or just under one hundred days per murder. If he is crazy he can be kept in a psychiatric hospital indefinitely.

That’s the kind of choice that makes one sympathize with

Bully

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012

An affecting exploration into a social problem which can only be made worse by being regarded as a social problem

Entry from April 12, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012

One of the lasting effects of feminist efforts to raise the status of "independent," working women over the last forty years has been the thinly veiled contempt of the likes of Hilary Rosen of the Democratic National Committee for stay-at-home mothers like Ann Romney who, said Ms Rosen (you may have heard about it if you listen to talk radio), has "never worked a day in her life." That is of course absurd, but Mrs Romney was only doing what most women of her age and older did by assuming that marriage meant her job was to be what they used to call a "housewife" — a term doubtless banned now and known to the politically correct only as the h-word. Yet this was the natural pattern of things not so very long ago, during the era of what the anthropologists call female hypergamy. This was the tendency, presumed to be the result of evolutionary forces, of women to "marry up" — that is, in biological terms, to seek a higher-status male to mate with in order to give

Boy

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012

A delightful movie, funny and poignant at the same time, which manages to be almost as tough-minded as its 11-year-old hero

Damsels in Distress

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012

A parable or fairy tale of social renewal from the master cinematic chronicler of the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie

Entry from April 6, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Fri, 6 Apr 2012

Long ago, when I was a teacher in England, I used to have to teach something called General Studies. It would be a General Studies essay in itself to explain what General Studies is, or was, as the thing was bound up with the history of British postwar education and the curious sort of shame that crept over virtually everyone involved in it for at least a couple of decades — shame not about what the system did badly but almost invariably about what it did, or had done, superlatively well. That is a story for another day. But I still often see things that I think would make great General Studies questions, especially if they were to be found on the old Oxbridge entrance examinations’ General Papers.

That’s what happened when I saw the following headline to a story by Rachel Donadio of The New York

The Hunger Games

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Fri, 6 Apr 2012

This might have been a striking parable of the plight of young people today, if only the film-makers could have seen a little further beyond its absurdities

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Wed, 4 Apr 2012

A slacker comedy with some tentative and swiftly-disregarded pretensions to seriousness

The Morality of Normality

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012

On the new religion of progressivism’s idolatry — From The New Criterion of March, 2012

Entry from March 29, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012

Saw last night and didn’t much enjoy The Hunger Games, but the worst thing about it was the thought of how many little girls ten years from now — and how many grown women twenty years from now — we are going to have to address as "Katniss," the made-up name of the heroine, played by Jennifer Lawrence. It reminds me of that episode of "The Simpsons" in which Lisa’s teacher calls out the roll and every other girl’s name is "Ashley" or "Dakota." And then there are the 26 children of Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel, and his charming wife Brandeen — one for each letter of the alphabet. They are Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermott, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumer, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe [pronounced Zoh], Chloe [pronounced Kloh], Max, Hunter, Kendall, Caitlin, Noah, Sasha, Morgan, Kyra [pronounced Keerah], Ian, Lauren, Hubert, and Phil. . .

How quickly the merely fashionable becomes ridiculous — which, as I

Friends With Kids

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012

A self-satisfied yuppie romance that founders on its inability to distinguish between love and sex

Pseuds and Artists

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012

This year’s Oscars were dominated by what almost seemed an obsession with the past — From The American Spectator of March, 2012

Entry from March 20, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012

Here’s something that Newt Gingrich said the other day. Apologies to those who have already read it, since it has been widely reported. "The thing I find most disheartening about this campaign is the difficulty of talking about positive ideas on a large scale, because the news media can’t cover it and, candidly, my opponents can’t comprehend it." This is a disturbing statement in several ways, one of which is that it reminds us yet again of what a tin-eared egomaniac Newt is and another of which is that it’s probably true. That is to say, its truth is not as a statement about the relative intelligence of the four remaining Republican candidates (or the others who have dropped out), though it may have that kind of truth as well, but a truth about the skills needed for a modern day political campaign, which have ever less and less to do with the skills needed for governing — or, indeed, any other worthwhile activity.

And that links up

The Kid With a Bike

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012

A moving but ultimately unsatisfying study of a child’s sense of loss and abandonment

Undefeated

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012

An inspiring account of a coach’s dedication and a high school football team’s success which rather underplays its chief insight into the importance of character

Entry from March 15, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012

Daniel Henninger is at it again. Faithful readers of his "Wonder Land" column in The Wall Street Journal have learned to expect regular installments on Thursdays of his latest aper�us into our President’s own Wonder Land or, to be more precise, Fantasy Land. Today marks a kind of culmination, as Mr Henninger remarks on Mr Obama’s magician-like skill at making uncongenial realities disappear. Whether it is the poor economic numbers that have dogged him throughout his three years in office or the dangerous international trouble spots which never seem to require any difficult or politically costly interventions from him, he is a master at continuing to stand, as he did in 2008, untainted in a featureless present between a regrettable past (created by other people) and a radiant future (promised by himself).

Mr

Coriolanus

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Wed, 7 Mar 2012

An interestingly innovative and very watchable updating of Shakespeare’s late study of military honor

Entry from March 5, 2012

james@jamesbowman.net (James Bowman) — Mon, 5 Mar 2012

In this morning’s Daily Telegraph there’s a report about an Oxford undergraduate named Madeline Grant, age 19, who is campaigning for election as librarian of the Oxford Union. Her campaign slogan is: "I don’t hack, I just have a great rack." She also says she is "committed to helping members pull" — that is, find partners to sleep with. "But," says the Telegraph’s reporter, "her campaign has been condemned by students who have accused her of ’damaging the perception of women’" at the university — for example, by a member of the Union who was quoted in the student newspaper, Cherwell, as saying that,

whilst this manifesto is clearly meant to be humorous, it shows a distinct lack of judgement. It is disappointing to see female members of committee