Don’t forget to look me up on Instagram, and Twitter under “RealAutismSpeak” if you want to follow my daily exploits, for more than what I’m able to put out here–for the time–on this blog! Also on TikTok, Clouthub, Gab, Telegram, GETTR, and Minds as well.
God I am gonna take so much hate for this one.
The good news is, despite all the hate I’m gonna take for it, I recently got some additional cannon fodder to bring my point home, so go ahead and hate I guess 😉
Now, before we get to most of how this past week went, and the main topic, I have a very important update to share:
I was listening to a Q&A earlier this week presented by Phil Godlewski…..and it appears the perception of Autism may finally be making a turn with the “Conspiracy” community; not “all-the-way suddenly getting it” or anything like that, but at least acknowledging that the subject is more complicated than just “sprinkle some Suramin on their feet, to wash the Autism away”; yes, we are now entering subtle turning points, and that will be vital to the collapse of the Stigma, but I will get into more that both in future entries, and likely at the end of this one as well 😉
So, NGL, pretty much my entire focus this past week has been on the weather up in the North; the really low temperatures, the snow, making sure my guinea pigs were ok, and thankfully having enough time to go run errands to stock the apartment up; all that was managed successfully, and in the process my guinea pigs and I achieved a special milestone, as….as of this past Monday, they are now 4 years old. Now yes, guinea pigs can live an average of 5-8 years, but not only is it not common, but to have a pair of guinea pigs pull it off, together?! Incidentally, I think over the years, my guinea pigs are starting to develop sort of an extra “sense” of communicating with each other, to make sure they’re both ok and all that….and I almost feel like it helps me keep up on ’em too, in a way, all of which was very helpful these last few days, having to keep a blanket over their cage, and hearing one consistently….because if I heard him freaking out any, I’d know there was a problem with his brother. No freakouts, so we’re good.
“But Russell, what about those heating/cooling units you have installed?” They’re having issues; they’ll turn on for about 15 seconds when I toy around with them, and nothing beyond that. I would discuss it further with my landlord, but he’s currently recovering from surgery over a diagnosis, so I gotta wait that out a bit; it’s….a whole thing. So, that’s been my fun little week, to give you all an update. Now, without further ado, lemme get to the main topic at hand, and why I said it would be semi-related to what I said in this recent update:
I was recently having a chat with my Supervisor at work, talking about random whatevers, and was recommended two movies to check out:
Ron’s Gone Wrong, and Grease
As my supervisor was the one who strongly recommended the Bob’s Burgers movie to me–which I loved–I figured I’d take her up on Ron’s Gone Wrong, and give Grease a chance; the latter one she both had to elaborate to me that it’s not just belting a tune out every 3 seconds as I was concerned (as musicals usually seem to be), and partially attempted to explain to me about the ending which my Dad said he hated. Incidentally enough, it was both partially her explanation of the ending and wanting to see my Dad’s problem with it–coupled with her easing my concerns about the “musical” aspect–that convinced me to in fact check the movie out.
To paint you a brief picture before I get to where I’m going with this, my Dad saw the movie with my Mom likely a short time before they were married, and he said at the end, Olivia Newton-John’s character Sandy Olsson “ruins” herself to be with Travolta’s character Danny Zuko, shedding being a “good girl” for his loser Greaser vibe, and it’s cheered on as some happy ending fantasy, and he hated that. Well, around the same time, he’d also seen Saturday Night Fever and…..successfully managed to misinterpret the plot of that film, entirely. My Dad thought the film was about “a guy who enters a Disco-dancing concert, and wins”. I mean….it’s in there, but that’s not what the movie is about at all….and literally everyone I tell his explanation to either gives a blank stare as if to say “you have to be kidding me” or laughs their ass off for the point of the movie to have been so badly missed, by my old man. It’s…kinda like saying “Harry Potter is about a kid who graduates from Wizarding school”; yeah, it’s in there, but there’s a waaaaaaaaaaaaay bigger story being told.
So, I popped in Grease, sat thru it, and when that end scene came…..I laughed my ass off. Now, the funny thing here is…from reviews I’ve seen of the movie, a lot of people seem to have the same criticism of the movie that my Dad did, and I think every last one of them is missing major context, but all of that is also important in regards to this entry, as well! Before I continue, lemme briefly say I was considering titling this entry “Summer Lovin’ “, but I decided I wanted to be more creative than that…calling it that would’ve been way too easy, and I think some prequel is coming out soon with that title or something; I don’t want to confuse my title with the advertising for their new series or movie, or whatever. Now that we got that out of the way….
So, why you may ask did I laugh my ass off? Lemme start by telling you the one thing in the movie I actually liked, and then we’ll get back to it: I love the animated intro, and the song played over it performed by Franki Valli, to the point where I ordered a copy of the 45 on eBay, recently!
One other important thing worth noting is that the movie is actually based on a stage play, and apparently said stage play is intended to parody the nostalgia “genre”, up to and including featuring performers that are clearly too old to be playing the characters in the intended setting. For instance, Olivia Newton-John was just about to hit 30 when playing the main role, and Stockard Channing (who I know best as the awesome Commissioner Barbara Gordon on Batman Beyond) who plays Rizzo was already 33 years old…so essentially both actors could’ve been parents to actual high school kids, by this point. The thing is……the movie decided to go the route of playing what was intended to be a parody as completely straight, and in my opinion this caused major problems in execution, and this is where we get to my problem with the ending to the movie, and pretty much deconstruct everything else in the process:
No, I don’t believe Sandy “ruins” herself for Danny at all……because to “change” herself would imply we knew a fucking thing about her in any way, shape, or form leading up to this point in the movie. Yes, this is part of the problem with playing a satire straight: in this movie, there is no protagonist. All the characters are little more than shallow, spineless cowards who make terrible decisions, and suffer no repercussions for them, in the process. When Sandy “reappears” at the end having changed up her attire for Danny, all these characters had such little depth to them, far as I was concerned she could’ve been wearing an Indian Headdress or a Sailor’s outfit, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. I found myself getting bored throughout the movie because not one scene allows us to breathe and get to know the characters in any conceivable way, other than again being written so poorly, they just come off shallow, and easy prey to making bad decisions for impulsive decisions or to “save face” in front of others. Hell, half the scenes in the movie are there because the script says they need to be, and there’s no rhyme or reason for why we’re following any of it. Again, in a parody this is more easily excused, but when you’re playing it straight, this shit just falls flat. It’s actually even funnier at the end of the movie, because in the song Sandy sings “You’re the One That I Want”, she tells Danny “now that I’ve changed for you, you gotta make sure to change for me”, despite literally every previous scene showing–again–he’s just a shallow, cowardly douchebag, so none of it means anything with anybody, regardless.
I’m actually reminded of–in the process–when Plinkett from Red Letter Media–did his Star Wars Episode I review–challenging people to describe the prequel characters without using their names, and no one could do it, because of the clear decline in writing quality. For me, these characters are mostly the same; good luck describing any of the characters in this mess to me, because they’re all pretty much interchangeable with no real personality, other than being shallow, spineless cowards, as already stated.
“Ok ok ok, Russell, we get it; ya didn’t like the movie, what was the necessity of beating on it so much? What’s your point? It’s a “turn your brain off, and enjoy” type movie” Well incidentally, you are not the first person to say that about the movie, but I can definitely live with that description. You know what else? The movie itself I don’t technically have a problem with. Plenty of stupid, shitty movies exist; they are what they are. No, I don’t have a problem with Grease being a stupid movie, or people liking it, or if it were even so far as considered a cult classic; it isn’t considered a cult classic though; it’s considered a classic.
That it’s considered a classic piece of cinema history is where I have the problem with it. Enough of the populous is so invested in a movie with extremely shallow, spineless characters, and champions the “love story” of two people with no personality whatsoever, and their lack of any genuine individuality that they can “be a different person than they are” on a dime; that’s where I draw the line. However, some other things throughout my past in terms of interaction with others and pop culture also make more sense to me now, as a result as well, such as….
When Family Matters officially ran out of ideas of what to do with Steve Urkel, they stopped focusing on what a good guy the “nerd” is at heart, and started focusing on making him shallow and “cool” to appeal to people, and called the alter ego Stefan Urquelle, a character I find even goofier and more idiotic than the rest of the cast…..and the show continued for several more seasons, in the process..
Or…..how about what I said here about Duckman, and how as the show continued, the writing eventually got so uncreative and “stock”, that they started using Cornfed less and less, because they had no clue what in Hell to even do with him?
Ok, so I bring up the pop culture examples; what do I got regarding interactions with people, you may wonder? How about the common understanding of “mid-life crises”, and how so many around us always wax nostalgically about how “things were better, before we were around”, and all that? Could it be perhaps that the reason people find themselves going thru “mid-life crises”, and wanting to re-live their youth and all that is because they don’t bother growing, mentally? They view their teen years as the peak of their lives because someone else was in control of it, making all their important decisions for them, and want a reminder of that, indicating they don’t trust their own selves to make good decisions to grow, and become their best selves….and why our culture emphasizes “change” over growth….as I linked above.
I even once again go back to what I said in this entry here about all those gals who were nailing Gene Simmons when KISS was on tour, championing him as the “bad boy rebel”, when anyone who knows/understands themselves deep down well enough would’ve had some basic intuition that something was very much off with what eventually transpired as some cowardly corporate stooge looking the part of the rebel, not actually being one in any way (kinda going back to Danny and Sandy, when you think about it). In the process, we now “circle back” to Grease, the fact that this movie is viewed a classic by the populous at large, and bring home the reality that it’s a populous who barely even knows itself, and is too afraid to do the intuition to understand themselves well enough to grow, instead just projects mostly, and hopes others “change” to make them more comfortable.
Tell me: you really think this is the populous that will gravitate toward an actual rebel to the system like you, my Autistic friends?! They sure as hell won’t, as long as they continue to invest in the lower frequencies, which pop culture moments like this movie thrive on.
As stated before, this is why you’re not making progress with those on the lower frequencies. As I stated in the beginning, yes that’s about to change, but we still don’t know who’s gonna gravitate to raising their frequency, and who isn’t…..so for the time being, just focus on doing your own self-improvement work, and who will join you is meant to join you. Whoever isn’t…..can gush over Stefan Urquelle, and Danny Zuko with Sandra Olsson, make sense? 🙂
Talk to you folks soon….and I’ll let you know how the record sounds, when it arrives. Also, check out Ron’s Gone Wrong! 😀
Getting Real With Autism 