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BLACK LIKE HOWARD
Mike G. advises: “Check out the review of Male Like Me in the New York Times today, and notice what happens when their computerized linker thingy links to the author of the 60s bestseller Black Like Me.” Let’s take a look:
“Self-Made Man” turns out not to be what it threatens to be, a men-are-scum diatribe destined for best-seller status in the more militant alternative bookstores of Berkeley and Ann Arbor. Rather, it’s a thoughtful, diligent, entertaining piece of first-person investigative journalism. Though there’s plenty of humor in “Self-Made Man,” Vincent - like her spiritual forebear John Howard Griffin, the white journalist who colored his skin and lived as a black man in the South for his 1961 book “Black Like Me” - treats her self-imposed assignment seriously, not as a stunt.
Writes Mike: “Reminds me of when I’d read the Reuters versions of Variety stories; Variety (famous for its own shorthand, e.g., helmer=director) invariably shortened Australia to Oz, and Reuters automatically turned Oz back into Australia. Which meant every once in a while they ran a story about that Judy Garland classic The Wizard of Australia.”
UPDATE. More on the NYT’s review from Instapundit.
stevo—try http://www.bugmenot.com for a temporary login.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 21 at 11:11 AM • permalink“Does that mean John Howard is your first black Prime Minister! Confgratulations! Love, Bill”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 21 at 12:20 PM • permalinkHmmm.
The Wizard of Australia
You know what? I think I’d pay to see that movie.
Posted by memomachine on 2006 01 21 at 02:05 PM • permalinkHmm. I don’t know about the book, but the Times review is thunderously condescending to anybody who… well, who isn’t a Times reader.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 21 at 02:23 PM • permalinkI seem to remember that the book ‘black like me’ was intended as part of my high school curriculum. I believe that my spunky, gorgeous, but sadly unavailable (to students, that is - I still hate that engineer bastard who took her away!) english teacher somehow managed to avoid covering it.
I always suspected it would all came to nought as soon as Mr Griffin hit the dance floor….....
There was a movie Victor, Victoria in which a woman pretended to be a female impersonator in a nightclub act. There was also a movie called Yentl in which a Jewish girl pretended to be a boy to go to school in a Russian shtetl.
I wonder what this woman’s figure must be like if she successfully passed herself off as a man for any length of time?
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 01 21 at 06:37 PM • permalink#9, I can’t remember the name of the movie, but I think you’re talking about the true-life story of Tina Brandon who dressed like a boy and called herself Brandon Tina because she was transgendered, and ended up being raped and murdered.
“Self Made Man” sounds like a terrific read, if only because it shoots down a whole lot of stereotypes (those held by radical feminists, and those held by NYT readers, among others). “White trailer trash” indeed.
There was a book many years ago entitled “I Passed As A Teenager”, in which the author (a mid-30’s journalist named Lynn Tornabene) moved to another city and got a friend of hers to enroll her in a local high school as a sophomore or junior. The book told of her experiences over about a semester, and I found it rather amusing.
#12, I don’t remember the name either, but it was the movie that got Hilary Swank her first Oscar.
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2006 01 21 at 08:36 PM • permalinkthe true-life story of Tina Brandon who dressed like a boy and called herself Brandon Tina because she was transgendered, and ended up being raped and murdered.
I doubt that Boy’s Don’t Cry is the movie entropy is talking about, it doesn’t sound like a “crappy eighties teen flick”. This seems like a better candidate, as does this.
the true-life story of Tina Brandon who dressed like a boy and called herself Brandon Tina because she was transgendered, and ended up being raped and murdered.
I doubt that Boy’s Don’t Cry is the movie entropy is talking about, it doesn’t sound like a “crappy eighties teen flick”. This seems like a better candidate, as does this.
The crappy eighties teen flick was Just One of the Guys
Posted by No One of Consequence on 2006 01 21 at 08:48 PM • permalinkDoes anyone remember that classic White Like Me sketch from SNL, when Eddie Murphy disguised himself as a white man? It was a brilliant send-up of black paranoia - “I discovered that white people give each other things”, as storekeepers refuse to take his money and banks hand him piles of cash and tell him to pay it back whenever he feels like it, or not at all.
hehe. Kae, my mum’s family were in Cowra. :) It’s still in NSW, though, and good for golfing if you’re that way inclined.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 01 22 at 06:07 AM • permalink#16 The crappy eighties teen flick was Just One of the Guys
How dare you call that a crappy movie! The hot young actress shows off her hooters! And it plays on the that eternal theme of “hot chick falls for antisocial loser” that so many of us cling to. And, it encourages casual sex among high school kids.
All in all, should’ve won an Oscar.
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Oops .. check one hyperlink, also need to be registered to the NYTs ... this thread on linking doesn’t come off.