Are Chinese Mothers Superior or Too Strict?
There was only one rule in the Andrews camp when I was a kid: you have to try everything. My mother's mission statement forced me to try exotic foods, outfielding in Little League, selling Girl Scout cookies and riding in airplanes. Rule No. 2? You can quit anything anytime. I invoked that inalienable right when it came to soccer, opera and Kung Pao chicken. But according to Amy Chua, law Professor and mother of two, I might have been the next Pele, Marian Anderson or Kung Fu Panda. In her view, the fact that I was never forced to find out is what's wrong with "Western parents." They just ...
'Burlesque' Is So Bad It's Good
If the canon of cheesy dance movies from "Show Girls" to "Center Stage" has taught me anything, it's the badder the better. With that oxymoron in mind, "Burlesque," the over-the-top ode to showing a little more and acting a little less, has easily earned its place at the pinnacle of cult classic corn. La Cher? La Christina? Sequins? And Stanley Tucci as the sassy "gay husband"? Eric Hall, the former publicist for "The Sex Pistols", once said, "There's an old joke that strippers work for money and burlesque dancers work for applause. For many of them, it's not the way they make a living -- they ...
Is Tyler Perry's New Movie for 'Colored Girls'? Or for Everyone?
It's taken me a while (OK, about a week) to write this. Because I needed some time and even more space away from my own mad emotions and rabid sense of entitlement. Last Saturday, a good friend and I went to see Tyler Perry's adaptation of Ntozake Shange's seminal work, "For Colored Girls Who've Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf." I feel as if I've been talking about this movie forever, although all of my rants have been in my own mind. Because I had no words but venom from the start. But after about a week that venom has fermented into something a bit sweeter. For those unfamiliar ...
Clarence Thomas' Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Apparently, all bets are off when you've got a book to sell. Just ask Lillian McEwen. This week the 65-year-old ex-girlfriend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, 63, decided that after two decades she should come clean about what she describes as her porn-obsessed former lover's penchant for harassing female co-workers. Of course, McEwen's pop-up conscience comes the same week that Justice Thomas' wife, Virginia, asked Anita Hill (famous for accusing Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearings) to "pray" and "apologize" for what she did to Thomas. Sound confusing? ...
'Mad Men': Three Women on an Elevator, Going Who Knows Where
This week's episode of AMC's 60's satire, "Mad Men," pushed some of my buttons -- in a good way. See, I don't usually like elevators. They're cramped, the music's terrible and everybody's staring at the door. An elevator without any buttons is what I imagine purgatory to be like -- waiting for a Bing! Top Floor that's never going to come. Tell me that doesn't sound only slightly better than Hell. But in the final scene of Sunday's "The Beautiful Girls" episode, elevators took on a new, if not still slightly scary, meaning. For the newly modern women of Sterling Cooper Draper Price, too many ...
Lisa Nowak, Astronaut on Crazy Love Mission, Gets Booted by Navy Panel
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Lisa Nowak is my hero. For those unfamiliar with the former space cowgirl turned woman scorned, here is 47-year-old Nowak's rap sheet in a tweet: Upon discovering her lover had another lover, the married with children astronaut drove 900 miles to "talk" to her romantic rival while wearing a trench coat and in possession of a mallet. In February 2007, according to police and Colleen Shipman (the other woman), Nowak drove from her home in Houston to the Orlando International Airport in Florida, where she ambushed Shipman in the airport parking lot ...
Are Uppity Women Paving the Way for Gay Marriage, or Closing the Door?
"If you don't like gay marriage, blame straight people. They're the ones who keep having gay babies." That's the new virtual bumper sticker slapped onto my mother Frances' Facebook page. Frances, a lesbian, is unmarried for three reasons 1) it ain't legal -- yet; 2) she hasn't found an acceptable "mate"; and 3) because who the heck wants to get married nowadays anyway? I'm considering coming up with a commitment-phobe catch phrase of my own -- "Marriage is as marriage does." In nearly every state save Hawaii (one of the first to question the constitutionality of banning gay marriage in 1993) ...
Spike Lee's 'If God Is Willing:' New Orleans After Katrina -- and After BP
When Spike Lee was a grad student living in New York, he'd call his grandmother, Zimmie Lee Shelton, every night. Shelton, the granddaughter of a slave and a graduate of Spelman College, helped put young Spike through Morehouse College and New York University Film School. Every night, their ritual check-in would end the same way. Lee would say, "Talk to you tomorrow," and his grandmother would reply, "Spikey, if God is willing and the creek don't rise." That familiar refrain about what one can control versus what one can't serves as the title (and central motif) of Lee's follow-up to his ...
Angelina Jolie in 'Salt' Proves Girls Can Take a Hit (and Throw a Punch)
The opening scene of "Salt," the post-Cold War spy thriller starring Angelina Jolie, makes you wince. A woman. Naked but for a flimsy pair of cotton panties and bra. Blood. Obvious torture. Rape is implied. In those first flashes I almost walked out (or at least checked out), so uncomfortable was I with the idea of a skinny defenseless girl in panties being exploited in such a way. Silly me. "I'm not a spy, I'm a businesswoman," croaks Evelyn Salt right before getting waterboarded by a pack of men in official uniforms. Her own man eventually saves her, of course, riding in like a white ...
How Social Networking Makes Communicating Harder
A few days ago, I woke up in a panic. I was headed to Los Angeles to hawk my new book, and I hadn't called my grandmother (or anyone with the last name Andrews) to say I'd be home. Our conversation went like this: Me (feigning innocence): "Ugh, Grandmommy, I've been crazed, so sorry I didn't call you all sooner. So can you come?" My grandmother, who's been protesting her cell phone since 2006: "Oh, I know all about it. Please, with my face [Myspace], your face [Facebook], tweety twat [Twitter] and what not . . . Point is, word travels fast." Indeed, 140 characters do travel fast. But what ...
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