Yucking My Yum

[mallorys_camera]

My newest game involves pretending I am a researcher at the North Pole, in Antarctica, on the frozen surface of Mars. I am here to do field observations! (Today, Hideous White Stuff fell from the sky.) I am quite alone. I keep in close contact with a battalion of fellow scientists through phone & text, but I will continue to be isolated from all human contact until the thaw...

After all, this is the coldest December in many years. Or so we're being told.

###

RTT shared my sadness over Rob Reiner's death. "The Princess Bride was my favorite movie growing up!" he told me. Which I kinda don't think is true, but I appreciated the solidarity.

Ichabod, the implacable social justice warrior, was sniffier. I don’t want to yuck your yum, he texted, and it is sad…and I get that celebrities and rich people mean more to us as a culture than pretty much anybody else besides friends and family…but there’s just so much including death that feels sadder and more tragic to me right now.

(Yuck my yum??? I'm in ❤️LUV❤️)

I tried explaining it to him.

No, I'm not stanning. At least, I don't think I'm stanning.

I don't feel like I knew Rob Reiner. Though I do kinda feel like I stood next to him on an elevator once, and we exchanged pleasantries.

It's more like Reiner repped what I might call the consumate Boomer ethos. And I am a Boomer. His work spoke to me. It was a far less personal conversation than the one I might have with, say, Fellini (La Strada), or Joseph Losey (The Go Between), or Truffaut (Les quatre cents coups). Reiner didn't know anything about my soul. But he knew a lot about my circumstances.

Reiner was no auteur!

The only film of his that broke any kind of precedent was This Is Spinal Tap, which more-or-less invented the mockumentary genre.

He had no signature visual style. Cinematically, you could call him a Steven Spielberg wannabe.

His films were often humorous, but then, he directed scripts by funny screenwriters, William Goldman, Nora Ephron. (Though, reportedly, I'll have what she's having—the funniest line in When Harry Met Sally—was a Reiner ad lib.)

But his films—more craft than art, as I say—were kind of like a series of dioramas in some great museum of Boomer Life.

###

Take When Harry Met Sally..., which I watched last night.

I don't know whether Ichabod has ever seen When Harry Met Sally... but I'm certain he would dislike it. Its basic thesis—Discuss: Men & women cannot be friends!—would not strike him as mischievous or playful at all, but as abhorrent. He would sit patiently through the closing credits and then announce, Gender is an artificial concept. Which, of course, is true.

Attitudes change.

We are biased in favor of the attitudes that informed our youths (roughly defined as that time in our life when we first realized we could manifest our own opinions. For most people, that's the early 20s.)

But if personal growth is a goal, one realizes that the social/cultural matrix has evolved into a different thing than it was during our youth. And we change our attitudes.

Those early attitudes continue to survive, though—even thrive—in the music and movies we love.

Comments

[bleodswean]

Unbelievably tragic story. To have struggled with their son for so many years and then this be the culmination of all their lives. I agree with your assessment of craft vs. art. I do love This is Spinal Tap!

As a goddess-worshipping woman I have to disagree with your take that gender is an artificial concept. Also having raised a girl and a boy. Could be a fascinating conversation.

Hang in there, P. I think your mental game is quite a healthy choice!

[mallorys_camera]

"Artificial" is probably the wrong word.

Let's say gender is a malleable concept. 😀 The lady boys of the Indochinese Peninsula are goddess-inspired, too, you know. I would not call them "women". But neither would I call them "men." The concept of multiple genders can be very useful. 😀

[bleodswean]

Good example! I do believe there's a somewhat grey shadowy area. Malleable is a good way to put it. But I don't believe that there's anything artificial about gender. I saw it firsthand with my two. Also, anecdotally from my trans relative.

[mallorys_camera]

Yes, I even saw it with my two boys. At first, I bought them dolls and trucks! 😀 In keeping with my feminist ideology. 😀 But they didn't like the dolls. Unless they could run them over with their trucks. 😀

[fuzzilla]

I obviously didn't know Rob Reiner (or any celebrity). He definitely wasn't a celebrity where his tragic end would make me go, "oh, yeah, but there was a lot of drug use and mental health struggles" that might foreshadow something like that. If he struggled with his son, I didn't know about it, but definitely makes sense. Just horrible.

[mallorys_camera]

Reiner was a total mensch. As I say, I like his movies a lot, and he was very politically active, putting his money where his mouth is. His death would always have made me sad. But this death makes me cry.

[asakiyume]

You say "I'm in LUV" because you like the phrase "Yuck your yum"?

It *is* a good phrase. The one I know with the same meaning is "Harsh your squee" (which lacks the alliteration of "Yuck your yum")

I've never watched When Harry Met Sally (though I've seen the famous scene you reference), but I did enjoy The Princess Bride! And I liked This Is Spinal Tap. The thing that's freaked me out about the Reiner murders is that it's their son. That's tragic and awful.

(Also the president's WTF remark)

[mallorys_camera]

I never heard the phrase "yuck your yum" before! Is it in the common parlance? Of course, I'm stranded here at the North Pole till the great thaw comes. I don't get out much. 😀

I don't think the famous scene carries the same weight unless you've seen the entire movie.

That kind of murder is a difficult one to wrap one's head around. I'd guess the son was tweaking from massive doses of meth and 120 straight hours of no sleep. Tweakers are monsters.

[michaelboy]

My brothers-in-law spent 18 months at the Amundsen-Scott station in Antarctica. I like the cold..but not that much.

[mallorys_camera]

Whoa! That's awesome. 😀

[smokingboot]

Interesting.

What makes Ichabod laugh?

[mallorys_camera]

A lot of things! He has a good sense of humor. But takes his identity politics rather seriously.

[lookfar2]

My understanding has been that "yuck your yum" was only used in regards to sexual practices, but perhaps it has drifted.

I would like to refine "gender is an artificial construct" to something less definitive. Gender is indeed something that cultures invent or feel they have discovered, and then have are a million ideas about what each gender contains. But the idea of gender seems to be in accord with a lot of binary ideas that we use and then modify to suit ourselves. Good people vs. bad people! But then, all the nuances and exceptions to this binary. And if gender is an artificial construct, why are people who believe this so interested in describing and categorizing the many new genders available? I'd say no to gender essentialism and yes to gender as a useful concept.

[mallorys_camera]

If you read the comments above, you will see I redefined that to "gender is a malleable concept". 😀

[fauxklore]

I'm surprised you hadn't seen "yuck your yum" before. It gets used a lot in connection with food-related memes.

And I've always heard it was Estelle Reiner (Carl's wife, Rob's mother) who came up with the "I'll have what she's having" line.

[mallorys_camera]

Did she? I'd always heard it was Reiner's line. But the provenance is probably not crucial--mothers & sons back & forth. 😀

[bitterlawngnome]

Wow that's a great picture. So much atmosphere.

[mallorys_camera]

Coming from an ace photographer like you, that's a real compliment. Thanks. 😀