The big news in this week’s People Magazine is that Heidi Montag’s plastic surgery has successfully transformed her into the object she always aspired to be. She is now an “it.”

Heidi describes herself: “It’s a new face and a new energy. It’s a new person.”

Yet another People Magazine cover girl exuberantly refers to becoming a real life Cinderella.

(If you recall, the last reference was made by rock star virgin Kevin Jonas’ new wife who was given real glass slippers by her husband as a wedding gift. If you get one thing out of this blog, here it is: Cinderella is not a good movie for your kids **SSS*** Do not let them watch it unless they are 17 or over.)

Heidi goes on to tell People, “I feel like almost all of the things I don’t want to be…got chiseled away.”

When Heidi waxes effusively on the magic of plastic surgery, she refers to a universal fantasy: everyone has flaws they wish they could remove. Unfortunately, these are emotional or historical, not physical– duh.

Heidi seems to recognize she is addicted to the process of plastic surgery, the promise of perfection rather than the end product which only leaves her scheduling her next appointment. She says: “I’m just starting. As you get older, there are so many different treatments. Let’s just say nobody ages perfectly, so I plan to keep using surgery to make me as perfect as I can be. Because, for me, the surgery is always so rewarding.”

Like so many victims of plastic surgery, Heidi frames her surgeries as her own independent choice. She claims she was not under her Spencer’s influence—her controlling and Playboy bunny obsessed husband—who tells her she’s beautiful and to stop. Heidi responds: “I’m my own person. It’s my body.”

Her family, too, was “unsupportive” but she doesn’t care about that either. She’s “a married woman and at this time in my life, I can make my own decisions.”

Heidi was willing to listen to God, but he was OK with it. She prayed, promising if it was wrong, she wouldn’t go through with the surgeries, but she never got that feeling from him. “My body is just a shell; God doesn’t care. It’s what’s inside that God cares about.” (Though I still don’t get why Heidi cares so much about the shell when God doesn’t)

Throughout the long article, Heidi does fess up to some powerful influences on her decisions other than God. When she arrived in Hollywood, people made fun of her. Bloggers circled her “Jay Leno chin” and “Dumbo ears.” Heidi says she didn’t like being the “frumpy sidekick,” to the show’s star, Lauren Conrad. “Everyone from that show was rich. I was wearing Lauren’s leftovers.” But now, post-surgery, she feels like “a sexy, confident woman. That to me is a Cinderella story.” She explains, “looks matter. This is a superficial industry. “ Her dream, she says, is to be a pop star.

Who’s going to fault a girl for pursuing her dreams– so single-mindedly, obsessively, ambitiously, devoting mental energy, time, and upwards of $30,000 that she saved over three years? Clearly, Heidi is driven, a woman with a mission. She even risked death, saying that during surgery her breathing slowed, she lost oxygen, and “felt like I was gone.” Heidi had upwards of 20 meetings with her plastic surgeon just so they could get it right, carefully studying photos together and planning her look. For example, she wished for Angelina Jolie’s high eyebrows.

I wish Heidi Montag had been trained early on, rather than aspire to becoming a real life cartoon princess, to focus her incredible ambition, desire for success and power, and skill at competition into something other than her physical appearance. Too many young women are still taught their looks are the gateway to everything they could possibly want. And in this messed up world, just like Heidi says, the way a woman appears is, too often, indicative of how powerful and successful she can become.

Heidi’s plastic surgeon, Dr. Frank Ryan, says “She’s just doing what every celebrity does. They just don’t talk about it.”

It is, after all, Heidi, not all those other silent celebrities who scored People’s cover. Obviously, she led a carefully planned, manipulated, and successful PR campaign. She told no one about the surgery, except for magazine, which features photos of the whole process. She must have promised People an exclusive if they put her on the cover, because everyone knows, America loves a makeover.

Not one of Heidi’s “after” photos shows her smiling. Maybe that’s not because she’s unhappy, but that she just isn’t able too yet; she says her face feels fragile. There is a before/ after photo at the end of the article where you see the former Heidi smiling– yes, thin-lipped, low eye-browed, Dumbo-eared I suppose, if you know where to look, but her spirit and her brain and sense of humor are there too; there’s a real person in that photo; the girl next to her with dead eyes, puffy lips, platinum playboy bunny hair, has eyebrows raised in a look of disdain– just what she always wanted to be.

I was rooting for Coraline, which I loved. Coraline was all about a girl– a cranky, brave one– not a princess– who went on her own magical journey. The girl was not only the main character, but her name was the title. The idea that little boys won’t see movies about little girls is so absurd, and if there is any truth to it at all, it’s a culturally enforced, parent induced self-fulfilling prophecy.

But there are some issues with Coraline– like both my kids burst into tears, and we all had to leave the theatre. Not only that, but Lucy, my six year old, stayed frightened for at least a month after. Those button eyes are some of the creepiest things I’ve seen on film– talk about souless. I was warned not to take the kids but I was so curious. I should have seen the film alone first and will do that from now on. I think bringing my kids to that movie was one example of my excitement about feminism getting in the way of making the best parenting choice for the individual kid.

With the caveat, as the other critics said, don’t let small kids see it, I give it ***GG*** rating.

Maybe I should add an ***M*** for mature, though a couple people have already commented on this blog that my rating system is  too complex. Others have written that they like the sometimes side-by-side Ss and Gs. The MPAA, by the way– famously, historically all men, maybe one woman now, I’ll check that out– are an extremely fastidious group. They assign points for every exposed nipple, butt cheek, use of drugs, etc, then engage in debate, and rate movies on an X, NC-17, R, PG-13, G scale. I think this male based MPAA, a truly institutionlized censorship system, is one of the biggest obstacles to girl power making any real strides in Hollywood. I’d like a 60 Minutes expose or a Vanity fair feature article about this, if there hasn’t been one already.  My fanatsy is to have stickers– Gs for Girlpower and Ss for Sterotypes– on all movies. Or at least a female based MPAA type group, Hollywood would change drastically as would our  collective imaginations. As I wrote earlier, I believe sterotyping is so much more dangerous for the malleable minds of children than vague allusions to sex, violence, drug use, etc that the MPAA gets so worked up about. So much stereotype gender training that really sticks happens to us through watching media at young age. After all, they do call it programming.

Ok, back to Coraine– another negative is that the movie features the stereotypical evil mother figure. This bad mother  is everywhere in kids movies. There is also a good mother in Coraline, though that mom is sort of a demonized for being a working mom, or at least not having enough time for her lonely daughter. She is, at best, loving but neglectful. Though maybe Coraline’s ultimate lesson is that mothers are never perfect, and a working sometimes absent mom is preferable to a psycho attentive one.

Any animators out there– please make a movie about a brave girl, not a princess, with her name in the title, and a powerful mother-daughter realtionship. That would be so cool and original. Don’t artists strive to be original? If you look at things from a female perspective, its such an easy path to a new kind of story.

I did not see Up, though I am sure I will on pay per view, and I will review it. It looked like wonderful animation (those baloons are mesmerizing), but again, obviously, a boy buddy movie (would they make a movie about an old lady and a fat girl going on an adventure together?) I loved Paul McCartney’s hilarious speech delivering the Golden Globe to Up. Of course, we all saw Yellow Submarne a million times in high school and college, and when he said,  “Animation isn’t just for kids. It is also for adults who are on drugs,” I cracked up. McCartney did leave out another huge category of animation watchers—-stone sober moms with over active intellects, forced to watch hours of this stuff and then blog in order to retain said intellect.

Speaking of, a few people have asked me how I have time to blog when I have three young kids, other writing projects, non-profit work etc. I’m a writer– so blogging takes me about three minutes. For me, that’s like asking someone how they have time to work out or take a shower. I write very fast, as you can probably tell by the typos, but I am thinking about this stuff all the time, so when I get those three minutes, I just write it all down. I hope to add the bells and whisltles (photos, videos,more links etc) to the blog soon, or get my husband to do it. Or maybe wake up an hour earlier in the day. Right now, I often blog while I’m watching the movie with my kids that I’m writing about, or while I am alone with the baby; she’s snacking on puffs and I’m reading her aloud to her what I’m writing (early brainwashing or should I say programming?)

I am so happy Julianna Margulies won a Golden Globe tonight for The Good Wife. It is wonderful– as she said in her acceptance speech– to see a drama succeed in the ten o’ clock hour instead of yet another reality TV show. Especially those awful reality TV shows with “wife” in the title (Real Housewives of New York, Miami, New Jersey etc, Wife Swap) Finally, FINALLY, a “wife” show where the women are not portrayed as “desperate” (the show that started the latest craze) caricartures, jealous, bitchy, gossipy not to metion humilated, degraded, swapped. I am so tired of these portrayals that make being a wife seem like the worst thing on the planet.

Margulies is a great actress, and in this series, her character does not stand by her man, a powerful politician, who cheated on her with prostitutes (supposedly based on New York’s Spitzer story.) It’s a cool premise, telling it all from her point of view, the scandal and the aftermath; I always wonder what is going on in the minds of these women, and I guess a lot of other people do too. On the show, Margulies handles her relationship in an original and brilliant way that keeps her integrity in tact and advances her career.

Speaking of public wives who don’t stand by their men, I am happy to see (in my weekly tabloid reading) that Elin seems to be leaving Tiger Woods and getting 300 million in he process. I hope this is true– so much better than Kobe Bryant buying his wife off with a ring. (Isn’t prostitution supposed to be ilegal?)

***GGG***

We watched this on pay per view on Saturday. I’d never heard of it before. There are two Atlantis movies I guess, because I remember another one that was totally different.

This version is all about a brave princess who saves her land from the evil Beliol who  is after crystals to control all of nature. Yes, she’s a princess and her hair is so long and  flowing that it looks like a fat, furry creature attached to her head. But she is brave and smart, saving her people, her father, and her boyfriend–  a hunky Fabio-type nature boy (who also, by the way, has flowing hair; he is half-dressed in the whole film, and if this weren’t animated, I could see his skimpy chippnedale outfit warranting a PG rating.)

There is also a depiction of a strong mother- daughter relationship, a positive mother role model which is rare in animated film and chldren’s stories. The mother can speak to the spirit world, undersands and can communicate with the powers of nature. Before she is killed, she gives her daughter a crystal necklace of power to protect her.

One week later,– Sarah and Amy, the visitors from Korea are back. This time their aunt and uncle brought us delicious Korean food. The kids are eating and enjoying it, especially Lucy. It looks like sushi with eggs and meat in it and a spicy, vegetable dish. Alice can’t eat it because it has eggs and she is allergic, but she is having cheerios. This food philosophy of letting them eat what they want really seems to be working so far (spicy Korean food for breakfast, amazing) Alice, the three year old, saw Sarah, one of our guests eating a lollipop, went to her food shelf to get one out for herself and said, “My tummy doesn’t actually feel like this,” put it back, and sat back down at the table. If this blog is still  going when they’re teens, I’ll let you know how they’re doing : )

I’m a fan. The most challenging thing for me about this series is spelling the name correctly– it seems like it has too many syllables– nor am I sure how to pronounce it. We call them the “Bernstein” Bears (which is kind of funny because I suspect they are Christian bears. More on that later.)

I like these books because they take on big issues that kids think about including death, lying, dangerous strangers, stealing, and racism. One of the my favorite books is New Neighbors, when a panda family moves in next door to the Berenstain’s tree house. Father Bear incorrectly interprets all of the Panda family’s actions (such as building a fence) as aggressive. I think the story gives kids good  insight into the psychology of racism (making all kinds of generalizations based on ignorance) without demonizing Father as a bad person/ bear.  That’s a subtle lesson, not easy to pull of in a kid’s story whch often tend to go more for black and white (ha ha). All the characters in these books show flaws– mamma will yell, Brother will tease, Sister will lie, but there aren’t “bad” characters.

Some of my  favorites in the series include include: Too Much Vacation, Too Much Car Trip, The Truth, the Blame Game, Get the Gimmes, Chores, and Messy Room. The stories can be repetitive (as you can probably tell) but I don’t mind, because I am blue in the face repeating these same messages to my kids every day (clean your room! tell the truth! don’t fight!) I’m open to another mouthpiece and any creativity in my delivery. The books can also be preachy– I think there is an underlying family values/ Jesus thing going on in some of the them, the Christmas story and Easter story and hints in the dead goldfish story etc, but they don’t beat you over the head with Jesus messages or anything. Part of being parent is being preachy, so if I can entertain the kids while doing so, that works for me.

Mamma Bear is a strong character though I feel sorry for her because she never gets to change her outfit. Maybe that’s sexist of me, because no one in the family seems to have a change of clothes. My sympathy remains with Mamma though, because her outfit is particularly awful: she wears an ankle length blue dress with big, white polka dots and a matching puffy hat (reminsicent of the one Laura Ingalls used to sleep in on TV)  When I complained to Lucy about the clothing, she told me Mamma does occasionally change her hat when she goes out. I can’t verify that right now, but I’ll let you know if I do.

Sister Bear is always in her gender defining pink bow and pink overalls, but at least they are overalls.  She and Brother are true co-stars in the books (though sometimes one book will focus on one, and one book on the other) Sister is just as mischevious and wise; there doesn’t seem to be a characteristic split along gender lines, except minor– sometimes Sister will jump rope while Brother plays baseball.

There is one book called No Girls Allowed which teaches about sexism. It’s good,  but Lucy was read this book before she knew even what sexism was. At the time she thought boys and girls just hung out. So I would be a somewhat cautious, just waiting till the issues come up in the kid’s life if you can, not to confuse them prematurely. (I love the brief period– very brief, debatable if it exists at all– in a kid’s life before everyone starts saying to her: “I bet I know what your favorite color is!” and “Here’s a sticker just for you, Princess!”)

The Berenstain Bears gets a **GG** rating for good messages delivered in effective ways, for the most part, without stereotyping.

When Lucy woke up today, first words out of her mouth: “She wears short skirts, I wear blue jeans. She’s cheer captian, I’m in the bleechers.”

Whatever is going on with Taylor as far as feminism is concerned, she has accomplished an impossible feat: getting my ornery six year old leaping out of bed this morning, singing. My current plan of action is now to download Taylor’s music, turn it on first thing, and get Lucy finally making her  7:40 am school start time with no tears or fighting (actually singing and dancing)

Comments on this blog, Twitter, and my Facebook page are also basically pro-Taylor. Melissa Silverstein just happened to start a thread about how she just realized a song she likes is a Taylor Swift hit. Taylor does have a pretty voice and she plays guitar, and, as noted earlier, writes her own songs. She doesn’t have the depth of Fiona Apple, who was also very young and talented, but it isn’t necessary to be miserable and tortured like Fiona to be empowering (and she’s not scary skinny  writhing around in her underwear as Fiona famously did in her Criminal video.) Taylor tells us it’s okay to be happy, smart and blonde.

I admit, it’s somewhat challenging for me to get past Taylor’s barbie doll look. While Taylor isn’t half naked in her videos, she’s often in a prom dress with the flowing blonde locks and sparkly blue eye-shadow of any barbie doll, appearing to be the quintessential “good girl.” But I think Taylor uses her look with some irony and carefully to her advantage. Elsa comments on this blog that Taylor re-creates the Cinderella fantasy, but her version seems to be a commentary on the prevalence of the fairy tale in girls lives and her own take on it, as Madeline comments– that you don’t have to be the glamorous girl to get the guy. (Her video being debated here is a story of two girls, both Taylor, one in glasses, who want the same guy. To get across her pretty trite message– you can be homely and loved by a hottie– Taylor uses another over-repeated lame prop plot device: the “ugly” Taylor wears glasses. I just saw this done AGAIN in the movie Jennifer’s Body on blonde, beautiful– sorry, dweeby and unattractive– Amanda Seyfried. Ugh, so sick of it. But Lucy, my daughter, is only six, saw it for the first time last night, and witnessed the “smart” girl get the guy.)

In the extensive On Demand section on Comcast featuring Swift’s songs, there is a text description about why she wrote each one, including  “Picture to Burn” where she  explains: “Before I sing this song, I always tell the audience that I really do try to be a nice person, but if you break my heart, hurt my feelings, or are mean to me, I’m going to write a song about you. Haha.”

I love this. There’s something intrinsically empowering about any angry/ joyful break-up girl anthem (Courtney Love, Gloria Gaynor, Alanis Morisette, Joni Mitchell etc) Taylor is telling us she looks like such a nice girl, even tries to be a nice girl– don’t we all– but underneath that sweet  princess persona, she has other thoughts and passions, and even more importantly, she enjoys having the power, the microphone, to speak the truth about what happened to her. Every girl should aspire to acheieving that kind of amplified voice.

Some how Taylor seems just so much better to me than Miley Cyrus. Am I just prejudced because of her dad and his Achey Breaky heart days? MC seems like a manufactured Disney product whereas Taylor seems like her own person with the talent, ability, and audience to write about her own life. That’s girl power. I’m giving her ***GGG*** unless you all can give me good reasons to rate her otherwise.

My six year old is obsessed! Good or bad? We watched three videos tonight– why does Taylor get her own section in On Demand? Lucy is dancing all around the house, singing at the top of her lungs. I know nothing about Taylor, but she does have a good voice and I think she writes her own songs. Comments?