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BOOKDEALS AND MOVIE RIGHTSYou hear a lot about double standards when it comes to men and women and certainly a lot exist. But what about domestic, child, substance abuse and a plethora of illnesses, too? There is a double standard when it comes to that, too. If your average run-of-the-mill abused, depressed, panic-stricken, anorexic, you-name-it person talks about their past or current problems, they are advised to get over it and get on with their lives. No one particularly wants to hear about it. It's not exactly a favorite dinner topic conversation, is it? But then you have your celebrities who have been through the mill, so to speak, and they can write a book about it and talk about it on television and make miniseries about it and people are like, omigod, the poor thing, while devouring every juicy detail! I recently watched the last half of the Judy Garland story miniseries. I didn't even know it was on, but my daughter asked me to watch the last half with her. They didn't show flashbacks from the first part but my daughter filled me in on some of that. In the last part, Judy is extremely addicted to pills and is just a wreck while husband, Sid Luft, does his utmost to help her out. They didn't really go into it or I wasn't paying that much attention, but their marriage goes on the rocks presumably over money and she gets custody of the Luft kids. It shows the Judge asking the kids who they want to live with. Little Lorna Luft tells him that their mother needs them. Well, I guess you have to remember that this was in the 1960s and they did that kind of thing then, but really .... as my daughter observed, one of Garland's major complaints about her life was that her childhood was taken away from her and she then proceeded to do the very same thing to her own children. The father did not come to the child's rescue until the child had a nervous collapse. Not that I don't have sympathy for her, I do. Apparently, in spite of having countless fans and people who would give her a job regardless of her unstable behavior, she couldn't make a red cent without the IRS coming along and seizing all her wages leading her have countless tantrums and to wreck the house. She even threatens to jump out the window and blackmails the owner of the place where she is staying when he is telling her that he will have to evict her. The publicity will destroy him. "You win for now," he tells her while the kid helps her when she gets off the window. But I tend to have more sympathy for a woman who has to live in a shelter with her kid because she has no family or friends that she can go to. I don't see any book or movie deals in her future. Then there's Donnie and Marie Osmond. Donnie had panic disorder. Marie had post-partum depression. They published their separate stories not too far apart from each other. I had quite a discussion with a lady who took exception to a couple of wisecracks I made about it. I did apologize for the wisecracks and explained my point of view to her, which basically was that if any of the other Osmonds had written a book, I didn't think it would sell as well as the two most popular Osmond darlings. She told me that they had the freedom to tell their story and I had the freedom to believe it or not. And, I agreed with that. It's not that I don't believe their stories or have one iota of sympathy for them, either. Actually, I never read them. I just tend to have more sympathy for the guy with panic disorder or depression or whatever he has that has that made him a misfit in society who doesn't even know what he has because he hasn't got enough money go to the doctor to find out what is wrong with him. Or, the old lady who looked like she was about 72 whom I saw in the Montreal bus station sleeping on a bench. A policeman was poking her with his stick to wake her up, telling her she had to leave the bus station. It was 5 a.m. I don't see any book or movie deal in their futures either. All of this might even sound pretty pious and sanctimonious although I hope not, because I am not a pious person and I am not sanctimonious either. I am a fairly practical person. And I do know that a lot of the celebrities give a percentage of their profits to charities and they also appear on game shows and donate the entire prize to their favorite charities. I just don't understand why our society is like that, do you? Why do we need a celebrity to bring a problem to our attention as a society? Why don't we care about it in the first place? |
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