Movies

[regdog]

I liked Under The Tuscan Sun. That aside.

It didn't come across as overly privileged because she was a successful author and
writers can work anywhere. Also, her soon to be ex-husband wanted the house in
San Fran and I'm sure she made him pay to get it from her so given property
values in SF I can believe it would buy a run down place in Tuscany.

[LaurieD]

:rofl:

I went and did a bit more digging about the book. I came across the following article: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend which had this to say:

Eat, Pray, Love is not the first book of its kind, but it is a perfect example of the genre of priv-lit: literature or media whose expressed goal is one of spiritual, existential, or philosophical enlightenment contingent upon women’s hard work, commitment, and patience, but whose actual barriers to entry are primarily financial. Should its consumers fail, the genre holds them accountable for not being ready to get serious, not “wanting it” enough, or not putting themselves first, while offering no real solutions for the astronomically high tariffs—both financial and social—that exclude all but the most fortunate among us from participating.

This says much better what I wanted to say. There's more than one book out similar to this (Under the Tuscan Sun being one of them) where the woman is able to take off for a year and turn her life around. You have to be rich in order to do that. Not only that but it takes more than a year to dig out all the garbage that is holding one back and getting rid of it. It would be nice to read about a woman on one of the bottom rungs of the financial scale achieving peace and tranquility. Where are those stories?

Oh, to have a year without my financial obligations! Six months even! What I could do in six months withough having to be responsible for my financial obligations.

edited to add. I'm still going to go see the movie.

[Bunny]

You wanted to say something about it, Laurie?

I liked Under The Tuscan Sun. That aside.

It didn't come across as overly privileged because she was a successful author and
writers can work anywhere. Also, her soon to be ex-husband wanted the house in
San Fran and I'm sure she made him pay to get it from her so given property
values in SF I can believe it would buy a run down place in Tuscany.

I only saw the movie and I liked it. I agree with you, but how many successful authors do you personally know who could do that? I don't know any. And that includes all my writer friends that I have met online. It's like the only solution proposed to "finding yourself" or finding happiness is to drop everything and take off for a year. Even I can't do that. I'm not rich, but I have a pension to live on. Kid is grown and on his own. The only being that I am responsible for is my cat and I still don't feel like I can take off and move to Europe for a year.

[regdog]

What I should have said was a best selling author or one who is close to the earnings of of one.

Most of us are lucky to pay the bills every month.

And why do people/women have to go to a foreign country to find themselves? Why can't they
look at who they are and their expecations where they are?

[Bunny]

In the movie Six Days Seven Nights, the Harrison Ford character said about people coming to the islands to find happiness, "It's an island. If you didn't bring it with you, you won't find it here."

[regdog]

:rofl:

In the movie Six Days Seven Nights, the Harrison Ford character said about people coming to the islands to find happiness, "It's an island. If you didn't bring it with you, you won't find it here."

qft

[LaurieD]

Ok, I don't know what happened there... I quoted your post and somehow stuck my own two cents in the middle of it...

"Oh, to have a year without my financial obligations! Six months even! What I could do in six months withough having to be responsible for my financial obligations."

Please note, I have never claimed to be even close to tech savy... and it would appear even quoting and posting is above my level some days.

[Bunny]

The fault is mine. I didn't read what I wrote again so I missed that you had inserted a comment.

Thinking about this some more. The whole run off somewhere to find yourself is crock. Because what happens when you run away from the world is that you take your problems and your mental attitude with you. I ran off to LA to get away from my family and I recreated that family while I was out there. Friend A was like my mother. Friend B was like my oldest brother. Friend C was like my ex-husband. And so on. I even do it online.

[LaurieD]

You're right - you have to change yourself before you can expect to change anything around you, regardless of where you are.

Still, I'd take six months here in hell without my financial obligations - the words I could put on paper...

[Bunny]

Ooooohhh, I bet one of those characters would be the mom at Miss Girl's dance class. You could kill her repeatedly and in uniquely painful ways each time.

[LaurieD]

Oh her character is already in my "Spirit" - but yeah, her demise would be one of the things to hit paper. pver and over again until it's juuuust right.