She looked so beautiful under the lights last night, the patina of grime washed away by the driving rain. The lights twinkled in that way that they do under low clouds and precipitation. Despite all our faults, my country was a good place to be last night. It was cool, the blankie came in handy to huddle under, sleepy hound curled around feet and wishing for a hot cocoa preferably with marshmallows melting in it, I settled in to watch some late night TV. As an escape from reality and to leave behind the "idiotsyncrasies" of the day.
The English actress Kate Winslet is someone I've admired, largely for her refusal to kowtow to the general industry standard of anemic women. In a world where young and even older women are beleaguered and badgered into thinking that the standard of beauty is scrawny women, sans lines and other signs of age, Ms Winslet has always bucked the norm. Good for her, it can't that easy to get parts in LaLa Land. I generally like the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he does not irritate me and he can be funny, KW was on last night. All was going well until Jay asked about her Christmas plans, this is why I probably won't be going to see her movie anytime soon. Because as a "black" Trinidadian, I might have trouble understanding the dialogue.
What am I on about? In describing her last Christmas experience she mentioned cooking lunch for in-laws. She then attempted to do an imitation of father-in-law's accent. Did we mention he is a Trinidad Mendes. His brother Stephen is a prominent architect who lives here with his children and other family members. Apparently Papa Mendes took exception that the Christmas lunch turkey was not in the oven at 9:30 am. Whatever. Holidays can be a stressful time so we'll make allowances for her irritation. Nope, it was her stressing that Sam is a WHITE trinidadian and then mocking the accents of Papa Mendes and the other family members who "invite her to Blanchessieuse", her take a sort of pseudo- Jamaican meets Ali G Indian. Pathetic really. Even that I didn't mind until she emphasised,"imagine, WHITE PEOPLE sounding like that". Huh, oh so the rest of us black folks are SUPPOSED to sound like that? Dumb. Guess she didn't realise we have cable here too. Poor thing, maybe she was really nervous or whatever. All I can guess is that Christmas around the House of Mendes might be a trifle terse this year.
Normally the antics of the Hollywood lot don't interest me. However, by accident I found myself watching E News or whatever it's called. One of the doctors of the Dr. 90210 series was asked to pick Hollywood's best body parts. Trite I know, but the man got real props from me for picking Beyonce's legs over Heidi Klum's. We all know B has thick legs and the goodly doctor pointed out that she looked strong, powerful and beautiful! Yes, it's about time.
By now you might have guessed this is my anti-blog. I figured that if I concentrated on some fluff this morning I could ignore all the negative crap going on. I'll let you know how successful this was at the end of today. Meanwhile, "you better watch out, you better not pout, you better not cry I'm telling you why, SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN.....
5 comments:
I also admire KW's work and her giving the finger to regular standards. I am also disappointed by her expressions (having purposely cut off cable tv I didnt see it). However, it's like what I shared with you about finding out about authors backgrounds. Like the actors, they too are complex and extremely flawed animals. Finding out stuff about them like that gives us more of an isight into their true animal. Offensive...quite. Interesting...very.
I finally got my hands on French's "The world is what it is" ..Naipaul's biography. Flawed is truly not the word for Sir Vidia.
What I'm saying is that it is fine and expected take offense. Just be reminded that these folks were like these long before when we admired their work and us now seeing their ugly side whilst a revelations to us is just another day in the life.
Coincidentally I felt almost the same way as you did when a person on this morning twitter (I am a twitterholic) made a venomous comment about Ms. Trinidad & Tobago not "typify" of the beauty that person would expect to see if he/she visited Trinidad. https://twitter.com/diatribalist
This is just as offensive as Ms. Winslet's comments as it shows how much the world does not understand and does not get "every creed and race find an equal place" which to me is the foundation of our country and still gives me goosebumps when I sing it or hear it. As much as we criticise our current state of social (dis) order, it is really a unique thing to be a trini.
Who told her Sam Mendes was white?
I had no idea dat she have Trini links ....
I guess at the end of the day .... we're all just ordinary people .... we're all fallible ... we all say and do dumb things ... at some point ...
maybe she WAS nervous ... let's give her the benefit of the doubt ...
I don't think she realises that in T'dad if you "Potogee" you're probably mixed with something like the rest of us.
Anyway, you can see the "infamous" clip on-line if you do a google search, somebody posted it up.
I am responing to the comments made about Kate Winslet mimicing her in-laws accent.Supposedly Trinidadian.The comments took umbridge with her sounding more Jamaican than Trinidadian. Most Non-Caribbeans think all Caribbean accents sound Jamaican anyway.
About Sam's father not being "WHITE". He is Portugese born in Trinidad. He is Trinidadian.His race doesn't change because of his birth place. "A Cat born in an Oven is not Bread". It is still a Cat.Sam Mendes is not a Trini. He was born in Reading,Berkeshire England.His mother,Valerie Helene Burnett is jewish. In Jewish culture anyone who's mother is jewish makes that person a jew.Therefore,Aam Mendes is an english born jew of Portugese descent with a Trinidad connection vis-a vis his father. That's all.
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