An athlete, a joker and a lady walk into a bar
I hate when I get in a grumpy mood. It’s rare but it happens and often lasts about two days before I shake it off. Last weekend was one of those occasions and it was all the fault of an athlete, a movie and a self-help guru. I’m talking specifically about football player Antonio Brown, the new film “Joker” and best-selling author Rachel Hollis. Let me take them one at a time and tell you why they left me chewing the furniture like a bad dog.
First up, the athlete. If you follow this space you know I don’t really follow sports but when someone does something important or stupid I notice. Antonio Brown is a pampered football player who brings unneeded drama anywhere he plays. He left carnage at the Pittsburgh Steelers and was supposed to play for the Raiders this fall.
From the start he was trouble, showing up with injured feet in a hot air balloon, then he refused to wear the same helmet all the others wear, he missed meetings and got fined. Rather than pay the fines like a grownup he decided to scream at the team’s General Manager on the football field in front of everyone calling him some not so nice names.
When they fined him again he demanded to be released from his contract so the team obliged and let him go.
Why do I care? Because rather than be punished he immediately got a new job with the New England Patriots. It’s this kind of rewarding of bad behavior that demonstrates everything that’s wrong with society and sports. Act bad and you get a new contract worth millions.
Act even worse and you land on a team that will likely win the Super Bowl. I know it doesn’t affect me but it still makes my blood boil.
Second up, the movie “Joker”, is about to hit theaters. I love, love, love actor Joaquin Phoenix and I’m sure he’ll be nominated for an Oscar for this role but I’m wondering why we need this movie at all, especially now.
Based on that trailer, which gives away the whole film, it tells the story of a man who goes from loneliness, to madness, to murderer. I felt like I was watching someone with mental illness unravel and run around hurting people. Don’t we have enough of that already on the evening news; troubled young men killing people at schools, concerts and stores.
Do we really need an super dark comic book film showing more of it? Watching someone who is mentally ill get picked on to the point of snapping is not entertainment; at least to me.
Last but certainly not least, we have lifestyle expert and multi-millionaire Rachel Hollis. A few months ago I saw young ladies at work passing around her book, “Girl, Wash Your Face.” They were speaking about it like it was a combination of Shakespeare and the Bible. I glanced through the book and (acknowledging I’m not a woman i.e. not the target audience) found it to be a repackaging of some of the same old clichés I’ve seen from Tony Robbins and other self-help gurus.
Last weekend a friend on Facebook asked what others thought of the book and Hollis and almost all of them glowed with praise. Then one woman offered a dissenting view and the crowed pummeled her. How dare she question Rachel!
So, being a journalist, I spent a couple hours researching Hollis and found some disturbing things. First up, she’s widely accused in the literary world of plagiarizing things she passes off as her own. BuzzFeed dedicated an entire article to listing all the things she’s “borrowed” or passages where she changes a single word and then claims ownership. Not cool Rachel.
More disturbing was the fat shaming I saw in the book and the message to women that if you don’t get everything you want in life it’s entirely on you. In other words, do the work and you’ll have it all, fall short and you should look in the mirror.
On the surface this sounds like tough love but is tone deaf to the real world women live in.
You can’t wish yourself pregnant if your body has other plans. You can’t wish yourself happy if you suffer from real depression. And what about the 17 year old girl living in poverty who is helping raise her three siblings because dad is in jail and mom is struggling with addiction? Is she honestly on the same playing field with the same opportunities as everyone else, including Rachel? Is it really her fault if life doesn’t turn out like the way she hoped and dreamed?
Last thought. Those who idolize Hollis should know she moved to California after high school, got a job at a movie studio, then dated and married an studio executive who had money at the age of 19. There’s nothing wrong with any of that but it is easier to chase your dreams when someone else helps finance them. And easier to raise your kids with a full-time nanny and fly on private jets.
If you’re going to preach at people I think they deserve to know the whole truth.
Listen, if Hollis has helped you, awesome. Just understand life is not as easy as getting up early and washing your face. For many it’s much more complicated.