Thinking about the conversation we have started concerning the constructs of masculinity in our culture reminds me a lot of the scandals throughout many religious communities...these are ultimately surprising to the public, not only in their hypocritical qualities, but because they are centered around important men within that community -- previously considered as ideal models for what a good religious man is.

It seems a lot of these incidences are centered around the notion that homosexuality is a behavior that is wrong, and that no strong, religious man could identify as gay. (Why is it that being gay makes you less of a man in the eyes of so many? That is a terribly broad question, I know)

(For example, the Ted Haggard scandal a few years ago, http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-29/us/lkl.ted.haggard_1_ted-haggard-head-pastor-church-staff-member?_s=PM:US)

...as well as the various incidences throughout the Catholic church.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-19/world/catholic.church.abuse_1_abusive-priests-church-abuse-archdiocese?_s=PM:WORLD

It seems to me that especially in the religious world, the construct of masculinity is something that is especially hurtful.

Adaptation was entertaining.  Mostly, it seemed like a cautionary tale about the perils of telling other people’s stories, of what can happen when someone becomes so obsessed with telling a story that he becomes part of that story and truth and reality bend and everything is confusing and unclear.  In this way, I think this movie fits nicely with a lot of the conversations we’ve had in class.  Here’s something that I read this morning that I liked because it offers another way to think about how we tell and share stories:

So I watched The Undefeated and The Game Change, which I thought were veryopposite of each other, almost like two extremes.

In The Undefeated, there was very much of that traditional "documentary film" feel to it. It felt too clean and organized, maybe a bit unsincere to what truely happened. When it got the the part where the narrators discussed the downfall of Palin in US opinions, the reasoned that it was because she was conservative. She got so much flack because she's conservative.

The Game Change, on the other hand, was a bit to gritty and far fetched. Not to say that I don't believe Palin had a easy time during campain, but The Game Change really made her out to be completly--dare I say-- hysteric. In this movie, one of the characters (maybe it was the Woody Harrelson) addresses Palin's antagonists as throwing out "totally sexist attacks", pointing to Palin's gender as the "problem" than people are seeing with her.

Honestly, I can't say that I disagree with The Game Change in pointing out that Gender was part of the reason she got a lot of hate from the Americans. I do think it was a factor, but I think The Game Change addressed it to an extreme. I sort of doubt that the campaign manager was surfing youtube to find a hot female politician to run with McCain to win. Both stories, though, seem very unrealistic to me.