Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Tragedy and comedy
Most Friday evenings you will find us at our friend Donna’s house. We have an early dinner together and then we settle in to watch whatever strikes our fancy, or whatever Donna has carefully researched as a possible choice to view. We usually watch one movie, then depending on what time it is, we may choose another movie or a stand-up comedy routine. Last night was no different.
After some good beef sandwiches from Lion’s Choice and a table discussion about what to watch we decided on a movie that’s been nominated for “Best Picture” at the Oscars. I like to see as many of the nominees as possible before the big night. This year, though, it seems that there are 10 candidates. That’s too many, in my opinion. I’ll be lucky to get through 5 of them.
So, knowing that we were in for a somber experience we chose “Women Talking” and settled in our usual seats. What we did not know at the time is that this film is based on real events that happened in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia. Had we known that I think we would have been even more horrified than we were.
In the movie we are taken to an undisclosed place where there is a colony of strict, conservative religious practitioners. Men dominate the place. There was a common practice of sneaking into a woman’s bedroom at night, spraying her with a cow tranquilizer, and raping her while she was passed out. Women would awaken the next morning with blood on their sheets and an assortment of bruises, and have no memory of what happened. Incest was rampant. Domestic violence was an every day occurrence. Women were not allowed to go to school and could not read or write. Schooling was for boys only.
One day the men of the colony went into the city to post bail for several men who had been identified as the rapists. That left the women alone for two days. They chose three different families to decide whether they would forgive the men, stay and fight the rampant male domination, or leave the colony all together. Most of the film features the women talking about these options and which one they will choose. Whatever the choice, all women in the colony were committed to following it.
That is the gist of the film. We sat through the 64 minutes of the film glued to the screen. Three independent women watching this movie meant that we agreed on what our course of action would have been. Easy to say, however, because none of us has experienced the absolute and total domination of men or the rules governing the strict religious beliefs.
When it was over we could barely talk about what we had witnessed. As I wrote above, had we known that this was based on a true story the experience would have been even more sickening.
We did not want our evening to end on such a dark note. As we usually do, we looked for something else to watch and we found a relatively new stand-up routine by my favorite comedienne, Kathleen Madigan. It’s called “Finding Bigfoot”. It’s her usual collection of hysterically funny observations of the world around her. (I remember watching Robin Williams and wondering what it was like to live inside his head. I feel the same way about Ms. Madigan.)
She talked about millennials, old white politicians, her parents in their 80’s, what little she accomplished staying at home during the pandemic, and what she would do if she ever was driving in Oregon and accidentally struck a Bigfoot. If you don’t know about her, she is from St. Louis, so she has lines about the state of Missouri too. When you need a laugh, her new show is on Prime, along with some older offerings of hers.
We ended the evening on a lighter note than where we were right after “Women Talking”. It was an odd juxtaposition of emotions. I won’t soon forget either one.