One of the only things that people seem to like more than watching movies and TV shows is complaining about their various inaccuracies. I'd love to have a pint of
vanilla almond bark Tofutti for every time I heard some variation of "It's unfathomable that a fat slob like him could snag Katherine Heigl." Or, "How can they spend that much time by the water cooler but not ever have to pee?" Or, "If it was really that easy to learn martial arts, everyone would be karate chopping their onions and those people who sell knife sets would go out of business."
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| And the Fruit Ninja app would be irrelevant. |
The truth, as we all know deep down, is that we aren't searching for reality in Hollywood or the media. Why bother? If I want to see guys who
don't look like perfection incarnate, all I have to do is be anywhere besides a screening of
Magic Mike. In fact, any latent desire to experience the unglamorous aspects of life - bad breath, fatigue, a lingering sense of gloom and regret - was more than satisfied on the first day of my 8 AM class. This is why I'd like to offer a suggestion to the next person who thinks about criticizing
The Newsroom for being overly dramatized: read one of
Anna Karenina's painstakingly detailed descriptions of farm labor. Then tell me what makes the daily grind so much better than Olivia Munn delivering Sorkinisms.
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| It definitely doesn't lend itself to GIFs. |
Levin disagrees. Unlike his brother, who likes to limit his experience with country life to speaking about it in idyllic terms, Levin just loves to rough it. He'll grab a scythe and start cutting grass at the drop of a streaker's pants in Davis Library during exam week (that's "with minimal motivation," for those of you unfamiliar with UNC campus life). I get that Tolstoy was trying to show that Levin was the total opposite of all those pampered aristocrats we encountered earlier, but the whole thing seems more than a tad forced. I mean, the laborers in his team don't just get excited over finding bugs and snacking on soggy bread. They get excited
about working overtime with no compensation, because they just love to strain their backs under the hot sun. This portrayal seems suspiciously like an attempt to justify Levin's earlier claim that educating peasants is a waste of money:
"...why should I worry myself about establishing dispensaries which I shall never make use of, and schools to which I shall never send my children, to which even the peasants don't want to send their children, and to which I've no very firm faith that they ought to send them?"
If you're like me, then a small part of your soul died after reading that.
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| Levin, you're breaking my heart! |
Really, how much more patronizing can a guy be without straight up morphing into an
Apple commercial? Levin's attitude toward the common folk reminds me of how the white Southern ladies treated their maids in
The Help - that is, being all buddy-buddy with them until the possibility of actual societal advancement comes up. While his hands-on approach is more genuine than his brother's armchair philosophizing, Levin has a long way to go when it comes to defying the Russian caste system. No matter how cute it is when he freaks out about forgetting to check up on his decrepit housekeeper after she sprains her wrist.
As previously mentioned, one of the most unbelievable parts of the farming sequence for me was the delight Levin and the other men took in their humble meal of "sop," or bread soaked in kvass (an alcoholic drink similar to beer) and salted. While this sounds even less appetizing than the mayonnaise-smeared salad I saw on an anonymous plate in the dining hall yesterday, today's Official Lit Dish of
Russian black bread has potential to be my new favorite sandwich securer. Why build your PB&J with that weirdly spongy Wonder Bread when you can be chowing down on a symbol of lower-class humility and simplicity instead?
