Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Marry me, Rachel Abramowitz

As one or two of you may know, I have recently been reading a book called Is that a gun in your pocket? : women's experience of power in hollywood by Rachel Abramowitz.

It's a fine book, and I was already thinking about talking it up here and/or writing one of my Amazon reviews when I've finished it. But not until I read the following paragraph on pp 416 of the hardcover edition, did I realize that my emotion toward Ms. Abramowitz had ripened beyond simple admiration for her work.


In her review of [Mimi] Leder's Deep Impact, The New York Times's Janet Maslin singled out the director's female touch as evinced by the fact that the film "emphasizes feelings over firepower whenever possible," though the film's kinder, gentler quality (which drew a heavily female audience) could as easily have been attributed to the influence of Steven Spielberg, or to the craft of its cowriter, Bruce Joel Rubin, whose other major credit was Ghost, the ultimate female fantasy film.


Rachel, let's get married. I know: It says on the back jacket flap that you already are, and you have a son. Mazel Tov. But a woman who knows that the kinder, gentler feelings of a film need not come from a female and that a man could write a "female fantasy film" is not to be parted with lightly.

(It gives us hope, I tell ya, "us" being we guys who want to write kinder, gentler stories that some might actually call "female fantasies" like that. I always liked Ghost.)

I'll meet you in Argentina. Whadaya say?

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