Coming Soon – Reflections… #atozchallenge

Co-Hosts of the 2013 Blogging from A-to-Z Challenge (including yours truly!) are doing a Reflections post again this year and all participants are invited to join us.

If you are a blogger who is participating in the challenge, this is an opportunity to share your experiences with fellow A-to-Zers as well as the Co-Hosts. We want to know what you enjoyed about the challenge as well as what we can do to make it the next one even better.

We also want to find out if you encountered any issues while visiting other blogs.

In addition, are there any great blogs, cool themes or fantastic blog posts that stood out to you during the challenge? If so, we encourage you to include them in your Reflections post. Your secrets to surviving the challenge are also welcome – tell us whether you went with a theme or no theme, how you managed to keep up with the daily letters and what your commenting and visiting routines were.

Overall, give us the skinny on what worked and what didn’t work for you during the 2013 A to Z Challenge. Last but not least, it is important to include your response to two things that we’re dying to know: Did you have fun and will you participate again next year?

You’re A to Z Reflections can be posted anytime between May 3^rd and May 10^th. The sign-up Linky List opens on Friday, May 3^rd and we ask you to add a link to your Reflections Blog Post (the direct, permalink to that specific blog post); do not add the link to your overall blog or website. The A to Z Challenge hosts read every one to get a good idea of what areas need improvement next year.

So, are YOU game to voice your Reflections on May 3^rd once the challenge has ended?

The X-Rated Life – Approved for All Audiences #atozchallenge

“Once upon a time, every major Hollywood studio released X-rated movies. These films were off limits to people under 17 years of age.

Respectable cinemas showed these movies, and respectable movie goers went to see them, and respectable critics often gave them good reviews, and these X-rated movies starred Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Ellen Burstyn, and Vanessa Redgrave; and even received Oscar recognition from time to time.” – Film Scholar, Max Alvarez

If a movie about your life received a wide released in U.S. theaters, it would most likely have one of five (G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17) MPAA ratings.

Whatever rating this film possesses, it reflects who you are, where you live, how you live and how these -- and several other factors -- are perceived by other people, based on the content of your biopic. If I were a member of the MPAA, however, I would say that the sum of all our lives combined is Rated X.

While a lot of our days can be described as colorful – possibly even adventurous as well, like Disney movies are often portrayed, we would be delusional to expect a “G” Rating for the gist of what occurs between our births and deaths. Life does bring with it a plethora of mind-blowing experiences and enlightening situations like in the animated adventure “The Lion King” as well as healthy competition, victory and friendship like in the animated comedy “Cars.”

The general joys of song, dance and finding your way back home, as portrayed in the fantasy adventure “The Wizard of Oz” are also a part of our life experience. Still, the extent to which we’re willing to take the scenes playing out in our world each day doesn’t stop at the yellow brick road. Some of our days are PG – filled with the danger of swimming with sharks (literally and figuratively) like in the horror “JAWS” or violent situations, accompanied by photos of scantily clad women, cigarette smoking and drinking alcohol, as portrayed in the family comedy “Home Alone.”

We’re terrorized – maybe not in the same manner – but certainly on the same PG-13 Rated level as the Sci-Fi adventure “Jurrasic Park” while also encountering the perils of disaster and violence like in the romantic drama “Titanic.”

We also live in a world of R-Rated proportions -- where the film adaptations of our neighbors’ lives would feature scenes that include people being set on fire like in the crime drama “Kill the Irishman” and rebels in places of political unrest chopping off the limbs of civilians (some as young as three years old) like in the dramatic thriller “Blood Diamond.” This is the same R-Rated world where children and teenagers are exposed to adult situations, sexual language and drug use, as portrayed in the romantic drama, “Cruel Intentions.”

If you’ve ever encountered any of the following elements in your lifetime, then you’re probably living an R-Rated life by the MPAA’s standards:

• Drug use, strong graphic violence, torture, pervasive language and/or rape 

(as seen in “Law Abiding Citizen” and “Casino”)

• Oral Sex, nudity, sexuality and/or gender issues

(as seen in the romantic drama “Blue Valentine” and the drama “Boys Don’t Cry”)

• Gore, blood and/or guts

(as seen in the crime drama “Dead Presidents” and the action horror “Grindhouse”)

The kicker is that there isn’t an age limit on the what, when or where people encounter certain things (like violence, war, terror, homosexuality, gender identity issues, harsh language and anything else that society deems as being for adults only) while they’re here in this earth. By the time we’re 17 years of age, we’ve probably experienced, seen, heard or read many things that would make our own biopic a bit historically inaccurate, if it were to be Rated “G.” Don’t let Hollywood fool you - X-Rated movies still exist in Hollywood today; they’re just classified as NC-17 films now until producers appeal for an R-Rating – a practice that happens more often than you might think.

NC-17 and R-Ratings are intended to filter through what is -- and is not -- deemed appropriate for the general movie-going public. That’s just it – we are the general public! Unless you live out in the boonies of the country or have been extremely sheltered for most of your life, there is no escaping the reality of our world.

We live in a world where people are some of the most compassionate and positive human beings whom with one could ever share this great earth. Unfortunately, we also also live in a world that includes other folks who are the vilest individuals to be given such space. Add to that the fact of there being a lot of good people who do bad things, and we could collectively write a screenplay adaptation that is parlayed into a long-running movie franchise filled with adventure and laughter – as well as X-Rated content.

For us to appeal it, we would have to write a second, third, fourth or fifth draft of the screenplay until we find a version that can be made into something that reflects our desired MPAA rating. Or, we would have to edit the footage that we have, rearranging some scenes, shortening others, extending a few if necessary and then removing the rest and leaving them on the cutting room floor. If only it was that easy to get rid of the things we don’t like or don’t want and avoid explicit scenes (or days), problematic people and unpleasant situations at all cost. The world that we live in is not censored. It is X-Rated!

What rating do YOU think the MPAA would give a movie that is based on your life?

Which of the R-Rated movies mentioned in this post do YOU think originally received an NC-17 rating by the MPAA?

What it means to be a Woman… #atozchallenge #womeninfilm #moviescenes

“For the sake of all of us, let us try to change what that means – to be a woman.” – Warise Dirie in “Desert Flower”

Of all the things we learn from movies, their depiction of gender roles are spot on (depending on the film) when it comes to the way people view and treat women.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a man, so I won’t comment on the depiction of males in film. My knowledge and experiences, however, give me a pretty good idea of what it’s like to be a woman – the fun of times of painting your nails and wearing stilettos – but also the least pleasant moments of being the target of ridicule and bias acts. As previously mentioned in 2012, I hate that – and then I remember how very definition of womanhood is about as diverse as they come; involving several factors including the era and culture you live in.

Here are some incites from the silver screen – a few, based on true events -- on what it means to be a woman.

• The boy you fell in love with is involved in a bet that he can seduce you for the purpose of spoiling your reputation. If he loses, he must hand over ownership of a luxury sports car. If he wins, he gets to sodomize his step-sister, like Sebastian negotiates in “Cruel Intentions.”

• You give birth to daughters who your husband does not acknowledge, because he is more interested in bearing a son as an heir to his throne, as made clear to Georgiana in “The Dutchess.”

• Following accusations of being a traitor, you’re tortured and then raped during the Vietnam war – possibly as a warning to your father. You are then forced to move to another city, since these events damage the relationship between your family and your village, as experienced by Le Ly in “Heaven & Earth.”

• Your magazine-publisher boss does a cover story titled “The Last Single Girl” about your engagement, but not before telling you that “40 is the last age a woman can be photographed in a weddings dress without the unintended Diane Arbus subtext;” suggesting that women over 40 would look strange and awkward wearing a bridal gown, as brought to Carrie’s attention in “Sex and the City: The Movie.”

• When you turn three years of age, your mother takes you miles away to a rocky field where you’re forced to undergo female circumcision at the hands of an elder woman, as experienced by Waris Dirie in “Desert Flower.”

• The boy you just slept with is now the winner of a $1 “sex” bet between him and his best friend, as revealed to Brenda in “Cooley High.”

• After selling you to become the fourth wife of an older man in Somalia, your father beats your mother when she lets you escape from this arranged marriage, like Warise Dirie endures in “Desert Flower.”

*What do YOU think it means to be a woman?

(*This question is open to everybody -- both Males AND Females.)