ali davis, the wage slave responsible for the much-hailed weblog "true porn clerk stories" describes the concept of the polite fiction simply. "It's something nobody believes, but we all pretend to because it makes life so much easier." it stands to reason that when a polite fiction is shattered, everyone involved suffers. i can now attest to this suffering based on personal experience.
when the commercial comes on television, someone fumbles for the remote control while embarrassed eyes are averted.
when we pass a billboard, the driver fiddles with the tape deck while passengers busy themselves with the buttons of their coats.
when we browse the internet with a friend and a pop-up assaults us, frantic mouse clicks remind our friend to rummage through her purse for a stick of gum or unusual coin that does not exist.
yet today i was forced to stare into the eyes of the enemy, as the fiction was exposed for the fraud that it is. i heard my coworker's notoriously shrill voice before i saw her round the corner and stride into my office. "i can't believe kyle hung this over my desk!" she shrieked. in her hands she held a four-foot tube of glossy paper that could only be a poster. "does anybody like susan sarandon and goldie hawn?" my heart was in my throat. i could think of nothing but the word 'no,' a word which repeated itself, in my mind, in an endless row of identical No's, trailing off into infinity as if they existed in two mirrors that had been held close to one another.
before i could analyze the shortest distance to an exit and compel my brain to issue the electrical impulse necessary to stand and run, the cursedly deft fingers of a six-year mailroom secretary had unrolled the poster to its full size and there it was. a gigantic poster for 'The Banger Sisters.'
did i weep? yes. in much the same way that i did when informed of my parents' divorce some seventeen years ago. the real crime here is that this movie was entirely preventable. it boggles my mind to imagine that hundreds, possibly thousands of people gave their consent, explicitly or otherwise, to permit the making of a movie with a concept this bad. former rock groupies reunited after twenty years apart? blecchh. this movie puts the sting back in disgusting.
and that's my point.