Non-starters in this week’s news:

• Why was it wrong for Harry Reid to say that Obama’s light skin and standard American dialect helped him win the presidency? The fact is, our country wouldn’t have elected a man who looked or sounded too black because our country never elects presidents who look or sound too anything, much less anything that is also TOO NEW.  (For the record: I voted for Obama.)

• Nor do I understand what’s so shocking about Sarah Palin’s saying she believed that running for vice president had been God’s will. Is there anyone alive who has not yet heard that Sarah Palin believes in God?  So wouldn’t it be more interesting to find out that she’d accepted a nomination she believed was AGAINST God’s will? (For the record: I did *not* vote for Sarah Palin.)

• And now, Avatar the movie, one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen recently, is coming under fire, and from weirdly opposite directions. However, anything so wildly popular is going to be criticized, if only to help journalists pay the rent. (For the record: no one is paying me a cent.)

First criticism: Avatar as anti-military.  The narrator TELLS us at the beginning that “this was not the military: these were hired guns.”  It’s IN THE SCRIPT, people: this is not an anti-military movie, it’s an anti-corrupt-mercenary movie.

And let’s not forget that the Na’vi natives are just as vicious with their knives, arrows and Large Strong Animals as the humans are with their machinery… vicious enough that the Pandorans actually BEAT the humans, after all. And did any of us hate those battle scenes? I rest my case.

Then there’s the “Avatar as anti-American”  critique. What interests me most about that one is the way these critics would have us all define “American.”

If “American” equals “Unrelentingly murderous, sadistic capitalists,” then I’ve understood these critics correctly, but few will  agree with them.   The rogue Jake Sully is the American hero we identify with, not his employers. I would venture to say that most Americans, conservatives especially, believe that America is the land of the free.  We LOVE that about ourselves, and when we go to war, the reason most conservative Americans will give – and the principal that most Americans in general are particularly passionate about– is the preservation of freedom and democracy. 

Not that Americans are always very good at preserving freedom and democracy when they go to war, but it would be wrong to conclude therefore that the entire country is sadistic enough to make the destruction of freedom and democracy its central purpose. 

So if the conservative critics are wrong, how about the liberal critics?  Is this movie racist?   True: the hero is white, and most of the Na’vi are played by (and resemble) people of color. However, I can’t remember if the other humans in the movie were predominantly white or not, though the American military (my strongest model, as I too am American ) is extremely diverse — in fact, it is one of the most racially diverse populations in the world. Therefore, I don’t remember the human invaders in Avatar as “white” but  as “human.” But is even a human vs. Na’vi contest race-neutral enough, given that it took a member of the advanced, imperialist human race to save the naive, native Pandoran one?   But were the Pandorans really so naive,  were the humans really so advanced, and did Jake Sully really represent “A White Messiah?” 

Perhaps it would have been more graceful if Jake Sully had been played by a black actor. I am willing to concede that point: I didn’t pay much attention to Jake Sully’s race, but that alone may be telling. Perhaps we all could use some fresher imagery.

What I did notice was that a 6 foot tall familiarly-colored person fell in love with a 10 foot tall bright blue person, and that seemed pretty multi-cultural to me.  

I also watched Jake Sully roll around helplessly on the ground, leaving his Na’vi wife and Pandora’s native deity to make  the decisive moves in the final battle. Which, as I’ve pointed out, they win.  If Avatar is indeed racist, it seems to be the human race that takes the hardest knocks in this movie.

No matter what some critics are saying, people of all political stripes are flooding the theatres in record numbers to see Avatar.  The real question about the movie, therefore,  is what makes it so much fun to watch?

I’m not sure how I feel about this. 

Fortunately, 13-year-old girls seem to be as fun as 12-year-old ones are, which is reassuring.

She’s going to be famous someday, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my daughter.  Well, maybe that is part of the reason I’m saying it, but Maddie Bradshaw is proof that even 13-year-olds can become company presidents.

Image: Maddie Bradshaw, m3 Girl Designs

Very few of us will do the right thing, economically, unless we have to do it.

Doing the right thing because we have to do it still can be a positive experience.

Both Republicans (situationally) and Democrats (legislatively) believe in forcing people to do the right thing.

Republicans and Democrats take turns being right — and catastrophically wrong.

Maybe there are few definitive solutions at all.

Maybe there are more solutions than we can imagine.

Maybe most of us are getting poorer.

Maybe that doesn’t matter as much as we think it does.

Maybe we can’t make money doing the things that we love.

Maybe that will break our hearts.

Or maybe that will force us to discover how to love what we do, instead.

Maybe we’ll do everything right and still  fail.

Maybe we’ll make one mistake after another and turn out just fine.

Maybe life eventually will confound us all.

Need more proof that committees get nothing done right? The Museum of Modern Art sent this letter to Andy Warhol in 1956 rejecting his gift of one of his early drawings. I am guessing they have regretted this decision for at least 40 years…

(Click for a larger version: andy-warhol-rejection-letter.jpg)

This letter belongs to Kevin Burg , whose grandmother received it in 1938.  (click here to see it even better)  Kevin notes that despite Disney’s declaration that women aren’t to do any creative work, his grandmother eventually became an animator during WWII when women had to step up “For the War Effort.” 

To be fair, it probably wasn’t entirely sexist, in 1938, to deny women any but the most menial, low-paying jobs.  During the Great Depression, many Americans felt that only men were entitled to jobs, the logic being that men had families to support.  That logic was a little thin, of course, as many women also were supporting families, some of which included their unemployed husbands.  

Don’t you love the stationery?  So perfect to send to all the “girls” looking for jobs.  I wonder what kind of stationery the real adults received?  (and we could do all kinds of things with the witch lurking in the corner, too — hey look, it’s HR Wench’s dopellganger!)

(DRUM ROLL PLEASE) And now for the REAL hall of fame!

Many thanks to all the others who have celebrated rejection with me this week, both here and on your own blogs: (please let me know if I’ve left you out… I’m still chasing down the “pings!)

Mikael, Mikael the Mime) (who has magical bodily functions)
James, James Viscosi’s Scribblings (yes, there’s plenty enough rejection to go around)
Deb, A Little Tea or Something (for understanding what I mean)
Peggy, Career Encouragement Blog (who is going to be the best PhD ever)
Alison, Ask a Manager (one of the blogosphere’s best writers)
Truevyne, The TrueVyne (braver than most people know)
Cassandra, Ophelia Blooming (collage-maker extraordinaire)
Karen, Working Girl (there’s NO place like home!)
Rachel at The Drawing Lady  (PLEASE: What’s a Jerwood?)
Ann, Thomas Trails and Tales (hurray for you!  Only 99 more rejections to join our super-duper hall of fame!)
Linda, The Girl with the Curl (who just GOT a job, but can still remember what it is like…)
Michelle, Philadelphia Stories and Michelle Wittle’s Web log (Inspiring, she is)
Dave, Dare to Dream (The only licensed advice-giver in the bunch)
Bill, not poetry blog (for this collage of rejection letters!)
Jackson, Blue Mosaic Me (who actually LIKED his most recent rejection letter.)

As well as for my blogless-but-wonderful fellow rejectees Kathy, David, Tom R., Felicia, Keith, Pam S., Mini-Betsy, Marisa and Laura E

Should you take rejection personally?  Good Lord, of course you should. You are a person, after all.

What else are you going to do, take it like a llama?

(1) Resiliance is not a moral virtue.

The amount of resilience you have is more like a hair color: It’s something you’re born with, unless you change it with chemicals.

Don’t listen when people tell you to get over it, move on, and let go. What the hell do they know? Feel what you feel. Discontent and anger are not defects, they are human. They are also very powerful tools for change, if you use them right.

(2) Success is not a moral virtue either

Success often is more like the lottery. Some people win the first time they buy a ticket, and try to convince the rest of us that winning only happens to people who believe in themselves with their whole entire hearts; other people win the lottery after buying 100 tickets, and then spend their lives urging the rest of us to keep on buying lottery tickets until it works for us, too.

The only logical conclusion to this line of thought is that people are starving in Africa  because they deserve it.  We need to stop equating vocational (and economical) success with personal virtue.

(3) … Nor does success  inevitably follow upon hard work or persistence

We also need to stop telling people that hard work and persistence will inevitably lead to vocational success. Hard work may increase the mathematical odds of success, sure, but there are no guarantees.

How unfortunate it is that we keep insisting that success comes from good character and hard work.  The American mobility myth is astonishingly persistent, despite many recent (and bipartisan) studies that debunk it.

The good news? You can stop beating yourself up, now. Being unsuccessful is not a character flaw, and there is nothing wrong with you.  Nor is there anything wrong with embracing your own experience for what it is, and moving through and past it your own way, too.   I’m sorry I can’t tell you how to succeed, nor even guarantee that you will. But on behalf of the rest of the world, please let me say: we need you just the way you are.

—————
Update:  Yesterday our local paper posted excerpts of my entry about the Knoxville shooting in several places on their website.  For a few hours it was Google City around here.  Therefore, I’d already written today’s entry when I was pinged by this article about anger, written by a licensed therapist, who took my point and ran with it quite beautifully.  So now you have it from a real expert!

The picture above was inspired by my friend David, who suggested the words and said “it’s all about the psychological FRAME you choose.”

The letters and stories keep pouring in, so be sure to come back on Friday when I’ll try to have a complete list, including the Worst Rejection Letter Ever (Really. It’s so delicious I want to eat it.)

Also, I need to disclose that I’ve been scooped. The Rejection Collection is a treasure house of rejection letters, rejection letter poetry, plus pages and pages of rip-roaring rants.

Rejected Again? Don’t despair. Join your fellow writers and artists to laugh in the face of rejection. It may not make you feel any better, but it’s better than banging your head against the wall.

I laughed. I cried. I discovered I may be suffering from a hitherto unknown malady called “Extreme Un-Published Syndrome” (Eups!)

Jack Handey published a wonderful series of funny Rejection letters a few years back in The New Yorker. They’re no longer viewable on TNY’s website, but I’ve linked to a copy on Does it Echo. I particularly liked this one:

Dear Sir:
If it is any consolation, we feel that if we had hired you, by now we would have been forced to let you go.
Sincerely,
Personnel Department

At the bottom of Handey’s list is a very funny reverse-rejection letter, versions of which have been ubiquitous on the internet ever since.

Coming tomorrow:  Of course you should take rejection personally!