"..Hate The Sin....Pity The Sinner...."

Frances Fisher is an accomplished, respected and gifted actor with a resume' of no small measure. If you know her from nothing else, you would know her for her delightfully rigid performance as the mother of Kate Winslett's character in "Titanic".

Here's a link to her lowdown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Fisher

Meanwhile, she is also the mother of a nineteen year old daughter from her relationship, some years ago, with another accomplished actor who has been front and center in the world of politics the last couple of days. A relationship that, as commonly known, did not end well.

The following is from Ms. Fisher's Facebook page.


So I've been asked by numerous friends my reaction to what we saw at the RNC an evening ago; you know to whom I am referring. In all honesty, I felt cringing pity. But then I thought: I've seen this act before. And I didn't buy it. Crazy like a fox. (There is a movie coming out, and this might be the way to get more tickets sold.) I saw the same act sitting with therapists, mediators and lawyers.

Pitiful old man appearing to not really know what is going on.......

 Ego run amuk - going onstage without a script --the fault of the desperation of the Repubs, (to trust that an actor could deliver without a script? )--and nobody vetted him? Repubs thinking, hoping, that this person could lend some dignity to the process, because, what, this person is an icon in his chosen profession? Even though I am certainly not a Republican, I felt bad for the people who thought this was a good idea.

 To put words into the mouth of Invisible President Obama was an outstandingly disrespectful attempt to garner cheap laughs; a projection from a person who thinks that when you feel you're losing the audience and have nothing else to say, make a crude joke and the audience will laugh. Cringe. A sly manipulation.

The points brought up, in my opinion, were miniscule in comparison to the real problems facing our country: Child poverty 23%, unemployment because so many jobs have been shipped overseas (Bain for one), health care for all citizens, the threat of war upon Iran, Women's rights to their own choices, Gay Rights, NDAA, Citizens United, the Fed, etc.....

 "We own this country" seemed to me a pandering to the current Corporate power block which does own our country. And the audience thought he was talking about them. How sad.

On a personal level, whenever I see someone stumbling in a speech I feel such compassion - many of us have had that dream of standing on a stage and not knowing what the play is, and having to go on. That is what I felt when I was watching. A horrifying attempt to pull it together at the last minute, but going to the old, tired, tried and true things that worked in the past. In this case, crude sexual jokes that may have worked in the clubhouse, but certainly didn't work on a national stage. Cringe.

Performance art is worthy, in a certain setting. And I applaud a person for taking chances. But I would think that at something as serious as a National Convention for the Presidency of the United States, where people who are undecided are looking for a key to unlock their minds in order to find a guiding force, is not the place to try out a new act. Or recycle an old one.


As a rule, hell hath no fury and all that....

At the same time, it is always a mistake to assume that what you expect is what you're going to get.

And even if, in reading Ms. Fisher's impressions, you allow for any possible sour grapes, you can't reasonably argue that her comments aren't articulate, thoughtful and reasonable.

The knee jerk response , to this perspective from any loyal, card carrying Republican, would likely be dismissive, given that Ms. Fisher does, in fact, bear the burden of theoretically having an axe to grind when it comes to the aforementioned pitiful old man.

But, even if she lives to swing a blade of Bunyanesque proportions, there is no denying that her description of the badly executed night at the improv that the RNC deemed necessary, let alone appropriate, to the proceedings is accurate.

And in that place were we all go, in the quiet of night, in the privacy of our thoughts, my instinct is that everyone, Democrat, Republican, Independants (and bears, oh my) is of one mind here.

In the end, how ironic that in a fractured, splintered, adversarial, partisan climate, we, all of us, are brought together in a single gesture of unity.

Cringe.

Indeed.