.Gary Dretzka
.Leonard Klady.
.David Poland
.Ray Pride

June 30, 2003

I am happy to be an American.  On this week we celebrate our freedom to eat too much food, drink too much liquor and watch our children blow their fingers off with firecrackers.

I am happy to be an American.  It is a country in which hundreds of critics can be flown to London to meet with the delightful Reese Witherspoon because she is too pregnant to fly.  She can then decide that her movie might be in trouble and fly to New York to sit down with Mr. Conan O’Brien.

I am happy to be an American.  We are blessed in this nation to have the freedom to turn The Lovely Keanu into The One, Donald Kaufman into The Three and treat women in Hollywood like number two.

I am happy to be an American.  I live in a land where movie executives are worried about internet pirates stealing an early glimpse at The Hulk, but forget to make a movie that does not seem as long as downloading an entire movie.

I am happy to be an American.  We export our vision of ourselves to the world, infecting our friends across the waters with dudes, angels, 2fast cars, bad boys, dumb Jim Carrey look-alikes, dumb Jim Carrey himself, pretty fish, skeletal pirates and tomb raiders.  All they send us back are whale riders, dirty pretty things, some Magdalene sisters and two cranky chicks around a swimming pool.  No wonder we are in charge!

I am happy to be an American.  We all loved Miss Katharine Hepburn and Mister Gregory Peck and at least 50 percent of us have actually seen one of their movies.

I am happy to be an American.  Our real lady of the lamp, Columbia Pictures, will keep the name “Gigli” even though they say that no one can pronounce it.  It is as obvious as the backside on Ben Affleck’s face!  Jiggle-ly!

I am happy to be an American.  Nowhere else could a Jew with a giant nose engage in tongue play with an African American with a fabulous tush after winning an Academy Award on live television for playing a Holocaust survivor and not have someone declare a holy war against us. 

I am happy to be an American.  Our eyes can scan the closing days of summer and see that Step Into Liquid is released on the same day as S.W.A.T., but that it is not an on-set documentary about the results of yummy Colin Farrell’s beverage lust.

I am happy to be an American.  In our nation, we express the freedom to niche market equally by sending horror movies to Mr. Harry Knowles first and Mel Gibson’s The Passion to church leaders first.

I am happy to be an American.  Our moral safety is kept locked up so that a woman pointing an unloaded breast at a man’s head gets an R rating and a man pointing a loaded submachine gun at a woman’s head gets a PG-13. 

I am happy to be an American.  We open our movie houses to such talented little men as Yahoo Serious, Roberto Benigni and Rowan Atkinson.  When we get sick of their obnoxious behavior, we ship them back in little tiny pieces.

I am happy to be an American.  A land where a woman can get her bosom enlarged to the size of two honeydews, then reduce them to the size of two cantaloupes, then take them back up to the size of two watermelons and blame the whole thing on Wonderbra, is a land of plenty.

I am happy to be an American.  A country’s greatness must be measured by careers rebuilt by Sylvester Stallone letting his gray show, Demi Moore successfully removing Ashton Kutcher’s brain through her lady parts, and Harrison Ford pretending to have a sense of humor about himself.   Our pride must swell when we reflect on our refusal to allow Ms. Sharon Stone, Mr. Jean Claude Van Damme or Grandpa Burt Reynolds back into our lives.

I am happy to be an American.  We brace ourselves for a parade of Pirates of the Caribbean.   We love the Caribbean where there are no people of color.

I am happy to be an American.   We allow people who have stolen their nicknames from other more talented men to hold up multinational corporations for the use of those names, even if they are not necessarily proper nouns, Spike!

I am happy to be an American.  We get all the best food, the biggest malls and the cheapest gasoline, but we cannot get a decent cell phone or the brains to turn them off while driving SUVs that are bigger than out first apartments.

I am happy to be an American.  We are brave enough to make a movie called The Italian Job that has no Italians in it and takes place on Hollywood Boulevard.

I am happy to be an American.  Our founding fathers fought for a world in which we could give a straight man an Oscar for playing a gay man but will allow gay men who play gay men to work only in art films.

I am happy to be an American.  Is there any other country that can suction so many billions of dollars into our economy from foreign lands with nothing more than the promise of being able to take credit for the next Adam Sandler movie or another version of Law and Order or to start a TV network that fights for respect so long that they end up airing Joe Millionaire? 

I am happy to be an American.  It is a land where there are more women running movie studios than there are female directors working for them. 

I am happy to be an American.  We have made hypocrisy into an art, turned our art into hypocrisy and paid for the privilege.  Happy Birthday, America!  I love you like the first boy who dumped me.

Ciao for niao!

 

Email Patricia Vidal