Monday, November 20, 2023
A Sunday Afternoon With Kelly And Me - (Pizza Margherita, Farmers Market, Bodhi Coffee, And A Cemetery)
First stop: Pizzeria Stella
As you all know from my pizza post, I worship it. Especially Pizza Margherita. So, that's what we ordered at Pizzeria Stella. We also split the most delicious romaine salad...
I honestly thought from the few clips and brief interviews with Brooke Shields I had watched weeks before it aired, that it was going to be another documentary with an Oh, woe is me. Look how much I suffered as a child/ model/actress/celebrity thread running through it. I also thought it was going to be another male-bashing movie with a #MeToo movement theme.
Let me be perfectly clear in saying I believe 100% that any type of sexual harassment is wrong. Totally wrong. And that it should not be tolerated. No one should have to put up with that kind of behavior - child or adult.
However...
I also need to say that I think some of the blaming has gotten out of hand and has moved into the bashing of all men, just for being male. Currently, if a man so much as gives a woman a compliment in the workplace, it is immediately interpreted as sexual harassment.
When I was young, I was never physically assaulted in any way by guys my age. However, I was severely verbally and emotionally assaulted every single day of my school years for being gay. So yes, I completely understand male harassment, particularly when it comes to sexuality.
Yet, as I got older, I never used my childhood experiences as a gauge for all men because I discovered that all straight men are not homophobic. In fact, most of my adult male friends are straight, not gay.
I think it's important to openly acknowledge and discuss our past. But I also think it's important not to allow it to hold us there. Because if we do, that's exactly where we will stay. In the past. A victim; replaying it over and over again.
My thoughts and feelings on the film -
I inaccurately assumed that the Brooke Shields documentary was going to spend the majority of time focusing on all the negative things she went through as a child celebrity. One of them is that she was sexually assaulted by a Hollywood executive when she was in her 20s. Also, her complex relationship with her alcoholic mother and former manager, Teri, whom she eventually fired. Her first husband Andre Agassi's "irrational" behavior led to their emotional and marital separation. And her deep plunge into postpartum depression after her first child.
This documentary is not sugar-coated. Brooke speaks openly about these things and more, yet, there isn't so much as one drop of self-pity or bitterness in her voice. On the contrary, she talks about how these things made her a stronger, more resilient, and compassionate person, wife, and mother of two daughters. She refuses to be a statistic or a victim.
Brooke believes that she had to go through all that she went through to be able to really own this time in her life.
I came away from this film having a deeper respect for Brooke Shields. By the end of the two-part documentary, I felt uplifted, inspired, and deeply moved.
She is someone who I've always admired because of her incredible diversity in modeling, television, film, and theater. And doing them all well.
I had always sensed that Brooke was more than just a pretty face.
And I was right.
She's a teacher, using her own life as an example of how it's possible to take any negative experience and turn it into a positive one.
This documentary is so good, I watched it twice.
And in today's world, with all the pollution the media is trying so desperately to force-feed us nothing but negativity about the human race, this documentary proves them wrong.
If you're looking for honesty and inspiration, I highly recommend 'Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields'.
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Here are some photographs of Brooke Shields throughout her career. Many of these, I'm sure you'll remember.
As a baby and child...
Links -
*Trailer: Pretty Baby; Brooke Shields
*The documentary can be found here and here.
*60 Minutes Australia: Brooke Shields Talks Openly
*Brooke Shields tells how the Calvin Klein ads were created