Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6 - November 16,1972
LIFE IN MUSIC
By The Dameans
I AM WOMAN
I am women hear me roar
in numbers too big to ignore
and I know too much to go back and pretend.
Cause I’ve heard it ail before
and I’ve been down there on the floor
and not one’s ever gonna keep me down again.
Yes, I am wise but it’s wisdom born of pain,
yes, I’ve paid the price but look how much I’ve gained
If I had to, I can do anything
I am strong, I’m invincible, I am woman.
You can bend but never break me,
cause it only serves to make me,
more determined to achieve my final goal
and I come back even stronger,
not a novice any longer
cause you deepen the conviction in my soul;
I am woman watch me grow
see me standing toe to toe,
as I spread my lovin’ arms across the land,
but I’m still an embryo,
with a long, long way to go,
until I make my brother understand.
H. Reddy and R. Burton
(c Buggerlugs Music Co. / BMI)
The first time I heard this song it made me very uncomfortable. Perhaps the
reason is that I am man. That in itself surprised me because I never thought of
myself as being “anti-feminist,” and the thrust of the lyrics and it’s setting in the
production of “Stand Up and Be Counted” point to the fact that this song is a
battle cry for Women’s Lib.
I wondered why that should upset me since I’m all for women’s equality.
Then a few things came to light that made me think that my first impulse was
still correct.
The problem was that this didn’t sound or feel like a feminist song at all. The
whole drive of the beat is almost military in tone with a flavor of marching to
battle. Even the thrust of the words ring with a masculine emphasis, “I am
wise . . .1 am strong, I’m invincible.”
This is not to say that women do not possess these qualities because their
examples are countless in women everywhere. But it is to say that if this is what
women mainly contribute then we have really lost something precious. Men are
the ones who generally claim and are credited with wisdom, strength and power.
If women’s equality means that she merely matches these qualities in men then
we wind up in the end with a world of “males.”
Real women’s liberation should point out the characteristics that are uniquely
feminine to make its impact on the world. While men debate with wisdom born
of study, argumentation and logic, women offer wisdom that is intuited, felt
without explanation and often perceptive beyond words. Woman’s wisdom
tempers the haughty wisdom of men and keeps it in touch with the richness of
life, richness of life.
Men thrive on strength and accomplish huge tasks of power. Women balance
that strength with a warmth that is concerned with the human side of things.
Women temper power by caring for the persons involved and pointing out the
real worth and preciousness of life. Without woman, man’s power would be
devastating. Her power is in being able to control his.
While man drives on to achieve goal after goal he runs the risk of draining
himself, and eventually sapping the world of life itself. All the while women
offers an eternal and untiring spirit that constantly gives new life and regenerates
the world. In the despairing of men, she offers hope. In the dying of men, she
offers life.
Real liberation for women is for her to discover what she really is in herself
and not how she is like man. Her real equality comes in recognizing that what
she offers is different, but just as important to life. Her real value is that she is a
much-needed balance for mankind. She is different and “Vive la difference.”
(All correspondence should be directed to: The Dameans, St. Joseph’s Church, 216
Patton Avenue, Post Office Box 5188, Shreveport, Louisiana 71105)
L
TEENAGE MINISTERS OF EUCHARIST -- Dan Meyer of North College Hills, Ohio,
and Rosie Laughlin of Northern Hills, Ohio, distribute Holy Communion at a CYO
Mass in the Cincinnati Archdiocesan. They are among the first teenage extraordinary
SHEEP SA YS:
ministers of the Eucharist in the United States. At Dan’s right is Father William
Krumpe, assistant CYO Director and at Rosie’s right is Tom Crumm, a student at
Mount St. Mary Seminary who also was named a Eucharistic minister. (NC Photo)
Jesus Will be Center Of Christian Reunion
BY JOANNE PRICE
JAMAICA, N.Y. (NC) - One of the
weaknesses of ecumenical gatherings is
that “who Jesus was” is infrequently
discussed, Frank J. Sheed, founder of
Sheed & Ward publishing house, told
some 100 Catholic and Protestant laymen
at a meeting sponsored by the Christian
POPE PAUL:
Relations Committee of Brooklyn and
Queens.
The veteran author and publisher, who
is 75, was nevertheless optimistic that
Christian reunion will come about if it
includes both a “union of hearts” and
“union of minds” as to the role of
Christ. . .
Council Calls for Self-reform
By the Church and Individuals
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The Second
Vatican Council called for “continuing
self-reform” by both the Church and
individual believers, Pope Paul VI told a
general audience Nov. 8.
Pope Paul stressed, however, that the
renewal called for by the council was that
Film Classifications
A — Section I —
A — Section II -
A — Section III
A — Section IV
Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
— Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Adolescents
— Morally Unobjectionable for Adults
— Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
of “interior renewal, rather than exterior
renewal”.
The word “renewal” has not always
been understood in the way the Council
wished it, Pope Paul said. “For some it
was a resounding condemnation of the
past and a license to break away from it
without any regard for its vital and
demanding function as the vehicle of the
essential principles by which the church
and, above all, its faith and constitution
live”.
“Some have used the word ‘renewal’ ”,
he said, “to justify a concept of the
Church that would mean separating it
from “its institutional, historic, visible
and exterior structures.” In doing this,
the Pope said, they forget that “the soul
of the Cnurch without its body in which
it lives can no longer be found nor be
active”.
“We are far closer together than we
dreamed of, if only we would take the
trouble to find out,” he commented in
response to a questioner at the meeting,
held in the Protestant Chapel at Kennedy
International Airport.
Sheed decried the “dimness” of Jesus
among contemporary Christians. This
attitude erodes ecumenism, he said. Many
Christians “do not, in fact, find Jesus
very interesting” and “do not want to
grow into intimacy with Him.”
While they sing old hymns that say,
“Jesus, the very thought of Thee . . .with
rapture fills my soul” they would “rather
die than talk about Him” in social
company.
Many Christians read the Gospels in a
state of “pious coma,” instead of being
shattered by Jesus’ actions. Christian
leaders preach often and loudly about
good works but skirt the subject of “who
Jesus was.” Social action is no substitute
for study of Jesus, he said.
“There is a tremendous moral
earthquake happening,” Sheed observed,
“And I have heard religious experts
saying sexual intercourse outside marriage
is ‘enriching.’ What Jesus thought about
this does not become their first point -
and what did He think? He said adultery
and fornication are defiling. The
discussion about sex seems to take place
without reference to Christ.”
There is “nothing more significant
about the vitality of religion today than
the disapperance of interest in heaven,”
he continued. “I hardly meet anyone who
wants to go to heaven. They can’t think
of any joy in heaven to compensate for
all the sins they’ll have to give up to get
there.”
The “gentle, meek and mild” image has
given Jesus the reputation of “not being
Someone you’d want in an emergency.
You wouldn’t even want Him at a
barbecue.”
“And one of the things that impresses
me is the testimonies given by priests who
have either left the ministry or the
Church. I have hardly read a statement by
any one of these in which Jesus is
mentioned - yet, after all, Jesus must
have been the whole point of every Mass
they ever said.”
The fading of Jesus “into the back of
our minds” is not going to “do our
ecumenism much good,” he maintained.
No “practical matter” can be settled until
the question is discussed in the context of
what the task of the Church is as a
“union of men of God in Christ.”
Replying to other questions, the
longtime street corner speaker
commented that the Pentecostal
Movement is something “our own Church
will take to its bosom - we need it.” Of
bitter Catholic-Protestant hostilities in
Northern Ireland, he shook his head and
responded: “Like all the wars that ever
were, it’s not really about religion. It
weighs on my mind all the time, but I
don’t know of a solution. I just don’t
know.”
TV Movies
B — Morally Objectionable in Part for AH
C - Condemned
THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS
(Columbia) -- Artsy Flop Says: Life Is
Monopoly Game — Recognizing that it has been
two full years between director Bob Rafelson’s
previous feature, FIVE EASY PIECES, and his
new film, THE KING OF MARVIN
GARDENS, one would naturally expect that
the time has been well spent. Unfortunately,
KING does not reward either the good faith of
the critics or the blind faith of the cultists, both
of whom have waited patiently an; expectantly.
In fact, KING is almost a betrayal, because it
seems to negate everything FIVE EASY
PIECES achieved and promised. After heaving
mightily for 103 minutes, all it can say is lhat
life is a game, and fixed at that.
Certainly Rafelson and his screenwriter,
former critic Jacob Brackman, had much more
in mind when they undertook their film about
two lost (and long-lost) brothers reunited
nightmarishly in wintry, near-deserted Atlantic
City, New Jersey. But clearly their aspirations,
like the one brother’s golden dreams,
evaporated in the chill air. Jack Nicholson and
Bruce Dern are the brothers -- Nicholson, an
introverted loser who makes a living inventing
tragic monologues he relates on late-night FM
radio in Philadelphia; Dern, a hyperactive
two-bit hustler who is in over his head with
black mobsters at the resort as well as with the
two women (Ellen Burstyn and Julia Anne
Robinson) who share his shabby life and
shabbier hotel room. Together the four walk
through the various and generally cryptic
activities Rafelson and Brackman have designed
for them. None of them seems to have a clear
idea of what is going on, although all are aware
of the heavily erotic atmosphere through which
they move. Of the four, only Ellen Burstyn
invests her character with tiesti, and as a
desparate, fading vamp she tugs at our
sympathies.
Yet Rafelson is never content to let people
behave as people; rather, he insists on covering
their every gesture and every word with other
meanings and references. Thus, little bits about
going to jail, about buying the St. James Hotel
become tired Monopoly jokes. A mock Miss
America pageant becomes as hollow as the
empty Convention Hall in which it is staged. A
shot of a real revolver stashed in a drawerful of
plastic toy pistols reeks of symbolism. In the
entire picture, perhaps the only reality is in the
photography of Laszlo Kovacs, who manages to
capture a bleak sense of crumbling antiquity
that says all there is to say about the dream
which, in the eyes of Rafelson and Brackman,
America has never realized. (A-l\^
A SENSE OF LOSS (Cinema 5) By closely
examining the myriad human faces of the
terrible conflict in Belfast Northern Ireland,
French documentary film maker Marcel Ophuls
has assembled as overview that is at once
illuminating and terrifying. The film is built
around interviews with people directly or
indirectly connected with five people who were
killed during various phases of the strife.
Lawmakers, administrators, Catholic radicals,
Protestant radicals, British soldiers, IRA
guerillas, leftwingers, rightwingers, school
teachers, students, journalists, parents and
friends of victims, wives -- all have their say.
The net effect is a document that reveals the
utter nightmare of a war seemingly without
beginning and perhaps without hope of
peaceful settlement, a war in which everybody
is defeated and which no one can win. Perhaps,
as the movie’s title indicates, the only real sense
is that of loss. (A-ll)
FELLINI’S ROMA (United Artists) -- Rome,
with all its warts front and center, is the subject
of this wild, personal urban trip from Federico
Fellini, the Italian director who of late has
made a career out of making the ugly beautiful,
and vice versa. The style of the film is to
present Rome -- past and present -- in images
that reflect the director’s love-hate relationship
with the city: how he remembers it as an
awe-struck country boy and how he sees it now
as a somewhat jaded film maker. Many will find
the work a fascination, others will see it as a
grotesque abomination and extravagent bag of
tricks. (A-lV)
PULP (United Artists) - This adult,
occasionally quite witty spoof on paperback
fiction and the gangster films of the Thirties
sports Michael Caine as a hack author who is
mysteriously enlisted to ghost-write the
memoirs of aging recluse gangster-movie
celebrity Mickey Rooney. Rooney, it turns out,
has some real-life associations with the Italian
underworld that closely parallel the fictional
roles he playin in his films. For his part, Caine
soon discovers himself a cliche in the middle of
a murder caper not unlike the plots of any
number of his own cheap novels. PULP's chief
flaw is that it has no staying power: desDite
Rooney’s outrageous take-off on the great
gangsters in the Cagney-Edward G. Robinson
tradition, director Michael Hodges (GET
CARTER) cannot stretch out his references to
Bogart, Lorre. ET. AL. (Lionel Stander and
Lizabeth Scott play themselves) into a coherent
comic whole. The result is an on-again,
off-again mixture with some very funny
touches, mostly the effect of Caine’s deadpan
Mickey Spillane narration that conjures up a
fantasy life belied by his actions on the screen.
(A-l II)
SUBURBAN WIVES (Scotia Inti.) - This
lurid British sex melodrama-farce divides itself
into several segments that focus on how bored
suburban housewives discover new ways to kill
time, or devise new methods of supplementing
the family income. The film's interest rarely
reaches above the groan, although its
camerawork ranges about freely, and its sense
of humor -- the only thing that might have
possibly redeemed it - is either unintentional or
inappropriate. (C)
TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN (Maron
Films) - Petite Marcia Forbes walks through
her starring role as a young woman afflicted
with an Electra complex to end all Electra
complexes. The depiction of her obssessive
search for dear old Daddy was probably
intended as the vehicle for a string of softcore
situations but, inexplicably, the story is played
straight - with disastrous (albeit HILARIOUS)
results. The film does offer enough visuals and
coarse dialogue to mildly offend everybody,
however - that is, if anybody is unfortunate
enough to pay to see it. (B)
RECENT FILM CLASSIFICATIONS
Treasure Island (National General) -- A-l
Black Girl (Cinerama) - A-l 11
Crescendo (Warners) - A-l 11
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Fox)
A-lll
Dracula A.D. 1972 (Warners) - A-lll
The Mechanic (U.A.) -- A-lll
Why (Hallmark) -- A-lll
Beware My Brethren (Cinerama) -- B
Toys Are Not For Children (Maron) - B
The Dirt Gang (AIP) -- C
Farewell Uncle Tom (Cannon) -- C
Suburban Wives (Scotia Inti.) -- C
To attempt to secularize the Church in
order to bring it up to date means that
two things are being ignored, the Pope
went on. “The first is that renewal, the
vital and continuing process in a living
organism such as the church, cannot be a
metamorphisis, a radical transformation,
or a lack of faithfulness to the essential
and perpetual elements” that make up
the Church.
The second, the Pope said, is “that the
hoped for renewal is that of internal
renewal and not exterior renewal.” This
form of renewal is not easy because it
means a “continuous self-reform,” he
said.
The Pope ended his talk by citing
several positive aspects of renewal that
already are underway in the Church as a
result of the council.
Among these he cited the education
that modern Christians have received
from the council’s teachings, with the
consequent “new and open attitude
toward natural, earthly, historical, and
scientific values, which is one of the
characteristic aspects of the council.”
The reawakening of ecumenism was
another positive result of the council, the
Pope said, as well as new “respect for
non-Christian religions, for our own
adversaries and for the values of human
activities.”
The council taught Christians again
how to see “in every man the image of
Christ, a brother to be respected, served
and loved.” He asked: “Is this not
perhaps a fundamental and important
criterion for that renewal of which the
Church and world have need.”
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 9:00 p.m.
(ABC) - PATTON (1970) - Long, full-scaled,
absorbingly complex examination of the
wartime leadership of George S. Patton, one of
the most controversial and heroic figures in
U.S. military history. With George C. Scott in
the title role, the film is a stunning triumph.
Scott manages to capture Patton’s character by
skillfully blending his love of the fray and his
indomitible will to win with his deep-down
hatred of war itself. This is a strong film that
makes use of its violence and frequent
profanity (much of which will be “blipped” for
TV) in a perfectly credible way. (A-ll)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20 ~ 8:00 p.m.
(NBC) - BAREFOOT IN THE PARK (1967) -
Broad comedy, strong acting and direction
make for continuous laughter in this adaptation
by Neil Simon of his own popular Broadway hit
about a young married couple (Jane Fonda and
Robert Redford) whose apartment is five flights
up from the street. Mildred Natwick, Charles
Boyer, Herbert Edelman and Fritz Feld
contribute dandy supporting roles. Surefire
lines, funny bits of business and sight gags point
to a successful directing debut for Gene Saks,
who played the children’s TV star in A
THOUSAND CLOWNS. (A-lll)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 - 8:00 p.m.
(NBC) - WEST SIDE STORY (1961) --
Spectacular film of the rousing Jerome
Robbins’ musical with music by Leonard
Bernstein. The story is a contemporary,
inner-city adaptation of the classic Romeo and
Juliet theme, with Richard Beymer and Natalie
Wood as Tony and Maria, the star-crossed
lovers, set apart ethnically and by their
opposing street gang backgrounds. Set in New
York’s upper West Side, the film captures the
grit of life in the city’s lower depths, with
glimmers of hope and elements of tragedy in a
delicate balance. The songs and the dance
numbers, of course, are the selling card, and in
terms of its energy and verve, the movie is
among the very best. Rita Moreno is the
standout here, and won an Academy Award for
her performance (one of ten Oscars given the
film). Some of the social issues, relationships,
and street language, however, require a fairly
mature sensibility on the part of the viewer.
(A-lll)
8:30 p.m. (ABC) - BRIAN’S SONG (1971) -
Rebroadcast of one of the finest
made-for-television features ever made. The
film focuses on the short career of a
professional football halfback, Brian Piccolo of
the Chicago Bears, with an emphasis on his
friendship with another halfback, star Gayle
Sayers. James Caan and Billy Dee Williams play
Piccolo and Sayers, respectively, and their
performances are sensitive. The screenplay is
itself a fine work, evoking sympathy and honest
emotion without sentimentality or easy
melodramatics, which would have ruined this
poignant, hard-hitting true-to-life story of an
American tragedy. Piccolo died at the age of 26
of cancer.
9:30 p.m. (CBS) - GARGOYLES - Original
90-minute TV feature stars Cornel Wilde,
Jennifer Salt, and Grayson Hall in a
horror-suspensethriller dealing in a bizarre tale
about demonology deep in a spooky setting of
ancient Mexican ruins. Has some chilling effects
for those who dig this kind of stuff.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23 -- 8:00 p.m. -
CHITTY, CHITTY BANG BANG (1968) --
Here’s an example of how commercial
television invades your life - why, oh why does
the network schedule such a fine family film on
Thanksgiving Day, when you should spend all
of your time with the family and without the
tube. Oh well, for those who MUST . . .the
fun-packed fantasy takes widowed, erstwhile
inventor Dick Van Dyke, his two children, and
girlfriend Sally Ann Howes (whose movie name
is Truly Scrumptious!) on a magical mystery
tour of story-telling involving “evil” barons,
cavernous castles in the air, rescued children,
an; a wonderful flying car named Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang. Have fun! (A-l)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 - 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) - LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE
(1968) -- Elvis Presley puts some new twists
into this 28th screen effort, directed by
Norman Taurog (his ninth collaboration with
Presley) from the novel, KISS MY FIRM BUT
PLIANT LIPS, by Dan Greenburg. The
gyrations are all vintage Presley, but there’s an
obvious attempt to update the stock dialogue
and situations with an introduction of double
entendre and more ‘daring’ forays into the
sexually titillating. (A-lll)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25 -• 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) - HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS
WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (1967) - This
film adaptation of Shepherd Mead’s Broadway
musical gleefully satirizes the foibles of big
business for mail room to executive suite. David
Swift’s direction did not have to be too
inventive to carry the colorful production
numbers. Comic business and Frank Loesser’s
sly songs come over well. Robert Morse is the
best part of the whole show, with his inspired
caricature of a “dedicated” employee with
designs on a top job. Rudy Vallee, as the
dullard who runs the company, makes the
perfect foil for Morse's chicanery. (A-ll)