Eat, Pray, Love is out in theatres tomorrow. It will probably do very well, the book was immensely popular. I have had chicks recommend that I read it. Women love this book. however, to give credit where it is due, feminists have criticized it for being “privilege literature” and their assessment is accurate. How many women can decide they are unhappy with their husband and then travel the world to find self fulfillment?
Very few.
A spiritual journey isn’t cheap these days.
Notice that this is not a triumph over an abusive spouse, she’s just unhappy with her boring one and she kicks him to the curb.
It girl of two decades ago, Julia Roberts, is playing the lead. The chick that was once the girl next door is now a Hindu. This isn’t avant garde. As Newsweek celebrated, we are all Hindu.
Hinduism, at least western hinduism, is chick crack. Rigid caste system where you can figure out who is at the top is something women love. Celebrating women’s sexual power is a given. Reincarnation is a big thing for many women. Even the warning of Kali has been transformed into a creative figure for women.
It is no accident that she is trampling the body of her husband, or that she is often depicted as eating one baby while suckling another (look how the article I linked to soft pedals it). Like Nature itself, she gives and she takes (unlike the gentle mother earth crap the Gaiaist depict in the west). Kali is terrifying. Kali represents the vast darkness that lies in the hearts of women. There is a reason the Thugee cult worshipped her.
Hinduism in the west is portrayed as acceptant, tolerant and prodiversity (never mind the conflicts between muslims and hindus). It is the perfect religion for western women.
I am going to take a detour that will return to the main road in a moment.
I have a confession to make. I finally watched Twilight. I will get to what that has to do with the spiritual movie in a moment.
I watched it and was shocked at how utterly boring the movie is. I am not going to go into the vampire, alpha, women like thugs thing, no there was something else I noticed.
Bella’s father.
He’s police chief of a small town. Not an officer, a police chief.
The reason Bella’s mom left him?
He was boring. He works, he is dependable, he doesn’t say much, he watches sports and drinks a few beers with his buddies. His ex-wife in typical cougar fashion she ends up marrying a minor league baseball player and following him around the country.
So he is abandoned for being a good, stable dependable pillar of the community and how much does he see his daughter? The last time she visited she was four years old and it was for two weeks. She’s now a teenager.
Evil is banal. It is vanilla.
And these two books and movies share the same thing. Dependability, normalcy are all sins for a man in our culture and the men are abandoned because of it.
Just as Kali trampled Shiva, so to are the men in these stories being trampled. So to are men being trampled all around us, sacrificed to the dark goddess.
