The Poop

There are some things I will not discuss in this blog: religion, politics, chin hairs. But there is something I must talk to you about today: poop.

There are, of course, words describing this substance that are far less cute, but I’m taking my cue from Oprah (a girl could do worse) and sticking with the P word. For now.

For years, filmmakers have found it necessary to show men at urinals, and many, many scenes in movies and even on TV take place in rest rooms, sometimes involving men checking each other out.
This is supposed to be daring? Funny? Original? Maybe the first 4000 times, not any more.

So some genius in LaLa Land has decided that it’s time to kick it up a notch and show people sitting on toilets.

Example: The otherwise dignified and very stylish A Single Man has a scene where Colin Firth stares pensively out the window from the privacy of his privy. In the words of Mel Brooks, was this really nessa? Wouldn’t his bedroom window have done just as well?

Death At A Funeral, which has its funny moments, not only showed the grouchy uncle played by Danny Glover on the can, but had Tracy Morgan picking him up and getting covered with you-know-what. The potty plot was so contrived that we are to believe that Tracy couldn’t wash it all off,  thus involving lots of jokes about the smell of poo. Hysterical.

On Bethanny Getting Married? (Talk about a guilty pleasure!), the not-exactly-blushing bride had to pee real bad when she was in her wedding dress and the ceremony was about to begin. Oh, and she was pregnant. So she had her assistant, that lucky man, get a pail for her to pee in, then lifted her voluminous skirts and went at it. Okay, I get it. I might have done the same thing in that situation. But on camera?

One only wonders what would have happened if the sudden urge to do a Number Two came upon her. . . .

It’s only natural . . .
“These are normal functions; we shouldn’t be ashamed of them.”

That’s what the super strident contingent of the women’s movement kept telling us about our menstrual blood. Yes, yes, we said, alright already,  it’s natural. We’re not ashamed. We just don’t want it showing on our white pants. And then, putting the anal in analogy . . .  we responded that defecating is natural, too  — but you wouldn’t want to do it in public.

Guess we can’t use that analogy anymore. Because apparently everybody does—want to, that is. Do it in public. At least in the movies and on cable TV.

I was humming the tune to “Everybody Says, I LOVE YOU” from the movie by Woody Allen and was rewriting the words in my head as “Everybody does doo-doo, too.” Catchy. Still, I don’t want them to be doing it in my face. (Talk about perversions!) It is not for nothing that there are stalls in public bathrooms, and doors in private places.

A Poop By Any Other Name:
Of course, we do use the word “shit” constantly. An email circulating a while back claimed that it’s “The Most Functional Word In the English Language.”

“You can smoke shit, buy shit, sell shit, lose shit, find shit, and forget shit, and tell others to eat
shit.” Pretty functional, Id say.

There are also expressions like “He doesn’t know shit from Shinola,” although I doubt if anyone remembers that Shinola once was a popular brand of shoe polish.

There are countless other uses of the word, including no shit, hot shit, tough shit, get your shit together, shithead or it’s relative, shit for brains. Note the difference: the former means a rotten person, the latter, stupid, AKA dumb shit — not to be confused with a crazy shit or chicken shit. See all the subtle and illuminating differences here?

And of course, you have to duck when “the shit hits the fan.”

Shit happens. Or poop prevails, if you want to get all Oprah about it.

But does it have to happen, in full and glorious detail, in every film or TV show? I think not.

Filmmakers of the world, listen up: please get your (you pardon the expression) shit together.  Find other ways to express yourselves that do not involve this particular bodily function. The current rage for giving us TMI about this subject is pretty crappy.

 
OKAY, READERS, I JUST KNOW THAT YOU CAN ADD TO THE SHIT LIST
AND/OR GIVE YOUR OPINION ON “SHITTY’ MOVIES.

  If you’re fascinated by the subject, check out “Bring Colace.”

FOR ANOTHER BLOGGER’S PET PEEVE — That totally annoying “on hold” music — go to:
A FEW CLOWNS SHORT
http://afcsoac.blogspot.com/2010/08/stop-this-annoying-music.html