I Don’t Think Rebecca Eckler Has Any Real Friends
or… “I’m Waiting To Hear From Rebecca Eckler’s Lawyer”
So, if you live in Canada, you’ve heard of Rebecca Eckler. Not necessarily because you’re acquainted with her banal, unfunny and unoriginal writing, nor because you wasted a few precious seconds of your life poring over her poorly-spelled, ridiculously trite and self-absorbed weblog, but because this week she’s the subject of a national, carpet-bomb/media blitz concerning her lawsuit against Judd Apatow and Universal Studios, claiming their very funny movie Knocked Up plagiarizes her book Knocked Up: Confessions of a Modern Mother-to-be.
Rebecca Eckler, Pretty in Pink
(but not the John Hughes movie Pretty in Pink
or the Psychedelic Furs song “Pretty in Pink”
because that would be copying)
You know how we all depend on our friends to steer us away from getting rainbow-flag-festooned, teddy-bear tattoos on our asses, or from having our hair fauxhawked? Where the fuck were Rebecca Eckler’s friends when she announced she was going to sue Apatow and Universal? Before this kerfuffle, she was merely lame and undertalented. Now? Laughing stock.
Check out the unanimously eviscerating comments on the story at both Defamer and The Globe and Mail (her employer!) for a true barometer of public sympathy to her plight. But for Our Feature Presentation, so to speak, you really need to go to the source, to Canada’s 6th-rate version of Newsweek, Maclean’s, in which she’s written a 3-page… well, I think it’s intended as a call for support, but, if so, is it really wise for the writer to portray herself as a ginormous, witless — but alluringly slim! — douchebag? It’s quite possibly the funniest thing she’s ever written:
The movie Knocked Up features a woman named Alison who becomes pregnant after getting drunk. While she gets drunk going out celebrating a promotion at work, I got drunk, and knocked up, celebrating at my engagement party. Both my book and the movie feature one night of passion and the nine months that follow. Fine. Whatever. But what got me was the fact that “Alison” was an up-and-coming television reporter; in my book I was an up-and-coming newspaper reporter.
I’ve searched all I can, and can’t quite reconcile how “up-and-coming newspaper reporter” equals Eckler. “Fluff columnist” does not equal “reporter”. “Peaked” — if we can consider her tedium as having peaked — does not equal “up-and-coming”. Also? You were let go from your gig at The National Post, hon.
There were other similarities that hit close to home. In my book, I have a best-friend- with-screaming-children named Ronnie, who I go to often for advice. In the movie version, Alison has a sister, named Debbie, with screaming children, who is her sounding board. Both “Alison” and I did numerous pregnancy tests.
“Best friend” does not equal “sister”, “screaming children” does not equal “adorably precocious moppets”. “Numerous” pregnancy tests does not equal “hundreds (comically)” of pregnancy tests.
What also got my back up was that Ben, the man who gets Alison knocked up, is not only Jewish, but from Canada, like my man. (I still can’t figure out why the fact that someone was Canadian would add value to any movie.)
Imagine! A Hollywood film with a Jewish character! A Canadian Jew, just like your man? But… you’re not American, like Alison, are you, Rebecca? And… your impregnator is not a stoned, unemployed slacker you met a few hours prior to the porking, is he? More to the point, dorkus, Ben was made Canadian because the actor for whom the role was written (Seth Rogen) is Canadian — and Jewish! and a slacker-stoner! — and simply couldn’t shake that damned accent.
And then there’s this one scene in the screenplay and movie, where Alison and Ben are having sex. Ben stops. Ben, in the screenplay, says, “My dick is like, four inches away from its head. What if it kicked on purpose ’cause it didn’t like it?” I actually wrote in my book about a joke I once heard, “A man and his pregnant wife had regular sex throughout her pregnancy. When their son was born, the father held him in his arms. The baby looked up at his new father and, without warning, punched him. ‘See?’ said the baby. ‘Now you know what it feels like to be bonked in the face.’ “
Gee, a man commenting humourously on the proximity of his knob to his protochild’s noggin during sex. First time in history, that. And… who stole the joke from whom? By your own admission, lady, it’s not your joke.
There are lines in the movie that aren’t in the screenplay, which makes things even more confusing, including one joke about “jumping on a trampoline,” which wasn’t in the screenplay, but was definitely one of the things I mention in my book, under a heading, “Things I have not done wrong while pregnant.”
There are lines in the movie that aren’t in the screenplay, but that shouldn’t confuse you, Rebecca, because if you had even the slightest passing acquaintance with the work of Apatow and Company, you’d know that shit is improvised like crazy. Like, for hours they roll the cameras while the talented and funny performers riff. Which is probably alien to you, being all short-changed in the talented and funny departments and stuff.
The most telling difference between the movie and Eckler’s writing is that the movie is more about Ben’s transformation (read: growing up) than it is about Alison’s transformation (read: pregnancy). Eckler’s material is, for the most part, a catalogue of “modern mommy” self-obsession.
Of course, all of this would just be another embarrassing moment for a Canadian possessed of more chutzpah than good sense if it weren’t for the suspicious, coincidental timing of the media blitz and, wouldn’t you know it, the recent publication of Eckler’s latest navel-gazing masterpiece, Wiped!: Life With a Pint-Sized Dictator, with which Canada’s own literary journal, Quill & Quire, begins and concludes their review:
Columnist Rebecca Eckler, seemingly the first woman in Canada to both carry and birth a child, has naturally deemed it appropriate to document every stultifying moment of her experience in book form.
[...]
What’s missing here is any intelligent self-analysis that might convince the reader that the book’s title is anything other than a declaration of how its pages might best have been used.
Y’know, I see Eckler started her blog 4 days before I started mine. And we’re both from Calgary! And we’ve both been fucked (while drunk) by 40something, Jewish-Canadian lawyers!!! (Although, to be fair, I made mine wear a condom, and to be accurate, I haven’t written about that… until now!)
So sue me, lady.
Addenda:
Eckler on CBC, providing fact-checkers with ample assertions to challenge; the rest of us are left scratching our heads as to how someone so inarticulate could land a book deal, let alone a regular gig at two of Canada’s national newspapers. “Go for it, girl, you know!”
Readers interested in laughing at — and not with — Rebecca Eckler might want to check out the cheery parody of her dumbass blog and lametacular prose at NineGramBrain*, which just gets funnier every day.
More fun from Quill & Quire, in which book cover and press release blurbs are researched for fuller, more telling review content.
And let’s not forget the marvelous anti-mommy-blogger folks at Reject the Kool-Aid.
*Ninegrambrain is, sadly, no more. Gone. Kaput. Finis. Y’all can read the latest on Mommie Blogger Warz here.
16 comments
Guess what was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home today? Yup. A junkmail brochure for Primus TalkBroadband.
Yeah, we saw plenty of these driving down Church to brunch on Saturday.
Leah: “I think that guy is gay.”
Dave: “I think that lady might be, too.”
Derek: “This game is really easy.”
The gay issue aside, i hate it when they do commercials for toilet paper. I mean, a bear wiping its behind on prime-time tv.Right when i am having my dinner Uuuuum, no thanks.
HEY! Some of us got Celtic Knot tattoos 13 years ago before anyone else had them, and some of them still look cool, and they're tattoos, which means they're permenant. Mister! MISTER!!
[...] What sets Luciferus' Celtic Knot armband tatt apart from other, lesser, Celtic Knot armband tatts is his inimitable style, the personal meaning of the ink, its formidable size and, well, his dead-sexiness. Dude can pretty-much get away with anything. In fact, he's so dead-sexy… he's zombie-sexy. [...]
BT query: priceless! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
That’s BETTER. Thanks for the “props,” ” ‘my’ man.”
Clearly assholes are in charge of coming up with commericals about asshole hygeine. Totally disgusting and tasteless.
Nice take on the Yankee Doodle, Jim Dandy, Take out of ai-Zarqawi. Never thunk it.
Whats your take on the little Arian P.M. running Canada’s flag pole up our youths glory hole and seeing who salutes.
Lest We Forget!
Bob.
what an influential guy. turned me into a lesbian. bless him, he’s done so much good in the world.
This is awesome
As crusty as ever!
Should I ask you to provide proof of menstruation? Or should I just trust you?
…I’m just going to trust you.
Sars, you know that cliché about when you lose one sense, the others become stronger? Well, since I lost the sense of joy brought by cigarettes, my sense of smel — aw, jeez, y'know what? Just trust me.
“World Cup-inspired horn-honking after midnight only.”
What is UP with that? If they must honk, why aren’t they doing it immediately following the game? That would at least be during daylight hours.
I had similar experiences with Primus, and unfortunately, I actually did get connected. However, only to have a horrible connection, gaps in service, and technical difficulties. Every time I called, it seemed they wanted to do anything but help. I also got numerous annoying messages about payment, even though it was mandatory that I sign up for preauthorized payments, which I had done in the beginning. It was not my fault they were not withdrawing them! When I called, they would not let my pay the outstanding balance any other way, and kept insisting it would be cleared up. I finally called after months of this, and they had added a number to my bank transit number, but nobody had called for this information, instead they hounded me for money while at the same time insisting I could not pay any other way.
I then moved, and asked they switch the number, which they did not do. Again, I hounded them, while at the same time they did not fix my problem, which was that my phone was not working. Then eventually I asked them to discontinue the service. They kept withdrawing money from my account for another six months. Again, I had to call several times for them to send me a 'return package' for my gateway, and ask that they refund me six months worth of payments for a service I had disconnected. I am still waiting.
Yikes! If stories like ours are any lesson, it's to always Google "companyname 'customer service'" prior to any financial or legal entanglement. Good luck with your… disentanglement from Primus!
In competitive news, I'm still very pleased with my Vonage service, with only minor annoyances (like the marked decline in audio quality whilst doing some heavy-duty P2P — totally expected, by the way — and a "message waiting" light which won't stop blinking when voicemail messages are remotely deleted).
Okay, that was hilarious. I vividly remember seeing Heston’s ass on our old black-and-white TV some Saturday afternoon back in the 70s and sensing some far off call. For years I watched the movie when it was on TV just WAITING for the ass scene, and either missing it altogether by tuning in too late, seeing an edited for TV version that eliminated it, or generally believing I had dreamed the whole thing. I have not seen Chuck Heston’s ass since that languid afternoon and I am so happy to learn that I am not mad.
However. I definitely grooved to showering with my dad and eyeing other dads at the gym before Heston mooned me. I usually say that reruns of Ba Ba Blacksheep (or Wild Wild West, for that matter) with the often shirtless Robert Conrad made me gay, but it might as well have been Heston’s ass. Thank you for this though-provoking post.
thats funny as hell… i love “Saturday transactions posted next business day (Wednesday)” nice blog btw!
Dude, Robert Conrad definitely had it going on. The shots at Brian's Drive-In Theatre are wildly erotic, especially given the mantastic, soldiery and surfery context. And, by all means, check out the second page. The man could really rock the Speedos, for serious.
lol. Well your father sounds pretty sharp to me. Was your mother was in the room? Sleeping on the couch changes a married man’s
Oh, yeah, Mom was there and, credit-where-credit-is-due, the "ugh!" was her contribution to the critical fusillade. Now, keep in mind, this is the same woman who went to see Training Day but was sorely disappointed because "that Denzel is such a dignified performer, and a family man, and I just don't understand why he would be in something with so much cussing."
It was your railing that was tiresome, frankly. If moving house really was more fun than being festive, good for you, sweetie. I had a great weekend!
…well, apart from the gut-flushing bouts of diarrhea the night before I did the pride run…
Excellent blog entry… i was also quite bugged by Singer’s interview clips and instantly thought of the studio too when i read that. What a fucking knob!
That rainbow faux-hawk you were sporting all weekend was really cute, hon, so it’s no wonder you had a great time. I liked the last weekend in June so much better when it was in memory of the inyerface, take-no-shittery of Stonewall heroes and when it was our party, not some PR event put on by mousey assimilationists for the benefit of baby-toting suburbanites, tourist shutterbugs and corporate sponsors. But thanks for the gastro-intestinal tract update! You know I love a good poo story!
You walk out of “Superman Returns” with whatever you walked in with.
I have absolutely no doubt that you’ll see some self-righteous chucklehead on Fox News soon complaining about Lois Lane having a child out of wedlock.
Me, I grew up reading comics, loving comics – and the new movie is unquestionably well done, so I walked out happy.
And I’m as political as they come – but I was willing to set that aside for two hours and be a five-year-old kid again.
Oh, for Krypton’s sake. Superman is the most heterosexual character in any movie that Singer’s ever made? What about friggin’ Wolverine — you know, destructive, in possession of a hairtrigger temper, scruffy, not into sharing his feelings, limited to only one identity, in lust with a woman at first sight, eager to penetrate every enemy he comes into contact with (albeit just with his claws), blah blah blah? Guess the studio (and Hugh Jackman) didn’t freak out as much about the alleged heterosexuality of the X-Men.
Now I REALLY hope that X3 ends up outgrossing SR. Whatever my issues with Brett Ratner, he didn’t go around blathering about what an extremely heterosexual movie he’d just directed. He just talked about how cool it was to see superpowered people blow things up. I already resented Singer for leaving the X-franchise high and dry (yes, I am a pathetic fangirl, thank you very much) and this isn’t helping. Gah.
Theo: Given the flimsy rationale I’ve invented for seeing crap like War of the Worlds — second-worst film of 2005, by the way, after Bewitched (for which I also paid cash money) — in the cinema, your expectations (and payoff) were totally reasonable.
meg: I was thinking “what about Wolverine?”, too, when Singer made that dumbass comment. But then I was thought about how Ratner managed, during the big X3 finale, to have Huge Ackman’s shirt but not his pants get torn off (by Dark Phoenix’s psychic blast) and any charitable feelings for him disappeared faster than the film’s sketchy continuity.
I think the entire “Superman is so so so not-gay” stems from whomever started the press saying Superman was gay. I think that is also why Singer didn’t mention the hetero-ness of Wolverine et al. Had no one so much as whispered that Superman could be gay, or seen as a gay icon, Singer and the studio probably would have nver mentioned it.
And… here’s where I get my ass kicked… Singer is gay? I knew my gaydar sucked, but damn. How did I miss that?
Does anyone think Bret Ratner de-gayed the X-Men with number 3? The good guys kind of give in to using “the cure” for their “mutation” at the end – and using it on Mr McKellen of all people!
Still, it was nice to see Iceman, after coming out to his parents in X2, having a good ol’ peeing contest with his flamey friend.
Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, it is possible that the “most heterosexual” comment came at the end of an interview in which the interviewer kept asking, in multiple ways, if Superman was really supposed to be gay. “So, Superman’s gay!” “Well, there are certainly aspects of his story that parallel that, but really, the character is straight. Cute, but straight. There’s that Lois Lane thing.” “I know he’s not technically gay, but isn’t he sort of gay?” “No.” “Oh, c’mon, he’s kinda gay.” “Well, he spends the movie pining over a woman, so…no.” “Look, you KNOW he’s gay.” “HE’S THE MOST HETEROSEXUAL CHARACTER I’VE EVER DIRECTED, DAMNIT. NEXT FUCKING QUESTION.” Probably not, but…never discount the importance of context where incindiary quotes are concerned.
Binky, the very last second of the movie (if you don’t count the scene after the credits) seemed to indicate that the “cure” wasn’t all that final after all. I’m thinking of it as the metaphorical equivalent of conversion therapy. Plus, I think the whole “mutants equals gay” metaphor, while powerful and true, sorta breaks down with the “mutants using powers to gleefully kill people” part. Also, any movie that has Frasier Crane playing a beast is not rejecting the gay, IMHO.
bstewart, I classify the shirt-but-not-pants thing as springing from the same motivation that led to dozens of people being blown apart bloodlessly in the movie — i.e. the desire to keep a PG, or at least a PG13, rating, in the hopes of making back the production costs. Even Dark Phoenix must bow to the overwhelming might of the MPAA. Call me cynical.
It was your dad’s happening, AND IT FREAKED HIM OUT!
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
most phone companies like telus, rogers, primus, etc are the worst for customer service, and now bell is releasing customer info to the authorities which is why I cancelled my service with them. these companies only want to believe that they are the only phone company in your area so they can do whatever they want, but the reality is if you check around you will find many phone companies are available in your area. I would never go with telus, bell, shaw, or rogers ever again.
I mean, the amazing thing is that the cleavage between her breasts almost meets the cleavage-like indentation in her neck.
That looks like the best birthday ever!
Fastow’s very good friend and fellow Enron scumbag Michael Kopper is openly gay and got his partner deeply involved in Enron (leading to a macabrely hilarious moment where certain Enron execs were arguing that a certain business partnership involving the partner hadn’t broken the law, because the law just forbids spouses from being involved in such business partnerships and Texas law bans gay marriage. No joke: http://www.houstonpress.com/Issues/2002-02-14/news/insider.html ). So, of all of the Enronites for you to crush on, Fastow would probably feel the least uncomfortable about the possibility. Sorry. The Ken Lay thing is incredibly apropos, though, is it not?
Um, beloved Brett, I respectfully disagree with some of what you’ve said here. First of all, am I right in assuming that you haven’t seen Superman Returns yet? The whole story hinges on his being heterosexual because it’s about his relationship with Lois. I don’t have a problem with this, and yes, I am sure it is Singer’s homosexuality that is really at issue here. The X-Men movies are clearly queer metaphors, but SR is up to something else, and I thought it was kinda great.
Busted! Luciferous, you are quite correct in assuming I’ve not yet seen SR (and prolly won’t until it comes out on DVD) but my bitch concerning Singer doesn’t involve what actually occurs in the movie —
I know enough LatinI’ve seen enough Law ‘n’ Order to know that Res Ipsa Loguitur (“the object speaks for itself”) is at play here. That is, I’m sure that the film will do an adequate job of quashing “Superman is gay!” with no need for excessive, box-office-protectin’, desperate objections from the director (especially with the odd colouring the story got in the media; as if being an “openly”-gay director gave his proclamation of Superman’s nongayness greater gravitas than, say, some comic-store guy).You and I clearly have different breeds of gay friends, meg. Heh.
So, yeah, I’ll see it, eventually (and hopefully with a Singer commentary which at least pays lip service to the noncontroversy and in which he’s able to comment in a fashion and context he finds appropriate), and rest assured that the comments above will be bouncing around in my brain when I do.
That’s a sexy monkey. What a thoughtful and excellent gift. Huzzah to whoever gave you that.
Indeed. But that monkey smokes more than Julia Roberts and never empties the ashtray, just like her. Doesn’t fling as much poo, though.
“He wears of himself the long hair…”
My favorite Sedaris story of all time – great reference!
(a fellow WITWNer just checking in to say hey)
If I had prizes, you’d already be a winner. And you didn’t even need a map!
…and, is it just me, or does Lance Armstrong look like he’s really, really enjoying his good friend (and biking buddy) Jake Gyllenhaal’s company?
The Jesus on the right is PRECISELY the Jesus I grew up with, hanging over the TV for my whole childhood.
omg, yeah. i mean i woulda gone with the first joke, it was stupid but kinda funny in a wordplay way, but then ‘the sick’ part really showed his colours….
omg, you’re beautiful.
have any single lesbo friends with your level of snark?
I think Mr. Armstrong prefers his special friend Matthew McConaughey
That kind of explains a thing or two, Steve, about me as well as you, since you’re the one of whom I thought when I stumbled upon that image (again).
“Again”? Yeah, the first time I ever remember seeing that picture was 25 years ago, when my realtor pulled one out of his wallet while explaining his newly born-again status. “Who wouldn’t love a god like that?” he asked me, and I instantly knew exactly what he was getting at, only without his specific follow-through.
This was the same realtor who passed out in the steamroom at the gym and who, when I expressed some alarm and concern on hearing about it, reassured me that it was actually a good thing; the EMS guy who arrived on the scene to revive him was “really hot”.
Hey, thanks! Sadly, all of my lesbian pals are already encumbered with girlfriends. I promise, however, to alert blog visitors to any change in their status.
Not as much as McConaughey prefers himself.
But Clay Aiken LOST. He wasn’t the American Idol, Ruben Studdard was. But I agree, Clay is as overhyped as all get-out.