Why "Eat, Pray, Love" Makes Me Want to Gag

[unhappycamper]

Why "Eat, Pray, Love" Makes Me Want to Gag
New America Media / By Sandip Roy

August 15, 2010 | For the longest time, I thought the 2006 bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love” was a sequel to the 2004 bestseller about punctuation “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.”

Now I am enlightened. One is about the search for the meaning of life. The other is about the meaning of a comma.

I confess I never read Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller except for browsing through a few pages in a copy sitting by a friend’s bedside. I enjoyed the writing. The story of picking yourself up after losing your way has universal appeal even if we all can’t afford to recharge under the Tuscan sun.

It’s not Gilbert’s fault, but as someone who comes from India, I have an instinctive reflex reaction to books about white people discovering themselves in brown places. I want to gag, shoot and leave.

The story is so self-involved, its movie version should’ve been called, “Watch Me Eat, Pray and Love.” In a way I almost prefer the old colonials in their pith helmets trampling over the Empire’s far-flung outposts. At least they were somewhat honest in their dealings. They wanted the gold, the cotton, and laborers for their sugar plantations. And they wanted to bring Western civilization, afternoon tea and anti-sodomy laws to godforsaken places riddled with malaria and Beriberi.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Gahahahaha

From the article:

"The natives mostly have clearly assigned roles. Language teacher. Hangover healer. Dispenser of fortune-cookie-style wisdom. Knowledge, it seems, is never so meaningful as when it comes in broken English, served up with puckish grins, and an idyllic backdrop."

---SNIP---

You're going to get murdered on this, by the way. A thousand people will come on here justifying in sniffy tones the new colonialism. In the end it will turn out that YOU are actually the elitist, through some stubborn and senseless reasoning.

:popcorn:

[enough]

2. Eat, Prey, Love. (nt)

[Turborama]

3. I don't respect any writer's opinion who uses the terms "third-worlders" & "natives" n/t

[LaurenG]

4. I have not seen the movie but I just listened to the book

I was bored out of my mind through most of it. I wish the author well though since she's a liberal and in my mind that counts for a lot.

[DailyGrind51]

5. Just another film about a self-indulgent elitist who needs to spend money to find herself.

[TNDemo]

6. I hated that book.

My book club read it and I couldn't finish it. It was the most self-centered, self-absorbed tale. I kept thinking - you need to have a kid or something so you can quit thinking about yourself constantly. Build a bridge and get over it. However, the single women who had never married in the group seemed to like it. It just wasn't for me.

[JustAnotherGen]

12. Single woman who has never been married

And I don't have a 'golden uterus' either (I'e. ka-ching - you had a baby you get a gold star).

I publish an online ezine that targets single women over the age of 35 - 70% never married no kids.

You just gave me another great idea for story on how the world perceives you as selfish if you don't get married, married, married, and have babies, babies, babies.

I don't disagree that the author is selfish - I just don't believe matrimania and bringing a child into this horrible, rotten, world is an "unselfish" act. Most selfish thing ever just so people can have "someone to take care of them when they are old" or "leave their mark in this world".

[TNDemo]

14. I said "have a kid OR SOMETHING."

Something to get her mind off of herself. It doesn't have to be a kid but I just remember how it was the first time in my life I was called upon to be totally unselfish and it had a great big learning curve. You can still get that learning curve from something besides a child - just focusing your attention on other people's needs rather than your own.

[uncommon]

15. What's so wrong about focusing on yourself and your own happiness in life?

Assuming it doesn't harm anyone else, who the fuck cares?

I think this obsession with women being selfless creatures of eternal servitude needs to die a long overdue and grisly death.

I have to force myself to focus on my own needs - that's not right.

[TNDemo]

19. Because you will never find true happiness when

you only think about yourself - men or women. Happiness will never be found when you make it your goal. It's a by-product that happens while you are busy doing other things than thinking about yourself. It gets boring thinking about yourself all the time. Yes, you should make sure your needs are met, but it doesn't have to be your every conscious thought 24/7.

[uncommon]

20. Actually I feel best when I take significant time to consider my own happiness

and fulfill my own desires. Doesn't mean I need to do that and only that ALL of the time, but if I wanted to, I don't think that would make me a bad person as long as I didn't hurt anyone else while doing it.

And I have a child - I spend a fair bit of my time concerned with her, but if I am unhappy, it will hurt her.

[JustAnotherGen]

23. Well - hmm

What's wrong with decadence? I focus on decadence and therefore I'm happy. Other women focus on marriage, babies, spiritual 'enlightment' . . .

It's truly possible to be happy when your collective god is champagne, sex, beautiful bed linens, fresh cut flowers, motorcycle rides in St. Tropez at 4:00 a.m. etc. etc. Isadora Duncan (some consider her to be the pre-cursor to the modern feminist) was all about sex and decadence, music, dancing, champagne, etc. etc.

People are different - I didn't care for the book because I don't have to surround my self with people who have less: To appreciate every single little tiny gift in my life.

[uncommon]

26. Well said.

[onager]

31. Geezer male agrees with you.

:thumbsup: x 1 million.

I was married and divorced young, no kids, and now Of A Certain Age. Since I'm an atheist I usually say - "If a god existed I would be older than It."

People like that upthread poster claiming we only think about ourselves really piss me off. How TF do YOU know what we think about? I spend a good part of the day thinking about my job, actually.

But if it makes you feel any better, I just sent off a large check to my Mom. So there.

My job has taken me all over the world. From 2005-09 I lived in Egypt, before that I lived in Saudi Arabia for 2 years. I've been all over Europe and Asia on extended business trips.

I'd be very rich if I had a dollar for every time I've been overseas, and heard a married person on the phone getting guilt-tripped by the spouse because they aren't home for little Justin's parole hearing or Brittni's pole-dancing competition.

The other thing that annoys me is people smugly reminding me, "But you're going to die all alone." Well, here's a news-flash - we're ALL going to die alone. Unless we're unlucky enough to end up featured on "Air Crash Investigations" or "The World's Worst Mini-van Crashes."

Speaking of Creative Dying - even though I have a Y chromosome, I am addicted to the show "Snapped" on the Oxygen Channel. It mostly feaures spouses killing each other in creative ways. (Useful Tip - don't stock up on life insurance before the murder, it's a dead giveaway...so to speak.)

I work with a woman who's a lot like me. We have a standing joke we use on each other: "Y'know, whenever I feel like getting married again...I just spend about 10 minutes working with you. And I'm completely cured."

[JustAnotherGen]

22. Ahhh - men

Bravo!

[uncommon]

16. A-fucking-men.

Well said.

[Mad_Dem_X]

30. I wish I could recommend this post.

:thumbsup:

[progressoid]

7. But but but...

Oprah looooooves it.

[DailyGrind51]

8. Tell me she isn't a "self-indulging elitist"!

[Drops_not_Dope]

21. Oprah?

on a more personal note to Oprah, bitch you are sooooooo phoney. When oh when are you going to mail my property back to me?

[RandomThoughts]

9. I am not that irked by self involved people, if they do not put that first.

In a self involved way, there were many goals I had that were achieved, so working on some self goals.

But people will call that self involved because it is an oppurtunity to disregard a person.

If you think about it, you could spend years not being self involved, then because people did not like those views, any self involved action is taken out of perspective.

So I don't mind self involved people, if they are also not self involved.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Our movie reviewer only gave it a 73. I haven't read a single good review.

[northernlights]

11. I read that the scenery and cinematography

are very worthwhile.

Heh!heh!heh! Italy, India, Indonesia == I, I, I :rofl:

[mysticalchick]

13. I liked the book ...

... especially the "Pray" part but I'm all about the woo so probably more open to those ideas. I liked the writing as well. To each his/her own, eh?

Not planning to see the movie - I don't like Julia Roberts and would have preferred to see a different actor in the part.

[Dogmudgeon]

17. Ah, the Great White Culture Vulture!

Yes, we know them well; the predatory birds who gave us Iron Eyes Cody, Bluesman worship, pop Orientalism, weekend Shamanism courses, Sweat Lodge business success seminars, and enough Wise Dark-Skinned People to fill every Green Room in Hollywood.

Plus, Gilbert includes the mandatory oenological/amatory Pilgrimage to Tuscany.

I do hope she remembered to include The Hero's Journey in the meta-narrative. So many writers forget these kinds of details. The swarthy rustics may be wise, but the Whites are heroic, particularly when confronted with that worst of all human afflictions: romantic disappointment!

--d!

[Jim Lane]

25. You're in luck. She included it.

You write:

I do hope she remembered to include The Hero's Journey in the meta-narrative. So many writers forget these kinds of details. The swarthy rustics may be wise, but the Whites are heroic....

Yes, it's in there, at least in the movie. (I haven't read the book.) Toward the end of the film she heroically rescues some swarthy rustics who are in trouble. In a twist on your thesis, she does so by mobilizing a whole bunch of heroic white people.

As you might guess, I didn't like the movie either.

[slampoet]

18. "Brown people's food isn't as bad for you or as dirty as you think."

I see this hidden racism in the food media all over especially on the local level.

[profile this]

24. I want my money back

I went to see it yesterday, and walked out.
what a waste of my money. I'm all into self-discovery, but this movie is just bad.

[mackerel]

27. It's been renamed Eat, Pray, Snore...

[cowgirl]

28. I live down the road from Julia Roberts

I live down the road from Julia Roberts in Taos, NM. She is known in this town as the biggest b*tch walking. She does nothing for anybody except herself. She cuts in front of you at the gas tank and asks you if you "know who I am?" I stood next to her at "The Bean" a coffee place and she turned around and looked at me, I couldn't believe how homely she was, what a wierd nose, really homely little troll. Unreal how the public buys into her, and how she buys the public w/her money. What is America really made of?

When is the last time she did anything for anyone? Do you hear about her giving $ to charities? She doesn't. She takes care of herself. I went to the spa for laser. The tech said Julia was just there and she was hypnotized and had her whole body lasered so shed be hairless. Imagine that? What a wierd duck she is.

Yet we worship her and the like. We say, oh! Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman! She isn't even talented! Does she sing, dance like JayLo? She got LUCKY. You'd think she'd be grateful... falling all over everyone. Nope. She walks into our resturants covering her face like she's a big star... "I want privacy!" she yells. Nobody's paying any attention to her! Sam Elliott walks in, all humble, visiting with the cashier, very generous, very nice. Julia thinks she's better than everyone. I wouldn't give her a dime of my $. Everyone should know the truth about these "Stars" They are just like me and you, they're not special at all!!!!!! Don't ever buy into this!!!!

[miyazaki]

29. Ugh, the title alone. Why not just call it

Sleeping, Eating, and Fucking. (everyone's favorite three things).

[Fire Walk With Me]

32. “Watch Me Eat, Pray and Love.”

Thanks for the grin!