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April 12, 2016 - Image 5

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 — 5

EVENT PREVIEW
Xu Weixin paints a
real portrait of China

By MERIN MCDIVITT

Daily Arts Writer

Many a Chinese artist has

painted a portrait of Chairman
Mao, the country’s leader dur-
ing
and

after
the

Communist
Revolution.
His
like-

ness, which
adorns
buildings,
Tiananmen
Square and
an
enor-

mous
gold

statue, even
inspired an Andy Warhol por-
trait still on display at the Detroit
Institute of Arts.

But contemporary painter Xu

Weixin’s take on the famous lead-
er is a little different. Viewed on
its own, his portrait of Mao looks
similar to more conventional
depictions — painted on a grand
scale, the monumental portrait
seems to reflect Mao’s stature in
Chinese society, accompanied by
a small plaque with a brief biogra-
phy of his life. But in the context
of Weixin’s exhibition “Monu-
mental Portraits,” his American
debut, the Mao painting takes on
a greater significance.

Next to Mao’s portrait is

another portrait, identical in size
and style, depicting a young boy.
As you turn away from the wall
and scan the gallery, you take
in dozens of these paintings, all
the same larger-than-life size,

portraits of miners and school-
teachers, politicians and busi-
nesspeople. The paintings come
from one series in which Weixin
painted contemporary Chinese
miners, and another in which he
depicted figures from the 1966
Cultural Revolution in China
based on old photographs.

There is something immensely

powerful about standing in the
gallery, surrounded by faces and
figures, many unknown or mar-
ginal even in China, on such a
monumental scale. Weixin paints
in a realist style infused with
pathos, his muted color palette
reflecting the melancholy air of
many of his subjects. Taken on
their own, unaccompanied by the
text on or beside each painting,
they remind me of Dennis Hop-
per’s work — the loneliness of
humanity etched in each line on
the faces of the solitary figures.
Weixin has a real gift for captur-
ing the nuance of facial expres-
sion, and I often recognized
myself or someone I know in the
mischievous sparkle in a child’s
face or the worn-out frustration
of an overworked bureaucrat.

But the text, as in Mao’s por-

trait, provides a short and dispas-
sionate biography of the subject’s
life which packs a huge emotion-
al punch. These figures, seem-
ingly anonymous and distant,
are revealed to be as enormously,
overwhelmingly human as their
oversized visages. Weixin chose
to paint figures from all facets of
the Cultural Revolution, which
remains the most contentious

period in modern Chinese his-
tory.

The 1960s saw a change in gov-

ernment policy and grassroots
actions which sought to purify
the country of any remaining
non-Communist,
pre-modern

influences. Weixin paints top
party leaders like Chairman Mao
and his wife, Jiang Qing, but also
supposed “nobodies,” from emi-
grants who left China to victims
who died during the era’s politi-
cal purges. Many landholders,
intellectuals and political dissi-
dents died during the time peri-
od at the hand of the Red Guard,
teens and college students who
wanted to cleanse China of dis-
sent.

Weixin doesn’t leave any

of these stories out. He paints
victims, like a Peking Univer-
sity professor who was beaten
to death by her own female stu-
dents, or a fifth grade girl who
was “re-educated” after she
wrote a letter asking the govern-
ment to put an end to the vio-
lence. And he paints Red Guard
leaders, telling their stories of
youthful optimism that fueled
periods of militant violence, but
also of times of hard labor and
incredible
achievement.
The

United States doesn’t have a par-
ticularly nuanced view of con-
temporary China, the Cultural
Revolution or even Chinese art.
Weixin’s diverse, multifaceted
portrait of his country’s history
is a poignant reminder of the
complexity of the human experi-
ence.

“Xu Weixin
Monumental
Portraits”

UMMA

Feb. 20 through

May 29

Free

McCarthy is

talented but needs

better movies.

By ANA LUCENA

Daily Arts Writer

Melissa McCarthy (“Spy”) is

hilarious, but sadly, most of her
movies aren’t. In “The Boss,” she
once again
stars as an
over-the-
top char-
acter on
a journey
filled with
poor humor
and no pur-
pose.

This time, she’s the boss — For-

tune 500 CEO Michelle Darnell.
She looks ridiculous, always
wearing turtlenecks and a gin-
ger haircut that says “I want to
speak to your manager.” But don’t
be fooled: Michelle has built an
empire through sheer strength
of will, and swears like a sailor to
boot. It’s very jarring when she
does so around children. Though
a tragic backstory is presented to
explain her difficult nature (she
kept being returned to an orphan-
age as a child), it’s not enough to
make her wild personality feel
plausible. She doesn’t back down
to anyone. Her ex-boyfriend
Renault (Peter Dinklage, “Game
of Thrones”) brings Michelle’s
world crashing down when he
exposes her illegal insider trad-
ing. After a short amount of time
in a comfortable jail, Michelle
looks for someone to help her get
back on her feet.

At this point, I wondered if

“The Boss” was aiming to satirize
certain influential rich people
whose egocentric ruthlessness

propelled them to such highs
and lows in their careers. The
film’s faithful focus on Michelle,
at times treated like an antihero,
makes it impossible to tell. Is this
a cause of bad character devel-
opment, or an over-reliance on
cheap humor? Who knows.

Not surprisingly, no one helps

Michelle until her kind assistant
Claire (Kristen Bell, “Veronica
Mars”) takes her in. Michelle is as
rude and unappreciative as ever,
complaining that the accommo-
dations do not meet her five-star
hotel standards. The fact that
Claire is a single mother does not
interest the washed up boss until
she invites her ex-employer to
her daughter’s Dandelions (read:
Girl Scout) meetings. Once there,
Michelle finds her passion of
business again. She tries to start
a new venture by selling Claire’s
homemade brownies through
the Dandelions, and aggressively
directs the girls to maximize
profits.

McCarthy’s titular “Boss”

character is, in general, unlike-
able. That’s the joke, but it’s not
funny after being repeated for
nearly two hours straight. In a
similar vein, some of the jokes
are just plain mean-spirited. One
that particularly rubbed me the
wrong way (and is featured in
the trailer to attract viewers) is
when the Boss introduces Claire
as her partner at the first Dande-
lions meeting, and then cries “no
homo.” “No girl-on-girl action,”
she insists. When a wide-eyed girl
asks what she means, she answers
that it’s “something you’ll dabble
in in college and never do again”
(She then points to another Dan-
delion girl for whom lesbianism
will fit “like a glove”). I know
Melissa McCarthy is not homo-
phobic and is trying to show
what an uncompassionate person

Michelle is. Hell, she crashed a
huge lesbian party in the simi-
larly ridiculous “Tammy” just to
say how much she admired lesbi-
ans’ strength. But such derisive
comments stuck with me as both
North Carolina and Mississippi
pass anti-LGBT legislation. It also
hit too close to home, as about
25 percent of my own Girl Scout
troop was queer (and proud of the
organization’s tolerant policies).

This is the second collabora-

tion between McCarthy and her
husband, the first being the afore-
mentioned “Tammy”. That was
a red flag before I even started
watching. Director Ben Falcone
does not do much directing. His
shots and scene transitions aren’t
strong or attentive to detail, let
alone interesting. And he cer-
tainly doesn’t inspire the cast to
match the comedic prowess of
his wife.

The husband-and-wife team

also wrote the script together,
to poor results (again). The plot
is poorly developed. Each scene
feels like a separate gag about the
same horribly unlikable woman.
The characters stubbornly stay
the same even as they interact
with strikingly different person-
alities. Why does Claire bother
to help such a nasty woman after
working for her for only a short
period of time? Only McCarthy
makes this film palatable. And
the premise of Michelle making
a comeback after a high-profile
crime through Girl Scout cookies
isn’t sound in the first place.

Melissa McCarthy deserves

much better than this. She is a
talented comic actress, as dem-
onstrated in “Bridesmaids” and
“Spy”. But until she lands in
better movies where she plays
a genuine human and not a car-
toon character, her talent will be
wasted in such silly roles.

Please fire ‘Boss’

EVENT COVER
Ramakers lectures
on artistic passion

By ERIKA SHEVCHEK

Daily Arts Writer

Amsterdam
native
Renny

Ramakers made her first visit to
Michigan Thursday as a Penny
Stamps distinguished speaker.
The co-founder of the design
company Droog, meaning “dry”
in Dutch, Ramakers presented
her business’s work to the peo-
ple of Ann Arbor. However, her
designs were the complete oppo-
site of “dry.”

Eclectic and energetic, Ramak-

ers creates functional pieces of
art and open design spaces for
others to access.

“Droog is a paradox,” Ramak-

ers said during her presentation.
“It’s taking what is simple and
making it not so simple.”

Whether you’re a tea-drink-

ing human or even a tiny gold-
fish, Droog considers all beings.
Projects like House of Droog, a
modern Amsterdam exhibit that
flips the ideas of a hotel or Stu-
dio Droog, the birthplace for the
adornments, products and fur-
nishings created by Droog design-
ers (including a restaurant design
for a fish tank) all carry the same
theme: “function and fiction.”

“It is out of the box and playful,

but very serious,” Ramakers said
in an interview with The Michi-
gan Daily.

With a strong focus in contem-

porary design, she presented on
many of her impressive projects
through the years, such as the
New York-based Museum of Sex’s
exhibit “Splendor in the Grass,”
a
camping-themed,
hands-on

experience that educates patrons
on eroticism and sexuality.

Starting up in 1993, Ramak-

ers’s “Droog” created the plat-
form for further projects like
“The New Original” in Shenzhen,
China and “Open House” in the
suburbs of New York City. With
inspiration from the common
people and an urge for a domes-
tic change, Ramakers found the
perfect project that she titled
“Design+Desires”.

Design+Designers, Ramakers

said, was about depth.

“How can we (the design team)

create a city in which the diver-
sity of desires could be brought
together?” she asked.

The company started their

efforts in the impoverished city of
Rotterdam, Amsterdam, in which
they hoped to improve living
standards artistically.

“People over there sent us

away … They didn’t believe we
could be any meaning for them,”
Ramakers said.

Nonetheless, Ramakers and

her team were determined to
start up a social and urban proj-
ect, thus leading to Social City —
an online space in which people

can create avatars, shape their
living situations and share their
dreams and wants for their per-
fect lifestyle. With more ideas
and people on board, Social City
hopes to transform these dreams
into a reality.

“I wanted to bring people’s

desires into Social City,” Ramak-
ers said. “Some don’t have the
imagination to think further than
things around them. So, we as
designers need to be creative, go
further and be innovative.”

When asked where she got her

inspirations, Ramakers said she
didn’t know.

“Everything can inspire me,”

she said. “An article, a product, a
movement, something.” But she
also believes that “imitation can
be inspiration” and she hopes that
people are also getting inspired
by Droog projects. These inspi-
rations were evident to the audi-
ence when Ramakers displayed
her vibrant and eccentric designs
on the screen.

“I want people to understand

why I am doing what I am doing
… celebrating imperfection,” she
said.

And
although
Droog
and

Design+Desires feels like an
idea beyond imagination, Renny
Ramakers proved that with resil-
ience and passion, any exotic
design can be brought to be a real-
life function.

D-

The Boss

Universal Pictures

Rave & Quality 16

I

n September of 2015, com-
edy queen Amy Schumer
(“Inside Amy Schumer”)

sold a memoir to publishing
house Simon & Schuester for
8 to 10 mil-
lion dollars.
She’s in
good com-
pany — in
the past
few years,
comedians
have been
flocking to
literature
from televi-
sion.

It started, as it always

seems to for me, with Tina
Fey (“Sisters”). The year
was 2011, and the television
show “30 Rock” was teaching
me everything I needed to
know about insults, gender,
mentor-mentee relationships
and Ronald Regan. And
then I heard about Fey’s
memoir “Bossypants.” I got it
immediately. I read it roughly
twelve times before I got the
CD audiobook. I listened to
it every night before bed for
months, often falling asleep
to Fey teaching me about the
patriarchy and telling me to
“do your thing and don’t care if
they like it.”

Fey’s twenty year long career

in comedy permeates every
page of “Bossypants.” The
skillfully written vignettes,
which range from detailing
her awkward childhood to the
success of her professional
life, are composed with the
same carefully planned, taut,
comic dexterity of an episode
of “30 Rock.” The ensemble
cast of “30 Rock” averaged
over 100 verbal jokes for every
twenty-two minute episode and
“Bossypants” achieves similar
wit, with interconnected
callbacks, reveals and cultural
references spanning all
chapters of the memoir.

In the same vein came

“Is Everyone Hanging Out
with Me?.” The memoir, by
Mindy Kaling (“The Mindy
Project”), so closely resembles
Fey’s that she calls herself

out on it within the first few
pages. “Why isn’t this book
more like Tina Fey’s book?”
asks an imaginary reader.
To which Kaling responds “I
know, man. Tina’s awesome.”
Kaling, whose book the press
dubbed ‘the little sister to
Bossypants’ writes less like Fey
and more like the content to
which her millennial readers
are accustomed. There’s a
blog-esque feel to the short
chapters, with a few listicles
masquerading as chapters
— she calls them ‘pliests,’ a
contraction meaning “a piece
with a list-y quality.” Kaling
persistently hurls jokes at her
readers, sticking to what she
knows; the virtues of cheap
Forever 21 coats when pulling
an Irish good-bye at a party,
the perils of dating and the
occasional name drop that cues
a collective reader swoon.

After “Bossypants” and

“Everyone” came out, they
were everywhere, at least
among my friends from home,
self-identified fellow feminists
and book-lovers. I couldn’t
walk into a bedroom without
seeing at least one of the
distinct covers — Fey’s has her
face iconically photoshopped
onto the torso of a furry man in
a tie, while Kaling surrounds
herself with pink and florals
to complement her side eye.
This ubiquity makes sense
when you consider that Fey
sold almost four million copies
of “Bossypants” and Kaling
stayed on the New York Times
Bestseller List for months with
“Everyone.”

The memoir cycle

continued with “Yes Please”
by Amy Poehler (“Parks and
Recreation”). Poehler’s memoir,
especially when compared to
those of other writers, feels
forced, which she recognizes
fully — in the preface, she
acknowledges that she “had no
business agreeing to write this
book … it has been like hacking
away at a freezer with a
screwdriver.” We get it, Poehler
is a busy lady. With two sons,
a prolific film and television
career and her extensive

philanthropic work, she has
other things on her mind. But
there’s a lot of filler and not
nearly enough substance in the
memoir, which pains me to say.
Poehler is a hugely talented
and intelligent woman, but
literature isn’t her medium.

Everyone I think of who

has written a memoir like
this is a phenomenal TV actor
(Poehler, Fey, Aziz Ansari) and
even though it’s not always
the right fit, every one of
them is so successful. These
books are popular because
they’re easy, in every aspect —
sentence structure, ideas, jokes.
They don’t make us labor for
meaning or substance. When
they work, they’re relatable
and fun. When they don’t, it’s
forgivable because these aren’t
authors we want to harshly
judge; they’re fan favorites we
want to cheer on.

We’re also willing to forgive

mediocre writing because
this isn’t the principal work
of any of these authors. Yes,
Aziz Ansari spent years
interviewing people and
researching the cultures of
different cultures for “Modern
Romance,” but if you ask almost
anyone what he’s been up to in
the last year and half, they’ll
most likely say “Master of
None.” The transitory state of
medium for these comedians
means that these books will all
be listed under “other work” for
their Wikipedia pages. They’re
thought of as side projects.

That’s a mistake. Speaking

from the perspective of
an English major, literary
columnist and passer of ECON
101, comedian memoirs have
huge potential. The huge
compensations for these
memoirs, including Schumer’s
and Lena Dunham’s 3.5 million
dollars for her hilarious and
confessional “Not That Kind
of Girl,” prove that though the
content of these memoirs may
be funny, that doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t take them seriously.

Lerner is prepping her “SNL”

audition. To request a demo tape,

email her at rebler@umich.edu

Not that kind of

‘Bossypants’

LITERATURE COLUMN

UNIVERSAL

“This is for ‘Veronica Mars’ Season 3.”

FILM REVIEW

REBECCA
LERNER

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