WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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I'm going to read one very short
piece, and that'll be the end.

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And this is called
"The Bullet-Stopper."

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"Most men have certain
notions of femaleness

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derived from movies
they saw in their youth.

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No matter how cockeyed some
of these archetypes are,

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and no matter how
manfully I struggle

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to assimilate the truth that
women are as valuable, real,

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and complex as men
are, a part of me

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continues to want to match up
the actual women in my life

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with the celluloid temptresses
and saints in my imagination.

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I grew up in the post-war
era of dangerous brunettes

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and redheads like Rita Hayworth,
Yvonne De Carlo, Jane Greer,

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and Jean Simmons, who would no
sooner look at a Robert Mitchum

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or Glenn Ford than they would
begin to seduce him and stab

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him in the back.

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Double-crossing came as
easily to these femme fatales

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as smoking a cigarette.

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Yet you had to sympathize with
the survival tactic of what we

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were told was the weaker sex.

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It was a mystery to me how this
supposedly frailer sex could

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rise not only to a tortuously
complicated duplicity

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but also to a level
of selfless heroism

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that seemed outside
the compass or capacity

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of masculine experience.

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I am particularly fascinated
with one convention of older,

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melodramatic films that seems to
have disappeared, the woman who

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stops a bullet for her man.

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She was usually, in
classic triangle terms,

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the redundant woman,
say, the native mistress

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of a man stationed
in the Orient,

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a rival of the newly-met,
supposedly more

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suitable white lady.

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The mistress is beautiful, she
is faithful, she loves her man,

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and she has a
deeper understanding

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of life than the white lady.

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So, the audience
wonders restlessly,

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how can the hero reject her?

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But because her love
for her man is so deep,

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it transcends self-preservation,
as maternal love is often

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alleged to do.

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Maybe such passionate
romantic devotion

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exists only in the
backwaters of civilization

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among colonial or
underworld women

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who have gone
beyond the ladylike.

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Did I mention that sometimes,
vice takes the place of race?

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A gangster's moll or a bar
girl with a tarnished past,

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an Ida Lupino,
Gloria Grahame type,

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may also administer
the reproachful lesson

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about how far a woman's
love may go for her man.

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Now, just try to imagine
a love so powerful

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that it would cause a
woman to hurl herself

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in front of gunshots when most
of us would hit the ground.

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Such love no longer
exists, you say.

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We live in a more calculating
age, or, to put the matter

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optimistically, a more
progressive age in which women

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are less dependent on
men, less masochistic.

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Am I sorry to see the
convention disappear?

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To be frank, I don't know
whether to pray for such a love

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or be terrified by it.

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I try to imagine a man
pointing a gun at me.

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As he starts to
pull the trigger,

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my Chinese girlfriend
blankets me with her body.

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She takes the bullet.

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As grateful as I am, I cannot
help feeling there is a certain

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presumptuousness in someone
stealing the death that was

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meant for me.

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I am so stunned
by her act that I

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forget to knock the gun
from the killer's hand.

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Now, he's pointing
it at me again.

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And she has already
given her life for me.

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Would it be cowardly to
prop her in front of me?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Or would that be
a way of honoring

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her original intention?

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[LAUGHTER]

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In any case, how will I
shove her limp body forward

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at the precise moment
the gun is fired?

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My respect for this
woman is growing,

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not only because stopping the
bullet was a noble thing to do,

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but because it required
incredible athletic timing,

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like a basketball player
leaping to block a shot.

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My own reflexes are rustier.

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Even if I was quick enough
to stop the next two

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bullets with her as
a shield, the gunman,

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always assuming he had
six bullets to begin with,

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might get angry at the
waste of ammunition.

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He might change his
tactics, rush behind me,

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and shoot me in the back.

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How awful to be
shot in the back.

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Why doesn't my other
girlfriend arrive?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Isn't she supposed to bring the
policemen who will knock down

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the door and save me?

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All my life, I have trusted
in the eternal feminine

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to save me from disaster, which
does not keep me in the least

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from suspecting all
women of being betrayers.

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So it is inevitable
that I start to think

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that my fiancee, my
other girlfriend,

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may be in league
with the killer.

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But why does she want me dead?

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I would have bowed out
if she had asked me to.

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It dawns on me that
she is an avenger,

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and that I am about to be
punished for my unfaithfulness

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to the good mistress, she
who gave her life for me.

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Of course, it is idiotic to
expect women to die for me.

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The very idea might be a ghost
remnant of the child's wholly

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unrealistic expectation that
his mother will love him

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unconditionally, no matter
how meanly he tests her

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or how sadly he disappoints her.

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And yet, when I look
over at my wife playing

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with our orange Abyssinian
cat on the couch,

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I can't help wondering to
what lengths she would go

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to protect me in a fusillade.

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I hope she would have
the good sense to duck.

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I know she would.

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Nevertheless, these
movie fantasies

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of Oriental mistresses die hard.

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I now begin to
understand why I bought

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my wife, on a recent trip
to China, a red silk brocade

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robe with dragon
couchant and why I

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keep pestering her to wear it."

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[LAUGHTER]