I’ve listed the Ladies from the Guardians 2005 List of Top Intellectuals (I love Lists even more than I love Statistics and the National Enquirer). This is a painstaking job and I’m kind of a slob when it comes to accuracy but it looks like none of the first 10 Men on the List are Children of D. I’m sort of assuming that the Catholics and the super Religious types aren’t. Noam Chomsky has way too much bravado.
Sort of thought that JM Coetzee would have been the spawn of a split. Once I went to hear him speak because he had won the Nobel Prize, the cover of his latest book was really cool and the talk was free. He could definitely pass for a Child of D. because he sort of looks like he could fall into a crack at any moment and get lost for awhile. Anyway, his parents were miserable together so that counts for something.
One afternoon I went through the Biography section in the library looking for Names and could literally almost guess which people were Children of D. just from their personalities. Anyway, sometimes I’m wrong. I’m wrong about JM Coetzee. Then again, I’ve never read anything he’s written.
Wouldn’t it be a gas if the Pope were from a Divorced Family?
Here’s the list. This is an educational project because I’m not familiar with a lot of these people.
I repeat. These are considered Top Intellectuals of our Time. I believe that none of the following came from Divorce. Maybe I’ll add them to the extraterrestrials category just to get even.
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, Novelist. Things Fall Apart.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Egypt, Cleric
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iran/Iraq, Cleric
Jean Baudrillard, France, Philosopher / Cultural Theorist
Gary Becker, U.S. Economist
Pope Benedict XVI, Vatican, Pope
Jagdish Bhaqwati, India/U.S., Economist
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil, Sociologist/Former President
Noam Chomsky, U.S., Linguist/Activist
JM Coetzee, South Africa, Novelist
Filed under: Exemplary Children of Divorce, extraterrestials, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce | Tags: Exemplary Children of Divorce, movies
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s parents divorced when he was around 15 or 16.
He says here that E.T. is inspired by that experience:
“From the very beginning,” Spielberg said, “ `E.T.’ was a movie about my childhood–about my parents’ divorce, although people haven’t often seen that it’s about divorce. My parents split up when I was 15 or 16 years old, and I needed a special friend, and had to use my imagination to take me to places that felt good–that helped me move beyond the problems my parents were having, and that ended our family as a whole. And thinking about that time, I thought, an extraterrestrial character would be the perfect springboard to purge the pain of your parents’ splitting up.”
from http://www.scruffles.net/speilberg/articles/article-006.html
And also from an article at Businessweek.com (www.businessweek.com/1998/28/b3586001.htm):
With his parents’ divorce looming, Spielberg’s grades sank. He barely graduated from high school and was rejected from both UCLA and USC film schools. Settling for California State University at Long Beach because it was close to Hollywood, Spielberg got a C in his television production course. He dropped out in his senior year.
Spoiled Children of Divorce 