Ally McBeal airs Monday, 9-10PM on FOX All times listed are for the Pacific time zone

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The Practice

Cage/Fish & Associates

AM-112 Cro-Magnon

I apologize in advance if I offend anyone.....This is only my opinion....Please do not flame me... I bruise easily....

Tonight's show introduces a number of sensitive issues and topics that are of extreme relevance in today's society. DEK addresses these issues with an un-jaundiced eye. The revelations revealed to us are fundamental truths, as uncomfortable as it may be for us to accept...

Appropriately enough, the show starts out in a art class..The significance of this, is that it reveals one of DEK's unspoken truisms.....or beliefs....but more on this later.

The first issue DEK examines carefully is the concept of the biological clock.....Is there such a thing??? Many women say this is poppycock....Unfortunately, there may be some truth to this... The ultimate purpose of any animal species is to propagate....An excellent example of this are the salmon, where they literally kill themselves trying to swim upstream in order to reach their mating grounds...After they mate, their purpose is done, and they die..... Now humans are blessed with the capacity for abstract thought....We are far more complex than fish.... This ability certainly distances us, to a degree from a base animalistic instincts, but they do exist in some form or another within us all... Even we subconsciously need to propagate....and achieve some form of immortality through our children. A man can beget a child until his eighties, and this gives man some freedom. Women, on the other hand, have a limited time for procreation.....Focused on success in their career, sooner or later most women begin to realize, at least subconsciously, that time is running out on them.... They may express this anxiety in many ways and not even know the basis of their anxiety.... Obviously a number of factors such as success, personal love life, stress, etc.. can mitigate, or aggravate this anxiety..This anxiety will result in a nesting impulse, where women begin to wax sentimental over anything pertaining to babies....Ally's vision of a dancing baby is an appropriate response, though it is somewhat bizarre. The music that plays while the baby was dancing is strangely appropriate. Obviously, advances in science is now enabling women to have children later in their lives, but this science has not been fully assimilated in the mindset of women yet...This will take time, and will eventually eliminate the biological clock phenomenon.

The second issue that AMcB presents is the validity of aggression and violence in a civilized society....AMcB's answer, ally's answer, and John's answer is the same...An emphatic yes. A woman when asked will say that physical aggression is animalistic, stupid, and uncouth but she is lying to herself and to others.... Think about it.... A woman subconsciously equates protection with caring and love...When confronted by a stranger, and abused physically or emotionally, a woman instinctively looks for protection from another....that is if she doesn't know self-defense.....If her boyfriend, or date resorts to violence, he is intrinsically saying that he is willing to protect her at the possible cost of his life... Pain cannot, and will not deter him form physically protecting her..A man who shrinks from physical confrontation becomes emasculated both in her eyes and in his own... And can you blame the men or the women for this? Society endorses, and revels in violence and aggression..... Boxing, to many is simply people beating each other up....., and yet it is considered an art form by many......Everyone "admires a man of action" and not a man who thinks....That is why men tend to enjoy boxing so much.. They do not lie to themselves..... They recognize and accept the importance and value of aggression, even senseless violence....Women have the need to lie to themselves, and ultimately to others...Therefore, on the surface, women will have to profess to dislike boxing, because to do otherwise, would be to give approval to the base animal side of humans.... The peculiar thing is that women while saying one thing, continue to hang around athletes.....Look at the number of women hanging around basketball stars, and even around boxers... You certainly do not see women hanging around intellectuals..... Obviously there are some exceptions to this rule... I do personally know of some women who seem to like bright people, but in general this does not hold.....cage admits that none of his intellectual achievements can ever equal the satisfaction he felt in defending himself. Even Ally begins to examine herself and finds out the truth....

The third issue is one of size, and you all know what I mean... Unlike men, who are initially attracted to the outer appearance, and later on to the personality of a woman, woman see things slightly differently..Woman are attracted to the personality of a man first, and his outer appearance, while important, is of secondary concern.....This is a generally accepted fact, and it possesses some truth.... But this is true for women only when they are looking for serious relationships. This does not preclude women from being attracted to men only for their outer appearance if it is for meaningless, animal lust. Women are human after all.....They have greater control of themselves and are consequently victims of pure lust far less than men.... But they do fall victim to lust every once in awhile....they may truly feel that size is unimportant in their "mate" but in a meaningless fling, it is very important.... Women are inquisitive creatures, and do have harmless, meaningless fantasies about size, and other such things......The girl's giggling is a realistic response to a large one......remember, this was simply fantasizing and "pure lust" but you do not hear them saying that it is a significant factor in deciding on a permanent relationship....Ally decides to go on a one night fling in order to have the experience, but acknowledges to herself that she did not do it for love, she did it for lust.....The men's response to the size issue, though funny, is also very realistic......Billy reacts realistically to a threat to his male ego... despite what men say... they do feel threatened and insecure around men who are overtly superior to themselves......Men who are richer , taller, or better looking will inevitably cause some vestige of self-doubt and insecurities to surface....Even the size matters.....Obviously each person's response to the above factors depends, to a large degree on how strong is his confidence, but no man is free from self- doubt.....And Billy's impotence is a natural response.... he is worried, threatened, and his wife has put him in an uncomfortable position.... By saying that she is satisfied, she unfortunately places far too much pressure on him to perform.... All of these factors naturally will cause him to choke and be impotent.... An interesting fact is the ubiquitous use of phallic symbols, throughout the first part of the show i.e...sausage and cigars.

Another interesting idea AMcB and DEK seems to imply is that creativity and the sexual impulse are interrelated......What is art but a creative outburst of energy that is implicitly sexual in nature...... this expression can and does lead to animal lust.....Many movies have used this theme in the past.....A good example would be the music lesson Jack Nicholson gave to one of the witches in The Witches of Eastwick and the wild lust that immediately occurred afterwards....

At center stage of this show is two of man's most primal drives........These drives are defined as flight or fight, sex, and feeding...... which are known to psychologists as the "Four F's"

Please feel free to disagree, but no flames please....

Further Thoughts

I think the use of contrast in the boxing match and the intimate scene, was to enable us to see some similarities..........or to create some arbitrary ones..... Both are in essence physical expressions of emotions, and both can be viewed as ballets........One is a ballet of violence, and the other is a a ballet of intimacy.... Both are creative, artistic expressions of emotion through the gestalt of the senses of sight, smell, touch, and kinesthesia

By Kenny Lee (thanos001@aol.com)
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