Bites, Camera, Fashion: Cage is some ‘Pig’

Bites, Camera, Fashion: Bites, Camera, Fashion is a column from Davey McNelly, who is disabled, likes films and makes poor choices while trying to simplify his life. 

When I was in the hospital with pneumonia over the last weekend of July, I found myself watching the Barbie movie for the seventh time. I admitted this to the nurses, none of whom had seen it before. Pneumonia is scary for me. It’s what will kill me, eventually, as it does the majority of people with my disease. So it’s nice to have a cable TV escape.

“Barbie” has all the components of a Hollywood film: It’s kid-friendly, just subversive enough, and follows a typical and digestible narrative arch. This includes the pre-Lapsarian Barbie Land, an Eden where everything is perfect but unsatisfying. We are waiting on the villain of patriarchy to appear and give the characters something to struggle against. It’s just good storytelling.

I don’t think it’s a great film. It’s not even in my top 200 films of all time. But I just seem to keep watching it. It’s comforting.

Somehow, this is what it is like watching Nicolas Cage movies. 

After work in Lancaster, I found myself with a few hours to spare before needing to get back home. Naturally, I texted my good friend Kathleen who I used to work with. We met up to get dinner and talk about Nicolas Cage.

Bites

If you don’t know this by now, many of my best friendships are based around food. This one is no different. For a period of five years, Kathleen would bring in food to work every day, too much for her alone to eat, and I would gladly eat it. At the time, I had two young kids, was paying for daycare, and definitely did not have enough money to eat out. And my kitchen wasn’t accessible yet. So I was extremely grateful. We’ve all struggled.

Back to Lancaster: Some friends at work recommended Jimmy Jawbreakers, a food truck that specializes in double cheeseburgers. We ordered one for Kathleen’s husband, who doesn’t eat any vegetables. None at all. Like they accidentally put on a slice of tomato and we had to return it and get a new one because he would be able to tell.

But upon seeing the size of the sandwich, I chickened out and asked for a kids menu. The server asked pointedly where my child was and pointed to a sign which said kids meals are only for children under the age of 6. “Right over there,” I said and pointed to a random child sitting at a table. Three minutes later, I received a small cheeseburger and french fries served on a folded-up race car. The toy included in the meal was a whistle, which is one of my favorite gifts — good for all ages.

I would recommend getting Jimmy Jawbreakers if you ever find yourself in Lancaster. The burger was well-seasoned, has a sauce reminiscent of In ‘N Out Burger, and is juicy enough to need multiple napkins.

Camera

I don’t like Nick Cage movies because they’re good. I like them because they’re fun to talk about. Think of the national treasure that is the “National Treasure” series. As Kathleen and I talked, I pointed out that Nic Cage films should be rated on two scales. 

The first is how good the movie is. The second is on how Cagey the film is. I think we all know what Cagey means: It’s how many times Nic Cage yells his lines, says things in wildly exaggerated ways, over acts, etc. Let’s take “National Treasure” as an example. “National Treasure” is about a 2 out 10 on the scale of how good the movie is, but the Cagey-ness of the film is around a 10/10. It’s peak Nic Cage. It’s a ridiculous combination and this somehow brings the total score for the movie up to an 8.

“Pig” is the least Cagey movie by Nicolas Cage that I have ever seen.

And the time that we are in Barbie Land, which is the time when Nick Cage and his pig live together completely isolated from the rest of the world, is incredibly short. They work together, harvesting truffle mushrooms. After about five minutes of beautiful nature and teamwork between man and pig, thieves come. They beat up Cage and take his pig. The pig is apparently worth an exorbitant sum on the underground mushroom pig market. As another fictional farmer might say: “He’s some pig.” 

Cage isn’t just beat up. He gets hit with a cast iron pan in the head and wakes up barely alive. I’m not going to spoil the movie, but suffice it to say that Cage is repeatedly getting beat up throughout the film as he is on his quest for his pig. And over a period of several days, he never takes a shower, deigning to wash his hands only once before cooking an elaborate meal. He sits in Michelin-starred restaurants and is served without anyone batting an eye, blood crusted on his head. This is the Cagey-ist thing that happens during the film. Otherwise Nicolas Cage’s character could have been played by anyone, ideally by Billy Bob Thornton.

One of my jokes with this column is I never say whether the movie is good or not. I’m going to break tradition here. The movie itself is probably an 8.5 out of 10, while the Cagey-ness of the film is a 1 out of 10. This unfortunately brings the total score of the movie for me down to about a 6 out of 10. It’s a gritty film, one in which the underbelly of fine dining is exposed like a large slab of bacon. But not in my top 30 Nic Cage films.

Fashion

I was in Washington, D.C., for a disability advocacy conference before I got sick with pneumonia. My team of disability advocates met with a variety of people on Capitol Hill and the White House. One thing I noted while at the Eisenhower building and on the Hill is that I was the only one who was not wearing a suit jacket and tie. It’s been so long since I’ve worn clothing like this that I forget it’s even in my closet.

We did our best, often speaking with conservative members of Congress, to try to make the Medicaid cuts the least worst that they can possibly be and try to get disabled people at the table when making policy decisions, but I’m unsure how much we succeeded. Once we were inside the White House grounds, no one kicked us out after our meetings, so we took a self-guided tour. At a certain point, I remembered that I have a bleached rattail haircut, and felt out of place even more in our halls of democracy. Yet we pushed onwards, speaking to whomever we could.

The communications team for the White House, for whatever reason, was often taking naps in back conference rooms or reading magazines. Maybe because communications is done by presidential tweet? Who knows? The optics were weird. There was a picture of the president every 20 feet, newly installed.

As disability rights continue to erode, I remind myself that we have been solidly outside Barbie Land, post-Lapsarian for some time, no longer wearing pink. Our country is founded on some not-so-good things. But I hope we can make something better, eventually.