We liked the film, which we thought did a good job of portraying an unpleasant person. Oddly, I liked Helen Mirren as Rand much better than I usually do - with my not caring at all for what little I have seen of Superintendent Tenison. Peter Fonda did well as her husband, who liked the life style she paid for, even if he did not like playing second fiddle to her toy boy. The toy boy, Nathaniel Branden (someone else who chose not to use his foreign sounding family name), and his wife Barbara were also well cast. So we had a strong team to portray this very rum bunch.
As well as her fairly private passion, we also got to see something of her public life, which included both schmoozing with big cheeses of the Republican right and running something very like a cult, a cult which, like many such, went in for treating members who strayed rather badly. Or even members who expressed an opinion in the course of a group session which could have been construed as disagreeing with the Leader.
I have also taken a peek at references 3, 4 and 5 which suggest that the Rand brand lives on, together with her objectivism. The story seems to be that we should strive to get what we want out of life - while keeping within the framework provided the laws of property and the laws of contract. It is up to everybody to make what they can out their lives - and not up to anyone else. And if somebody agrees to pick melons in the noonday sun of southern California for 20¢ an hour, that is what they have to do. No excuses, no handouts. And governments should stick to stuff like catching rapists and catching murderers and should certainly not be taking money from one lot of people (for example the rich) in order to give it to another lot (for example the poor). Nor should it get in the way of stem cell research or abortions. It should not be into faith.
Objectivism appears to be an incoherent jumble of often unpleasant stuff. The sort of thing one might expect from an autodidact who was both strong-minded and able? Except that she wasn't, having been properly educated before she left what had become the Soviet Union. Perhaps the problem was that she stopped listening once she left university.
Rand appears to have been an atheist, and her stand on abortion and faith must have sat a bit awkwardly with some of the Republican right, often very against abortion and very for faith.
Donations are solicited and there is something of a whiff of pyramid sales about it all.
My bad opinion of the whole business is confirmed. And it remains depressing that a rich and well educated country like the US should go in for such stuff. And elect people like Donald.
On the other hand, I am not clear why the Duggan book should be called 'Mean Girl'. With the film of that name, according to Wikipedia, describing a bunch of unpleasant women, but not in the same way as Rand. But is it worth a second reading to find out?
PS: this morning I associated to Soprano Jenkins, noticed at reference 6, another powerful lady with a young man. Before that I associated to Jeffery Archer, whom I think, without having read any of it, writes the same sorts of pot-boilers involving movers and shakers. Is of an age to have read her stuff, to have learned from her?
References
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/ayn-rand.html.
Reference 2: The Passion of Ayn Rand - Helen Mirren and others - 1999. A made for TV film.
Reference 3: https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/what-is-objectivism/. Inter alia, the source of the portrayal of Atlas included above.
Reference 4: https://www.prometheusfdn.org/.
Reference 5: https://aynrand.org/. Headquartered in Santa Anna, a very Spanish town on the southern fringes of Los Angeles, or at least it was when I visited it getting on for twenty years ago. Not the sort of place that a whitey from the UK in a business suit ought to be wandering about at night - so given that Rand appeals mainly to professional whiteys, a slightly odd choice.
Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/05/florrie.html.
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