It’s crazy how much Lily Allen looks like Linda Ronstadt in this video for “Not Fair.” I know it’s a purposeful bit of retro styling, from the set to her bangs, but still, it’s kind of weird, right?
Lily Allen
Linda Ronstadt
Apparently the fun-loving Lily’s taking an indefinite break from music to, I don’t know, open a perfume shop or something. Back away from Lindsay Lohan, Lily. Back. Away.
Good news, lovers of cognitive dissonance! Unilever, your friendly multinational consumer products company, is now offering you the choice for “for her” or “for him” ads for body wash on Hulu.
Pick “for her,” and you’ll watch the heartwarming story of a young girl
threatened by sexualized images of women setting an impossible standard for her coming of age
and learning self-esteem thanks to Dove products!
Pick “for him,” and you get not only a special offer on the dvd of “The Hangover,” but also an image of a leather sheet taking the form of a woman’s body, while a singer mewls creepily, “closer, closer than leather,” which I might be obvious to point out IS SKIN.
In its defense, ”Silence of the Lambs” came out a long time ago. Presumably this woman is merely a sexual ideal and not actually a senator’s daughter locked in a serial killer/fashion designer’s basement!
So thanks Unilever for treating all men and women like we fit in one of two categories: those who find disembodied sexy ladies to be hottt, and those who buy claptrap about “self esteem”! We’re just so easy to persuade.
“Celebrity life and media culture are probably the most overbearing pop-cultural conditions that we as young people have to deal with, because it forces us to judge ourselves,” she said. “I guess what I am trying to do is take the monster and turn the monster into a fairy tale.” (link)
Lady Gaga makes a convincing argument for pop stars being at least 20 years old before making their global debut. It’s not that her music is so fantastic, or her fashions so astonishing, or her behavior so stunning, even if they are all these things at times; it’s that she’s able to articulate the purpose of her performance. She’s taken a staid America by surprise and knocked pretty much all of us off our feet, love her or hate her. I wasn’t alive when David Bowie became famous, but I imagine it was something like this – scary and magical. It’s nice that art can still make people feel a little weird and happy all at once.
“I want women — and men — to feel empowered by a deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they’re always trying desperately to hide. I want that to become something that they cherish.”
I don’t know whether it’s to my credit that I have never heard of four of the five songs listed as the top one-hit wonders of the 2000s. Also, no “Who Let The Dogs Out”? That seems wrong!
I shouldn’t complain because I have a perfectly good life, but every now and then you have to step back and say, what the FFFFFFF are you doing???
I just got a bill for $310 for my two horses’ shoes. Do you know the last time I bought shoes for myself? Because I don’t. I don’t even remember the last time I bought new clothes for myself. I went shopping on my birthday but didn’t buy anything. That is the last time I can remember doing any shopping that wasn’t for a horse.
Times like this, I’d like to send Sunny and Classic to Candy Mountain.
Take a gander at this sweet painting I got as a belated birthday/housewarming present from my family. My brother in law is an artist and a really good one too, so check him out and buy some stuff. Thanks fam!
Seems to me that successful television drama creators/show runners have some traits in common. They’re not-quite-alpha males, a bit neurotic, definitely obsessive, can be quirky and difficult, and often have an vexed relationship with fans where they deliberately obfuscate the creative process of creating the tv show in question, purposefully sending the most devoted of fans into a tizzy. As Buster Bluth would say, “It’s like you get off on withholding.” Show runners I can think of who fit this description, or close to it, include David Chase (The Sopranos), David Simon (The Wire), Chris Carter (The X Files) and perhaps David Lynch (Twin Peaks).
So thank goodness for Matt Weiner, creator of Mad Men. Weiner has a lot of the same characteristics of those other guys, except that he’s crazy in love with his characters and isn’t afraid to show it. He dishes like he’s talking about his ex-girlfriends in a two-part interview with the Daily Beast that was published after the third season ended. Here’s part one and part two. Don’t click if you haven’t already watched the third season finale. It’s not Spoiler City, it’s like freaking Spoiler Major Metropolitan Statistical Area up in there. Juicy stuff.
Maybe a snapshot of artfully painted woman isn’t the same thing as the Huffington Post’s publishing linkbait pics of nekkid ladies, but Jezebel might do well to avoid putting it next to a critique of HuffPo for that very action.
I stopped regularly watching the Daily Show not long after the Colbert Report debuted in 2005. I’d been feeling bored by the Daily Show for a while, and Stephen Colbert brought a much-needed sense of absurdity to his spin-off. As a Daily Show loyalist for many years (since Kilborn!), I was surprised that I gave the show up so easily. But I did. Jon Stewart’s increasingly smug takedowns of cable-tv lowlifes like Jim Cramer in recent years sealed the deal for me. I didn’t watch Comedy Central for sanctimony, no matter how deserving the target. By joining in the mudslinging, the Daily Show became part of the same machine that created and fed the likes of Jim Cramer and Bill O’Reilly.
One risk of having two daily news satires that pull material from the zeitgeist is that they’ll repeat bits. Last week was a good example. So riddle me this, who did the bit on the boy who wouldn’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance better? You know my vote – the more concise one.
(Wouldn’t let me embed the videos for some reason.)
