Fully-clothed superheroines. [BuzzFeed]
“The Ugly Side of Tanning”. In short, don’t do it! Embrace the pale. [Beauty Redefined]
In defence of Betty Draper. [Jezebel]
“Diary of a Q&A Appearance.” [MamaMia]
An app that filters OkCupid creeps for whom alarm bells wouldn’t necessarily initially sound. [Daily Life]
Image via BuzzFeed.
Are Princess Diana and Rihanna one in the same? Camille Paglia misguidedly seems to think so. [The Sunday Times]
Clementine Ford interviews Anne Summers as part of Daily Life‘s first birthday celebrations. Brilliant!
The face of porn (SFW). [Jon Millward]
Speaking of porn, is James Deen harmful to his young female fans? [Daily Life]
Lena Dunham isn’t “brave”. [Vulture]
How many models of colour walked in New York Fashion Week? Not many. [Jezebel]
Why have so many “contestants” on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew died? [Jezebel]
Downton Abbey VS. Girls. [Daily Beast]
Why do we flinch when a woman says she’s beautiful? [Daily Life]
“Is There Such a Thing as ‘Asian Privilege’?” [Daily Life]
Stop the presses: Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus debunked. [The Age]
Reporting Reeva Steenkamp’s murder at the hands of her Paralympian partner, Oscar Pistorius. [News with Nipples]
“In Defence of Diablo Cody.” [Female Gaze Review]
Kurt Cobain: feminist? [Daily Life]
In the vein of Nice Guys of OKCupid comes the racist guys of OKCupid: Creepy White Guys.
Image via Jezebel.
Is Girls‘ Hannah Horvath physically worthy of the sexual interest of a successful, hot, rich doctor? While detractors thought this week’s episode was the worst in the series, presumably because Lena Dunham’s “refreshing, yet displeasing to the eye” (to borrow a line from Elizabeth Banks in Pitch Perfect) naked body was front and centre perhaps more than any other episode, I actually thought it was the best of this season’s bunch, and I had no qualms buying Patrick Wilson’s character being so sexually into Hannah that he begs her to stay in his apartment for a 48-hour fuck- and naked ping-pong-fest. I will say that the gratuitous nudity and the continuous lack of people of colour is really getting my goat, though. [Jezebel]
Also related, apparently the utter disbelief at the abovementioned May-December Girls romance completely goes against a middle-aged man’s biological inability to resist a younger woman. A bit closed minded, but still valid. [Jezebel]
That time someone made a blog about all those times Michelle Williams was ostracised from the Destiny’s Child fold. Funny but cruel but also kinda true? [Poor Michelle]
Class divisions in Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day. [Elsevier]
James Bulger: 20 years on from his abduction and brutal murder. [Daily Life]
More equal opportunity nudity and sex on camera, please. [Jezebel]
The beauty myth: are people we perceive as beautiful really just average? [TheVine]
Following on from last week’s links on whitewashing in Hollywood, check out the ten most racist portrayals of characters of colour by white actors. [TheVine]
Image via Rolling Stone.
Happy New Year, Early Birds! To kick off the new year here are some of the links I found interesting over the Christmas break.
The progression of The Addams Family films. [The Soapboxing Geek]
Bret Easton Ellis is “really sorry” about that Kathryn Bigelow tweet. [Daily Beast]
The similarities between My Little Pony and Plato. [Overthinking It]
2012, politics and feminism. [Women’s Agenda]
Another year in review piece: pop music in 2012. [Gawker]
On that note, what will 2013 (hopefully) bring in pop culture? [TheVine]
Sweden’s gender-neutral toy trend. [Deadspin]
Where are all the women in The Hobbit’s Middle-earth? [Jezebel]
Could you live on $35 a day? The government expects single parents to. [TheVine]
Is Wearing Makeup a Choice? [Jezebel]
In response to the body-snarking of Lady Gaga, she launches a social media campaign exposing her insecurities and encouraging her fans to overcome theirs. [Jezebel]
Until I read this profile by a reporter who spent a day with the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo clan, I thought the show was exploiting a low-socioeconomic family who didn’t know any better. Turns out they’re not as dumb nor famehungry as they are portrayed. [Gawker]
Why we love Law & Order: SVU. [Jezebel]
In defence of being ugly. [MamaMia]
Society’s paranoia about male intimacy. [Daily Life]
Yet another sermon on why hot women can’t be funny. [Jezebel]
Pussy Riot interviewed from jail. [GQ]
He who so sanctimoniously surmised that abortion is bad, even in the case of rape, which is unfortunate but, still, “everything happens for a reason”—Justin Bieber—is the subject of an article about how his mother was a drug-addicted teen who found herself pregnant but decided to have the kid who would turn out to be him and therefore grant a whole generation of tweens such important musical feats as “Baby” and “Eenie Meenie” instead of abort him. [Jezebel]
Kate Middleton’s boobs as public property. [The Guardian]
Uh-oh. Only four months after Vogue debuted its “health initiative” pledge to not “knowingly hire models under the age of 16”, the Chinese and Japanese editions will publish spreads featuring two well-known underage models. [Jezebel]
Why isn’t Mindy Kaling being as well received as her fellow women-in-comedy or male counterparts? [Racialicious, via Jezebel]
The End of Men versus the success of Girls. [The Atlantic]
Image via Jaykhsar.
Feminist Barack Obama! [Nerve]
Despite Everybody Dance Now being axed and the dismal ratings of Being Lara Bingle, The Shire and the relaunched Can of Worms, at least Channel Ten’s taking risks. [MamaMia]
Conservative rape-talk fatigue. [Jezebel]
Why “hookup culture” is good for women. [The Atlantic, via Jezebel]
Rihanna spoke to Oprah about forgiving and still having feelings for Chris Brown, but we shouldn’t shame her for keeping her abuser in her life. [Jezebel]
The Beheld’s Autumn Whitefield-Madrano on Helen Gurley Brown, beauty and effort. [The New Inquiry]
“The Official Guide to Legitimate Rape.” [Jezebel]
Check out my second article for TheVine, about the male body objectification trend. More to come here next week.
Still with the sexualisation of male bodies, who knew there was so much to unpack when it comes to Magic Mike? Can I get a redo on the above article? [The Atlantic Wire]
And lastly, nudity in rom-coms. [Daily Life]
Why is a reality TV star worth a reported $3.5 million seeking funding on Indiegogo to put on a fashion show at New York Fashion Week? On the one hand, use your own fucking money. On the other, it is “the first-ever fan-supported fashion show”. Social experiment or effortless money-grab? [Jezebel]
Mitt Romney is a mansplainer! A Mittsplainer, if you will. [GQ]
Why Fifty Shades of Grey is a badly-written, misogynistic piece of shit that encourages women to stay in an emotionally abusive relationship. [Good Reads]
Cosmo’s international editions: feminist or not? [NYTimes]
Channel 9 aired an expose on girls dressing skimpily for nights out on the town. Ita Buttrose said dressing this way makes people assume you’re a “tart”, and men don’t take tarts home to mummy. Charlotte Dawson said girls need to be careful about “the consequences of dressing up like this could be”. Shitstorm ensues. [MamaMia]
Image via IMDb.
WTF?! James Holmes—aka the Batman killer—is hot?! [Jezebel]
How to avoid jail as a pregnant woman. Or really, a woman who could potentially be pregnant at some stage in the future. [HuffPo]
Paul Murray is glad Nick D’Arcy didn’t qualify for the Olympic finals, and I am too. After getting a slap on the wrist for those gun photos—not to mention the infamous assault—he shouldn’t have even been in London. [MamaMia]
Charlie Sheen’s corporate appeal. [Daily Beast]
Was Katie Holmes the innocent bystander in Tom Cruise’s Scientological quest for world domination, as the media makes her out to be, or is there more to her and the divorce?
“I’m convinced that she’s the most fame-hungry person the world has ever seen.” [Vulture]
The psychology of rapists. [Jezebel]
“Millennial expert” and “voice of a generation” Chelsea Krost isn’t a feminist because she “doesn’t think boys suck” but she can relate to the people whose “feet are in their own feces in Africa”. Nice. [NY Observer]
In the wake of the Herald Sun calling Leisel Jones fat, it seems as a female Olympian you also have to have perfect hair and not be too muscly so as you begin to resemble a man. [MamaMia, Jezebel, ThinkProgress]
Image via Jezebel.
“What Makes You Beautiful” is probably one of the catchier songs of the year, but for one that’s geared almost primarily to tweens and teens, it sends a troubling message.
Sure, “What Makes You Beautiful” is all about self-acceptance and loving the way you look despite not being a supermodel on the outside, but it’s pure men-policing-women’s-bodies on the inside.
I like to light up someone’s world like nobody else, but I like to do it because I know I’m awesome, not because you think me staring at the ground means I don’t know I’m beautiful and you must inform me immediately. I’m probably looking at the ground because assholes like you insist on making comments about just how beautiful or non-beautiful you find me.
What happened to the notion that men find confident women sexy? And yes, One Direction are far from being men and their audience is teens and tweens, not confident, sexy women (although this would attest otherwise), so they’re playing into their insecure girls in need of a saviour fanbase well.
Modesty is all well and good, but remember that saying, “no one will love you til you love yourself”? One Direction fans need not apply.
Call me crazy, but I would imagine people who don’t find themselves attractive and don’t want to draw attention to themselves won’t flip their hair, certainly not to get you overwhelmed. But the nature of the self-entitled ”nice guy” who needs to let you know you’re beautiful despite yourself is that they think women are there for them to consume, regardless of whether they want to be.
No one likes an insecure droll in need of validation regardless of their gender, but the fact that One Direction (okay, they’re robots; the music masterminds behind One Direction) needs to tell you you’re beautiful without any regard for what you think and feel about this and, furthermore, that a song all about what men think of women has permeated so far into the zeitgeist that everyone thinks it’s about empowerment and the beauty of all women is telling: apparently, women still need the patriarchy to tell them what their worth is. And guess what? It’s based on how you look.
[MamaMia] Confessions of an Immature Adult.
Image via Feed Limmy.
Another arguably funny guy has contributed to the patriarchal gospel that women, and especially hot ones, aren’t funny.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whom I’ve always liked, and whom a lot of women rank second only to Ryan Gosling, is the culprit this time around, saying that his co-star in the upcoming movie, Looper, Emily Blunt, is a funny girl, which is a rarity because most hot women aren’t funny.
Sigh.
I’m sure your past co-stars, like noted funny women and hot chicks Kristen Johnson, Ellen Page and Zooey Deschanel (whom I just don’t get, but each to their own), would have something to say about that.
When I posted the Jezebel article to a Gordon-Levitt fans’ Facebook, I was expecting her to be disappointed in his generalisation. Instead, she defended his stance and agreed with him that not a lot of conventionally attractive women are funny. She said the women Jezebel lists as funny and hot (Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman and Ellie Kemper, to name just a few) she finds neither. I see your argument, and I raise you Olivia Munn, Kristen Wiig, Anna Faris, Lucille Ball, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Chelsea Handler and Ellen DeGeneres.
My friend then went on to say that she has yet to see a female comedian who is “intelligent enough in her humour to make me laugh without cringing”. This may be true, but has anyone stopped to wonder why there aren’t many female comedians out there, and the ones that are are relegated to talking about periods?
The patriarchy, my friends.
Comedy, like most creative callings and occupations, is a male-dominated world. I have a female friend who is a comedian, and she could go on for hours about the shit she’s had to deal with. Just look at the Daniel Tosh debacle, which involved female audience members, not comedians. When I’ve gone to see her perform live, she’s often the only woman on the card. It’s not that there aren’t any funny and sexy (and some would say you can’t have one without the other: I personally find a not-conventionally attractive man who’s funny sexier than a conventionally attractive one who’s behind the eight-ball when it comes to humour) women out there, it’s that they aren’t able to break into the boys club that is comedy, or they’re too disillusioned by it to even try.
Another friend jumped into the Facebook discussion here, and said that comedy is about poking fun at society’s ills and, from my point of view, who better to do that than a group that has historically been socially marginalised: women! This might be why “unattractive” males seem to rise to the top of the comedy scene (look at guys like Hughsey, Pete Hellier [Friend #2’s cousin!] and Hamish Blake, who dominate the Aussie comedic TV scene. On the other hand, there’s Blake’s partner Andy Lee, Jon Hamm, Andy Samberg, Ryan Reynolds, Russell Brand and Dane Cook, so go figure), but at the end of the day it just goes to show that men have many different currencies that show their worth, whereas women only have their looks.
Having said that, I’m sure many will disagree with the hot and funny people I’ve listed here (sound off in the comments!), but I think we can all agree that beauty—and humour—is in the eye of the beholder.
[Cookies for Breakfast] So a Girl Walks Into a Comedy Club…
Image via Fanpop.
