The Shaming of the True

Girls...pad your bras!

2008-04-15T12:16:00.007-04:00

Tesco, what could be loosely called the Wal-mart of Britain, has come out with a padded bra for pre-teens.

A spokesman said: "It is a product designed for girls at that self-conscious age when they are just developing. It is designed to cover up, not flatter, and was developed after speaking to parents.

Incredible.

While its bad enough that women are perennially told to look prepubescent - hairless crotches, long straight hair, boyish frames- now actual prepubescent girls are being sexualized with larger breasts. Has this always been the case? Yes and no.

Let me do a little comparison of every good feminists proverbial toy nemesis: the Barbie.

The unrealistic body frame, the oversized breasts, the whiteness, the hollow goals (get Ken, get playhouse, get pink convertible)have been targeted by feminists since the Barbie made its debut in 1959. Barbie streamlined girls self-image and goals into a cookie-cutter life of girl-friend and mother that in many ways fit to the American ideal of womanhood in the 50s.

Enter what I see as Barbie 2.0.-the Bratz dolls. Add all the bad stuff about Barbie 1.0 stir in a little "ethnic" variation (i.e. shades of whiteness) to pre-empt charges of racism, add in unrealistic, Angelina Jolie-esque phenotypical features (big eyes, putty lips, small nose), and the expensive accessories that make them good, little capitalist consumers.

Women cannot continue to support living in a zone of liminality - never allowed to be 12 year old flat-chested girls or never allowed to be 50 year old wrinkling women with saggy tits. Products like padded bras for pre-teens or stripper poles for teenagers are never innocuous gadgets, rather they reflect a continual erosion in variations of femininity by creating a eunuch that is one-size fits all.

Oh, and here's an interesting aside, the etymology of the word Barbie is Greek for "foreign and strange". Indeed.

Source.

Not dead yet

2008-04-02T17:50:00.002-04:00

I took a little break from blogging. I'm back.

Observations on Dora

2006-09-23T14:00:00.000-04:00

Awhile ago a gentlemen by the name of Sigmund Freud did some experiments and wrote some stuff. Years later Beyonce released a set of videos to promote her new album. Totally unconnected, right? Yeah, not so much.

Pic on Left: From Salpêtrière in France, Image from Freud's research on hysterical women (1876-1880)
Pic on Right: Beyonce photo shoot from Essence Magazine, promoting new album (2006)

At the turn of the 20th century as the ideals of the Victorian Age were being refashioned by more organized and vocal groups of women, traditional roles were being questioned to give way to a more independent and self-sufficient image of "woman". Interestingly, at this time, the number of reported cases of "hysteria" and "nervous diseases" reached its peak. A physician writing in McClure's Magazine in 1893 called this rise in diagnosed nervousness the "national disease of America" Source.

There was an unprecedented rise in the number of diagnosed nervous illnesses for, you guessed it, women only. Women were told that it was dangerous for them to hold a position outside of the home and doctors advised parents to keep their daughters from consuming vanilla flavoured foods, reading books, or riding horses, all as possible ways of contracting 'hysteria'. Source.

Sigmund Freud, as with other late nineteenth century physicians, was fascinated by the increase in this mental disorder, so much so, that he was considered to have completed the definitive study on the psyche of hysterics. His observations of Dora, his writings and lectures are numerous on the topic. (Source.)

Freud's fascination with the topic of nervous disease lead to the idea of the "talking cure" which eventually led to Freud's articulations on psychoanalysis, in many ways leading to the kind of 'talk-therapy' we now have.

Each individual hysterical symptom immediately and permanently disappeared when we had succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was provoked and in arousing its accompanying affect, and when the patient had described that event in the greatest possible detail and put the affect into words. Recollection without affect almost invariably produces no result. - Sigmund Freud, 1895

This Freudian phenomena is happening again and women are the same crazy bitches we’ve always been.

In this modern version women are hysterical-neurotics that can be so easy pushed to the brink when, pursuing love(Crazy in Love), when in love (Deja Vu) and especially when jilted by a lover (Ring the Alarm).

Unable to control themselves they fling their bodies about in strange contortions, yelp and holler like animals in heat, and forgo any human decency or grade-six intellect, all in order to, ‘tell it to their man’.

Beyonce’s image has always relied on this spastic, ‘youthful’ vibrancy, where we never really know when she is going to fuckin loose her shit.

With Mariah Carey, at least we know, at the end of every song, Diva is going to go nuts start screaming off-script until the video director yells cut.

However, since Beyonce came out as a solo artist with Crazy in Love this hysteric persona was not limited to her vocal stylings or to the end of the song.

Bitch is crazy throughout.

And not only in terms of her vocal arrangements, but her physicality, her ‘dancing’ and her outfits.

Remember when at the very beginning of “Crazy in Love” she’s walking down the street and Jay-Z’s in the background like (Ho!) and she gets on a ramp, and we think she’s going to dance or something and she falls down! I mean, she pretends to fall down.

Going, going....
Gone.

Today, the professional heirs of Freud are joined by marketing gurus and industry lackeys who are helping to create self-help books, women's magazines, pharmaceutical drugs, and, more broadly, images of women, to promote and reinforce the notion that women need help because they are innately unstable.

Such was the impulse for Freud’s generation but at least the consequence of these views was made explicit: women belong in confined spaces, preferably the home. And if for some reason they don't, "bitch will go nuts".

What worse now, is that, people like Beyonce think this is some kind of empowerment of women, to see are themselves half-clothed and hysterical, by using the, ohh so never-overused phrase,: “its what I want to do” without any thought to the context or the impact (deep psychological, not just monetary) on the audience.

The packaging and selling of women like this is dangerous and irresponsible and, as evidenced by the slew of Beyonce-like ‘artists’, it is unlikely to stop.

Motherfuckin huge boobs/stomach liposuction

2006-09-20T19:45:00.000-04:00

This woman is like, some sort, of 'spit- chew-out experiment’ Hollywood has only recently been willing to publicly embrace. It’s kind of like, what will happen to young starlets in 30 years, sped up, to like, NOW! …but, ‘now’… in the future. The very very bad Tara-Reid future that awaits all 23-35 year old starlets today.

Behold your idol/nemesis:

Oprah (!!!)

2006-09-19T19:53:00.000-04:00

Oprah is ... drum roll ... just like us. Or so her new season would have us believe. Again.

Ms. Simpson take note.

Not because Oprah's special, or she has particularly ‘gifted’ people who work for her--but because she has money. And not your ‘big Midwest, Daddy-I-done-good-money’ I’m talking LOTS of it. And the kind that LOTS of white male capitalists have-a-stake-in protecting kind of money. Not just Uncle Jo and Daddy’s poker buddies.

So, Ms. Oprah’s viability as a brand and branding tools make her image to mainstream American culture essential to those advertisers and funders of her daily program, in a way Ms. Simpson’s popularity-tour has only touched upon.

And after X seasons on the air and after a year filled with some bad publicity:

- Oh snap! Oprah bitches out the owner of luxury brand, Hermes, for not letting her shop!(June 24, 2005)

- I’ll give Chrysler free advertising, but you best pay the taxes on your new car! ( September 23, 2004)

- People in the bible-belt, fear not, I have never had sexual relations with that/any woman! (July 17, 2006)

Ms. Oprah’s back with the “I’m just like you” image re-do. This time, add in a touch of reality tv, and let us not forget the placement advertising, and we have: Gail and Oprah’s Roadtrip.

I love how every sliver of ‘realness’ from Oprah, i.e., Oprah gets gas, Oprah gets denied at the hotel, denied at the airport - its all resolved by the mention of the advertiser that foots the bill.

i.e.,
- Oprah doesn’t know how to use the gas pump…can’t pay for it…thank god Chryslers so cheap to the gallon...

- Oprah can’t find her way around the lobby of the hotel without the special treatment she knows...thank god Wynn Hotels Las Vegas have such soft beds and courteous staff to help her get along ...

- Oprah wants to book airplane tickets but has to book over one thousand tickets ( true story people!) etc...thank god for American Airlines and their quick and friendly service...

The problem is always that Oprah’s too fucking in her bubble of billions that she can’t/forgot/won’t participate in the mundanity of life. It's fucked up to hear someone wants to purchase 1,000 plane tickets to Maui, Oprah!! Ok?! That kind of doesn’t happen all the time!

And its fucked up you don’t know/pretend to not know how to fucking pump motherfucking gas. I mean I don’t even drive and it would take me like, a minute, to figure this shit out.

And all of her little stories on this so-called ‘road trip’ are based on her problems with ‘normal life’, which are resolved by a motherfucking advertising plug on air.

When you mention American Airlines five times its, like, no, how can I possibly believe this ‘story’, as it were, when the laden intent of this whole goddamn production is becoming more and more clear.

The insincerity, the greed, the money-lust, and the heavy-handedness of her show, and this episode, is nauseating. The framing of her ‘ethnographic study of life in middle America’ in such materialist terms, so as to make any problem solved by the intervention of money and big business, versus, I don’t know...say...common human decency (!), makes me sad for the people eating this shit up.

What was more nauseating then seeing the PR machine move in such predictable motion was the inevitability of its effect on the audience. The quick brisk, moving shots, a shot of laughter, of ‘oh isn’t it funny to have money’ quotes, and snippets of Oprah’s platitudes, makes this whole season premiere fiasco, not so much a re-branding, but a re-fluffing of Oprah and the billions of dollars that prop her up.

How to Handle Plastics

2006-09-18T18:33:00.000-04:00

In the PR mess and dwindling popularity that has surrounded Jessica Simpson's post-Nick Lachey life, NW magazine reports:

Jessica Simpson has revealed to pals that binge eating has become her way of coping with the misery in her personal life, as she deals with the fallout from her romance with singer John Mayer and the response to her new album [...].

The 26-year-old singer was spotted crying in New York recently, lamenting how badly things were going for her. "She was saying, 'This was the worst week of my life,'" a source reveals, adding that Jess claimed that she felt like "a failure". Source.

Now, remember she recently fired her old publicist, Rob Shuter, because of allegedly fabricating a new romance with singer John Mayer (gag), conveniently...just around the time of her new albums' release... When Mayer's camp called her bluff, she was all like..."wasn't me" and fired Shuter, calling him, a "pathological liar". Source.

Now, kiddies take note.

The new PR team around Simpson faces a re-branding issue for their starlet. So, they've cracked out the old "Newlyweds" tapes and have distilled and synthesized some ingredients that they think made Simpson (double gag) a likable gal in the first place.

Look's like someone's more comfortable with plastics

No.1 a normal guy being in her presence. Hell, if he can stand her and he's so simple she must not be all that bad.

No. 2 a non-threatening persona. From her ridiculous comments, her thinking-challenged mode of being, to the hamming up of her bodily functions for the public (oh cute, women burp) Simpson took a page from modern celebritydom and cried, "love me...I'm just like you." And they did. (For a bit)

But...then the rumors of her nastiness, pettiness, and cheating on Mr. Lachey --who I have to say, after watching some episodes of Newlyweds (there was nothing else on, I swear!), had a modicum of love/apathy (?) for her-- popped the bubble of normality that had momentarily surrounded her.

So now, with the ensuing fiasco from the "John Mayer loves me" - (see No. 1), the Simpson handlers were fired and replaced. I bet the new team said, let's work on No. 2 and THEN No. 1 and maybe we can set things on course.

And thus the NW Magazine quote from their "source", i.e. Simpson PR person. "She binges on food and gets sad, just like you! ...Again! ... But in 'real' life!" Bitch please.

Your move Lachey.

Search Results for: "star jones"

2006-09-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

So with all the hoopla surrounding the whereabouts of TomKat's "baby" (i.e "what's wrong with baby Suri?") another less important "where is?/what's wrong with?" conundrum has been brewing.

Where is Star Jones?
I mean, it was only a couple of months ago that "Mrs." Jones was all over the news, her departure from the View, the chilly Barbara Walters response, the controversy over the "medically-unaided" weight loss, and the eminent arrival of the ten-ton gorilla named Rosie.

And when Jones went off script two days before her planned exit it seemed all the murmurs about behind the scenes backstabbing and Jones-bashing, resulting from the run-up to her wedding to Big Gay Al, had bubbled to the surface for the public lashing we were hoping for.

Then the almost unthinkable started to happen.

A touch...I mean just a touch of sympathy for the Jones. Barbara Walters and fellow ABC honcho's overplayed their hand by castigating Jones' actions in such dire terms, so as to create a climate of sympathy for her just based on- pardon the pun- the difference of weight between each competitor.

The public could hook onto such a narrative where, it was like, "oh gee...Jones the one-woman crazy show vs. the entire ABC network and View minions."

The heavy-handed Walters response implied as though somehow Jones could 'destroy' the veil of camaraderie that holds the concept of the show and helped to frame Jones' response as befitting a David-Goliath narrative.

Then she hosted an episode of HGTV's House Hunters (what?). And the View went into syndication for the summer only to return with Rosie and better ratings. Baby Suri's photoshopped image was plastered on Vanity Fair answering a few questions, but giving us, oh so many many more.

But, I ask, where is Star Jones?

Alas, the intellectual think-tank that is New York Fashion Week brought the fallen Star back around its orbit of sucking up to people that give her free things. Case in point:

I'm not even going to start on what she's wearing

For those of you not middle-aged, with plush bank accounts, absentee husbands and small dogs named Maurice, this women-designer (to Jones' right) makes the average fashionable and a fashionable-average. She also designed Jones' wedding dress- all for the price of a couple of on-air plugs and a slice of Jones' dignity.
With that slice in hand Reem Acra the intrepid designer dangled some free swagger under the lens of the paparazzos and lured the Jones from her cave of obscurity.

Only to never return?

Between a spate of appearances at the beginning of September she has not been seen publicly since July. There was some spotting of Big Gay Al in the elevator of his building in spandex, but rest assured, the eye-witness claims this is a common event (!).Source. But the Jones has laid low. Is she orchestrating some dramatic Walters sit-in, a one hundred pound weight gain and subsequent loss on Celebrity Fit Club, or is she melting into the background of anonymity where she rightfully belongs? Developing...

American Beauty/Pie

2006-09-13T20:41:00.000-04:00

Okay...so awhile ago a fashion trend re-interperting the 1980's into hip new outfits helped hipsters decide what to wear each morning. One day a celebrity who was in a raunchy teen comedy (American Pie) made a movie that made her momentarily seem like a serious actress because her innocent sexuality was threatened by an older man and she lay in rose pedals for promo shots (American Beauty).

And then her career went away.

So she went to fashion week and clung to the 1980s fashion trend with such gusto and fervor that, as she dragged her nails clinging to the limelight, she made quite the mess:

P.S. Look at the mannequin-girl in the back...and the man-manager that moves her around.

Jeff Probst vs....150 years of intellectual development

2006-09-13T10:14:00.000-04:00

"Whether an advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous is or is not displayed in the biological history of the globe, it is clearly enough displayed in the progress of the latest and most heterogeneous creature - Man. It is alike true that, during the period in which the Earth has been peopled, the human organism has become more heterogeneous among the civilized divisions of the species..." Source.
- Herbert Spencer. Progress: Its Law and Cause, 1857

"When you start talking to a person from Asia, you realize -- Wow! They have all different backgrounds! Asians, include Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and they don't necessarily get along... This is stuff maybe I should know." Source.
-Jeff Probst. 'Surviour' Host, 2006

So here you have two white men who see variety/heterogeneity in their own race but when it comes to 'fringe peoples' like, err..I don't know, Asians they are pressed to see much difference.

How do these two men differ?

Well, Mr. Spencer applied Darwinist theories to elaborate his theory of Social Darwinism which were used by German anthropologists and later Nazi theoreticians.

Mr. Probst remains the blistfully unaware benevolent host, that... golly-gee, can't believe Asian people aren't all the same!

Yes, Mr. Probst, changes are afoot that even you have not been informed of.

Plus les changes plus les memes choses. (sp?)

P.S. I know there's an accent over the "e" in "meme", and I know my acknowledgement of my purposeful-ignorane (P.I) is that which is endearing of me to you.

Moby vs. TomKat

2006-09-13T10:02:00.000-04:00

Moby has just ridiculed TomKat for using their baby for publicity.

In other news, Britney Spears has just confirmed the earth is infact ....wait for it....round.

I mean thanks, Moby but you're a bit late to the whole Tom Cruise-is-a-
publicity-crazed-celebrity-who-will
-sell-his-kids-his-mother-his-anything
-in-pursuit-of-his-coach-jumping-ways.

Moby writes on his blog,

"Are you kidding me?...Putting your f***ing child on the cover of Vanity Fair? Are they out of their minds? Using a child as a PR prop? Argh. In the grand scheme of things fame pales in comparison to family and child-rearing. I don't know Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but I really cannot for a second fathom the mindset of parents who would sell pictures of their children and use their children to get better press coverage... I'm sorry, I try not to be too judgmental, but it's gross."

Remember, this is the man who became famous for letting ANY company use his music for advertising. And then proceeded to tell us to hug trees, eat vegetarian, and not wear fur.

I am not defending the lunacy that is Tom Cruise, but when hypocrisy and irony coalesce in such verbal sludge its hard to ignore. Even when it comes from Moby, he who is so EASY to ignore.

Source

FERGIE'S LEAKED!

2006-09-13T09:57:00.000-04:00

Yes, Fergie's new album has been leaked on the internet.

The only thing leaking from Fergie is...

I apologize for the crassness, but she does look like a well-used blow-up doll. What is Fergie leaking? I really don't want to know.

Conspicous Boy

2006-09-13T09:50:00.000-04:00

I don't know what people are thinking at Rolling Stone. Really, I'm not sure if I want to know what they're thinking.

Seriously? OK, maybe what I'm really trying to get at is something about the music industry more generally, better demonstated by other "artists". Looking at the media for a several new or upcoming albums from major labels, I'm left wondering who the marketeers are trying to appeal to and what it is they believe is appealing about their products? It could be the limitations of my own sensibility leaving my puzzled, but I doubt it.

While Beyonce's new album may not have flopped as bad as was at first predicted (or hoped!), of course, here she is trying to make up for the indifference of most music fans around the world, the best way she knows how...on her knees.

Cruise-ing Down the Brooke

2006-09-13T09:43:00.000-04:00

"I was apprehensive at first," said Ms. Shields. "It's not every day that a helicopter lands on my golf course unannounced, but when Tom bounded out and asked if I wanted to see a photo of Baby Suri, I knew he was sincere." Source.

What the hell is she talking about? First of all, nobody has really seen baby Suri have they? If we know anything about "the girl", it's that nobdy has seen her. It does sound like typical Tom crashing a helichopter into a golf course. I'm sure he did his own stunts too.

Tom Cruise apologized to Brooke Shields for calling her "stupid" and "thumb-sucking", and as well as for publicly criticizing her for admitting to taking anti-depressants. While Tom's position is obviously informed by his Scientology practices, in the wake off all the private and professional criticism he has received due to his "recent" behavior, it's no surprise that Tom is trying to show a more sensible side in the media (Tom knew Brooke was to be on The Jay Leno show that afternoon).

These guys are just weird.

February 22, 1962 – September 4, 2006

2006-09-13T09:39:00.000-04:00

The news of Steve Erwin's death is everywhere, as it should be. He was a man who loved what he did and did it well.

Steve was killed by the posionous barb of a stingray. I wonder how many people are killed by stingrays?

Given the looks of this stingray, probably more people die than we might at first think. What a way to go. I guess only someone like Steve could do it. Oh, and for the record, I have no idea who the people in the picture are. I don't know what's up with the guy in glasses.

See ya Steve.

Michael Jackson Eats £250,000 Potatoes

2006-09-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

Michael Jackson has moved the remnants of his soul to an exclusive holiday resort in Ireland, Luggala Castle in County Wicklow. Various accounts of Jackson's motivations for moving to Ireland--whatever the intended duration of his stay maybe--have been explained in spiritual terms.

Now don't get me wrong. Most people have a complicated relationship to Michael Jackson "the person" and Michael Jackson the popsinger. I am one of those people too.

Jackson had to leave America after all that happened. He is one of those nomadic celebrities searching the earth for some kind of authenticity that might revive whatever innocence they once had. Mel Gibson and Orlando Bloom have used the same resort for similar purposes (and it looks like Mel is due for another world tour). Maybe Jackson will try to hook up with Bono in the hopes of entering international political circles where he might be able to borrow the money he needs to pay his debts and cover his vacation bills. Bono and Jackson: sounds like a match made in Ireland.

When world travel, sex scandles, international politics and celebrities meet, you know we're in trouble.

What are they doing?

2006-09-13T09:23:00.000-04:00

On the topic of celebrity and international politics, how could we leave off without a consideration of Brad and Angie?

What are they doing?

I really don't know. I have yet to read or hear any intelligent account of what exactly Brad and Angie were doing at the World Economic Forum. Bono was there, sure. Maybe they were looking at all the exotic nameplates in order to create a database of names for their next acquistition of a nascent homo-'poor-us'.

Yes they do have everything. Except a beautiful castle in the hills of Ireland and any chance of doing good in this world through acts of consumption--err, adoption.

Perez Hilton...go away

2006-09-13T09:21:00.000-04:00

Is our crazy world becoming even crazier? I think so based on the successes of our friend the Pink Panther, wishing he had half the looks of Liberace.

Ok this guy has apparently fulfilled his life's ambtion: to wit, managed to locate an evening jacket dyed in Kool-Aid in order to have a picture taken with Paris Hilton. Well, at least his carrer is in a better place.

Tom Cruise

2006-09-13T09:17:00.000-04:00

Tom motherfucking Cruise. Nobody at this point is really shocked by anything Tom Cruise does anymore.The real quesiton on everyone's mind (or at least those of us sad enought to have recently watched Cocktail for the 5th time) is where is baby Suri?

Suri could very well be trapped in Katie's body still. Like the first American astronaut on the moon, no one is really sure if the recent sightings of the cosmic child are merely the fantasy of desperate, confused people simply trying to get by in this cruel world of money and hustle.... oh wait, that was Brian Flanagan--oh wait, that was actually Tom Cruise...oh...I'm really confused.