"And so, as she reintroduces herself to the Democratic Party, and the American electorate as a whole, she should embrace her nerdiness."

"Not only is it effective—a persona perfect for a moment when Americans want solutions more than inspiration—but, after years of keeping it under wraps, it’s the most authentic move she could make."

The last lines of a Slate piece by Jamelle Bouie called "Why Hillary Clinton Should Go Full Nerd/The Democratic front-runner should offer voters her authentic, geeky self."

We've been seeing the word "authentic" a lot lately — what with Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. There's this idea we seem to like that everyone has a real identity inside and that if we've got an inconsistent outward presentation of ourselves it would be wonderful for the inner being to cast off that phony shell.

But "authenticity" can be another phony shell. Unlike the headline writer, who wrote "her authentic, geeky self," Bouie had the decency to write "the most authentic move she could make." Look closely.

The most authentic move she could make. The most authentic move she could make. The most authentic move she could make. 

Not much authenticity there at all. Hillary's in a predicament. What can she do? Authenticity is a good thing to have, so they say. How could she try to get some of that? What move could she possibly make? How about geekiness? What's going on in this old picture?

She's always had some of that nerdiness/geekiness.* That could be the quote-unquote real Hillary. How about a nerd-geek turn on the stage of The Theater of Authenticity?

___________________________

* Slate doesn't bother with the nerd/geek distinction.

More Jerry Seinfeld complaining about how political correctness is getting in the way of comedy.

Watch the clip, because Seinfeld quotes are best when heard (and, in fact, the audience laughs at many lines that would not read as humor at all):



Seinfeld had a joke about the way people scroll through their cellphones like "a gay French king" — a joke with a very funny gesture, but maybe audiences are indicating that they're not going to accept that kind of foolery anymore: "I could imagine a time where people say, ‘Well, that’s offensive to suggest that a gay person moves their hands in a flourishing motion and you now need to apologize.’ I mean, there’s a creepy PC thing out there that really bothers me."

The other guy on the show — the Seth Meyers show — is New Yorker editor David Remnick, and he lets on that he recently rejected an idea for a New Yorker cover that played on the Vanity Fair’s Caitlyn Jenner cover. Seinfeld — like any ordinary person — wanted to know what the idea was, and Remnick wouldn't tell. And then Meyers follows on: No jokes about Caitlyn Jenner. Not yet, at least. Jenner somehow won entitlement to a circle of seriousness. Seinfeld doesn't like it, but he lets Remnick and Meyers off the hook, seemingly on the theory that eventually Jenner will be mockable.

ADDED: I'm trying to guess what the rejected New Yorker cover was. (I think Remnick called is a "misfire.") I'm thinking it was putting somebody else in the same costume and pose used for Jenner. Maybe Obama? Lindsey Graham? Or maybe flipping it and showing a woman — Hillary is the most obvious choice — wearing clothing that is as masculine as Jenner's satin bathing suit was feminine and striking a pose that is as masculine as Jenner's twisty cringe was feminine.

AND: My proposal is to show Hillary's people — desperate and furious — looking at the Jenner cover and trying to outfit and pose Hillary like this:



But get rid of the cigarette. Replace that with... oh, what can we replace that with?... A carrot!

"Do women and men have different brains?"

"Back when Lawrence H. Summers was president of Harvard and suggested that they did, the reaction was swift and merciless. Pundits branded him sexist. Faculty members deemed him a troglodyte. Alumni withheld donations. But when Bruce Jenner said much the same thing in an April interview with Diane Sawyer, he was lionized for his bravery, even for his progressivism. 'My brain is much more female than it is male,' he told her, explaining how he knew that he was transgender...."

From a NYT op-ed by Elinor Burkett called "What Makes a Woman?" Read the whole thing. Burkett makes a lot of points, though virtually nothing the actual organ, the brain. Burkett finds a neuroscientist to quote who asserts that that "the difference between male and female brains are caused by the 'drip, drip, drip' of the gendered environment." Focused on preserving the success of the women's movement, Burkett ends up here:

The struggle to move beyond [gender] stereotypes is far from over, and trans activists could be women’s natural allies moving forward. So long as humans produce X and Y chromosomes that lead to the development of penises and vaginas, almost all of us will be “assigned” genders at birth. But what we do with those genders — the roles we assign ourselves, and each other, based on them — is almost entirely mutable.

This NYT piece does have a comments section. By far, the most up-voted comment is: "I was disappointed that Caitlyn Jenner came out as a sexpot. A stereotypically male stereotypical vision of what a woman is."

Rick Santorum set a good example for conservatives.

In his reaction to the Bruce-to-Caitlin Jenner matter:

"If he says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman. My responsibility as a human being is to love and accept everybody. Not to criticize people for who they are. I can criticize, and I do, for what people do, for their behavior. But as far as for who they are, you have to respect everybody, and these are obviously complex issues for businesses, for society, and I think we have to look at it in a way that is compassionate and respectful of everybody."

Previously blogged on May 2d, here.

I've watched the trailer for the new Caitlin Jenner TV show, and I have 3 questions.

(Auto-playing video appears below, after the "more.")

1. "You start learning kinda all of the pressure women are under all the time about their appearance." That's your voice-over as you apply heavy makeup. Aren't you putting pressure on women to wear makeup? Whatever happened to the natural look? Well, one thing that happened is that the Kardashian family has been participating in pushing the extremely heavily made-up standard of feminine beauty. Why, if you purport to empathize with what women feel pressured to do are you becoming part of the pressure? How about some critique of excessive makeup? How about relieving the pressure?!

2. On finally getting a makeup professional — you say with a smile — "What a difference!" So because you have the time and money, you are able to get the heavy makeup look, and you are smirking at the viewer — presumably, a woman who is under all of that pressure, and really, by your lights, will probably never get it right. Are you pleased to be about to beat women at their game — a game you participate in defining — or do you actually empathize with women?

3. In the second half of the clip, you're talking and getting filmed while driving. You recently killed a woman by driving inattentively. Shouldn't you not film while driving?!

"How Caitlyn Jenner won Bruce Jenner’s Olympic medals?"

"Did Bruce Jenner or Caitlyn Jenner win those Olympic gold medals and appear on those TV shows? And if Caitlyn Jenner did, must history be rewritten? Is every source that refers to 'Bruce Jenner, record-breaking athlete' — or 'Bruce Jenner, guest star on "Silver Spoons"' — now in need of a correction?" Asks WaPo.

Wikipedia thought so. By Tuesday evening, the ubiquitous crowdsourced encyclopedia was redirecting its “Bruce Jenner” page to “Caitlyn Jenner” and using the pronoun “she.”

Example: “At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada, she won the gold medal in the decathlon, setting a world record of 8,616 points, beating her own world record set at the Olympic Trials,” the Caitlyn Jenner Wikipedia page read at 11:24 p.m. EST on June 1. This sentence was a bit jarring: “Jenner was also the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year in 1976.” Even the Wikipedia page for “Can’t Stop the Music,” a poorly received — and pretty darn obscure — film featuring the Village People that Jenner appeared in in 1980, lists “Caitlyn Jenner” as a star.

All I want to say is that I went right to YouTube and checked "Can’t Stop the Music" and I'm just pleased to get another opportunity to use my "men in shorts" tag:



"I told ya I had a surprise for ya." That's Bruce Jenner's line. I like the actress's line as a statement from Traditional America: "Wait a minute. I am not taking one more step until I know where I'm going."

ADDED: People do change their names. I remember having a lot of trouble adjusting to Jim McGuinn becoming Roger McGuinn. The rest of it is about the pronouns, and this is an occasion to reflect upon how odd it is that we make sex/gender so important that it's tightly interwoven in our everyday speech. Some feminists (and others) have tried to get us to switch to gender-neutral pronouns, and we've rejected that. There are consequences. I recommend not getting too twisted up about it. We like our gendered pronouns, and some people want to change their pronoun format. Sex/gender really are unfathomably important to human beings (and other animals). Or do you think you can fathom it and say something definitive? If not, marvel at the mystery and look for something valuable to do with the short life you have. Gender is like religion — extremely meaningful to people in ways that work without necessary alignment to what is true and usually not a good topic for argument, not unless you've built a relationship of trust with your interlocutor.

Everybody's talking about the "Call me Caitlyn" Vanity Fair cover.

Bruce Jenner, photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

"If he says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman."

"My responsibility as a human being is to love and accept everybody. Not to criticize people for who they are. I can criticize, and I do, for what people do, for their behavior. But as far as for who they are, you have to respect everybody, and these are obviously complex issues for businesses, for society, and I think we have to look at it in a way that is compassionate and respectful of everybody."

Said Rick Santorum.

"I’ve tried to explain it this way. God’s looking down, making little Bruce...."

"He says, 'O.K., what are we gonna do with this one? Make him a smart kid, very determined[']… and then, when he’s just finishing, he says, 'Let’s wait a second.' God looks down and chuckles a little bit and says, 'Hey, let’s give him the soul of a female.'"

Bruce Jenner, quoted in a New Yorker piece titled "Bruce Jenner and the Modern American Family."

We're being invited — through a new door — back into an old subject: Whether there is such a thing as a "the soul of a female." Or... actually, those are 2 old subjects: 1. Whether essentialist ideas about the feminine are true/false and useful/damaging, and 2. Whether we have some core being that might be called a "soul."

I don't even know what Bruce Jenner really thinks. I read his quote as a sort of myth he made up about himself, and he's only letting us know that it's something he uses in his presentation to others. I can't tell whether it's something he's found helpful in understanding himself, and I certainly don't believe that he literally believes that God creates us like that.

Just when the eyes trained on Bruce Jenner were turning gooey and oh-so-sympathetic...

... he's gone and killed a woman.

Eyewitnesses say Bruce rear ended the white car and that car went into oncoming traffic and was struck by the Hummer.... The woman driving the white car died.

At the link: photos of the impassive face of the athlete/reality TV star/transgender icon alongside the horrifically wrecked car.

Is this, too, grist for reality television?

Respect the reality show and be a cynic about Bruce Jenner.

In a NYT column with the sententious title "Bruce Jenner’s Courage," Nicholas Kristof writes:

Cynics might say that his television plans are more about self-promotion than leadership. All I know is that Jenner seems to be preparing for a bold public mission involving something intensely personal, in a way that should open minds and hearts.

Count me among the cynics. Jenner is deeply embedded in the immense and profitable business of making reality shows. You know, the show title "Keeping Up the Kardashians" is absolutely perfect. People actually do have trouble keeping up! The Kardashians are way out in front. I think the best strategy is to take a different route and not tag after them huffing and puffing. You look like a fool!

Here's a good interview with Kris Kardashian Jenner (on Alec Baldwin's podcast "Here's the Thing"). Listen to this and I think you will respect the enterprise of making a big hit reality show.



And by "respect" I do not mean want to watch. I mean: understand that this is a decathlon-level competition and you cannot keep up. I cannot keep up with whether Bruce Jenner is transgender, and I will not be roped into the publicity for a new reality show.