Is it really okay to use one woman's looks to put down the other woman standing right next to her? Because there are lots of other ways to play that humor-writing game:
Let me make a neutral, moderate, non-humorous observation. This is a very striking case of comparative size. It's sort of mind boggling. Which one is making the other look much smaller/bigger than we remember her? Or are they both doing it to the other.
And those are some strange never-ending boots Michelle is wearing. I think the women coordinated their outfits and had an idea of dousing themselves in glitter for the holidays.
Obama’s dress is from the brand’s spring 2019 collection. The boots are from spring 2018. Both are very, very expensive. Together, they represent the transformation of Balenciaga, a storied Paris-based fashion house....
Very, very expensive? I guess I have to look it up myself, but with the 2 "very"s, I'm expecting something like $50,000. Oh, they're only $4,000. Cheap! They're just some metallic stretch-fabric, right? It's flashy, but a less expensive material and easier to sew and fit than leather. And $4,000 is only slightly more than the highest-priced ticket to her show ($3,000).
Was the ensemble appropriate? Sure. Obama’s book tour is the equivalent of a literary rock concert....
I'm trying to think what kind of rock star would wear boots like that. I thought of KISS.
Whether the ensemble is flattering is beside the point. Taste is subjective, and what might be one person’s glamazon coup is another’s ostentatious faux pas....
And that's how you say something without saying it and really, really say it. I used 2 "really"s so you'll feel what I'm saying.
Remember when we talked about Hillary's shoes? That was in April 2017:
Was she like an elfin wallflower in an eggplant-colored sequined dress?
ADDED: I thought Tom and Lorenzo (my favorite fashion bloggers) would track Robin Givhan and say Michelle Obama can do anything she wants, but I was wrong:
[T]he boots are fierce.... But that horrible choir robe is quite frankly one of the worst things she has ever worn. The color is harsh and unflattering, the satin is unforgiving, and the shape and design of it completely distorts her body... Just look at her body language. Any time a non-pregnant woman spends that much time and energy touching and covering her mid-section, it’s a dead giveaway that she’s not feeling comfortable in her garment....
No one should care what these two queens think about wedding gowns, but this style has always been our favorite. It never ages badly. It will always look chic in pictures. From a personal-statement standpoint, we think this is very much of a piece with Meghan’s style, which has shown itself, post-engagement, to be minimalist and cleanly chic in tone. She’s not a gal who goes for a lot of foofaraw....
I wish everyone well.
I was up on my own naturally at 4 a.m., so I watched enough of the show to experience all sorts of feelings — squishy, tender, lofty, queasy... and I don't want to be awful... but Harry kept touching and rubbing his face and I just couldn't help thinking about Harry's mother and what I know about the thoughts that rushed through her head on that day that the world watched her bogus "fairytale" wedding.
So I'll stop here and say good luck to all the newlyweds of this world. I myself got married on a May 19th (45 years ago, in a marriage that lasted 14 years). You can watch all sorts of couples get married — people congregate to witness weddings — but you can't know what the marrying minds are thinking. Is it wrong to look at the outward signs that there is a big disconnect between the spoken words and real person who is enduring the theatrical ritual?
"... Anna Wintour has sculpted her hair into a bishop’s hat with mousse, a cape made of Martin Luther’s skin, Benedict is here in a modest swimsuit. I want Miley to stick out her tongue and there’s a wafer on it. I want the Royal Baby to roll down the red carpet completely soaked with holy water. But so far it’s just like a rose, some lace, I’m carrying a book!... Jared Leto has dressed as Jesus. We hate him for doing it, but we would also hate him if he hadn’t! Imagine how gross it would feel to be healed by Jared Leto/Walk on the water and let it bathe you Jared Leto/Ya got holes in your feet because you were walking around barefoot in a parking lot Jared Leto... Bella Hadid looks like she’s going up to heaven to whip God’s horse...."
Everyone was all Hosanna-Heysanna over this look on social media last night, lauding Gucci Jesus for really sticking with the theme of the night. That’s great and all, but he pretty much dresses like this all the time, so it came off slightly less impressive to us.
Lots of pictures of Leto. And comments. E.g., "Isn't that the blouse that Jane Fonda wore in 9 to 5?"
"We don’t know that we honestly expected otherwise but we suppose in retrospect we assumed some sort of vaguely ironic, winking, American Idol-esque take. JCS is a beloved album, film and show, but theatrically, dramatically and at times even musically, it can get downright goofy. In addition, it’s tied very closely to a post-hippy, pre-metal sound and aesthetic that doesn’t always update well. Plus there’s the treatment of the subject matter, which can be seen as unquestioningly reverent or downright blasphemous, depending on your point of view. And let’s face it; some of those songs are nearly impossible to sing. But JCS Live 'solved' pretty much all of those problems by … simply ignoring them, it would seem... As a production it 'solved' the format problems so many previous musical theater television productions had by simply… putting on a show, in front of an audience, with an orchestra, some dancers, and some great singers with theatrical voices all moving around in a finite and limited space (also known as a stage). No one tried to over-think this one and that was entirely to the production’s benefit. Jesus Christ Superstar Live was the very best of the live network musicals, mainly because it didn’t try to be anything other than what it always was – goofiness and all."
[I]t’s admirable Judy Drag, [but] it’s Judy circa 1962 drag; not Judy at the end of her life. To put it bluntly, she was a physical wreck of a person in her last months; devastated and depleted by a lifetime of abuse and addiction, looking decades older than her 47 years... This is just a promo shot and we have no doubt they’ll rough her up for the final scenes of the film, but we’re not quite as impressed as others seem to be....
Here's a picture of Judy in the relevant time period.
"Nancy Pelosi? I'm dying. I just want to say thank you to her, I want to hug her, I wanna be like, 'Kick their ass.' [She] is spear-heading the way through," Morgan McMichaels, the drag persona of Thomas White, said.
"For 30 years, she's been a champion for LGBT rights," RuPaul added, and Pelosi raised a fist to reveal a rainbow bracelet on her wrist. Pelosi also got a customary "Halleloo!" greeting from Shangela.
But the queen most enamored with her appearance was Trixie Mattel, who visibly teared up while the politician was speaking. "Every time you get into drag, you make a political statement," Trixie explained in her confessional segment. "We live in a world where a high power politician will walk in the workroom, and it makes me feel hopeful."
"The workroom" = a set on the show.
Pelosi, for her part, told The Hollywood Reporter that she admires queens like Trixie deeply. She even suggested that politicians could learn a thing or two from Ru's girls: "Authenticity. Taking pride in who you are. Knowing your power—that’s what I talk about on my brief segment on the show."
IN THE COMMENTS: Everyone jumps on that word "authenticity." "I mean, I'm all for people doing what they want -- except for misusing words like "authenticity'" (fivewheels); "Authenticity? A man dressed as an over-the-top woman is authentic?" (Annie C); and the inevitable "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" (Ignorance is Bliss). Yeah? Well, when a person putting on a show is in costume and makeup, you could say he's an authentic showperson. And, anyway, what makes you think you're so authentic?
chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries
people rubbing elbows but never touching eyes
taking off their masks revealing still another guise
genuine imitation life
people buying happiness and manufactured fun
everybody doing everybody done
people count on people who can only count to one
genuine imitation life
Covered by Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons — listen here.
"And yet, if you heard Miss Frances manic, nervous giggle as the endorphins clearly kicked in… A bee-skirt rug dress seems to make perfect sense, all things considered."
The young guy they tear into is Dylan Jones, and let's see what's at that link:
Shame is largely a thing of the past and homophobia is, like, SO 2008.... Things still aren’t perfect. Of course, discrimination - particularly transphobia - is still rife in many schools.... But it’s way better than it used to be.... these kids have started to hit their late teens and early twenties, a sort of super-race has emerged, blinking, into 2018’s Instagram-hued social and professional stratosphere....
There seems to be an attitude among older generations of LGBTQ people, particularly older gay men, that their younger counterparts are “losing sight of the issues.”.... It must be hard to swallow, after going through such struggles, to see young, chatty, confident gay men swanning about like they own the place....
According to these self-appointed sanctioners, we’re allowed to fight for our rights, but we’re not allowed to enjoy them once we’ve got them. Instead of cracking open a Strongbow Dark Fruit and having a dance to Little Mix, we’ve got to sit back down, and somberly start drawing up plans for the next march.
All this raises the question – SHOULD young LGBTQ people care about their history? They’re certainly not obliged to. Why should they? This is just their lives. They’re existing as they should always have been allowed to exist – happily and freely. They shouldn’t be made to feel guilty, or even grateful for that....
I could say more, but I'll just say there's a big difference between:
1. Knowing history, venerating the heroes of the past, keeping vigilant about preserving liberty, and...
2. Seeing life in terms of endless grievances and yourself as a member of an identity group that must stay coalesced and ready for action.
ADDED: This controversy made me think about how we Baby Boomers grew up in the 1950s world that our parents generation suffered to create. We knew, theoretically, superficially, about the Depression and World War II, but we thought 1950s suburban American life was hollow and bland, and we just had to do something completely different.
I'm watching this at 6 in the morning not because I'm thinking of Minnesota — à propos of the Super Bowl in Minnesota tomorrow — but because the line "you wear it well" came up in the comments on Tom & Lorenzo's discussion of "Friday Leftovers for the Week of January 28th, 2018": "As for SJP - yea, love it. I feel like she's worn this before, but she wears it well." SJP — Sarah Jessica Parker — is dressed like this.
Speaking of fashion, I love the fashion in that video. Rod seems to be really enjoying his yellow satin pants — to the point of laugh-out-loud comedy. And who has ever done nipples as satirically as Rod in 1975?
I don't know if I'd be choosing this topic for Monday morning if I hadn't essentially promised to write it. Why didn't I write it last night? I fell asleep. I fell asleep, and then I woke up at 2 a.m. and watched the rest of it, including the appearance of Kirk Douglas, who is 101 years old. How did he stay up? Yes, it's Pacific Time, 2 hours earlier, but still... he's 101!
Anyway, quick impressions:
1. Did all the women wear black? The President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (which gives out the awards) appeared on stage in a voluminous, flaming red gown, supposedly because in "her Indian culture, it’s customary to wear a festive color during a celebration." Does that amount to a disagreement with the women in black? Were they resisting the usual festivity of the occasion? Do we see some implicit ethnic critique, that the white women of Hollywood were not sensitive to the meaning of color in other cultures? I look up the meaning of wearing black in India:
Black in India has connotations with lack of desirability, evil, negativity, and inertia. It represents anger and darkness and is associated with the absence of energy, barrenness, and death. Black is used as a representation of evil and is often used to ward off evil.
2. What impression did it make, to see all that black? On the red carpet, the black made the crowd look much less glamorous. There was much less male/female differentiation, much less of a sense that the crowd was popping with especially beautiful people. In the long shots, it looked like a crowd at a boring cocktail party of ordinary-looking people. Harvey Weinstein wasn't there, but half the people in the crowd seemed not much better looking than him. There's a scruffiness to the men's "head styling," and with everyone dressed alike, the men seemed really nondescript. Inside the theater, in the long shots, the crowd looked more like a sea of white faces than usual. Even though great efforts were made to get close-ups of the black stars at the tables, the long view looked overwhelmingly white. Just the predictable effect of contrast. You'd think movie people would have better sensitivity to how component parts appear in long shots. This all-black design concept highlighted white people.
3. How did the men dress? Many of them wore not only black suits but black shirts and black ties. It looked sharp, albeit insectoid.
4. How did the men behave? I jumped over most of the men's speeches, but I think they were following a strategy of keeping it low key and throwing attention over to women whenever possible. I'd have to see a transcript to know if any of them did that old-fashioned thanking of his wife for putting up with him. I see in the news this morning that Ewan McGregor thanked his estranged wife: "I want to take a moment to thank Ev, who always stood beside me for 22 years and my four children, I love you." And then — because we need more love in this world — he also thanked his girlfriend.
5. I didn't hear any Trump-bashing. Aziz Ansari said: "I genuinely didn't think I would win because all the websites said I was going to lose." And: "I'm glad we won this one because it would have really sucked to lose two of these in a row." Wasn't that a shot at Hillary?
6. Oprah won the Cecil B. DeMille Award and gave a speech that has people saying she should run for President? Don't Trump haters realize that pushing Oprah as a presidential candidate undercuts one of the main arguments about Trump — that he didn't work his way up within politics but had the arrogance to think he could jump in and start at the top? Anyway, here's the transcript of Oprah's remarks. See if you think there's anything in there that's special. She had a tough task balancing her big moment with the need to recognize other people and to make her recognition of others about women in general (rather than black women or black people). It's a pretty gauzy text, but she sold it well:
In my career, what I’ve always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave. To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and how we overcome. And I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights. So I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say “me too” again.
7. Here's the video of the Oprah speech. Notice the NBC logo — NBC, which played an ignominious role in this past year's sexual harassment journalism:
8. I got the video from the fashion writers Tom and Lorenzo, who say: "Yes, we could talk about how amazing she looks; how her gown is KILLA and the fit is insane; how her hair looks amazing and her makeup is beat to the gods. It doesn’t matter. While these two queens love a diva who turns it out, we love even more when a diva comes into her full power and uses that power to affect others. Nothing but respect for our president."
9. In the comments to this post, rehajm says:
I think she makes a big mistake about the media. They aren't entitled to their own truth. Their own truth is weasel words for lies. She sure got all those powerful women in the room riled up. I wonder if they now feel powerful enough to utilize the justice system, the one with a presumption of innocence, or if they expect to keep using the new one that's ripe for abuse.
Here's the relevant text from the transcript:
I’d like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, because we all know the press is under siege these days. But we also know that it is the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice... to tyrants and victims and secrets and lies.
I was going to say that's a blatant display of a lack of dedication to the absolute truth — puffery and stroking. It was spoken word, so how it feels at the time is most important, but you can see in the text that she said "the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth," not "its insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth." She never credited the press with having that insatiable dedication. She only held up dedication to truth as an abstract value.
I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this: What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.
This is the part that bothered rehajm. Interesting. Above, I was stressing the difference between putting "the" or "its" in front of truth, and now the issue is putting "your" in front of "truth."
How can there be "your truth" and also "absolute truth"? One way to reconcile the 2 ideas is to say that "your" refers not to the press, but to the women who tell their stories and who are, as individual human beings, entitled to their subjective point of view. The press is separate, and it must "navigate these complicated times."
The press is under siege — a land-based military metaphor — and out on the Ocean of Complication. It should be dedicated to the absolute truth, and part of the truth is the way women experience their own lives and tell their stories. You can give an absolutely true report of the story that Ms. X told, even if Ms. X is only telling her own story, and that story is not the "absolute truth," but an element of a proper news report that will also contain other elements.
The next lines in Oprah's speech suggest that my interpretation of "your truth" is pretty good:
And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell, and this year, we became the story.
Ah! How she slipped from TRUTH!!! to stories...
10. "And here are the all-male nominees," said Natalie Portman, before reading the names of the nominees for best director. (Guillermo del Toro won for "The Shape of Water.") That line resonated when, shortly afterward, the award for Best Musical/Comedy Film went to "Lady Bird,"which was directed by a woman, Greta Gerwig.
12. That reminds me. "The Post" got nothing, which means that Meryl Streep did not win for Actress in a Drama, so who won? Frances McDormand! She wore the best dress. It was the most anti-fashion dress I've ever seen. Not just black, but high neckline, long sleeves, long full skirt, and cut way large. It was the absence of a dress, even more so than nakedness. [ADDED: Tom and Lorenzo on McDormand's dress: "We’re not going to rip apart her nun’s habit. It’s fine. It’s who she is.... Granted, we think she could’ve worn a comfy pantsuit and come off a little more chic in the process, but whatevs."]
13. And I can't believe they didn't give Best Actor in a Drama to the guy in "Get Out." Who'd they give it too? A white man, Gary Oldman, who played the white man, Winston Churchill. Oh, no. Wait. "Get Out" got classified as a comedy. The actor, Daniel Kaluuya lost to James Franco. And I see "Get Out fans 'outraged' by Golden Globes snub: 'We're in the sunken place.'" You know what that means, the "sunken place"? (SPOILER: It means your body has been taken over by a white person, and you are just going along for the ride, able to see where your body is going, but only at a distance, and unable to speak or control your own motions, which aren't really yours anymore, but that monstrous white person's.)
14. Didn't Gary Oldman get on some political shit list a few years ago? Oh, yes, here: "Gary Oldman can't stop apologizing for that Playboy interview he did where he kept denouncing political correctness." Those were simpler times. Oldman had said: "I just think political correctness is crap. That’s what I think about it. I think it’s like, take a fucking joke. Get over it.... We all hide and try to be so politically correct. That’s what gets me. It’s just the sheer hypocrisy of everyone, that we all stand on this thing going, 'Isn’t that shocking?'"
"In the movie, we see what happens when Gwyneth Paltrow's character comes home early from work one day to find her boyfriend cheating on her. We also see the alternative, where she is delayed on her way home and doesn't catch him. The most exciting part of the movie? In the timeline where she catches her cheating boyfriend, she ends up with the world's most awesome haircut...."
Say Tom and Lorenzo, and the top-rated comment says: "This is what I want to wear when I scatter cat food out for the raccoons in the attic of my dilapidated Hamptons estate."
Whether you get the "Grey Gardens" references or not, you've got to click through to see one of the craziest outfits ever.
"... but will have this weird unnerving seriousness about him the entire time, so you feel slightly uncomfortable even though you can't pinpoint anything wrong he's doing. Am I projecting too much? Nice coat, dude gives me heebie-jeebies."
Excellent comment-writing (at a Tom & Lorenzo post about how Jared Leto dressed himself for a Vanity Fair party).
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