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  • Album of the Year and the Beyoncé Was “Snubbed” Narrative

    Album of the Year and the Beyoncé Was “Snubbed” Narrative

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    It’s an awards show that, like so many others, never quite gets it right. And can never possibly please everyone. Nonetheless, the “objective” viewpoint regarding the 2023 Grammy Awards was that one, Beyoncé Knowles, ought to win Album of the Year for Renaissance. A record that plundered and pillaged from the formerly underground, Black gay male-dominated 90s-era house scene with as much delight as Madonna’s “Vogue” (and yes, Beyoncé made that connection by offering a “Vogue”-infused “Queens Remix” of “Break My Soul”). The difference between Madonna doing it and Beyoncé doing it is that, obviously, the latter is Black, so she has a “right” to plunder said loot. And it seems the world can forgive her of anything, including her own forgiveness of Jay-Z cheating on her. Because, after all, it brought rapt listeners Lemonade. Yet another album that the Grammys snubbed at the 2017 awards when they opted to give the Album of the Year vote to Adele for 25.

    Unlike fellow Briton Harry Styles, however, Adele couldn’t seem to take the award in good conscience, arriving onstage to make her guilt over winning known as she declared, “I can’t possibly accept this award [yet of course she then did], and I’m very humbled and very grateful and gracious, but my life is Beyoncé, and the album to me, the Lemonade album, Beyoncé, was so monumental, and so well thought-out. And so beautiful and soul-baring and we all got to see another side of you that you don’t always let us see, and we appreciate that. And all us artists adore you. You are our light. And the way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my Black friends feel, is empowering, and you make them stand up for themselves. And I love you. I always have. And I always will. I appreciate it.” The Recording Academy, on the other hand, doesn’t appreciate it quite as much, notorious for choosing to laud white boy records or albums that are otherwise totally unknown to the public at large (e.g., Jon Batiste winning Album of the Year at the 2022 edition of the awards show).

    They opted for the white boy route this year. And when Styles took the stage, it was clear many wanted him to pull some kind of Cady Heron at the prom moment where he might break the Grammy into pieces to give to all the other nominees—or maybe just in half to bequeath the other part to Beyoncé. But no, Styles, for all the grand displays of self-effacement, was not of the belief, like Adele, that Beyoncé deserved it more than he did—or should even be mentioned at all in the speech. Instead, he felt obliged to say, “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often.” Um, what does that even mean? Success doesn’t come rather easily very often (read: all the time) to cisgender (regardless of queerbaiting tendencies) white males? ‘Cause that’s a goddamn lie, and really not something to conclude in front of an audience full of venomous Beyoncé lovers. Particularly as Beyoncé helped to carve out a genre (for girl group is to boy band as breakout solo career is to being the most standout vocalist in one of those entities) that Styles’ generation would later capitalize on through post-empire music competition “reality” shows like The X Factor, where One Direction was summarily farted out of Simon Cowell’s ass. But, as it is now said, begat of an asshole one day, Grammy Award winner the next.

    Plus, “at least” the Recording Academy saw fit to throw Beyoncé a bone by “allowing” her to secure the title of most Grammy wins ever by any artist as a result of awarding her in the categories of Best Dance/Electronic Music Album, Best Dance/Electronic Recording, Best Traditional R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. As for the “controversy” of “Mrs. Carter” not finagling Album of the Year, the thing is, Harry’s House says just as little about the current collective experience as Renaissance (which prefers to rely on musical tropes of the past because of pop culture’s permanent state of hauntology), on which “Queen” Bey also deigns to talk about how everyone should quit their job as she proceeds to siphon unreasonable amounts of cash from them so that they might better demonstrate the extent of their “devotion.” Perhaps being a “Church Girl,” she can only look at dynamics in this way: as either being the worshipper or the worshipped. Revealing herself to be the former for only one “man,” Beyoncé stated in her acceptance speech, “I wanna thank God for protecting me. Thank you, God.”

    First of all, vomit. And second of all, how fucking narcissistic to believe that even if there was a god, he gives more of a shit about protecting celebrities than “normals” (granted, that is what evidence appears to prove). But such is the ego of someone at that level in the entertainment industry. What’s more, Beyoncé as a more calculated person than anyone has ever accused Taylor Swift of being is manifest in acceptance speeches past during which she’s stuck to the same script about thanking god and her “beautiful” husband (is she looking at the same man?).

    So the real upset, if we’re truly talking “objectivity” as opposed to overwrought deification, was that the Recording Academy still couldn’t bring itself to select an album that’s actually reflective of the present climate, which, in this year’s case, would have been either Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers or Bad Bunny’s Un verano sin ti. But because something about Beyoncé elicits a more crack-licking response, compounded by a white male, um, beating her, we have this level of outrage on the same day a massive earthquake has wiped out thousands in the Turkey-Syria vicinity. But no, here in the United States, Beyoncé’s “loss” is far more upsetting that the loss of life of literally thousands of people. But they’re just ordinaries and ISIS members, so who cares, right?

    Back in 2017, when this happened with Lemonade, Adele was, as mentioned before, the most vocal advocate for her idol. Not just in her speech, but even afterward when she tried to vaguely give the benefit of the doubt re: the Recording Academy’s out-of-touch decision-making with the placation, “I just said to [Beyoncé], like, the way that the Grammys works, and the people who control it at the very, very top—they don’t know what a visual album is. They don’t want to support the way that she’s moving things forward with her releases and the things that she’s talking about.” This year, there was no “visual album” (not yet, anyway) to “confuse” the stodgy members of the institution. And Beyoncé was talking about less “controversial” subjects than on Lemonade. But those “capitulations” were apparently still not compelling enough to make them choose her.

    The truth is, though, it was “enough” on the Recording Academy’s part to give her the required number of award wins that would bestow her with the record for having the most Grammys. By not ceding Album of the Year, there is at least some acknowledgment of the fact that Beyoncé is, if one wants to be candid, overblown in many ways. And no one seems to want to address that the “empire” she has become was (and remains) built on the backs of many. It takes a literal village to make “Beyoncé” happen, including her songs (see: what Linda Perry said). Most seem to discount that in failing to remember that even the “gods” are capable of frailty—instead holding her up as some beacon of perfection that no human can actually embody—it creates an environment of contempt and hostility among “the fans” (a.k.a. blind worshippers) and those they deem responsible for their god’s “failing” when everything doesn’t automatically go Bey’s way.

    To further quote Adele in 2017, “My view is, like, ‘What the fuck does she have to do to win Album of the Year?’ The Grammys are very traditional, but I just thought this year would be the year that they would kind of go with the tide.” In going against it yet again, however, the Recording Academy might unwittingly be onto something…if only they hadn’t counteracted the curveball with Harry’s House as their pick. Hopefully, for Taylor’s sake at the 2024 Grammys—as she’ll surely be nominated many times next year for Midnights—Bey won’t release any new qualifying material that results in yet another Kanye-at-the-2009-VMAs moment. An immortal instant that many were drawing comparisons to when certain audience members at the Crypto.com Arena (which will always be the Staples Center) booed Styles as he accepted the award for Album of the Year. So if nothing else, it can be confirmed that Bey has definitely won the award for triggering white guilt every time they “take” one away from her.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • If Only Britney Spears’ Sons Were As Protective and Supportive As Pamela Anderson’s

    If Only Britney Spears’ Sons Were As Protective and Supportive As Pamela Anderson’s

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    It hasn’t taken many people long to notice an unfortunate comparison between how Pamela Anderson’s two sons treat their mother versus Britney Spears’ (with Spears herself even making the connection)—poisoned against their matriarch from an early age, thanks to spending most of their time with Kevin “Meat Pole” Federline. That Anderson’s body was and is the source of giving so many men (and women) orgasms around the world might make less evolved blokes related to her uncomfortable, and yet, it was her oldest son, Brandon Lee, who was determined to make a documentary that would “set the record straight” about his mother while candidly telling the story of their family, to boot. Called Pamela, A Love Story, the movie is co-produced by Lee and directed by Ryan White, with the former also appearing in it to weigh in on his upbringing and the perception surrounding his mother. Not to mention his younger brother, Dylan “Dilly” Lee, who is slightly more reserved in his discussions, but nonetheless supportive.

    The comparisons made to how Anderson and Spears were similarly (mal)treated by the media and the public at large also became a point of interest in the wake of the documentary’s release (and, let’s be real, it was far better than anything Framing Britney Spears could hope to achieve—if for no other reason than the subject was actually a willing participant). Not that it should come as any surprise that people (read: men) like to denigrate attractive blonde women for their viewing pleasure. And, speaking of viewing pleasure, the infamous Pam and Tommy sex tape is of course commented on in Pamela, A Love Story, with Anderson stating that, at this juncture, she’s made peace with the violation—even though it felt like another rape. Just as the release of an entire series (Pam & Tommy) about it did. But, as it’s been made evident over and over again, Anderson holds no grudges against anyone. Much to Brandon’s dismay…

    For it was on the red carpet during the premiere of the movie that Brandon was asked, “Do you feel this sense of responsibility to make sure, especially as a son—we’re protective of our moms—to make sure that she gets her due? And why is that so important to you?” He replied, “Well, I think it’s important for a lot of reasons, but you know, when I go back and I even look at, you know, past deals or residual checks that come in, I mean, people would be shocked to find out how people really took advantage of her, and took advantage of a young girl making a bad deal on a big show, and she was the biggest star in the world at the time and I think a lot of people made a lot of money off that and I think, you know, everybody’s gonna have to have their day where, you know, we come knockin’ and I—no, you know, I think so because, you know, for instance, when she makes, I don’t know, four thousand dollars a year off Baywatch, that’s a crime.” The ardency with which he says this is in direct opposition to the blasé attitude of Spears’ own little terrors, who easily turned against her when she was finally home free—literally. Released from the conservatorship and granted the ability to live how she wanted.

    This included many nude photos and videos that spoke psychologically to her newfound sense of freedom. Photos and videos that her sons were “embarrassed” by. And if that’s that case, Brandon and Dylan have far more to be “embarrassed” about. But they’re not. They’re accepting and embracing of their mother’s talent (and it is a talent to be able to strip and pose the way Anderson does, not to mention her comedic brilliance in the shows and movies she’s appeared in). Perhaps because they’re “older” (twenty-six and twenty-five, respectively), they have a better understanding of their mother’s “lifestyle.” But no, that’s not really it. The fact is, they were raised by Anderson, nurtured by her. And it was obvious that she consistently put them above everything else; her first priority was always aimed at being a good mother. That might not necessarily come in the cookie-cutter package the more conservative-minded would like to see, but Anderson’s love was undeniably there throughout their childhood.

    Indeed, Anderson was committed and protective enough of her sons to refuse tolerating Tommy Lee’s physical violence in early 1998, after he struck her while she was holding Dylan, then just several weeks old (born on December 29, 1997, the “incident” occurred in February of 1998). Of his domestic abuse charge, he said in an interview, “Tommy comes third now, instead of first. I don’t know how to deal with that.” Get the fuck outta here with that narcissistic bullshit of an excuse. And while other women might have given Lee a “second chance” after that—even Pamela, had she not just become a mother—she decided to bounce (Baywatch-style). For the Mama Bear instinct took hold and she realized it was time to leave, not wanting to stick around and find out if he might be capable of such effrontery again.

    And no, she didn’t hold a grudge against Lee either. As Brandon confirmed at the aforementioned premiere, “She doesn’t hold a grudge against anybody… and that’s wonderful, but I would love to see her get what’s right.” This in reference to her being fucked over on royalties for Baywatch… and the sex tape, for that matter. Which she never received a penny for. Yet from Dylan’s perspective, it’s what really proved her purity, her true commitment to motherhood over the “benefits” of fame as he noted in the documentary, “I think it would’ve been a different story if she did cash in on the tape. It just shows you, right? That thing guaranteed made people millions of dollars and she was like, ‘No.’ She one hundred percent cared about her family being okay and me being okay. Never cared about money.” Yet, as Brandon stated, “If it’s your work and it’s your face and it’s your image, you deserve something.” The same could be said for Spears, whose image was effectively pimped out by her own family for over a decade. Luckily, Spears, in contrast to Anderson, knows how to hold a grudge. And definitely should—even if it’s against her own spawns, Jayden and Sean. The ones who finally prompted her to lash out at their grotesque comportment (including berating her for her “behavior” on Instagram) with the sarcastically-tinged statement, “I understand your need to live with your father as I had to play the perfect role for fifteen years for absolutely nothing.”

    This referring to how everything she did—going along with the conservatorship and playing the part of the “good girl” by not trying harder to break out of it—was so her father wouldn’t take visiting access to her kids away from her. Visiting access that Federline ultimately posted about when he put up secretly-taped videos filmed by Jayden and Sean that showed Spears yelling at them. A.k.a. instructing them to wear lotion and put shoes on in public (yes, that’s rich coming from Spears, queen of walking barefoot at the gas station).

    Before the fallout was further cemented by such increasing betrayals that revealed her sons had been firmly brainwashed by Team Federline/Team Conservatorship, Spears had once posted a quote on her illustrious Instagram account that went, “There is nothing stronger than the love between a mother and son.” A little cringe-y and Oedipal, but hey, her heart was in the right place. And maybe that strength will never truly break Brit’s bond with the sons she stayed quiet for throughout the hellish ordeal of her imprisonment. The fierceness of the maternal instinct is, after all, difficult to sever. And yet, it’s more than slightly demeaning when a woman, who loves her children with such ferocity, is accused of and painted as being a bad mother.

    A scene in Pamela, A Love Story speaks to this issue when archival footage is shown of Anderson getting pepper sprayed outside of an L.A. club as a paparazzo tries to shame her with the question, “Where is your baby? Where is your baby?” “With my mother,” she hisses back. “You fuckin’ asshole!” This idea that a woman can’t “have her cake and eat it too” by going out and having fun because she’s a mother is deeply embedded in the warped thinking of our patriarchal society. Spears was similarly lambasted for her partying “antics” in the 00s (well-documented thanks to the field day that tabloids had with portraying her as an unfit mother), still young and eager to sow some wild oats despite having already birthed two children. Yet, because of this, she was expected to stay home, fold her hands and sit quietly while Federline got the male perk of going out freely without any judgment.

    At a certain moment in Pamela, A Love Story, Brandon remarks of his mother, “She’s never worried about if she’s okay. She always made sure everyone else is okay.” The same was true of Spears, even after she was so egregiously betrayed by everyone in her family—sons included. The ones who so blatantly show no support for her and all she’s been through (they couldn’t even be bothered to make an appearance at her wedding to Sam Asghari). Regardless of the disloyalty, it’s unlikely that she’s capable of ever genuinely turning her back on Jayden and Sean. Enduring the trauma of watching them grow further and further apart from her has prompted such statements on her Instagram as, “I’ve cried oceans for my boys and I’m not lying!!!!” In addition to her declaration of their lack of affinity with her, “There’s being rude then there’s being HATEFUL. They would visit me, walk in the door, go straight to their room and lock the door!!! The MONITOR would tell me that he just likes to be in his room. I’m like why come visit me if they don’t even visit me !!!” On the plus side, after ceasing to “pretend” they actually cared enough to come visit, Spears clapped back, “It’s been kinda nice not having to ask about which day the boys are coming this week and making me wait two or three days for a reply!!!”

    What’s more, in one of the above-referenced videos posted by Federline, Spears is shown announcing to her sons, “You all need to start treating me like a woman with worth. I am a woman, okay? Be nice to me. Do you understand?” But, clearly, they don’t. So perhaps they could use some instruction from Pamela Anderson’s sons on how to do that.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Celluloid Immortality Doesn’t Make A Slow Career Death Any Less Painful: Babylon

    Celluloid Immortality Doesn’t Make A Slow Career Death Any Less Painful: Babylon

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    There is Old Hollywood and then there is Germinal Hollywood (“Silent Era” Hollywood, if you prefer). The latter has been less a fascination in the public eye because it appears, on the surface, not to have as much “glamor” attached to it. But oh, how the silent film stars of the day were shellacked. Coated in a veneer of glitz that belied what was going on behind the scenes. Such debauchery and excess that could only occur at the beginning of the “film colony.” Before the rest of the world infiltrated it with its opinions and judgments, all so infused with “morality.” Before the Hays Code and sound in pictures came along to decimate the germinal era.

    Writer-director Damien Chazelle’s preoccupation with “the Hollywood machine” was made evident with his sixth film, La La Land. A movie that, lest anyone forget, initially received all the much-deserved praise it got before a backlash suddenly arose about it exemplifying the #OscarsSoWhite phenomenon—and then came the controversial false announcement that it had won Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards (it was actually Moonlight, so way to fuck shit up for a Black triumph again). But despite all that, La La Land remains a timeless story about the “clawing your way to fame in Hollywood” narrative. However, it appears Chazelle might have thought Emma Stone too precious in that role (as Mia Dolan) and wanted to show an even more realistic, darker side of Hollywood. As Kenneth Anger wanted to with his notorious book, Hollywood Babylon, which, yes, speaks of the same scandalous lifestyles Chazelle is acknowledging in his latest underrated work, Babylon (what else would it be called?).

    With this particular film (coming in at a sprawling three hours), Chazelle is adamant about immediately acquainting the viewer with just how debauched Hollywood in its infancy really was. We’re talking shit that makes the story of Harvey Weinstein look totally innocent. This is why Chazelle is certain to make reference to the 1921 Fatty Arbuckle scandal in the initial twentyish minutes of the movie, with a fat man being “entertained” (read: pissed on) by a naked actress who has just secured her first part in a movie. When the Fatty Arbuckle-esque actor, named Wilbur (E.E. Bell), has to inform Bob Levine (Flea—yes, Flea) of Jane Thornton’s (Phoebe Tonkin) passed-out, brutalized state (Virginia Rappe didn’t end up quite so fortunate, dying instead), Bob calls on Don Wallach’s (Jeff Garlin) all-around servant/jack-of-all-trades, Manuel Torres (Diego Calva). Having crossed the border with his family at twelve, it’s immediately made clear that Manuel is enamored of the movies, of what they “mean.” Never mind the sordid lives of the people who make them. The people who are deified by the masses, therefore can only disappoint in the end when the reality of their personal lives comes to light. As it always does, even back then… Thanks to gossip columnists like Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), a Louella Parsons type who skulks around every party and event stoically in search of some morsel to print.

    And no one would love to be written about more than the as-of-yet unknown Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), who crashes the Don Wallach industry party the viewer is invited to observe as Babylon launches us into a world of depravity and devil-may-care antics. After all, this was a time when no threat of being filmed or photographed by some interloper was even a thought on anyone’s radar. That would come much, much later—with the full-tilt castration of any members of the “film colony.” But in 1926, where Chazelle sets the stage at the end of the silent film era, it was all free-wheeling and rabble-rousing. Which is why Nellie has no qualms about literally crashing the party as the car she’s likely stolen hits a statue when she rolls up to Wallach’s. While the gatekeeper of the house tells her she’s not on the list, Manuel plays along with her charade (which includes telling the guard she’s real-life silent film star Billie Dove) by calling out, “Nellie LaRoy? They’re waiting for you.” With that, Manuel effectively gives her the keys to the Hollywood kingdom, for it turns out she’ll be given the small part that was reserved for Jane Thornton in Maid’s Off now that she’s been decimated by Wilbur. Before this moment, however, she and Manuel will bond over a few piles of cocaine (mostly consumed by Nellie) as he opens up to her about “wanting to be part of something bigger.” Part of “something that lasts, that means something.”

    Indeed, Babylon is all about the chase for immortality that only the medium of film (and its various offshoots at this point) can provide. Unlike the once revered medium of literature, someone is actually brought “to life” every time one of their movies is played decades or (now) centuries later. That’s what someone like Nellie, channeling her Pearl-esque obsession with getting famous (and Pearl, too, existed around the same timeframe Babylon touts), wants more than anything. The same is true for an already-established star like Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), whose personal life is modeled after Douglas Fairbanks (married three times), while his aesthetic and career are modeled more after John Gilbert’s (married four times). For it was the latter who adhered to the advice of the day re: transitioning from silents to “talkies”: use proper stage diction. This pronounced “eloquence” on Gilbert’s part is what often led audiences to laugh openly at his movies with sound. A scene recreated in Babylon when Conrad sneaks into a theater to see the audience’s reaction to his new feature. In 1929’s Redemption, Gilbert has a line that goes: “I’m going to kill myself to let the whole world know what it has lost.” It seems Conrad is ultimately of this belief by the conclusion of Babylon.

    But before that, we witness the last days of Babylon (the OG way to phrase “the last days of disco”) as the elephant we’re very bluntly introduced to in the first few minutes comes out to distract the partygoers from Jane’s body being carried out. Not that they would really need an elephant to distract them, for it all looks like the stuff of Eyes Wide Shut: everyone fucking everyone in any given square inch of the room. Manuel is instructed to take Jack home, enduring his various ramblings about the movie industry and how, “We’ve got to dream beyond these pesky shells of flesh and bone. Map those dreams onto celluloid and print them into history.” After he falls off his balcony during this urging to innovate the medium into something better, something more than “costume dramas,” he invites Manuel to accompany him to work, asking, “Have you ever been to a movie set before?” He admits, “No.” Jack assures, “You’ll see. It’s the most magical place in the world.”

    It is in this moment, “only” thirty-one minutes into the movie, that the title card finally flashes: BABYLON. And with that title mind, let us not forget how Anger commenced his own Hollywood Babylon, with the Don Blanding poem called “Hollywood” from Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove. It goes:

    “Hollywood, Hollywood
    Fabulous Hollywood
    Celluloid Babylon
    Glorious, glamorous
    City delirious
    Frivolous, serious…
    Bold and ambitious,
    And vicious and glamorous.
    Drama—a city-full,
    Tragic and pitiful…
    Bunk, junk and genius
    Amazingly blended…
    Tawdry, tremendous,
    Absurd, stupendous;
    Shoddy and cheap,
    And astonishingly splendid…
    HOLLYWOOD!!”

    Yes, Hollywood is all of these dichotomies. And, to the point of being “amazingly blended,” Chazelle focuses on the trials and tribulations of people of color in early Hollywood, including Manuel, who will later Americanize his name to Manny (which is what Nellie calls him from the beginning). There’s also Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), who appears to offer some nod to the “Dragon Lady” trope of Anna May Wong, though Wong was never reduced to writing title cards for silent movies, which we’re given an up close and personal look at as Zhu writes dialogue for “The Girl” that starts out, “Sweet sixteen and never—well, maybe once or twice.” There’s also Black trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), reduced to eventually putting on blackface makeup to make himself look “blacker” for the purposes of lighting issues within a certain film.

    A meta element in terms of how much Babylon pays homage to Sunset Boulevard with regard to subject matter (“the dark side of Hollywood” and the putting out to pasture of silent film stars—complete with cameos by the likes of Buster Keaton) occurs during a moment where Jack Conrad is speaking to Gloria Swanson on the phone, using reverse psychology to get her to play a small part for cheap in his movie. Swanson would famously star as Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s 1950 masterpiece. With failed screenwriter (a newly-made profession after the “title writers” of the silent movie epoch) Joe Gillis (William Holden) standing by to watch Norma’s madness, her delusions of still being relevant as he narrates, “I didn’t argue with her. You don’t yell at a sleepwalker. He may fall and break his neck. That’s it. She was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career—plain crazy when it came to that one subject: her celluloid self. The great Norma Desmond! How could she breathe in that house so crowded with Norma Desmonds? More Norma Desmonds and still more Norma Desmonds.”

    Watching old movies of her celluloid self projected onto a screen every night, she is made youthful and immortal any time she desires, contributing to the delusion. Nellie, whose character is inspired by Clara Bow, has fewer delusions, especially after hearing two men talk shit about her at another party. One of them says of the silent film stars, “It’s the end, I’m telling you. It’s the end for all of ‘em. All the frogs.”

    For although Chazelle started us in 1926, he then takes us to 1927, with the advent of sound in movies changing everything. A proverbial “Video Killed the Radio Star” effect for the silent movie titans. This is the innovation Jack has been crying out for, unaware that it will be the cause of his own undoing. “You think people want that though? Sound in their movies?” Jack inquires in a public restroom before the sound of someone taking a fat shit in one of the stalls ensues. The studio executive, Billy (Sean O’Bryan), who Jack asks this of replies, “Yeah, why wouldn’t they?” In the next instant, Jack is declaring to Manny and George Munn (Lukas Haas), “This is what we’ve been looking for! Sound is how we redefine the form!” Munn insists, “People go to the movies not to listen to the noise.” This as Olga (Karolina Szymczak), his latest wife, is having a major tantrum involving the bombastic smashing of dishes.

    In a moment of “passion,” she shoots him, but this doesn’t stop Manny from carrying out his instructions from Jack to go check out a screening of The Jazz Singer in New York. Seeing the audience reaction there, Manny informs Jack that everything is about to change (running out of the theater while the picture is still playing to do so). Chazelle then cuts to 1928. Specifically, to a sound stage in 1928, where, in contrast to the noisy, chaotic vibe of the “sets” we saw in 1926, the signage everywhere calls for silence as we note just that in the various shots of the sound stage in question.

    With this new era in cinema birthed, Chazelle gets to the heart of the many challenges to navigate during the infancy of sound in film, complete with one of the sound guys forced into a hot box of an operation that eventually causes him to die for some non-masterpiece, a total throwaway movie. Death is, indeed, everywhere in Babylon, reinforcing the notion that it’s not so serious so long as one knows they’ve been a part of that something “greater” that Manny was talking about. That they’ve secured a small piece of immortality even if they were “only” part of the production crew (after all, their name will still be in the credits). On a fitting side note, Babylon has only been able to enter the race for an Oscar because of the work done on the film by those “behind the scenes.”

    But back to the silent movie era. Another point of this phase in cinema history seemed to be to reiterate that everything in life is just scenes. “Vignettes.” And in the time of the silent movie era, that’s all that could be captured. The advent of cinema—therefore the ability to “document” as never before—changed everything. The way people were suddenly motivated by the performance of life rather than actual life.

    The chaos of onset life before the “talkies” is told in bursts and fits, with abrupt pauses to heighten the sense of calm that comes only when filming stops. An extra’s death after being impaled by one of the props prompts George to note nonchalantly, “He’s dead.” Another man says, “He did have a drinking problem.” George shrugs, “That’s true, probably ran into himself, huh?” Thus, yet another person has sacrificed themselves very literally to the art of filmmaking. And, to that end, there is an iconic scene of Nellie at the party during the opening of Babylon where she lies on the floor, her arms splayed out in “Christ position” as though offering herself to the celluloid gods. That’s what all of these actors and actresses were willing to do. Whatever it took to “get themselves up there.” To become gods to all “those wonderful people out there in the dark,” as Norma Desmond calls them.

    Not only is Nellie able to secure that place thanks to the dumb luck of Jane being subjected to Wilbur, but also because of her unique ability to cry on cue without any aid whatsoever from glycerin. In awe, the director asks, “How do you do it, just tear up over and over again?” Nellie replies, “I just think of home.” For she’s the quintessential type of person who comes to Hollywood determined never to go back to the bowel from whence they came. Appropriately, we find out that the place that makes Nellie cry on cue is New York as she tells Manny, “Why would Conrad send you here? God. I got out of this place first chance I got.” And yes, most of Hollywood’s early film community had “immigrated” from NYC. Proof that the East Coast has always known that the West holds more promise despite their cries of “inferior!” While back in her hometown, we find out that Nellie has a mother in a sanatorium—how very Marilyn. Though Clara Bow would have a mother in one of those long before Norma Jeane did.

    As Manny continues to climb up the Hollywood ladder behind the scenes (more in love with Nellie than ever), Nellie, in turn, proceeds to tumble down it. Not just because her voice and persona aren’t “translating,” but because she’s also started up an affair with Zhu (who has been eyeing Nellie from the beginning of her career, only able to entice her once she sucks snake poison out of her neck in the desert). Manny, determined to keep protecting Nellie any way he can, warns Zhu, “There’s a new sensibility now. People care about morals,” presaging what’s to come with the Hays Code.

    Chazelle then gives us another time jump to 1930 as Jack watches the dailies for his first sound feature. Something he can’t seem to enjoy without George’s presence. For he’s since killed himself in the wake of another female jilting. The film turns out to be a huge flop and, by 1932, Jack admits to Elinor, “Well, my last two movies didn’t work, but I learned a lot from ‘em.” That doesn’t stop Elinor from printing what she really thinks about the washed-up actor, giving him a cover story with the headline, “Is Jack Conrad Through?” When he goes to her office to confront her directly about it after it causes Irving Thalberg (Max Minghella) to dodge all his calls to the studio, she explains simply, “Your time has run out. There is no ‘why.’” The conversation that ensues is one that applies eerily to Brad Pitt’s own career, as he begins to willingly declare a state of semi-retirement now that he’s approaching his sixties. A thought unthinkable: a movie star getting old. But it happens. The only difference now is, the public has an easier time tracking and critiquing the aging process. For, as Elinor says, “It’s those of us in the dark, the ones who just watch, who survive.” And those in the spotlight are left to watch it cruelly dim.

    As Nellie’s certainly has while Manny continues to stick his neck out for her, causing him to be taken to L.A.’s underworld by a seedy character named James McKay (Tobey Maguire). It’s in this den of far bleaker iniquity than what we saw in the true halcyon days of Babylon that Manny is shown a Nightmare Alley-like geek that eats rats. While Babylon might “revamp” history (unlike Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood all out revising it—and yes, Babylon is something Murphy might be able to create if he was capable of more seriousness and less camp), it is entirely accurate in wielding this metaphorical image as McKay delights in saying to Manny, “He’ll do anything for money!”

    In the end, that’s what cinema is about, despite MGM’s logo declaring, “Ars gratia artis” (“Art for art’s sake”). It has never been fully about art, which is partially how a 1915 Supreme Court case ruled that the right of the First Amendment shouldn’t extend to film, with Justice Joseph McKenna insisting film was a “business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit.” But as, Jack Conrad tries to explain to his snobby theater actress wife, film is an art above all else. Even if it caters to “low culture” for the sake of a studio’s profits. And, speaking of studios, as it did in Sunset Boulevard, Paramount Pictures is happy to play the part of the soul-crushing studio that chews up youth and spits it out when the audience is done with the actor in question. In Babylon, it’s “disguised” as Kinoscope (Sunset Boulevard didn’t bother changing the name at all). Where Manny eventually returns with his wife and child in 1952 to see how it has changed. And oh, how the whole town has changed since he was chased out of it thanks to Nellie (the foolish things one does for love, etc.). Marilyn Monroe is clearly all the rage now—along with Technicolor and Cinemascope, tools designed to emphasize that television remains no comparison for the big screen. And it seems in this instant, we’re meant to understand the disappointment of each original generation seeing what comes with the new, and the increasing bastardization of film. At the same time, progress is what all the forebears wanted. To see the industry grow and change and flourish—even if it meant they could no longer be part of it. That is the unsung selflessness of moviemaking.

    As Manny enters a movie theater near Paramount to take his seat, we experience, with him, a “wonderful people out there in the dark” moment as he watches Singin’ in the Rain, stunned into tears as he recognizes the story of Nellie’s own botched transition to the talkies in Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), whose voice is too “unpolished” for dialogue. Chazelle then makes the daring move to break away from this movie and reveal a montage of other scenes from films that have proven themselves to be benchmarks in the incremental progress of the medium. So it is that Elinor’s consolation to Jack is proven, the one in which she asserts, “When you and I are both long gone, any time someone threads a frame of yours through a sprocket, you’ll be alive again. You see what that means? One day every person on every film shot this year will be dead, and one day all those films will be pulled from the vaults and all their ghosts will dine together… Your time today is through, but you’ll spend eternity with angels and ghosts.” And yet, somehow, that unique form of immortality doesn’t take away from the sadness of watching oneself atrophy in real time. It was Chloë Sevigny who once said she disliked the idea of watching herself age onscreen with each passing film. And yet, is that not a small price to pay for the “privilege” of immortality? Even if Hollywood is no longer “the crowd of cocaine-crazed, sexual lunatics” it once was in the days of Babylon. Even if, as Anger put it, “…the fans could be fickle, and if their deities proved to have feet of clay, they could be cut down without compassion. Off screen a new Star was always waiting to make an entrance.”

    Babylon reiterates that point (and so much more) about Hollywood, the greatest dream ever sold. The greatest (and only) means by which to remain truly immortal.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Resignedly Independent: Pamela, A Love Story

    Resignedly Independent: Pamela, A Love Story

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    For those in search of the modern-day answer to the goddess of love, there is no better example of an American (North American, to be clear) version of Aphrodite than Pamela Anderson. For the entirety of the 90s, Anderson was an emblem of sex… and yes, even love. For her relationship with Tommy Lee was held up as a neo-benchmark of Romeo and Juliet-level intensity—complete with a whirlwind timeline for falling in love. Starting from the moment the two met at a Beverly Hills hotspot called Sanctuary (for which Anderson was an investor) in 1994. At the time, Lee was in a relationship (engaged, in fact) with Bobbie Brown (a.k.a. Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” girl) and Anderson was in a situationship with Baywatch co-star Kelly Slater (himself a notorious philanderer). But that didn’t much matter once ecstasy (administered at a Cancun nightclub) came along to unleash their love-at-first-sight feelings at full force.

    Pamela, A Love Story, however, is not just about the marriage that would come to define so much of Anderson’s career and public perception, but rather, the “love goddess’” determination to continue to choose love, and actively search for it—even in the face of all her romantic disappointments. The documentary, directed by Ryan White and co-produced by Anderson’s son, Brandon Lee, opens with Pam unearthing a VHS tape—a “subtle” nod, of course, to the tape that changed the entire course of her life. “God, I’m scared. This is not naked, I hope.” A later close-up on a tape labeled “When Pammy Met Tommy” is accentuated by Anderson remarking, “When I saw those videos, I got so emotional ‘cause I thought, ‘That was it. That was my time to really be in love.’” A shot of Pam and Tommy’s home video on a trip to Venice adds to the bittersweetness of that statement, as though highlighting the notion that a person only gets—if they’re lucky—one great love their entire life (or, as Charlotte York once posited, two great loves). For Pam, it was Tommy—and she admits or alludes to it repeatedly in Pamela, A Love Story. Called as much because Anderson’s entire life has revolved around the search for love… and the love of love. Falling in and out of it over and over again.

    “I’m looking for a feeling I can’t find,” she declares from the outset. That “lightning in a bottle” feeling only being captured during her ephemeral period with Tommy. So desirous of recapturing it that she even got back together with him in 2008, though, unlike the Andersonian counterpart that is Elizabeth Taylor (with Richard Burton), she never remarried him. She would save that privilege, instead, for someone even sleazier: Rick Salomon. Better known for being in Paris Hilton’s sex tape than being married to Anderson twice (the first time around, Anderson cited finding a crack pipe by the Christmas tree as grounds for an annulment). So no, not the best look for Anderson’s taste—but then, neither was Kid Rock a.k.a. Bob Ritchie. These two and so many other men are, ahem, touched on in the documentary, but the one person noticeably missing from any mention is Bret Michaels. For whatever reason, that’s just too trashball for Anderson, it seems.

    For those “intrigued” (read: mystified) by her choice in men, Anderson is only too happy to oblige viewers in enlightening them on part of the reason why she’s so attracted to, well, let’s just say “a certain kind” of man. Someone who was more or less an extension of her alcoholic “huckster” father. To boot, Pam’s cavalier attitude about alcoholism and abuse undeniably stemmed from seeing her own mother’s behavior. And yes, Carol also married Pam’s dad, Barry, a second time. But Carol was of the “do as I say, not as I do” persuasion, with Pamela recounting, “My mom used to always say to me, ‘I feel bad. I set an example for you. I know your dad’s an asshole but I love him. You don’t love these assholes. Rip the Band-Aid off and just get rid of these guys. ‘Cause you don’t love them like I love your father, or like he loves me.’”

    Eventually, Anderson has no choice but to conclude of her taste in men, “I would pick people similar [to my father], I guess, in some ways” and “Maybe because of how I grew up and saw my parents and maybe because of some of the relationships I had, I didn’t equate being in love with… being nice, maybe.”

    But she is by no means alone in that boat. Not just in terms of “seeking the father” in another man, but also with regard to many women’s reactions to themselves (i.e., their bodies) being a result of something that was done to them by a man. Usually, at an early age. And Anderson was very much sexualized from an early age, enduring the trauma of being molested by her babysitter for three to four years before Anderson told her to her face that she wished she would die. The next day, she did. In a car accident. Anderson couldn’t help but feel witchily responsible. For, a testament to her benevolent nature is feeling guilty that her molester actually did die. And yet, her karma couldn’t have been that bad if she managed to experience a Lana Turner at Schwab’s type of discovery story while at a football game. Wearing a Labatt’s Beer shirt, the camera focused Pam on the Jumbotron and the beer company soon after hired her for their promotional materials/commercials. This led to Playboy’s photo editor and “secret weapon” Marilyn Grabowski calling Pam up to ask her to pose for the October 1989 issue of Playboy. When it was over, Grabowski suggested Anderson ought to stick around and become a Playmate. The rest, of course, is history. For the string of “charmed life” incidents kept occurring when Anderson was practically begged by the casting agents of Baywatch to star in their show.

    So maybe all this good luck “had to” be counteracted by the run of bad luck that would beset her in the mid-90s, when she met Tommy and immortalized their sex life forever on tape. As for her attraction to Lee, Anderson said it best when she remarked, “From the beginning, I’ve been drawn to different types of bad guys.” Lee was the prototype of that trope—with a dash of slobbering puppy dog thrown in. So how could Pam resist? Even if they “didn’t know anything about each other… it ended up being one of the wildest, most beautiful love affairs ever.” Again, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Minus the jealous outbursts and the birthing of two kids, both of whom are active participants in the documentary—nobly demanding that their mother’s honor be restored.

    Pamela, too, is seeking to “take back the narrative,” as it keeps being said. One that’s been taken away from her ever since the distribution of that accursed tape. For even though she was written off as someone who “liked” to be seen naked by the masses, she reminds her viewers that posing for Playboy began as a way to take her power back, regain control of her own sexuality after having it manipulated and tainted by perverts like her babysitter and the twenty-five-year-old guy who raped her when she was twelve. The video was yet another form of rape, with Anderson stating to White’s camera lens, “Playboy was empowering for me. But, in this case, it felt like a rape.” The release of Pam & Tommy, she’s sure to mention later, also brought up that same feeling again. As she rails against the Hulu series that would seek to dredge up one of the worst, most harrowing experiences of her life, it bears noting that the way the show portrayed their courtship and the scenarios leading up to the stolen safe are exactly how she describes it in Pamela, A Love Story. Minus the part where she says she has no idea who stole the tape (it was Rand Gauthier). Though she might not want to admit it, the series is precise in its historical accuracy, including Lily James portraying Anderson during the brutal series of depositions that went on amid the legal battle to cease distribution of the content. Pam recalls of this period, “During the deposition, I remember looking at them and thinking, ‘Why do these men hate me so much? Why do these grown men hate me so much?’” Well, the psychological answer is obvious: men hate all “whores” when they start to “act out of turn.” Try to demand the “rights” of a woman more virginal and chaste.

    Even Pam herself has been infused with the chauvinistic rhetoric about herself, laughing off jokes about being slutty and now, too “old” to be slutty (clearly, she needs to start hanging out with Madonna more often). Case in point, while cooking together in the kitchen, Pam’s mom, Carol, shimmies to suggest the cliché of “sexiness” as she asks, “Where’s all your nice-fitting dresses?” Presently wearing an amorphously-shaped “house dress,” Pam replies, “No one needs to see my body anymore.” Carol reminds, “You can see right through that thing, I’ll have you know.” Pam insists, “Well, a silhouette is much thinner than the real thing.” Having been indoctrinated for so long to view herself as an “object” only worth the youth and beauty she can radiate (hence, the visible amounts of plastic surgery), she echoes Laney Berlin (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) on the season one episode of Sex and the City called “The Baby Shower” when she asks the camera, “You wanna see [my boobs]?” Backpedaling, she self-deprecatingly adds, “No, I’m kidding. You don’t wanna see them now. They’re in rough shape.” Anderson’s allusions to being on death’s door by Hollywood standards also comes when she jokes of being back in Ladysmith, Canada, “Maybe this is just the time I was supposed to be home, I guess. I’m like a spawning salmon, just coming home to die.” A statement she then laughs off, and yet, there’s more than a shred of truth in her “grim” (read: real) outlook. With this constant self-denigrating acknowledgement of her current “physical state,” it bears noting that it seems only now, at her “advanced” age, when the offers of sex and romance have dwindled, that she appears “willing” (read: resigned) to be alone—almost as if solely because she is no longer “at her peak.”

    And yet, it was no picnic at her peak either, as White dredges up archival interviews of Pamela being asked various questions about her tits (from grossheads like Matt Lauer and Jay Leno), at which time one is reminded of the same thing happening to Britney Spears (and as a teenager no less), all presented back-to-back in Framing Britney Spears. Amid this series of similarly-themed clips, Pam is right to announce, “I think it’s inappropriate to ask women those kinds of questions. There has to be some line that people don’t cross.” But people—namely, men—always felt they had a “right” to cross lines with Anderson. That she was “asking for it” with a career forged in nudity. However, that was just a jumping off point (or so she had hoped) from her perspective, remarking, “I always hoped something would come along where I would do something which would be more interesting to people than my body.” Alas, Americans can be so superficial. Something Anderson might not have fully realized with her Canadian guilelessness. Complete with earnest pronouncements about love, including, “I just want to be loved by one person, and I want to spoil that person rotten.” This said in reference to dating Mario Van Peebles, who she was planning a birthday party for at the time of that particular journal entry (all of them read by a Pam “soundalike”). And yet, that didn’t stop her from scurrying on over to Scott Baio’s house after writing said journal entry. Of so freely admitting in writing to playing the field, she giggles, “Why would I even write that down? ‘Cause God forbid you do a documentary one day in your life and find out what kind of a whore you are.” Once more, with the internalized misogyny regarding her then avant-garde sex positivity practices.

    With Pamela, A Love Story, Anderson also comes across as being dead-set on asserting her independence—that she is with these (deadbeat) men because she chooses to be, not because she has to be. Ergo declaring, “I’m not the damsel in distress. I’m very capable. And some men hate you for being something else.” And when she doesn’t turn out to live up to the image of the “whore” in their Madonna/whore compartmentalizing brain, things always tend to get unpleasant. This being why Pamela nonchalantly rehashes of her previous dynamics with the “very hetero, masculine men” she’s attracted to, “…sometimes they start grabbing you by the hair and throwing you into walls and, like, stripping your clothes off. Craziest stuff would happen,” she concludes. Once more, minimizing and deflecting are her overt survival techniques. Not to mention repeatedly getting married as a means of distraction from the loss of her one true great love, Tommy. That’s part of why she married contractor/her bodyguard Dan Hayhurst in 2020, commenting in the documentary, “He’s a good Canadian guy. Normal. I just thought, ‘Maybe I need to try that.’ Again, sometimes I don’t know if I’m alive or dead.” She rose from the dead long enough to divorce him at the beginning of 2022 though.

    No matter, because another journal entry reads, “I’d rather have loved for an instant than [have] a miserable life.” And yet, a large bulk of Anderson’s life has been objectively miserable. Even if the aim of the documentary is to assert that its subject is no victim. That she is simply someone who “love[s] to live a romantic life every day… want[s] to be really in love and… didn’t want anything less than that.” Enter Tommy—“sweet,” stalker-y Tommy. Who ousted Kelly Slater easily, as Pam had to call and tell him that she wouldn’t be joining him to meet his family in Florida as she had gotten married in Cancun. Besides, in addressing Kelly Slater’s own “playboy” ways, Anderson says, “You don’t own anybody. Nobody owns anybody and you just let them be who they are. Sometimes it’s better…not with you.” As it would turn out, the same would go for her relationship with Lee. Which should have at least been financially profitable for all the trauma she was subjected to (and still is) as a result.

    So it is that when the subject of Pamela’s overall financial disarray is acknowledged in the documentary, White flashes to footage of her being asked by Howard Stern, “You’re not good with money, are you?” She confirms, “I’m not good with money.” Stern’s sidekick, Robin, mentions, “You’re a very famous person and everybody would imagine you’d have a lot of money.” Chuckling away the pain again, Pam quips, “Well, a lot of [other] people have made a lot of money off of me.” There it is: making herself into the whore she assumes everyone sees her as. Like a white girl whose credit card has been cut in half by Daddy, Anderson shrugs, “I just couldn’t wrap my head around the business part of branding myself. I’m not that person when it comes to money. I just want my credit card to work and I wanna be able to get my nails done.” Besides, a woman who values love (or at least the pursuit of love) above all else couldn’t possibly be concerned with such trivial things as little green pieces of paper. As her youngest son, Dylan Lee, says, “She loves getting married, you know. Maybe it’s her favorite thing in the world is falling in love. And then, like, I guess loves the idea of falling out of love, too.”

    Despite this “passion for passion,” Anderson can’t shake the remorse she has for raising her children in an erratic environment re: father figures. “I always felt guilty ‘cause of my kids, I wanted to show them a traditional relationship.” This said more than somewhat ironically as an image is shown of Kid Rock and his son posing with an uncomfortable-looking Brandon and Dylan as Pam stands behind them in her wedding gown. She adds, “Or a marriage, or a man that’s consistent, and giving them good examples in their life.” But they certainly appear well-adjusted enough—and “evolved” enough, for that matter, to not only stand by their mother through everything, but go out of their way to make sure she’s truly seen and understood.

    And what’s plain to see is that she’s been searching for Tommy in every subsequent relationship. Her attachment to that great love crystallized as she watches another random VHS from her archives popped into the player. It turns out to be footage of the birthday decorations Pam put together for Tommy’s birthday as TLC’s “Diggin’ On You” plays in the background (needless to say, the apex of a 90s soundtrack). This time, Brandon is next to her watching as well, and Pam starts to get emotional, telling Brandon and White, “I think I need to take a break, let’s take a break.”

    Pam then schools us on the two types of love: eros and agape. This making the concept of love “very conflicted.” She’s also sure to mention that “Robert A. Johnson says, ‘Romantic love is not sustainable.’ And as soon as I read that I was like, ‘Ugh. This is the worst thing I’ve ever read.’ It’s so disappointing. Why can’t we live a romantic life every day?” It sounds a lot like Kate Moss retroactively asking her mother, “Why not? Why the fuck can’t I have fun all the time?”

    After reemerging from her “break,” Pam tells Brandon, “I was just thinking about it upstairs. I was thinking, you know, and it’s probably gonna get me in a lot of shit for saying this, but I really loved your dad. Like, for all the right reasons and I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody else.” This, too, harkens back to Madonna saying that Sean Penn has been “the love of her life, all her life” when asked the question in 1991’s Truth or Dare. Tellingly, Madonna has never been able to sustain a monogamous relationship either. Holding back more tears after admitting this, Pam finally declares, “It’s fucked.”

    In the wake of this epiphany, we’re shown a scene of Anderson in the bathtub with the voiceover, “I think what it all comes down to is that I never got over not being able to make it work with the father of my kids. And even though I thought I could recreate a family or fall in love with somebody else, it’s just not me. So I think that’s probably why I keep failing in all my relationships.”

    Like Elizabeth Taylor, who could only really be happy with Richard Burton, but was simultaneously miserable with him, Anderson also assesses, “I think I’d rather be alone than not be with the father of my kids. It’s impossible to be with anybody else…but, I don’t think I could be with Tommy either. It’s almost like a punishment.” But for what? Being a woman who dared to be sexual? To relish what her body could get her and where it could take her in life? In this and so many other ways, it’s clear that all of Pamela’s self-loathing still comes from a place of patriarchal oppression.

    Listening to a podcast in her bathtub, Pamela feels a little too targeted when the woman speaking announces, “…how our wanting to love, our yearning for love, our loving itself, becomes an addiction… [and that’s when it’s time to attend an SLAA meeting]. We who love obsessively are full of fear. Fear of being alone.” And yet, Anderson is convinced that she’s at last “okay” with being alone. Not that it actually has to do with her inherent belief that she’s too “old and decrepit” for passionate, all-consuming romance now. So it is that, throughout the documentary, we see scenes of Pamela picking flowers, pruning them, arranging them. She can not only buy herself flowers, as Miley says, but she can pick them for free. She has become her own romancer out of necessity rather than true willingness.

    Deemed by her surrogate father, of sorts, Hugh Hefner, as the Marilyn Monroe of the 90s (but then, so was Anna-Nicole Smith), it’s only fitting that White should choose to do a close-up on some of the books in Anderson’s collection: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, A Joseph Campbell Companion and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Not exactly what one would expect of a dumb blonde—the same way no one ever imagined Monroe was such an avid reader, writing her off as nothing more than an oversexed sex symbol.

    It was with being underestimated in mind that Anderson chose to star as Roxie Hart in a 2022 production of Chicago (her last major career moment before the combined release of this documentary and her autobiography, Love, Pamela). Regarding her fear of doing something so different (Broadway), Pamela insisted, “Don’t overthink it. I don’t overthink anything. Thinking is overrated.” Ah, signs she’s been in the U.S. for far too long, not to mention a philosophy that has been obviously proven by some of her previous romantic choices.

    As the credits to Pamela, A Love Story roll, we’re shown outtakes where she says things like, “I figured I’d just do, like, no makeup, no whatever. Who cares?” But of course she cares. Her entire life has been built around caring (and thus, loving) too much…she’s a Cancer, after all. And it is because she has cared too much and been burned so many times that she has to pretend, even if only for a little while, that it’s as she says during the outtakes of the credits: “I never want a husband again, ever… That sucks, too.” Perhaps that’s why, while promoting the documentary on Jimmy Kimmel Live, she said she would actually get married again. If someone will “have” her.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Shotgun Wedding: J. Lo’s Attempt at Sandra Bullock Greatness in The Lost City

    Shotgun Wedding: J. Lo’s Attempt at Sandra Bullock Greatness in The Lost City

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    In the spirit of “action-adventure rom-coms” that have lately come back into favor, Shotgun Wedding continues the tradition of this niche with the “twist” of a destination wedding serving as the catalyst for the so-called adventure. As it turns out, the groom, Tom (Josh Duhamel), is the one truly responsible for bringing everyone to the Philippines (Mahal Island Resort, to be specific) to celebrate this glorious day, including his bride, Darcy (Jennifer Lopez, who, let’s be honest, really doesn’t look like a Darcy). Slightly less enthusiastic about this large gathering and the associated fanfare, she does her best to navigate through the rehearsal dinner’s murky waters, filled with her divorced parents’ contentious relationship and the well-meaning overbearingness of Tom’s mother, Carol (Jennifer Coolidge, mildly less annoying than usual in this role).

    For the first several minutes of this rehearsal dinner, Darcy is forced to face the jackals (mainly her own mother, Renata [Sônia Braga]) alone, for Tom is off trying to add to the overall “perfectness” of the wedding by decorating a small boat he’s secreted away by the dock for himself and Darcy after the ceremony. It is within these first three minutes that the viewer is drilled with the notion that pirates are potentially lurking at every corner, and that all security personnel must “beware.” This is how Tom ends up being attacked by the security guard on duty that night as he explains about the boat (after falling into the water), “I wanna be romantic, but not too corny.” The guard replies, “There’s a really fine line between the two.” Shotgun Wedding does its best to toe it, and, for the most part, actually succeeds. Even with the lingering taint of knowing that Armie Hammer was slated to play the part of Tom—after Ryan Reynolds, who still co-produced the project, dropped out. And, talking of men who have co-starred with Sandra Bullock, it is the latter actress who has truly been the impetus for bringing back the action-adventure rom-com via The Lost City in early 2022—and yes, that movie slaps far harder than Shotgun Wedding could ever hope to, but “for a J. Lo movie” (to use a backhanded compliment), it’s leaps and bounds above fare like Second Act and Marry Me. Which, sure, might not be saying much—but it does mean something when referring to the usual stink bombs of Lopez’s ever-burgeoning filmography.

    Even Coolidge, meant to be some sort of “foolproof” assurance of spun comedy gold now that she’s had her “comeback,” does little to contribute to the expected “laughs” written into Mark Hammer’s (whose previous writing credit is Two Night Stand and who has no known relation to Armie) script. But the clearly intended “laugh-out-loud” moments are more cringe than comedy—namely, when the wedding guests all join in an a capella rendition of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” (the song that just won’t die) or, you know, a certain wedding guest is obliterated, guts and all, into the rotor blade of a helicopter. Ha ha…ha.

    Thus, in truth, this action-adventure rom-com has more of the former category than the latter, even if J. Lo stripping down to her skivvies and engaging in some foreplay involving reaching for a high shelf is meant to add to some of the “romance” genre. Followed by Coolidge as Carol interrupting the scene with her “comedic timing” as she asks Darcy if her body is the result of genetics or pilates. Anyone could tell her it’s: being a celebrity who uses their time and money correctly. Apparently, being a lawyer can help with fitness, too. This being among the few “background details” we get about Darcy, in addition to Tom being a former baseball player for the junior leagues before being dropped by the team.

    Indeed, for so few known details about the characters’ lives beyond this wedding, it’s a wonder the viewer can get that invested at all. The lack of connection to the characters is spurred by a general blasé tone toward carnage. And sure, within the universe of this story, that might technically pass, but because of the overall “canned” nature of the characters, it adds to a certain cartoonishness, e.g. when murder (as Tom calls it) is written off quickly as “self-defense.” Which isn’t a false assessment, and yet, for such “fragile” and “moral” people, it seems only too easy for both Tom and Darcy to move on from the horror of killing not just four pirates, but also Darcy’s ex, Sean (Lenny Kravitz, an inexplicable casting choice that one supposes was meant to be “comedic”—along with Cheech Martin as Lopez’s movie daddy).

    While Kravitz’s appearance might “dazzle” some, the real breakout star of the movie, to be sure, is J. Lo’s ever-evolving wedding dress, which is constantly being altered to suit the dynamic needs of a day spent both on the run from and battling pirates. Like Loretta Sage’s (Bullock) fuchsia sequined getup (a “onesie,” as Loretta calls it) in The Lost City, the dress becomes one of the most (read: the only) iconic things about the movie. Not, to Lopez’s dismay, her attempt at “tapping into my inner Lucille Ball-type comedy,” as she phrased it on The Today Show. But even “Lucille Ball comedy,” for as zany and wacky as it was, still had some more grounding in reality than Shotgun Wedding cares to. Complete with an ending that opts to ignore any sense of PTSD the guests might (and should) be suffering from, including the bride herself, betrayed so egregiously by someone she once let inside of her on the regular.

    But “realism” and “making sense” have never been the marks of a J. Lo rom-com—so adding the genre of action-adventure into the mix makes such theoretical hallmarks of storytelling even less feasible. This being emphasized by The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian” chosen as the karaoke song everyone sings along to as the credits roll. For fuck’s sake, at least choose something more relevant, like Sex Pistols’ “Friggin’ in the Riggin,” Gorillaz’s “Glitter Freeze” or Caroline Polachek’s “Welcome to My Island.” Hell, even Nina Simone’s “Pirate Jenny.” Alas, these songs are too “appropriate” for a movie that becomes increasingly over the top in an eye rolling (as opposed to comedic) way as it wears on. For, if one is going to be over the top, the payoff should be the laugh-a-minute result of The Lost City.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze” Video Induces Little More Than Malaise

    Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze” Video Induces Little More Than Malaise

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    If the domicile in “Lavender Haze” appears slightly familiar, perhaps it’s because of how similar it looks and feels to the one in “Anti-Hero.” And if the overall “mood palette” looks the same too, it’s because, as Swift stated, “This was the first video I wrote out of the three that have been released, and this one really helped me conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70s fever dream. Hope you like it.” And sure, of course everyone is expected to “like” it—if for no other reason than the fact that Swift opted to cast trans model Laith Ashley De La Cruz as her love interest (who also happens to be a weather forecaster—a nod to the “Karma” lyrics, “The guy on the screen/Coming straight home to me”).

    Swift, who has become “pointedly” woke in the years since she abandoned country music (and there really are some shitty songs from the canon of her early work), has been steadfastly building toward this. After all, she was sure to be more “inclusive” with the Black Mirror-esque “Lover” video (during which she also sings about a haze via the lines, “There’s a dazzling haze/A mysterious way about you, dear”) that featured Christian Owens as the lover in question. And then there was the “allyship” of “You Need to Calm Down” (also from the Lover album), which Swift timed for a release during Pride Month. So sure, “tapping into” the trans community was only a matter of time. Forgive one for the “jaded tinge” that has to it, but, it’s somewhat obvious that Swift treats the “minorities” she casts somewhat differently than the more “all-American” men she’s had in her videos. That is to say, she’ll actually kiss those men. For example, in her first video, “Tim McGraw,” Swift wasn’t shy about offering up some kiss action to her co-star, Clayton Collins. Released in 2006, it was clear Swift had a long way to go before becoming “woke”—accordingly, the country twang in her voice at that time has disappeared entirely in favor of “pop voice.”

    Elsewhere, she might never have kissed “Drew” in the “Teardrops On My Guitar” video, but probably because he was into some other girl, and that other girl seemed to be more of a beard than anything (this based solely on the casting choice for “Drew”). So maybe he was really just sparing his dear friend Swift the pain of kissing him only to later learn he could never love a woman. In the hoedown sound of the “Our Song” video, there was no room for a man at all. But these are extenuating circumstances that don’t apply to videos like “Lover” and “Lavender Haze,” wherein she prefers touchy “canoodling” to more overt displays of affection, which leads one to call bullshit on her “true acceptance” of the marginalized. It’s a classic case of that “Anti-Hero” lyric, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism?” But anyway, apart from the predictability of her casting choices at this point in her political/musical career, “Lavender Haze” is not among her most exciting concepts for a music video.

    Once more directed by Swift herself, the video starts off with a number of her beloved “Easter eggs,” including a close-up on a “Mastermind” record with the signs of Sagittarius (Swift’s) and Pisces (Joe Alwyn’s) etched in the constellation artwork. Then there’s the burning incense on the nightstand, which alludes to the “Maroon” lyrics, “When the morning came/We were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf.” Swift, now sitting up in bed, is in the throes of insomnia, compounded by a literal cloud over her head as the lyrics, “You don’t really read into my melancholia” are said. Unlike Swifties, who read into every mood Swift is willing to showcase. Next to her in bed is De La Cruz, who appears unbothered by Swift’s nocturnal activity as he sleeps through the night in peace. Even when she touches his back and reveals the universe contained within it—yes, we all want to know what drugs she’s on.

    In the next instant, she’s lighting a match and we briefly wonder if her country-era persona has taken over and decided to commit a hate crime against a trans person. But no, for whatever reason, the match doesn’t light a fire, but a “lavender haze” (a.k.a. what looks like Gulal powder in purple). As Taylor dances around in the haze, De La Cruz continues to sleep like a log, even when the powdery substance enters his nostrils… but hey, it’s not coke, so why should it wake him?

    In the next scene, Swift is inexplicably alone on the couch in a lavender coat—a scene recognizable from many of her promotional photos for Midnights. Because why not kill two birds with one stone by extrapolating some stills from the music video for the album promo? In any case, Swift proves she must have been smoking the good shit on this night as she blows a clock-shaped smoke ring in our face à la The Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. After which she crawls on the floor through a suddenly materialized “field” of flowers (lavender ones, of course). Making her way toward the TV where De La Cruz is giving the “Forecast at Midnight” on the screen. Arriving at the TV, Swift is able to split it open to reveal another universe filled with koi fish inside. Again, she must have been smoking the good shit (as only a celebrity can afford).

    Another cut to Swift in a lavender-hued pool that looks like the kind one might be able to access at a very expensive spa allows the chanteuse to play up her chastely sexual side. At which time she sings, “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say.” But of course she does—that’s what the majority of her songs and video concepts have been driven by. Unfortunately, this particular video concept wasn’t driven by the inspiration for the track’s title: Mad Men. Per Swift, “I happened upon the phrase ‘lavender haze’ when I was watching Mad Men. I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool. And it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the 50s where they would describe being in love. If you’re in the ‘lavender haze,’ then that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow. And I thought that was really beautiful.” Beautiful enough to ascribe it to what she was going through with Joe Alwyn at the beginning of their relationship, protecting it at all costs from the media (which she still does). As Swift remarked, “I guess, theoretically, when you’re in the ‘lavender haze,’ you’ll do anything to stay there. And not let people bring you down off of that cloud [hence, the presence of some very pronounced clouds in this video]. I think that a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media, and if the world finds out if you’re in love with somebody they’re going to weigh in on it.”

    But Swift ought to be more concerned with an objective person (as opposed to a die-hard Swiftie) weighing in on this video. During which she ironically insists, “No deal/The 1950s shit they want from me,” yet so adores the term “lavender haze,” which originated in the 50s. With this in mind, a more engaging concept would have been to set the video in the 50s at some point, perhaps with a Pleasantville angle that then finds Swift entering the modern world once the haze has ended. Because, although she doesn’t admit it (or want to), that “honeymoon” period is usually over after about a year.

    In another non sequitur moment, the scene that follows Swift splitting the screen and being in a lavender pool is a party at the duo’s house that seems intent to look as 70s-era as possible despite this song’s genesis being a direct result of the 50s. The party naturally devolves into a wannabe Holi celebration with more lavender-hued Gulal powder as Swift and her party attendees dance about in a reverie.

    The final moments show Swift opening the window in her living room (the party guests and De La Cruz have mysteriously vanished, perhaps all figments of her “fever dream” imagination to begin with) and then pushing the wall down. This causes the domino effect of all four walls falling, pushed back to reveal Swift’s abode has been floating in that lavender, koi fish-filled universe behind the TV screen that she was mesmerized by earlier. Now nestled in a giant cloud that appeared at the center of the erstwhile living room, Swift disappears into it and leaves the world behind. Notably, the fact that her love interest is not in the haze with her speaks to 1) how Swift would never really be with a trans person and 2) how her relationships have enabled her storytelling indulgence to make most of the narrative about her experience.

    Swift has also said of her tenure with Alwyn re: the “lavender haze,” [In] my relationship [of] six years we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. So this song is about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.” And yet, the accompanying video is about the fantastical rather than the real, which leads one to believe that Swift does a lot of manufacturing for the sake of songwriting embellishment. If only she could have “embellished” a more engaging and original video for the song… Anyway, now that this is off one’s chest, Taylor can get it off her desk.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Anne Geddes Meets American Beauty: Kali Uchis’ “I Wish You Roses” Video

    Anne Geddes Meets American Beauty: Kali Uchis’ “I Wish You Roses” Video

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    After a nearly three-year Kali Uchis album drought, the singer is set to return with a new offering in March called Red Moon in Venus. Returning to English (though of course there will be Spanish songs on the album) after paying homage to her heritage with the Spanish-language Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios), her first single from the record is “I Wish You Roses.” Unlike Miley Cyrus’ more venomous use of flowers as a metaphor in the wake of a relationship, Uchis wields roses to provide her well wishes to an erstwhile boyfriend by declaring, “Ooh, never thought I would be without you/I wish you love, I wish you well/I wish you roses while you can still smell ’em.” For, as Uchis sees it, wishing someone “roses” infers that you have the “goodness” of spirit to set someone free without rancor or animosity—as is so often the case during a breakup. Indeed, an entire musical genre has been centered around it, with Taylor Swift reaping the most financial benefits from her pain and contempt (not to say there’s anything wrong with that…might as well turn heartache into gold, after all).

    This is why Uchis’ song is so rare in a sea of acerbic breakup singles (joined perhaps only by “thank u, next” in seeing the positive in a relationship demise). Playing up the rose theme for the video, obviously, Uchis enlisted Cho Gi-Seok, known for his surreal photography, to direct. With his help, Uchis paints a world colored in serenity and feminine divinity. For, as she said of titling the album, “Red Moon in Venus is a timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith and honesty, reflecting the divine femininity of the moon and Venus.” What Uchis also reflects in the video is being at peace with moving on, a feat that is perhaps most often expected of women anyway. As Uchis stated, the core of the message is “about being able to release people with love. It could be a friend, a lover, or someone else, but the point is to celebrate releasing people from your life without being resentful or bitter.” The great conundrum… especially if one of the people in the equation was left against their will.

    To visually manifest the semi-reluctant beneficence of the track, the video for “I Wish You Roses” commences with the camera’s perspective moving down a thorny vine. We then see a fresh, vibrant rose open up before Uchis’ own eye does—bedecked in bright, over-the-top makeup that matches her dew-dropped lips. The sexual imagery of a flower is also played up with its “center area” separated out from the rest of its structure as it is suspended in midair next to Uchis’ own set of lips (the ones on her face, mind you). Do with that imagery what you will, but a flower can’t help its sexual nature. Which is why it’s kind of fucked up that Anne Geddes was always photographing babies in flower scenarios. Sure, new life and all that, or whatever—but still. Those photos are a creep’s sweet fantasy.

    Uchis, however, veers far more toward Mena Suvari as Angela Hayes in American Beauty territory. But not before the “labia flower” is shown in a transition that then focuses on Uchis’ own “triangle” as Gi-Seok reveals her next look to be in a very Doja Cat-esque state, complete with a bald head and multi-colored naked body. At this juncture, she announces, “I was a rose in a garden of weeds”—an analogy that channels Lana Del Rey (for whom Uchis once opened on her LA to the Moon Tour) saying, “In the land of gods and monsters/I was an angel.” Uchis’ reference to being a rose among the weeds (that, clearly, included her ex) also reminds one of the Phil Spector-penned “Spanish Harlem”—sometimes better recognized as “A Rose in Spanish Harlem.” Originally performed by Ben E. King, he croons, “There is a rose in Spanish Harlem/A red rose up in Spanish Harlem/It is the special one, it’s never seen the sun/It only comes out when the moon is on the run.” A comment on a woman who is expected to survive and thrive among such harsh conditions as the ones that exist in this world, King also adds (somewhat grossly), “I’m goin’ to pick that rose and watch her as she grows in my garden.” But Uchis needs no one to help her grow in “I Wish You Roses”—for she’s the one who already possesses all the wisdom. Including the sagacity to know that it’s better to let go and wish someone well than to hold on and let the poison of vitriol consume you. But hey, try telling that to an egregiously wronged woman like Beatrix Kiddo (or Britney Spears, for that matter), or even just a clingy dude like Pádraic Súilleabháin in The Banshees of Inisherin.

    Uchis continues on her innuendo-laden journey with lyrics that tease, “My petals are soft and silky as sheets.” We soon see her picking the thorny rose we were made certain to notice at the outset as she also remarks, “So do not be afraid to get pricked by the thorns/While I’m here, I’m someone to honor/When I’m gone, I’m someone to mourn/But if you and my heart should someday drift apart/I’ll make surе to give you these blеssings because they’re all I’ve got.” Again, these are very progressive sentiments for someone—especially a woman—to have after a breakup, usually so colored by bitterness and resentment as it can be. Disciples (and Calvin Harris) once asked, “How deep is your love?” and Uchis is happy to answer, “My love’s deep as the ocean, don’t you drown on me/Just know, any love I gave you is forever yours to keep.” It’s a sentiment out of Madonna’s Ray of Light-era playbook (e.g., “Like A Flower,” during which she remarks of a lover past, “You’ll always be a part of me… Like a flower, you grow”)—therefore, the Kabbalah playbook. Which speaks to letting go of any hatred in one’s heart, including when things don’t go their way in romance. Madonna herself once said in 2005’s I’m Going to Tell You A Secret, “It’s the hardest thing in the world to do. I mean, can you imagine forgiving people that, you know, fuck you over, for lack of a better word? To actually get to the end of your day and not only forgive… but to wish [those people] well.” And that’s what Uchis mostly seeks to do, even when there are certain shade-drenched lines like, “With pretty flowers can come the bee sting (ooh, never thought I would be without you)/But I wish you love, I wish you well.”

    And while she’s wishing that wellness, she perhaps wants to remind her ex of what he’s missing as she reenacts the aforementioned overhead shot in American Beauty with all of her “strategic parts” covered in petals. Adding to the tradition of flower imagery in music (as Miley recently has), Uchis brings a new high to the “rose canon” of songs, among such gems as Aretha Franklin’s “A Rose Is Still A Rose” and, yes, Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”—with the eponymous flower in question providing no shortage of inspiration for analogies related to love and growth (and, needless to say, sex).

    Alas, Uchis’ message of “letting go” feels ultimately negated with the song’s outro, during which she lies down inside a rose (again, very Anne Geddes) and chants softly, “You’re gonna want me back/You’re gonna want me bad/You’re gonna—/You know we can’t do that/You know we can’t do that/You know we—” In other words, to paraphrase Outkast, “Lean a little closer, roses really smell like shit.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Britney Spears’ Instagram: Maybe “What U See (Is What U Get)”

    Britney Spears’ Instagram: Maybe “What U See (Is What U Get)”

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    In some sense, it’s easier to believe the current conspiracy theories about Britney Spears. After all, it was “conspiracy theories” that led to her being freed from a needless thirteen-year conservatorship. But now that she is free (or “free,” as some people believe), it’s not quite what many were expecting. Complete with almost daily videos that are clearly not recent and captions that are “cryptic” at best. With most everyone (especially fans) wanting to interpret them as having some “arcane” meaning. But what if Britney actually is, in fact, just that simple? Talking incoherent-but-somehow-coherent shit about all the wrongs that have been done to her (of which there have been many) while embracing her “inbred swamp thing” Southern persona more than ever as she continues to say, “Holy shit balls” and flip off the camera. For, just as it was part of the reason for shaving her head in 2007, she wants to be effectively “unloved” by a public and a media that chewed her up and spit her out. In short, she is very firmly rebuffing any image of “America’s sweetheart” that might have ever been projected onto her. Or any attempt for that image to be re-projected now that she “owes” something to those who secured her unshackling.

    This perhaps includes, for those hoping to see warm and fuzzy images of her life now that it’s “unmanaged,” making it as messy and erratic as possible. Besides, it’s true that Britney once said (albeit during a period of far greater innocence in her life), “What you see/Is what you get/This is me, hey you/If you want me, don’t forget/You should take me as I am/‘Cause I can promise you/Baby, what you see is what you get.” Alas, no one can seem to believe that could possibly be true as they watch her jut out her sunburned-to-the-point-of-redness stomach in a midriff and continue to act as though she’s still dancing in the “…Baby One More Time” video—this often includes showcasing an “updated” version of the look via a green-and-blue plaid skirt with a white ruffle-collared shirt tied in a knot that is sure to expose plenty of belly. An outfit she chose to don for a January 21st post in which she performed her usual series of poses for the camera—exhibiting facial expressions that toe the line between awkward and sassy, though mostly the former. As though she can’t learn to deprogram from the idea that she’s constantly having to pose.

    To add to the eeriness of the display, Spears reverted to a commonly-played song in her Insta videos: Beyoncé’s “Haunted.” Those looking for hidden meaning would thusly be spooked by the lyrics she chose to highlight: “It’s what you do/It’s what you see/I know if I’m haunting you, you must be haunting me/It’s where we go/It’s where we’ll be/I know if I’m onto you, I’m onto you/Onto you, you must be onto me.” Such sentiments might spur the question: is she addressing that people, with their conspiracy theories, are “onto” the fact that she’s still not really in control? Least of all of her highly unhinged and consistently inconsistent Instagram account. Those descriptors were proven yet again on January 25th, after Spears went on yet another abstruse rant that many believe was pronounced shade at her husband’s infidelity before, once more, deleting the account.

    It was the expression of rage and its subsequent deletion that evidently prompted people to call the police to perform a “well check” on Spears at her home in Thousand Oaks. A.k.a. the home she was supposed to move out of in favor of a new one with Sam Asghari in Calabasas. But the latter residence is currently being “quietly” shopped around on the market as Spears has decided to return to the same home that should theoretically be filled with unpleasant associations… you know, because it was where she lived for a large bulk of her imprisoning conservatorship. But apparently, we all have a psychological glitch that allows us to find a slight bit of pleasure in the pain of revisiting old wounds.

    Upon the latest deletion of her account, the continued “concern” over Spears’ mental health—a polite way for people to excuse their fascination with watching “trainwrecks” and their drama—had also arisen when she changed her Instagram name from Channel 8 to River Red. Many could also read into that what they will—from making the correlation between Britney’s life and the 1998 movie of the same name about a boy who murders his abusive father to a commitment to never becoming menopausal (Britney has plenty of regressive tactics to stay in touch with the teen girl inside) to wanting the blood of those who wronged her to flow as gushingly as a river (in non-drought conditions). Like, say, Lou Taylor and Robin Greenhill of Tri Star Entertainment (not to be confused with TriStar Pictures).

    But then, such “outrage” over her “nonsensical” meanderings being drawn seems to invoke only giddy delight from Spears, who put up another post from the same day (January 21st) as the would-be neo-“…Baby One More Time” outfit. This one of a “collage” from @boipoppin with the caption, “I love being me. It pisses off all the right people.” That it truly does. In addition to all the wrong ones—like those who would seek to hem her in with a conservatorship (*cough cough* Lou Taylor and Robin Greenhill). And sell the idea to Spears’ father as the puppeteer. Two women who prompted a “red river” of shit on Britney’s Instagram in February of ’22, when she wrote (and later deleted, obviously), “The swanky suited up bitches … SO NICE with their ‘We are here to make you feel SPECIAL’ !!!! I had lunch with Lou Taylor and Robin Greenhill … they said ‘Britney, look at your picture on the wall!’ With a huge black and white framed picture in the hall of their office !!!!! Kate Beckinsale was there too !!!!! They sucked up to me and ‘made me feel special’ … RIGHT …. Ha those same bitches killed me a week later !!!!” Britney went on to say that her father/erstwhile conservator, Jamie Spears, “worshipped” Taylor and Greenhill and “would have done anything they asked of him.”

    Of her tenacity and endurance of such an unfathomable and incongruous situation, Spears asserted, “Nobody else would have lived through what they did to me !!! I lived through all of it and I remember all of it !!!! I will sue the shit out of Tri Star !!!! Psss they got away with all of it and I’m here to warn them every day of my precious life !!!!” Perhaps her warnings have persisted in the unrelenting posts that are drenched with the most enigmatic of shade as Britney dances and twirls or mimics one of the therapists she had to see while forced to be in a treatment facility. All of these freely put up for at least a day or two without Spears appearing to have any concern for how she’s “perceived.” Especially not now that her two narrow-minded sons have forsaken her in favor of the ultimate trashball that is Kevin Federline.

    But after a leaked video of her being “manic” at a restaurant in Thousand Oaks surfaced, Spears couldn’t ignore the ongoing scrutiny about her behavior. Thus, another dancing-in-the-studio post from Spears on January 23rd addressed her hyper-awareness of the public’s examination of her every move on social media—not to mention every (rare) move she makes in public. And yet, it’s an examination she slightly relishes and conjures by continuing to troll everyone with her captions. In this particular dancing video, she played some of her go-to favorite songs (e.g., Rihanna’s “Love on the Brain” and Chris Isaak’s “Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing”) with the “explanation,” “Howdy ho down … tipsy cattle balls !!! I have no idea what that means 🙈 … feeling kooky and silly but can’t act too kooky or silly like kids because they say ‘she’s CRAY CRAY’ … either way I gotta move … so I did !!! Sharing because I matter and if every person I call TAKES 9 RINGS TO ANSWER you can be certain I might get someone’s attention … all that LOVE !!! GOOD GOD RIGHT BACK AT YA !!! I bet after I post this my security answers after 2 RINGS … I be alive coming on my horse !!!” It sounds like a lot of word salad for the most part—at least to those who don’t know how to “look for the clues” and “allusions.” And, with regard to that security reference, it likely refers to Spears being literally policed with a “well check” every time she puts up a “cray cray” video.

    But as she once said in the aforementioned “What U See (Is What U Get),” “You should never try to change me/I can be nobody else/And I like the way I am.” Perhaps if so many people and “handlers” didn’t try to change her over the years, we might have some semblance of the girl we once knew in the era of Oops!…I Did It Again (on which this particular song appears).

    Uncannily enough, on the same track, Spears also sings the lyrics, “I know you watch me when I’m dancin’” and “I can feel your eyes on my back, baby/Uh na na/I can’t have no chains around me, baby can’t you see/I could be anything you dream of, but I gotta feel free.” Which she still clearly doesn’t/can’t because of how much weight is placed on the “strength” of her mental health each time she posts something snarky or silly or outright AI chatbot-sounding. As a “free” woman, however, doesn’t she have the right to? Maybe no one is controlling her—not even Sam. Maybe the harder truth to believe about Britney at this juncture is that what you see really is what you get. Complete with invectives like, “I generously serve you my shit … eat my shit!!! Psss !!! Keep coughing !!!” Whether aimed at Sam or not (as is the current speculation), Britney is right about one thing: “I could sit back and be like MOST and not give anyone anything to think about on Instagram.”

    Yet even when presenting her most blunt and honest thoughts (including, “Giving someone I love my everything only gives me the dagger in the heart !!!”), the majority wants to twist and turn them into something that isn’t rather straightforward. Because again, with Britney, “Baby, what you see is what you get.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • A Uniquely American (The) “Whale” of a Tale

    A Uniquely American (The) “Whale” of a Tale

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    The Whale wastes no time in cutting to the quick of human desperation and sadness. As most stage plays tend to do. And yes, the film is based on Samuel D. Hunter’s 2012 play of the same name. Hunter, who adapted the script for Darren Aronofsky’s directing pleasure, accordingly leaves the one-location setting intact. A static milieu that is rendered totally believable by Charlie’s (Brendan Fraser) reclusive nature. Not necessarily because it’s a “conscious choice,” so much as a practical one. After all, he’s too morbidly obese to get very far without extreme difficulty and over-exertion. So it is that, with the help of his best friend/enabler, Liz (Hong Chau), Charlie manages to work and live with relative “ease,” at least considering his situation. One that finds him in the John Popper-from-Blues Traveler position of being too obese to masturbate without the risk of a heart attack. Which is where we find him within the first few seconds of the movie, and how the appearance of a missionary named Thomas (Ty Simpkins) at his doorstep is actually welcomed as Charlie tussles with the throes of death.

    To calm and recenter him, Charlie insists that Thomas read from an essay he hands to him about Moby-Dick, one that we later find out was written by his estranged daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), and that he has become rather obsessed with for its “honesty.” Having written it in eighth grade (the audience is expected to suspend disbelief on such a book being assigned at that age), the sentence structure is simple and written in the first person, with Charlie most focused on the lines, “…and I felt saddest of all when I read the boring chapters that were only descriptions of whales, because I knew that the author was just trying to save us from his own sad story, just for a little while.” That author being Ishmael who “shar[es] a bed with a man named Queequeg,” as Ellie homoerotically phrases it. Indeed, there are a number of scholars who interpret the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg as homoerotic, with one critic, Caleb Crain, noting that the cannibalism portrayed by Herman Melville is meant to be a metaphor for homosexuality. Charlie’s guilt-racked gay relationship and subsequent practice of “eating himself to death” fits in quite nicely with that analysis of Melville’s opus—the subject of which also ties in to the film not just title-wise, but “pursuit”-wise as well. With Captain Ahab easily representing the religious zealots embodied by Thomas and the “New Life Church” he works for seeing “The Whale” as pure evil (in this case, Charlie—because of his homosexuality). Just for existing, for being itself. As Charlie is, obese or not.

    “Working around” the physical limitations of his body, Charlie’s job as an English Composition professor teaching courses for an online university also allows him to conceal the monstrosity he has become. To address the word “monstrosity,” the backlash against The Whale for its portrayal of corpulent people was rebuffed by Aronofsky, who worked with the Obesity Action Coalition not just to help Fraser with the physicality of the role, but to better get into the headspace of the self-destruction and addiction behind overeating. Per Aronofsky, the Coalition “really [feels] this is going to open up people’s eyes. You gotta remember, people in this community, they get judged by doctors when they go to get medical help. They get judged everywhere they go on the planet, by most people. This film shows that, like everyone, we are all human and that we are all good and bad and flawed and hopeful and joyful and sorrowful, and there’s all different colors inside of us.”

    Aronofsky also added of the decision to cast a “thin person in a fat suit” (see also: Weird Al’s “Fat” video), “…actors have been using makeup since the beginning of acting—that’s one of their tools. And the lengths we went to portray the realism of the makeup has never been done before.” Those lengths furnished by makeup artist Adrien Morot, who was rightly nominated for an Oscar for her part in bringing the character of Charlie to (large) life. His “girth,” of course, serves as the pronounced metaphor regarding how self-flagellation comes in all forms—“shapes and sizes,” if one prefers a more overt pun. And Charlie’s has been to eat himself into oblivion as punishment. Not just because he feels partly responsible for the suicide of his long-time partner, Alan, but because he left his wife, Mary (Samantha Morton), and then eight-year-old daughter to be with him. At the time of their meeting—when Alan was a student of his at night school—Charlie was still “robust” in build, but obviously not morbidly obese. And whatever Alan saw in Charlie was less about looks and more about his personality. His essential “goodness.” For it’s true what they say about the person who loves you being able to see past certain physical “flaws” that others might deem “grotesque.” But Charlie is bound to live forever with the guilt of abandoning his daughter. Something he’s determined to make right as best as he can.

    This is spurred by the imminence of his demise, as the film commences on Monday to show us the short lifespan of a week Charlie has left after being told by Liz (who is, conveniently, also a nurse) that he has congestive heart failure. Rather than seeking medical treatment—which plays into not only a lack of health insurance, but the aforementioned fear of judgment by a medical professional—he decides to “get his ducks in a row,” as it were. And at the top of that list is getting to know Ellie and trying to help her. When she refuses to stay after being summoned over, he offers to pay her all the money he has—roughly $120,000 in his bank account (all of which he has saved up specifically to give to her). By this point, the “uniquely American” nature of the tale has been accented not only by the out-of-control overweightness that a person can allow to flourish in their dissatisfaction paired with endless access to processed foods, but by the fact that only in America would someone rather die than go to a hospital and incur the inevitable hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt as a consequence. This always occurring when one doesn’t pay the monthly baseline cost of health insurance (itself an extreme expense for those who can’t get it at least partially covered by their workplace). What’s more, only in America would someone be so concerned with expressing their love through money. And know full well that love can be “bought.” Or at least the feigning of love. Which Ellie does little to convey through her surly, enraged aura.

    An anger that has led her to alienate others from being her friend at school, as well as any teachers who might want to keep her from failing out of it. To that end, part of the deal to get Ellie to keep coming around while he still has time is that he’ll rewrite some of her essays for her. In exchange (as he’s convinced of her brilliance), Charlie asks Ellie to write whatever she wants in the notebook he provides for her while she comes over to his apartment. After the first “session,” he finds that all she has written is: “His apartment stinks/This notebook is retarded/I hate everyone.” But yes, it’s a haiku. So she isn’t the incompetent git that her teachers say she is.

    Taking into account the religious and faith-based overtones of the movie, the biblical narrative of Jonah and The Whale provides an additional symbolic context. For Jonah was saved from drowning by a “whale” (or big fish), which one can argue Charlie has done for Ellie by reminding her of her greatness. That she’s “perfect”—just as she is, as Mark Darcy would say. And as it’s the last meaningful thing he can do as a human being on this Earth, he’s made it his mission to not be foiled by her armor. Her dogged determination to be as mean and vicious as possible. For he knows, in the end, that people are “incapable of not caring” (save for, you know, people like Putin). That belief certainly holds true for Ellie.

    As for Liz, who learned long ago by trying to “save” her brother, Alan (hence her deep connection with Charlie), she does not believe a person can ultimately be “saved” by anyone but themselves (going inherently against everything Christians stand for). This being what keeps her from intervening in what Charlie truly wants: the long punishment on his body he’s given himself, followed by death. What Thomas believes Alan was striving for in order to make himself “clean” again for God, citing a scripture Alan had highlighted in his own bible about separating the spirit from the flesh—flesh, in all its meanings, being at the very center of The Whale. But so is strength. The ability for the mind to overpower the body in ways both harmful and beneficial. This being why it was so appropriate for Fraser to note of the part, “I learned quickly that it takes an incredibly strong person inside that body to be that person. That seemed fitting and poetic and practical to me, all at once.”

    A whale isn’t the only symbolic creature in the movie though. There’s also the unacknowledged bird that Charlie keeps luring back to his window by setting food out for it on a plate. By the third act, that plate is broken into shards and the bird seems nowhere to be found. Charlie’s own proverbial plate has been broken now, too, as there’s nothing left to figuratively eat. He’s swallowed life whole and it has spat him back into the abyss. In other words, this bird has flown.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • When Beyoncé Said, “Who Run the World? Girls,” This Isn’t What She Had In Mind… But It Was More of a “Symbolic” Statement Anyway

    When Beyoncé Said, “Who Run the World? Girls,” This Isn’t What She Had In Mind… But It Was More of a “Symbolic” Statement Anyway

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    While a “pretty thought” to express, the assumption made by most (realists) when Beyoncé said, “Who run the world? Girls” back in 2011 was that it was a more “metaphorical” sentiment. For it certainly didn’t apply in practice to the political arena: the sole source of true power on Planet Earth (apart from “billionaire businessman”). Not then, and not even now. Yes, there have been “strides,” but, at present, only about seven percent of women comprise leadership positions in high-ranking government roles. As of 2022, only thirteen countries were represented by women as a Head of State. Sadly, this will no longer include Jacinda Ardern, the beloved prime minister of New Zealand who has decided to step down from her role in February of 2023 and let someone else take on all the stress that comes with it. Ardern was an especially remarkable “anomaly” in the political arena because she was the youngest woman to become a head of state, and then did that one better by becoming the second female head of state to give birth while in office. Proving that, yes, women really can do it all. Often because they’re not given much of a choice.

    Ardern’s decision to leave her post, however, proves that when a woman is given the opportunity not to have to juggle it all, she should take it. And Ardern was very candid in openly declaring, “I know what this job takes and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple. We need a fresh set of shoulders for that challenge.” This is something that, clearly, most men would fail to admit. Complete with “statesmen” like Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump and Joe Biden taking on the presidency at an age that calls into question a particular mental fitness required for such a rigorous job. Or what should be a rigorous job if one is actually doing it. Nonetheless, these men are given the green light to take on positions they have no business “performing” (and it is all ultimately just a performance for them).

    But Beyoncé clearly didn’t want to think about that when she touted repeatedly, “Who run the world? Girls.” In addition to, “My persuasion [read: vagina]/Can build a nation/Endless power/With our love we can devour.” But it’s obviously the hate-driven subjugation spurred by men that has continued to succeed in this life. With messages of hate, if we’re being honest with ourselves, truly winning out over “radical love.”

    What’s more, the type of women that do seek power often end up being walking examples—see: Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, Marjorie Taylor Greene—of internalized misogyny within the very gender that should seek to obliterate it at all costs. The only shining beacon of that obliteration has been Iceland (whose current prime minister is Katrín Jakobsdóttir). This not only being the first country to have a female president with the election of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in 1980, but also the first openly gay (female or otherwise) president in the form of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, who took office in 2009. And it was Finnbogadóttir who said that her election would not have been possible without Kvennafrídagurinn, or the Women’s Day Off strike that took place on Friday, October 24, 1975. On this day, ninety percent of Iceland’s female population participated in the strike, which entailed not going to their jobs or doing housework/child care of any kind.

    The intent, of course, was to show men “the indispensable work of women for Iceland’s economy and society.” That indispensability wasn’t just in Iceland, but worldwide. And yet, Iceland remains among the few countries with something vaguely resembling gender parity. So sure, if Beyoncé was thinking about Iceland when she sang “Run the World (Girls),” the lyrics might apply. For even Finland, for all its Scandinavian progressiveness in having a youthful female prime minister like Sanna Marin, couldn’t avoid the “scandal” that arose when videos of Marin drinking and partying at a private residence with her friends leaked to the public. The question of whether or not a man in power would be subject to even half as much scrutiny was immediately raised by women, including those who showed support for Marin’s right to party by posting videos of themselves drinking, dancing and generally having a good time in the wake of her “moral fitness” being put under a microscope. Indeed, a woman having a good time is still a cardinal sin in most men’s eyes—especially when she’s in a position of authority. Authority that is constantly undermined by male judgment, hypocritical accusations and a general petulant outcrying. All designed to somehow “prove” that women are “inept” and “too emotional” to shoulder the responsibility of running a nation. Cue the abrupt record scratch sound effect over the tune of this song potentially playing over an election win for Hillary Clinton.

    Even Beyoncé’s lyrics don’t provide much in the way of a “vote of confidence” for female capability as she says things like, “This goes out to all my girls/That’s in the club rocking the latest.” As though the highest achievement a woman can reveal to accent her “power” is being well-dressed in the most expensive garb. Which is ultimately just a reiteration of the stereotype of women’s frivolity (hear also: “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”) more than a “boosting” commentary on a woman’s ability to pay for her own shit. To that point, Beyoncé also declares, “I work my nine to five [no she doesn’t], better cut my check.” This being yet another prime instance of Beyoncé pretending to act like she’s ever been a part of the conventional working world (with the “nine to five” trope also cropping up in “Haunted” via the lyrics, “Workin’ nine to five/Just to stay alive/How come?”). The most recent sonic illustration of that being “Break My Soul,” during which she urges the masses to quit their job by insisting, in this alternate universe where she’s an office worker, “I just quit my job I’m gonna find new drive/Damn, they work me so damn hard/Work by nine, then off past five [once again, Bey clearly hasn’t updated herself on what more modern working hours are]/And they work my nerves/That’s why I cannot sleep at night.” Really? It has nothing to do with the pain of a lie like, “Who run the world? Girls”?

    For what Beyoncé is really alluding to in that song is the Lysistrata-based fact that women “run the world” with their sexual power (e.g., “You’ll do anything for me”—yeah, because pussy runs dick, hence the term, “Pussy Power”). As Samantha Jones once said of giving head (as opposed to head of state), “The sense of power is such a turn-on—maybe you’re on your knees, but you got him by the balls.” This being one of those things women have to tell themselves in order to keep going. That no matter how demeaned they are, they still have their ultimate power: the threat of withholding sex (once more: Lysistrata). And even that isn’t much of a source of power when it’s so often ripped from them through sexual assault.

    To boot, what will become of that power in a world ever-changing with regard to gender fluidity and sexuality? It seems that’s the real reason “conventional” women like Giorgia Meloni end up in high government positions: to somehow ensure that they can keep what little power they have with the cisgender straight white males who actually run the world by championing discriminatory practices that exclude trans and LGTQIA+ rights. It’s a bleak reality, to be sure—but it is reality. And according the UN’s prognostications for gender parity in government at the current rate, it will remain a reality for another “130 years.” At which time, most of the population will probably be dead because of male decisions made (or rather, not made) about how to conserve what’s left of the environment.

    To add insult to the injury of it all, Beyoncé chose to kick off 2023 by performing in the United Arab Emirates—even if somewhere as “progressive” as Dubai. Where laws against women (including a husband’s “right” beat his wife) are notoriously not in favor of the Bey-backed sentiment regarding women running the world (but “principles” tend to go effortlessly out the window when one is paid twenty-four million dollars to lose them). Not to mention the Emirates being very anti-LGBTQIA+ a.k.a. the community that Bey freely pillaged from for her Renaissance album.

    In short, it’s pretty hard evidence that she’s not all that committed to making a point about women running the world in any way other than “symbolically.” And the same goes for women like Meloni, who actively seek to reinforce the patriarchal system we’re trapped in by working “within it” instead of against it.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Britney and Elvis Connection Further Solidifies With “Toxic Las Vegas”

    The Britney and Elvis Connection Further Solidifies With “Toxic Las Vegas”

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    As though Elvis Presley and Britney Spears needed a further connection solidified between them (what with both being pimped out for profit), Baz Luhrmann decided to make it ultra-official by sanctioning the release of a deluxe edition of the Elvis Soundtrack featuring “Toxic Las Vegas.” As the title suggests, it’s a mashup of Spears’ “Toxic” and Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” (which does, in fact, play during the movie). For those worried that Brit might be losing out on the profits yet again, however, there’s no need to fear: Luhrmann has assured that Brit approved of the sample being used. And why shouldn’t she? Clearly the chanteuse feels a certain kinship to the problematic icon (yes, Elvis conveniently glosses over his pedo tendencies in general and with Priscilla specifically). Not only because they both had to prop themselves up for a Vegas residency that started to feel more and more like a prison, but because each one was forced to perform against their will, when it was no longer a joy to do so. But rather, an infinite torture.

    Eerily enough, Britney would don the famous white jumpsuit for her Britney Spears Live from Las Vegas concert video, which showcased her performance at the MGM Grand for 2001’s Dream Within A Dream Tour. Because yes, back then, a Vegas residency would have been out of the question for a constantly rising star like her. Little did she know, Vegas would become her jail cell just thirteen years (also the amount of time she was stuck in a conservatorship) later with Piece of Me at Planet Hollywood. A jail sentence that wouldn’t turn out to be as long as Elvis’ at the International, but still long enough to break her spirit and cause her soul to drain out of her body. Elvis wasn’t really inside his body much either as the seven-year residency wore on. That’s right, seven years of being pumped full of downers and uppers just to keep the show going—just to keep “the Colonel” flush enough to pay his gambling debts.

    Of course, the Colonel wouldn’t see it that way, as Luhrmann posits in the biopic (co-written with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce and Jeremy Doner—fittingly, there is no female perspective on such a “complicated” man). Played by Tom Hanks, the Colonel is sure to insist at the outset of the film (as Jamie Spears might), “Without me, there would be no Elvis Presley. And yet, there are some who would make me out to be the villain of this story.” In short, whatever he needs to tell himself amid the headlines that swirl after his death, including a newscaster announcing, “He worked Elvis like a mule to support his own gambling addiction.”

    And yet, Elvis was too young and naïve at the time of his ascent to avoid the con, it seemed. And what with being the first “pop star” of the kind, how was he to know how important and financially successful he would be? As Luhrmann said, “One minute he’s a truck driver, and the next minute he’s the most talked about, most provocative, most famous young man in the world.” Apart from the “truck driving man” description, it sounds like Britney to a tee—who was also constantly condemned for being too sexual. Because yes, women exposing their skin in a liberated manner warrants being treated like they’re still in the 1950s vis-à-vis the outrage and sexual repression front in America. Elvis’ pelvis, indeed, did break down many barriers with regard to repressed desire in the United States. Just not in a way that allowed women in entertainment (or any other arena) to relish the breaking down of those barriers. Hence, Britney being shamed at every turn for how she chose to dress and move… even in the twenty-first century and even by fellow women like Diane Sawyer.

    Born into a poor family like Britney, Elvis’ parents also saw an opportunity to monetize his talent. Of course, this was at a time when conservatorships weren’t quite so pervasive (unless, of course, you were a Native American being swindled by a white man), but it didn’t keep a man like the Colonel from capitalizing on his new “product.” Which is why, in Elvis, he boasts of his gift for the “snow job” (like Stanton Carlisle in Nightmare Alley), explaining what that means on the carny circuit: “emptying a rube’s wallet while leaving him with nothing but a smile on their face.” In this scenario, Elvis is the rube in addition to his public. Only he didn’t get the benefit of a smile on his face while being swindled and forced to perform in projects he found to be as hokey as everyone else did.

    Britney, at least, had more autonomy at the outset of her career. For a start, she was the one who suggested the Catholic schoolgirl uniforms of “…Baby One More Time.” Or, at least, planted the seed with comments like, “Wouldn’t I be wearing a schoolgirl’s outfit?” and “The outfits looked kind of dorky, so I was like, ‘Let’s tie up our shirts and be cute.’” Too “cute” for most pearl-clutching parents of the day. Just as it was for Elvis being deemed some sort of “instrument of the devil” for his hip-shaking maneuvers. As Austin Butler put it, “He had this animalistic fire.” As did (and does) Britney every time she performs, letting herself transcend to another plane free of judgment and accusations of being a ho (and, now that she’s older, “desperate”).

    As for Elvis and Britney’s Southern roots (both were born in Mississippi), it also extended into the eventual sound of their music. While each Southern singer was, on the surface, a “pop” musician, the icons grafted elements from the Black community to whitewash the sound for greater mass consumption (for Britney, that was especially noticeable on a record like 2001’s Britney or a song like “[I Got That] Boom Boom”).

    With “Toxic Las Vegas,” their separate remade-from-other-cultures sound fuses into one seamless party. Remixed by Jamieson Shaw, each pop star is given their time on the mic, with Elvis musing, “If I wind up broke, I’ll always remember that I had a swingin’ time.” Britney, unfortunately, had a far less “swingin’ time” in Las Vegas, as she’s sure to constantly repeat the story of how 1) she was never able to go out and enjoy the nightlife of the city at any point during her Piece of Me sentence and 2) all of her hometown “friends” were allowed to go to the spa while she was forced to keep “focusing on the show” and given no such outlet or release for the enjoyment of her own money.

    Upon the release of “Toxic Las Vegas,” Luhrmann would diplomatically say of the bond between Elvis and Britney, “She’s a gifted and talented artist, and all gifted and talented artists walk a high wire. What she’s been through—this is probably not the forum for me to comment on it, but others have said that there is a direct line between Elvis’ journey and Britney’s journey. They both had to contend with very, very complicated relationships. Let’s just leave it at that.” But let’s not. Let’s just say what happened: they were both fucked over by the people closest to them, carrying everyone else (in their inner circle) on their backs with the talent they had. The talent that should have ensured their wealth, not anyone else’s. And Las Vegas was a peak of the “toxicity” point for that harsh reality. So yes, a song and title like “Toxic Las Vegas” brings it all full-circle for both maltreated stars.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • To Leslie: A Semi-Realistic Fairy Tale

    To Leslie: A Semi-Realistic Fairy Tale

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    As Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman once said, “People put you down enough, you start to believe it.” That statement couldn’t be any truer for washed-up alcoholic Leslie Rowlands (Andrea Riseborough), a proverbial small-town girl whose only achievement in life has been winning the lottery at her favorite local bar in West Texas. Although only a “modest sum” of $190,000, it’s enough to make Leslie’s head get a little too big as she proceeds to party the funds away. All while her parents, thirteen-year-old son, James (later played by Owen Teague), and sister, Nancy (Allison Janney), watch.

    It is the latter and her husband, Dutch (Stephen Root), who end up helping raise James when Leslie decides to leave “just so you can go out drinkin’ [and] thinkin’ you’re hot shit,” as Nancy puts it. Of course, anyone who has been an alcoholic or known one is aware of the seduction that the bottle holds. And it’s far greater than the appeal of being a Responsible Adult. Which is why, at the time, Leslie doesn’t feel so bad about the abandonment, sinking deeper and deeper into her hole of addiction and financial ruin. As she confesses to her employer-turned-semi-boyfriend/custodian, Sweeney (Marc Maron), “I was happy to have a break, okay? I partied and I didn’t mean to spend it all. I lost everything and I had to file for bankruptcy. So yeah, I left him.”

    Leslie’s explanation cuts to the core of Ernest Hemingway’s iconic dialogue from The Sun Also Rises: “‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked. ‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually, then suddenly.’” And when you’re “flush,” everyone around you wants to cash in on it as well, which is precisely what happened with Leslie, as she undoubtedly ordered rounds for everyone in the bar each time she went out. And, to the point of Nancy mocking her for thinking she was “hot shit,” Leslie still seems to be laboring under that misconception while she shamelessly flirts with men at bars to attempt getting her tab covered in her present state of broke assery.

    Ten years ago, it might have worked, but in the now, she’s become the proverbial “sad bar troll.” The one who stayed at the fair too long and currently looks like a bedraggled carny. And, talking of carnies, screenwriter Ryan Binaco (whose only previous writing credit is 3022) seems to want to emulate the message of William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley (another lurid tale about an alcoholic hitting rock bottom after experiencing life at “the top”). A novel (and movie) that reiterates to the “little people” that they should be happy with their lot in life before they go trying to reach for the stars. To Leslie does something similar, being that Leslie is a woman determined to believe that the money will change her and her son’s lot in life. But, as Somen a.k.a. Steve’s mom in Welcome to Chippendales warns, “Some people are not meant to be rich.” For when you’re born fundamentally “gauche” (see also: The Beverly Hillbillies), you’ll only end up either 1) squandering it all or 2) constantly wanting more—never “just” being satisfied with the fluke of a come-up you’ve already gotten.

    In Leslie’s case, it’s the former category, and she pays a much higher price for ever having been “rich” in the first place—a heavenly blip in time that hardly compares to the hell she’s expected to spend the rest of her life in now—than she would have if she had gone on as an “ordinary” woman. That is to say, someone who kept their head down and kept working some banal job without letting “grand” ideas of being wealthy get the better of them. Even though we live in a society that preys on this naïve hope of the plebes every day (*cough cough* the very existence of the lottery and its nonstop barrage of ads peddling notions of hitting the big time with no effort except the purchase of a ticket). It’s also sometimes better known as capitalism.

    And once Leslie loses all her money, she also loses her entire sense of worth. Something that Sweeney, who manages the cheap roadside motel that his friend, Royal (Andre Royo), owns, has to help remind Leslie of as she makes slow progress on getting sober and actually doing the job she was hired for: cleaning the rooms. But, to bring up something else the aforementioned Vivian Ward said, “The bad stuff is easier to believe. Ever notice that?” It would be difficult for Leslie not to, what with all the “townfolk” constantly talking about what a fuck-up she is. But Sweeney tells her point-blank, “You’re not the piece of shit that everybody says you are.” In this regard, To Leslie additionally emphasizes that sometimes it only takes one person to believe in you in order for you to believe in yourself again. Just as it was for Vivian with Edward in Pretty Woman. And yeah, Leslie would probably be prostituting herself if there was more male interest actually shown in the “product.”

    Instead, she accepts the only job she’s miraculously offered: hotel maid. And all because Sweeney sees her homeless, drunken state and takes pity on her. Only to return his charity by later seething, while sober, “I’m fuckin’ stuck here with you and Royal—a pair of fuckin’ hilljacks like the shit icing on my shit fuckin’ life.” Sweeney reminds, “Me and Royal are the best thing that happened to you. So don’t call us names. And your family won’t talk to you because they shouldn’t after what you did. But you’re livin’, right?” She bursts out laughing at the “consolation” as he continues, “I’m sorry it ain’t a fairy tale, we all shoulda done things differently. But you’re what’s wrong with your life, not anyone else.”

    Royal expresses a similar sentiment when he tells Leslie at a town gathering, “Now everyone thinks they should be livin’ some life out the movies. Life is hard. Stop actin’ like it ain’t.” But even To Leslie, for all its bleakness, cannot fully surrender to giving its anti-heroine a totally dreary ending. Even if it might seem that way by Hollywood standards, with The Hollywood Reporter praising, “Recalls the grit of 1970s American indie cinema at its most indelible.” Yet, if that were an accurate comparison, somebody would end up either dead or heartbroken (e.g., Looking For Mr. Goodbar and Five Easy Pieces, respectively). Neither of which happens in To Leslie, a film that ultimately wants to declare to the masses that it’s okay to just be “ordinary.” To have modest dreams instead of lofty visions of fame and fortune. An assurance that probably means nothing in this world of “viral fame”-seeking whores who will have to learn the hard way that capitalism only favors a plebeian “come-up” for so long before cutting them down to size again.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • More Generational Shade Is Coughed Up in Sick

    More Generational Shade Is Coughed Up in Sick

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    COVID-19, despite being an ongoing “phenomenon,” is presently something that the masses prefer to “relegate” to “the past.” And, being that it currently feels like an entire year can go by in the span of a month thanks to the societal peddling of information overload, it’s no wonder that so many can view 2020 as “a long time ago.” So long ago, in fact, that Kevin Williamson has seen fit to use that “looking back on it now” potential for Sick, his latest script…co-written with Katelyn Crabb, who went from being Williamson’s assistant on Scream (the 2022 one) to his collaborative writing partner (so maybe all assistant jobs aren’t totally thankless).

    More than being a “slasher movie set during COVID,” however, Sick aims to remind viewers not just of the distinct brand of American selfishness during the initial advent of coronavirus (and well beyond), but Gen Z’s selfishness in particular. After all, this was the group known for attending parties just to make bets on who could get corona. And also the group arrogant enough to think it was immune to the contagion at first, grossly referring to the novel virus as “boomer killer.”

    With this in mind, Williamson—a Gen Xer bordering on the baby boomer epoch—brings his brand of satire to a “message movie” about both the self-involvement of youths and the “impossible” standards (when actually taking into account human nature) put forth by their “elders.” Directed by John Hyams, Sick often feels like the last movie he released, Alone (an appropriate title for a 2020 film), during which a woman is stalked by a homicidal maniac in the wilderness. In Sick, that wilderness includes a remote lake house, somewhere in the Salt Lake City/Ogden vicinity, where filming took place. But before we get there, we’re given the PTSD-inducing opportunity to remember the chaos of early 2020, when something as formerly “taken for granted” as being able to find the grocery store fully stocked with toilet paper had transformed into a herculean effort. Indeed, the nightmares of most had very much become reality, what with everyone being obsessed with “doing” and “seeing,” only to be told they could no longer keep running around in circles in a bid to achieve nothing but the same unspoken outcome: death. Coronavirus made that inevitable end result all the more apparent. And maybe that’s part of what caused people (read: Americans) to go so crazy during this period.

    Suddenly, there was nothing to think about but mortality. So why think at all? Plus, with all the “free time” afforded by stay-at-home orders, there was plenty of opportunity to drug and drink, therefore not think. Particularly for the college set. Rian Johnson, too, saw the rare circumstance of 2020’s collective quarantine as a storytelling opportunity for Glass Onion, also setting his narrative in that “time period.” Yet, in contrast to Sick, Glass Onion is far less preachy, with the former seeking to slap us over the head with a moralizing takeaway: Gen Z is a generation of selfish pricks. More so than the average. And sure, every older generation has thought that about the “au courant” one, but it’s especially pronounced with Z (so who the fuck knows how bad it might get with Alpha?).

    In addition to Sick possessing certain Glass Onion elements, there’s also plenty of Bodies Bodies Bodies similarities—except the latter manages to make a single location and a limited plot far more interesting (and satirical in a non-cheesy way). Granted, Sick doesn’t commence with the claustrophobic one-location vibe as Williamson offers a strong start via his modernized take on the original Scream’s opening scene: a mysterious presence texting Tyler (Joel Courtney) in the supermarket until popping out of nowhere in his apartment to brutally stab him. From here, things quickly devolve when we’re shifted to Parker Mason’s (Gideon Adlon) storyline. Seeing her taking blithe selfies amid her college’s stay-at-home orders, the audience is also transported back to that moment when the “youth of the day” was living so devil-may-care/unbothered amid the carnage of corona’s death toll. In part because, for quite a while, they really did believe they were immune and in part because, well, when the world feels like it’s ending, why not indulge entirely in selfish behavior?

    Taking her best friend, Miri Woodlow (Bethlehem Million), along for the quarantine, Parker acts as though it’s a fun road trip/getaway as Miri reminds, “This isn’t a vacation, it’s a quarantine.” Parker corrects, “A quarantine in style.” And yes, that’s how many an affluent person felt as they retreated to their convenient second homes somewhere far away from the proverbial city. In Parker’s case, that second home is her dad’s lake house that he apparently never uses. On the way there, attempts at a slow, ominous buildup before Parker and Miri’s arrival are made through long overhead shots of their drive through the woods to get to the location. And it might have been effective, sure, if there was actually something truly “scary” about Sick—but, in the end, what’s meant to be scariest of all is the human capacity for selfishness. Especially the young human’s capacity for it… even though that’s kind of rich considering what all the previous generations have done to fuck over the planet.

    And yet, who knows how much unnecessary illness was wrought by such gatherings as the one that Parker found herself making out with a guy named Benji (Logan Murphy) at (immortalized by a video posted by @LoriLegs21 featuring the hashtags: #EndoftheWorldParty [very The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis] #FuckedUp #CovidOnMyFace #2020SucksDonkeyDick #FuckCovid). The video of said “kiss of death” ultimately serves as the entire catalyst for why Parker and Miri find themselves being stalked at the lake house, along with Parker’s sort-of boyfriend, DJ (Dylan Sprayberry—a very porn-ready name). The latter rolling up out of nowhere to express his love and devotion for Parker, who has commitment phobia (like anyone in their early twenties). But his bid to show that he cares will only backfire, as the multiple killers (the Kevin Williamson way for “twists”) unveil themselves to be Pamela (Jane Adams), Jason (Marc Menchaca) and Jeb (Chris Reid) a.k.a. the family of now-dead-thanks-to-corona Benji, who was used as a pawn in Parker’s game of making DJ jealous.

    Unfortunately, she picked the wrong guy to “be slutty” with as she finds herself defending the social media-posted kiss to Pamela with, “Benji’s just some guy we met at the party.” The slut-shaming then arrives with, “You’re very intimate with someone that you just met.” Parker counters, “So what? I made out with some guy at a party. It didn’t mean anything.” Pamela replies, “Maybe not to you.” Parker is then suffocated with a plastic bag by Jason for a few seconds, after which Pamela scolds, “So selfish your generation. I mean, heaven forbid you miss a keg party or spring break.” Of course, Williamson’s more underlying point is that selfishness can’t be blamed on any one person, for everybody in the human race is guilty of exhibiting it. Which is why a double standard (and arguably a sexist one) is conveyed in Jason and Pamela trying to blame the asymptomatic Parker for their son’s death, with Pamela accusing, “This didn’t have to happen. I mean, where was your fucking mask?” Parker shouts back ferally, “Where was his?!” Jason, refuses to accept her logic as he slaps her and screams, “This is your fault, you hear me?! You did this!” Pamela reminds, “Hon, your mask” as he gets too close to her.

    Increasingly incensed over being punished by these vigilantes for COVID justice, if you will, Parker demands, “What about DJ? And my friend Miri? What did they do?” Pamela responds glibly, “Well, per CDC guidelines, you were meant to quarantine alone. So, that is on you.” But again, pretty much no one did that, with many seeing it as an opportunity to form “quaranteams” or “pods” as they soldiered through the lockdown phase.  

    Regardless, Pamela insists to Parker, “Take responsibility for your selfishness.” To her, that means an eye for an eye: she must die. But Parker, a privileged white girl (with Gideon Adlon herself being the nepo baby of Pamela Adlon), isn’t likely to suffer too many consequences. Not just because that wouldn’t be “realistic,” but because the other side of the plot’s cartoonishness is meant to highlight the hypocrisy of those constantly policing others about their behavior when they themselves are “allowed” to do the same thing.

    With the tagline of Sick being, “If you have to scream, cover your mouth,” Williamson accents the parodiable expectations demanded of a population convinced it deserves whatever it wants, whenever it wants—contagion circumstances be damned. This doesn’t apply solely to the blanket demographic of “Americans,” but “youths” in particular. However, as Sick posits, it’s the selfish ones who will still come out ahead in the end.  

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Only Person Who Can Have an “Eras Tour” Is Madonna (But Does That Really Mean She Should?)

    The Only Person Who Can Have an “Eras Tour” Is Madonna (But Does That Really Mean She Should?)

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    The rumors have been brewing for a while now, reaching a crescendo throughout all of January as Madonna finally confirmed on the 17th that a greatest hits tour has, in fact, been in the works. And it’s called, almost as generically as 2004’s Reinvention Tour, The Celebration Tour—named as a nod to her 2009 greatest hits compilation, Celebration. Being that Madonna’s last album, Madame X, was released in 2019, perhaps she’s “surrendering” in some way to the idea that the most money to be made from her music, in terms of “drumming up” tour business, is through the assurance of greatest hits. For she already knows her die-hard fans will show up for anything she does—now she wants “the leftovers” who can’t respect some of her more “experimental” phases to join in too.

    As for the timing of the tour, it seems to indicate Madonna losing a certain “ahead-of-the-curveness” in that Taylor Swift already stole headlines recently for the announcement of her own 2023 greatest hits show, called The Eras Tour. Which already made history for shutting down Ticketmaster during the presales due to “overwhelming demand” and subsequently inciting an antitrust investigation. It’s unlikely that The Celebration Tour will have the same issues or history-making propensities, but there’s no denying that it will sell out in most cities, maybe even the two dates (thus far) Madonna has bestowed upon New York, the place she’s almost grotesquely fond of because it “made her into the person she is” (though Madonna students know it was her mother’s death and the tutelage of Christopher Flynn that did that). Ergo, the tour announcement was sure to mention, “The Celebration Tour will take us on Madonna’s artistic journey through four decades and pays respect to the city of New York where her career in music began.” It’s unclear how much more respect Madonna can pay to it, but anyway… She herself also added, “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for.” How Taylor-esque.

    And yet, the only person who can really give people a bona fide “Eras Tour” is Madonna. After all, she isn’t called the Queen of Reinvention for nothing, having “revamped” herself repeatedly over the years. Some people would cynically call that a “bid to stay relevant,” while Madonna has described it as the search for her true self as she slowly peels back the layers (yes, it’s very Kabbalah-spurred). Either way, it’s been iconic and culturally impactful for the rest of the world to watch. From the Boy Toy incarnation of Like A Virgin to the bleach-blonde, slicked-back hair and gamine physique of True Blue to the dominatrix of Erotica to the “Ethereal Girl” of Ray of Light to the glamorous cowgirl of Music to the Che Guevara imitator of American Life to the “disco dolly” of Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna has provided look after look (therefore Halloween costume after Halloween costume) for the masses to soak up and embed in their collective cultural lexicon.

    With Taylor, those marked reinventions—aesthetic or otherwise—have never really been there. Sure, her “sound” has evolved from the country-ier days of Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now to the more pop-centric focus heralded by Red. But, in the end, her “deal” is being a singer-songwriter that sort of fell into being a pop star (something Lana Del Rey hasn’t been able to do on a similar mainstream level—possibly because she’s viewed as “too dreary” for the main mainstream). Madonna, always underestimated for her singing-songwriting abilities, is, in contrast, a pop star of the prototypical order. The blueprint for every girl who came after her. She was the post-modern ideal (that arrived just as MTV did): media savvy and never missing an opportunity for self-promotion and “synergy” (read: advertising ventures with such companies as Mitsubishi, Pepsi [short-lived, but still], Motorola and H&M).

    What’s more, she had no aversion to being in the public eye on an almost constant basis—prompting the rockumentary meets early reality TV stylings of 1991’s Truth or Dare. It is this Alek Keshishian-directed film that Madonna parodies in her ad for The Celebration Tour, with appearances by Amy Schumer, Diplo, Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Lil Wayne, Bob the Drag Queen (who will open on Madonna’s tour), Kate Berlant, Larry Owens, Meg Stalter and Eric Andre subbing out for the original Blond Ambition Tour dancers. A.k.a. the ones that sued Madonna afterward and then made a follow-up documentary called Strike A Pose in 2016.

    The allusions to her early 90s projects also expand when Judd Apatow (one of many inexplicable presences in the room) dares Madonna to recreate one of her Sex book poses with Larry Owens, Jack Black and Lil Wayne. Afterward, Schumer then dares her to go on a world tour to perform all of her “greatest mothafuckin’ hits.” Madonna replies, “Four decades?” “Yeah bitch.” “As in: forty years?” “Yes.” “As in: all those songs?” “Fuck yeah.” “We’re talking ‘Like A Virgin’—” (a song, by the way, that Madonna has frequently paraded her contempt for). Amy interjects, “We’re talkin’ [singing], ‘Open your heart,’ we’re talkin’ [singing], ‘Tropical the island breeze.” Madonna and the others join in to sing, “All of nature wild and free/This is where I long to be/La isla bonita,” with Madonna stopping to say, “Wait, hold up. That’s a lot of songs.”

    Ironically, however, in far fewer years, Swift has almost as many studio albums out as Madonna, making it possible for her to have fifty-five singles under her belt in the span from 2006 to now. That’s getting awful close to Madonna’s robust ninety singles—especially at the rate that Swift produces. So sure, Swift has the “rep” and the “cred” to do a greatest hits tour, but it’s hardly something that should be called “Eras” (perhaps largely inspired by the fact that she didn’t get to tour folklore and evermore thanks to Miss Rona). For the eras of Swift are ultimately always the same, expounding on this, that or the other heartbreak (all while sporting the same blonde hair and red lipstick). Madonna’s lyrical topics are, conversely, far more varied. Needless to say, so are her looks.

    And, though it makes more sense for Madonna to do a greatest hits tour (despite balking at the notion for so long), it’s odd, in a way, for her to bother with such a “theme,” for she always includes a few crumbs of that ilk on every tour—usually favoring the inclusion of “Holiday,” “Vogue” and the aforementioned “La Isla Bonita,” at the bare minimum. This is why one has to ask, is it really a “Celebration” Tour or a Capitulation Tour, with Madonna finally surrendering to the fickle tastes of the philistine hordes? You know, like Taylor Swift. But maybe, in the name of pop star symbiosis and catering to the hoi polloi, the two can join each other onstage again like they did at the 2015 iHeartRadio Music Awards. Since they’ll both be in greatest hits tour mode at the same time and all.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Pornographic MLK Statue

    The Pornographic MLK Statue

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    One supposed it sounded “harmless” enough. “Brilliant” even. Hank Willis Thomas certainly must have thought it was when he pitched the idea. An “emulation” (or rather, badly attempted emulation) of Martin Luther King Jr. embracing his wife, Coretta Scott King, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. That was the photo Thomas took “inspiration” (ostensibly very loose inspiration) from in constructing the giant bronze statue that now sits in Boston Common (Boston being the site of the work due to King meeting Scott in that city, as well as it being the finishing point of a freedom march he led in 1965). At twenty feet tall, it would be an understatement to call the sculpture pornographic (made all the more so by its grotesque size). Yet there’s no other word to employ in order to paint the picture of what one views if and when they encounter it.

    Like most artists, Thomas couldn’t seem to see his work objectively when he stated to The Boston Globe, “This work is really about the capacity for each of us to be enveloped in love, and I feel enveloped in love every time I hear the names and see the faces of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King.” Unfortunately, he seemed to be feeling the love a little too sexually while working on the project, and the result is a sculpture that appears positively obscene in different ways from different angles. For the most part, however, it looks like someone sticking their head in a woman’s crotch to eat her out. “Enveloped in love” indeed (a.k.a. “Smother my face”). Not exactly the “respectful” message Thomas might have been attempting to send, especially considering that this sexualized image only serves to spotlight, once more, the only thing the FBI had on King by spending years trying to discredit his work with reports of his infidelity.

    Dedicated on January 13th, just three days before the official MLK holiday, those with eyes could immediately see that the statue didn’t exactly look like an embrace. Particularly from “the wrong side” (which is most of them). Offense was further taken over the fact that it was an opportunity to actually, oh, depict King and his wife, you know, fully. As in, with their entire bodies…instead of just what looks like a random set of arms (or “a pair of hands hugging a beefy penis,” as Seneca Scott described it). Rasheed N. Walters of The Boston Herald put it succinctly when he said, “Given that I am not white, I am safe from any charges of racism for saying the MLK embrace statue is aesthetically unpleasant. The famous photo should have been a FULL statue of the couple and their embrace. What a huge swing and miss in honoring Dr. and Mrs. King.” Seattle-based comedian Javann Jones added to that sentiment with the reminder, “Show me a white man that was honored with a statue with only two of his limbs.” Fair point.

    So if Thomas was hoping to get some kind of “pass” on the botched depiction because he himself is Black, he was mistaken. For the contempt that the statue drew from all creeds and colors was hard to ignore. Markedly from someone with the last name Scott herself, with Coretta’s cousin, Seneca, responding to the statue via an article called “A Masturbatory ‘Homage’ to My Family” and proceeding to effectively rip Thomas and the “woke algorithm” a new asshole (side note: one might be able to actually detect an asshole if they stare at this statue from a certain angle). While the mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, said of “Embrace” that she hoped it would “open our eyes to the injustice of racism and bring more people into the movement for equity,” Scott had a more realistic response when she wrote, “Building expensive, stupid new statues with no faces on them—and tearing down others for no good reason—are part of the same performative altruism and purity pageants that are mainstays of the woke left.” And, yes, statues are often (read: always) a hotbed of controversy, particularly in the present climate, when political offenses can be stoked at the drop of a hat (or KKK hood). And it does beg the question of why money is spent (in this instance, ten million dollars) on such ultimately hollow symbols. Money that could instead be used to affect more profound change.  

    But instead, as Scott continued, “Now Boston has a big bronze penis statue that’s supposed to represent black love at its purest and most devotional. This is no accident. The woke algorithm is racist and classist. Therefore, its programming will always produce things that harm black and poor people.” Funnily enough, its “programming” did recently experience a glitch when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association thought it wise for their rebranding to hire Jerrod Carmichael as the host of the 2023 Golden Globe Awards. And if his monologue and other assorted digs at society and the industry reminded people of anything, it’s that not all Black people are entirely eager to decimate the white-run system, so much as continue to work within it (namely, the Black audience members who appeared as uncomfortable as the white folk listening to Carmichael). Appropriately, Carmichael actually made reference to King when he described calling his friend Avery (“who, for the sake of this monologue, represents every Black person in America”) and asking her if he should host the show despite its racist history and his awareness that they only wanted to use him as the host to attempt to backpedal from that history.

    However, she wasn’t as concerned with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s racism as she was with how much Carmichael would be paid for the gig. When he answered, “$500,000” (therefore offering a rare instance of salary transparency in Hollywood), she responded, “Boy if you don’t put on a good suit and take them white people money…” Carmichael then expounded to the audience, “And I kind of forget that where I’m from, like, we all live by a strict ‘take the money’ mentality. I bet Black informants for the FBI in the 60s, like, their families were still proud of them. They were like, ‘You hear about Clarence new job? They paying him eight dollars an hour just to snitch on Dr. King. It’s a good government job.’”

    Perhaps the same logic goes for Thomas taking the gig that would help further show white people that it’s okay to denigrate and “amend” Black history with a hyper-sexual pair of arms that could belong to anybody.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Shakira Just Knocked Every Post-Breakup Diss Track Into the Toilette

    Shakira Just Knocked Every Post-Breakup Diss Track Into the Toilette

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    If anyone ever wanted proof that you don’t fuck with a Colombiana woman, Shakira is here to provide it in the form of a new single with DJ Bizarrap. While it has no specific title, other than “BZRP Music Sessions #53” or, more unofficially, “Pa’ Tipos Como Tú,” maybe that’s for the best—at least for her ex, Gerard Piqué, who might have ended up getting the song named after him in some fashion or another had Shakira decided to title it right now. For it’s all directed very specifically at him. And while Shakira had two other singles this year that gave plenty of hints about the heartache that resulted from her eleven-year long relationship with Piqué, they were nowhere near this savage.

    It all started, innocently enough, with little “hints” already manifest in the drenched-in-sarcasm “Te Felicito” (a.k.a. “I Congratulate You”), released in April 2022. Then came “Monotonía” in October. The latter was part of her ephemeral “sad girl” phase in addressing the betrayal Piqué inflicted by leaving her for a now twenty-three-year-old named Clara Chía. Featuring Ozuna, the video takes place in a supermarket where Shakira, looking as “disheveled” as she’s able to, stoically appears in front of the camera. We then get a close-up shot on her teary eyes as she declares, “It wasn’t your fault, nor mine/It was the monotony’s fault.” The rest of the Jaume de la Iguana-directed (or rather, co-directed…with Shakira) video shows our crestfallen protagonist losing her heart altogether when Ozuna blows it out of her chest with a bazooka. This, to be honest, is far more brutal than what SZA does to her ex in “Kill Bill.” But then, men do tend to be more brutal in general (despite spouting that line about hell having no fury like a woman scorned) so…

    In keeping with that inhumaneness, Shakira’s heart is still beating on the ground as she reaches out to pick it back up. The only truly “accusatory” thing she says of Piqué being, “You left me because of your narcissism.” Of course, we all know he really left for the cliché reason so many men do: younger snatch. In any case, Shakira tries to get her heart to the safety of a lockbox without it being further damaged. Unfortunately, it gets stepped on a few more times along the way before she can secure it inside the bank vault and throw away the key. Now that she has, it’s apparent she’s in her full-on beast mode part of the recovery process.

    That’s why she’s quick to lead with the soccer-alluding shade, “So much talk of being a champion and when I needed you the most/You gave me the worst version of you.” A version that dips out for a woman half Shakira’s age, hence her mathematical insult, “I’m worth two twenty-two year olds.” Although the video/recording session might be simple in its aesthetics, Shakira does furnish us with the special effect of her eyes glowing like a loba’s when she taunts, “A she wolf like me isn’t for rookies/A she wolf like me isn’t for guys like you.” Those who know Shakira’s music will of course realize she’s referencing her 2009 banger, “She Wolf.” Which Piqué has invoked big time with his behavior.

    To mix up some of the visual “monotonía” at the forty-seven-second mark, Shakira offers major “Take On Me” vibes by emulating A-ha’s sketched animation look from said video as she repeats, “Pa’ tipos como tú” before further reminding, “I was out of your league/That’s why you’re with someone just like you.” A direct hit at both of the basic parties involved. In case there was any confusion about why Shakira decided to make this song, she sings, “This is for you to be mortified/To chew and swallow, swallow and chew/I won’t get back with you/Not if you cry/Not even if you beg me.”

    Certain to exonerate herself from any culpability with regard to his current lack of favorability among the media, Shakira notes, “It’s not my fault if they criticize you.” After all, the only thing he had to do was not cheat on her. Or at least not make her move to Barcelona where it would end up costing her very literally with the Spanish government, now accusing her of tax fraud and evasion. All because she wanted to be supportive of Piqué’s career…even though not moving to the U.S. was more of a burden on hers. Shakira herself told Elle in the October 2022 issue, “I put my career in second gear and I came to Spain, to support him so he could play football and win titles. And it was a sacrifice of love.” A sacrifice that majorly backfired.

    In the same interview, Shakira had stated, “I think that those [breakup] details are somehow too private to share, at least at this very moment—everything is so raw and new. I can only say that I put everything I had into this relationship and my family.” Well, it ain’t too private now, with “Pa’ Tipos Como Tú” garnering over sixty million views within twenty-four hours of its release. What’s more, Shakira even commits the ultimate taboo (especially in Latin culture) by bringing Piqué’s mother into it with the complaint, “You left me with your mom as a neighbor, the press at my door and a debt with the Treasury.” That last reference being to her aforementioned tax debacle with the Spanish government. A debacle that, again, wouldn’t have even come to roost in Shakira’s life were it not for Piqué’s need to live in Barcelona.

    It’s all a very far cry from 2017’s “Me Enamoré,” an upbeat love song written about Piqué for the El Dorado album, complete with a video in which he appears at the end, smiling at her with a grin that can now only be described as “Cheshire cat.” But Shakira’s the only feral feline in this latest song, having caught the canary without any abashment. For when a woman is hurt, all she can do is weaponize that pain into anger. Channel it into something productive a.k.a. artistic. It’s the most magical type of alchemy. Hence, Shakira announcing, “You thought you’d hurt me, but you made me stronger.” A line that echoes Christina Aguilera on “Fighter” when she says, “Makes me that much stronger/Makes me work a little bit harder/It makes me that much wiser/So thanks for making me a fighter.” And even the sentiments of Destiny’s Child on “Survivor” are there, namely when Beyoncé defiantly sings, “You thought that I’d be weak without you/But I’m stronger/You thought that I’d be broke without you/But I’m richer/You thought that I’d be sad without you/I laugh harder.”

    Shakira delivers a subsequent coup de grâce with, “Women no longer cry/Women get paid.” And this has certainly been an accurate take on the steady commodification of female musicians’ breakups—running the gamut from Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo to Miley Cyrus to Ariana Grande to Lana Del Rey. Shakira was part of the omnipresent trend long before this group, however, with many songs on her first English “crossover” album, Laundry Service, spotlighting the behavior of cads. This is notable on one track in particular, “Objection (Tango).” As though presaging her fate with Piqué, Shakira opens that single with the verse, “It’s not her fault that she’s so irresistible/But all the damage she’s caused isn’t fixable/Every twenty seconds you repeat her name/But when it comes to me you don’t care/If I’m alive or dead.”

    But Piqué definitely cares that Shakira’s alive (and kicking) after hearing this track. For she doesn’t relent with the shade when adding the double meaning of, “She’s got the name of a good person, clear…ly (said as “clara…mente”). The word for “clearly” in Spanish being muy convenient for trolling the name of Pique’s concubine herself. Of course, some would fault Shakira for bringing “the other woman” into it, when it’s the man who led his own dick astray. But Clara Chía was well-aware of Piqué’s status as a “spoken for” man with two children. A so-called “family man.” So no, Shakira is not sparing her either as she spits, “She’s just like you/For guys like you” and “You traded in a Ferrari for a Twingo/You traded in a Rolex for a Casio.”

    Shakira further condemns Piqué’s stupidity for having thrown away what could have been a lifetime of love and family for what will likely be a drop in the bucket fling by adding, “So much time at the gym/But maybe work out your brain a bit too.” Alas, the dick always wins when it comes to getting the “workout.” In the end, Shakira seems to decide that maybe she was the one engaging in stupidity by ever thinking that Piqué was on her level, concluding, “That’s what you’ve settled for/Someone just like you.” Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) once made a similar assessment when she branded Natasha (Bridget Moynahan) as a “simple girl” and not a “Katie girl” (it’s a The Way We Were reference)—this being why Big (Chris Noth) married her instead of sticking with Carrie. Indeed, Shakira is far from the only “complicated” woman to have been thrown over for someone “more manageable” (read: more malleable, therefore usually younger than the man in question). But she might be the only woman (or at least among the few) to have gotten a chance to say her piece on the matter so ferociously.

    Fist bumping DJ Bizarrap at the end of the video, it’s Shakira’s equivalent of a mic drop. And if one were in Piqué and Chía’s position, they might reconsider showing their faces in public. At least until the next fire breakup song comes out (isn’t Olivia Rodrigo soon to grace us with another album?). Though it will surely be a challenge to top this one.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” Takes the Sologamy Message of “thank u, next” To A New Level

    Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” Takes the Sologamy Message of “thank u, next” To A New Level

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    At the beginning of 2019, Ariana Grande was coming out of a whirlwind romance (complete with an engagement) to Pete Davidson. No one was all that upset about the breakup. After all, it had yielded an iconic meme involving a lollipop and, then, as Arianators were to find out, the best album of her discography. Called thank u, next, the eponymous first single took a candid, clear look at her relationships past, listing out the men by name as follows: “Thought I’d end up with Sean/But he wasn’t a match/Wrote some songs about Ricky/Now I listen and laugh/Even almost got married/And for Pete, I’m so thankful/Wish I could say ‘thank you’ to Malcolm/‘Cause he was an angel.” Obviously, not “angel” enough to make it worth it for Ari to stick around and endure his drug addiction, but hey, one can’t speak of ill of the dead. The point is, “thank u, next” was not only the sonic equivalent of Lindsay Lohan’s “fuck list,” it was also a slow unveiling of Grande’s revelation about how the relationship one has with herself is ultimately the greatest love affair of all.

    As far as societal messages geared toward hetero women go, this has always been deemed extremely dangerous (which is why it still remains rare). With every fairy tale and rom-com peddled, women are repeatedly told that, sure, you can pretend to be “content” with singledom for a while—have your fun on the dance floor, relish random one-night stands, etc.—but, eventually, you’re going to equate your self-worth and value with “finding a man.” In short, “it” follows. That ever-lingering, deep-seated mantra that goes: fall in “love,” get married and have kids. When someone like Grande—all “cute” and mainstream—briefly appeared to be quashing that mantra, it was a momentous occasion in pop culture. For, although she could have made yet another breakup with a man who couldn’t “get the job done” (least of all intellectually) come across as “heartbreaking,” she decided to render the single into a joyful celebration of the self. This being most manifest in the lyrics, “Plus, I met someone else/We havin’ better discussions/I know they say I move on too fast/But this one gon’ last ‘cause her name is Ari/And I’m so good with that.” Yes, that’s right—Grande effectively declared herself as her lifelong soul mate (Lana Del Rey once did the same, albeit in a tweet). Britney Spears has lately done something similar on her Instagram account by dressing in a wedding down and declaring she’s married herself… despite being married to the hologram known as Sam Asghari. In short, sologamy has become less and less of a “joke” (as Carrie Bradshaw sort of made it so that she could get her friend to replace her Manolo Blahniks by establishing her “gift registry” at said store). Instead, it’s starting to make all the sense in the world.

    Alas, that message felt a bit hollow when Grande married Dalton Gomez two years after “thank u, next” (yes, she really does move on fast). So now, Miley Cyrus has come along to pick up the slack and more confidently walk her talk. All while continuing to shade former flame/husband, Liam Hemsworth (e.g., “We were right ’til we weren’t/Built a home and watched it burn”). What’s more, it is absolutely no coincidence that Miley chose to drop the single and video for “Flowers” on Hemsworth’s thirty-third birthday. For those wondering how or why Cyrus could still be so “petty” by continuing to reference Hemsworth in her music (he being the dominant “muse” for the last few years), know this: women don’t forget their romantic slights. Their Love Is A Battlefield wounds. They can talk about it for the rest of their life (especially if it’s profitable), spend ages dissecting what went wrong or what caused the about-face in a man’s attitude toward her. Taylor Swift has created arguably the most enduring career out of it. And the obvious answer to “what went wrong,” of course, is that the girl in question “got too comfortable.” Was made to believe that she could ever truly be accepted without some form of veneer. But men, whether “cognizant” of it or not, need the veneers they swear mean nothing in order to stay “interested.” Miley is done playing that game, providing the first single from Endless Summer Vacation (a Del Rey-sounding project, to be sure) that firmly plants her in the sologamy camp. Indeed, she’s planned the release perfectly not only to shade Hemsworth, but for the imminence of Valentine’s Day a.k.a. Singles Awareness Day. Cue the tie-ins of various flower companies playing the song.

    And yet, with the video that Cyrus has made for “Flowers,” she’s essentially building on what Red Hot Chili Peppers said long ago: “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner/Sometimes I feel like my only friend/Is the city I live in/The City of Angels.” Her tone, naturally, is far more jubilant as we see her strutting through the streets (and bridges) of L.A. (because, as she stated, Endless Summer Vacation is a “love letter” to that city). To help capture the sun-soaked isolation of Los Angeles, Cyrus secured model-turned-creative director Jacob Bixenman to helm the video. And, despite formerly loving Troye Sivan (another Ariana Grande favorite), Bixenman can still clearly appreciate the female form as he proceeds to showcase Miley swimming in her backyard and then performing some of the intense workout methods that have clearly given her the toned body we see before us. Indeed, some of her very deliberate positions (no Ari allusion intended) come across as a direct taunt at anyone who would ever dare to leave her and/or force her to leave them by treating her “less than.”

    From the series of backyard exercises to the tranquil shower session, it’s evident that all these blatant forms of self-care are a means to emphasize to the viewer that what Miley says is true: no one will ever be able to take care of you (nay, give as much of a shit about you) as well as you can. Especially if you have millions of dollars to aid with that care. Emerging from the shower in what can only be called a power suit (complete with dramatic shoulder pads) with no shirt on underneath, Miley then whole-heartedly confirms she can take herself dancing as she engages in some solo choreography inside her house that reminds one of Cameron Diaz’s moves as Amanda in The Holiday.

    By the end, as Miley finds herself on her roof with a helicopter looming above (again, it’s L.A.), she’s proven herself to be the new Queen of/Spokeswoman for Sologamy. Because, no, Ari didn’t much stick to her guns with the underlying message of “thank u, next” (she is, in the end, a self-proclaimed “needy” person a.k.a. a Cancer). But if anyone could stay consistent on this front, perhaps it’s Miley. Maybe she’ll end up truly being the exemplar of sologamy…rendering it no longer billable as the symptom of a “sad, ‘old’ cat lady,” but a hot puta who knows her worth and isn’t willing to compromise it for the so-called sake of not being “alone.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • SZA’s “Kill Bill” Video: A Sequel, of Sorts, to the Equally Tarantino-Influenced “Shirt”

    SZA’s “Kill Bill” Video: A Sequel, of Sorts, to the Equally Tarantino-Influenced “Shirt”

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    By now, paying homage to Quentin Tarantino movies in music videos and songs has been done to death (no pun intended, or whatever). Among others, there was Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone,” Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora’s “Black Widow,” Aminé’s “Caroline” (also featuring the lyrics, “Let’s get gory/Like a Tarantino movie”) and Rob $tone’s “Chill Bill” (complete with what has become known as “the Kill Bill whistle” a.k.a. the Bernard Hermann-composed theme for 1968’s Twisted Nerve). Being that Tarantino himself is the king of delivering postmodern pastiche, he likely isn’t (/can’t be) vexed in the least by all this constant “homage” (often a polite word for stealing someone else’s shit and trying to make the public assume it’s your own). Especially not SZA’s latest, “Kill Bill,” which not only goes whole hog on a Tarantino reference in the song title itself, but also in the music video that goes with it.

    Of course, no one who watched the Dave Meyers-directed “Shirt” video (that was also heavily influenced by Tarantino) can be surprised by the tone of its “follow-up,” of sorts. Granted LaKeith Stanfield isn’t the one to betray her trust in the trailer modeled after Budd’s (Michael Madsen) in Kill Bill: Vol. 2. This time directed by Christian Breslauer (known for videos like Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby,” Tyga and Doja Cat’s “Freaky Deaky” and Anitta’s “Boys Don’t Cry”), SZA spares no detail on really driving the (Pussy Wagon) point home that this is all about showing love for a Tarantino classic that itself shows nothing but love for the idea of killing an ex.

    And, like Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman), SZA only feels obliged to exact that kind of revenge because her erstwhile boyfriend tried to kill her first. In matters of love, that usually tends to be more metaphorical. But by making it literal, SZA (de facto Tarantino) emphasizes how fragile the heart can be. Particularly when handed a note by one’s boo that reads, “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, really I do, but sometimes in life we have to protect our own heart, even if it means ripping it out of our chest. Au revoir mon amour.” In other words, he’s trying to say that 1) he has to be callous now and 2) he’s only hurting himself more than he’s hurting her by deciding to leave—and then summoning a bunch of his goons to shoot up the trailer. Such sentiments echo Bill’s delusions before aiming his gun at Beatrix, assuring her, “I’d like to believe that you’re aware enough even now to know that there’s nothing sadistic in my actions… No Kiddo, at this moment, this is me at my most masochistic.” And then—bang! He thinks he’s killed her.

    The same goes for SZA’s ex thinking she’s been left for dead in that trailer. But no, she emerges semi-triumphant and determined to take down the bastard who would presume to do such a thing to her as she sings, “I’m still a fan even though I was salty/Hate to see you with some other broad, know you happy/Hate to see you happy if I’m not the one drivin’.” This last line conjures the image of Beatrix herself driving to get to Bill’s house as she vows to the audience, “I am gonna kill Bill.” In a scene that Thurman had to fuck up her back and knees for in order to give Tarantino the shot he wanted. But surely Tarantino would shrug that off as a “hazard of the trade.” And besides, he might add, look at not only the great art it created, but the great art it’s still spawning. Ah, the director when his “ego” is stroked in such a way—with imitation being the sincerest form of allowing one to believe in their continued relevance.

    To further accentuate her commitment to the film, SZA even drags out Vivica A. Fox, who played Vernita Green a.k.a. Copperhead, to serve as her driver (and flash a scandalized look when SZA mellifluously croons, “I just killed my ex/Not the best idea”). The one taking her from her trailer to the dojo where she can quickly practice some swordplay techniques but mainly show us how her tits look in her version of Beatrix Kiddo’s iconic yellow moto jacket and matching pants. Breslauer then cuts to her riding a motorcycle through a tunnel (just as Kiddo did), after which we suddenly see SZA in the same House of the Blue Leaves-esque setting where Kiddo took on the Crazy 88s. This then segues into Breslauer including a scene that mimics the same anime style of Kazuto Nakazawa in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, used when even Tarantino thought the gore would be too cartoonishly over the top, so he actually made it into, well, a cartoon.

    For SZA’s purposes, it was likely less burdensome on the budget to display her taking her final revenge on the man who broke her heart in animated form. And she does so in such a way as to throw the words he used in his note right back in his face by tearing his heart out of his chest. Which we see dripping with blood in “real-life” once she’s extracted it (by briefly making him believe she wants something sexual instead of violent to happen) in her animated guise. Parading it in her hand with calm blitheness, she then licks it—something that, to be honest, feels pulled out of the Jeffrey Dahmer playbook rather than the Beatrix Kiddo one. But hey, creative license and all that rot when reinterpreting someone’s work.

    Which SZA did not only visually, but cerebrally. Specifically by claiming of Bill’s motives, “I feel like he doesn’t understand why he did what he did. He’s void of emotion, but he loved The Bride so much that he couldn’t stand her to be with anyone else. That was really complex and cool to me. It’s a love story.” But there’s nothing “complex” or “cool” about it (which speaks to how Tarantino has normalized psychopathic behavior by making it seem, let’s say, “slick”). What’s more, Bill himself breaks down his straightforward “reasoning” for killing her (or so he thought) by admitting to Beatrix what he was thinking at the time of concocting her murder: “Not only are you not dead, you’re getting married to some fucking jerk and you’re pregnant. I overreacted… I’m a killer. I’m a murdering bastard. You know that. There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard.” In this scenario, SZA wants to be the murdering bastard. Just as Kiddo did after suffering the “slight” that went on during the Massacre at Two Pines.

    In the end, though, SZA does feel obliged to provide her own little (rope) “twist” on the narrative. Having commenced the video with a snippet of “Nobody Gets Me” (which provides similarly possessive lyrics such as, “I don’t wanna see you with anyone but me/Nobody gets me like you/How am I supposed to let you go?”), SZA closes it with one from “Seek & Destroy.” And all while offering Armie Hammer his wet dream on a platter by featuring a scene of herself tied up in a shibari rope harness. Does it mean she’s the masochist now for having killed her ex? Maybe. Or perhaps this is just how she celebrates a satisfying kill.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Miley Cyrus Heavily Imitates Lana Del Rey Stylings in Teaser for Endless Summer Vacation

    Miley Cyrus Heavily Imitates Lana Del Rey Stylings in Teaser for Endless Summer Vacation

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    Along with announcing that her next album will be released March 10th, the same day as Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, Miley Cyrus also seems to be giving a nod to Lana in other ways with the teaser for her forthcoming eighth record, Endless Summer Vacation. The title itself smacking of Del Rey’s rolodex of stock vocabulary for many of her CA-themed songs. Indeed, she even had a tour in 2015 called Endless Summer, with Courtney Love and Grimes as the openers on varying legs of the North American crusade to promote Ultraviolence. But, of course, like that latter title taking from something else in 60s and 70s-era pop culture (i.e., A Clockwork Orange), so, too, does Endless Summer have its roots in the name of a greatest hits album from The Beach Boys. And, yes, anyone who knows Del Rey’s work on even the most cursory level is aware that she’s just about as “goo-goo-eyed” over California as The Beach Boys. As such, she’s become something of the unofficial spokesperson for the state in a way that said band used to be—giving it an update with her darker motifs pertaining to decay and ruin (though she’s all for finding beauty in that as well).

    Seeming to inuit the weight of taking up the mantle for a band that wrote a Golden State anthem as untouchable as “California Girls,” Del Rey finally had to name-check a Beach Boy in Norman Fucking Rockwell’s “The Greatest,” singing of “Dennis’ last stop before Kokomo” as a reference to his 1983 death after the preceding line, “I miss the bar where the Beach Boys would go.” In this instance, “Kokomo”—the paradisiacal (and fictional) island off the Florida Keys—is meant to represent Heaven, where Del Rey would like to imagine that Dennis went after drinking all day on December 28th and then jumping into the water in Marina Del Rey (how appropriate for another Lana connection). His drunken stupor led to his drowning and, much later, immortalization in a Del Rey song. In fact, the entire crux of “The Greatest” expresses a deep yearning and nostalgia for the music of the past (in the spirit of The Beach Boys), and even the way the music industry used to be (replete with free-wheeling sexual predators and all).

    Miley isn’t exactly conveying that sentiment (not yet anyway) in her Endless Summer Vacation teaser, but she is performing the whole “California myth” shtick, going so far as to deem the album “a love letter to Los Angeles” (what Billie Eilish also called her filmed-for-Disney concert at the Hollywood Bowl—literally: Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles). One can imagine Del Rey internally commenting (in the style of Janis Ian in Mean Girls) of Miley saying such a thing, “Hey, that’s only okay when I say it.” And it’s true, Del Rey was the one who jump-started California’s shift back toward being the apple of the U.S.’ eye, even amid all of its many and increasing climate disasters ranging from fires to floods. She being the one to remain consistently committed to it while other musicians only dabble (even California native Katy Perry, who tried to one-up The Beach Boys with her own “California Gurls”).

    But it isn’t just that Miley is serving up “California as a concept” vibes for Endless Summer Vacation that reeks of Del Rey. She’s even taken to adopting the ethereal spoken word manner of Del Rey that first materialized on Honeymoon’s “Burnt Norton,” wherein she recites the T. S. Eliot poem of the same name. A manner that was ultimately a precursor for releasing a spoken word album of her poetry book, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. The album itself offers fourteen of the thirty poems from the book spoken by Del Rey, with musical accompaniments by her usual bitch, Jack Antonoff. Among the offerings was the, you guessed it, “L.A. love letter” called “LA Who Am I To Love You.” The answer to that being: a native of the state of New York who rightly turned her back on NYC and the East Coast in general by fleeing to the West. Miley, too, fled the East in favor of the West, but being from Tennessee makes it slightly less “traitorous” by East Coast standards. Especially New York ones that perpetually champion that eponymous city as the “greatest” in the world despite kind of being the shittiest.

    Maybe that’s why Miley feels that she can also try her hand at bringing “profundity” to L.A. with some spoken word verses in the Endless Summer Vacation teaser that include, “We met each other on the neon dinghy. Past the manta rays and palm trees. Glowing creatures beamed down from great heights. Electric eels in red venom. In the sky, we could see the riders on horseback.” It sounds like a lot of acid and/or weed-induced nonsense, which continues with, “On comets, coming toward us kicking up with laughter” (side note: the way she says “On comets” briefly makes one think she might just continue with, “On Cupid, on Donner, on Blitzen…”). Throughout this entire time, we’re shown “impressionistic” imagery that so often gets associated with California, namely a pool, paraded again toward the end of the teaser in spotlighted darkness next to empty outdoor furniture. As the Bret Easton Ellis-inspired (think: Less Than Zero) musical ambience continues, Cyrus gets even more faux poetic with the lines, “My friend Big Twitchy rode the boat to the light, surfed the north break. We danced until there was nothing left. Just me and Twitchy. ‘Cause that’s all we knew.”

    Having commenced the teaser with a close-up on a clear, blue pool that harkens back to the “Slide Away” single cover, we’re reminded of a visual like “Blue Jeans,” where Del Rey firmly established her California aesthetics in music video format. Another scene in Miley’s teaser includes a looming, blurred-out helicopter that correlates to Del Rey’s “High by the Beach” video motif. Shaky camera work trying to focus on a bleach blonde, cherry red lipstick’d Cyrus wearing black shades adds to the DIY/“found footage” look she’s going for. Of the very variety that Del Rey repopularized with “Video Games.” Elsewhere, an image of a 5G cell phone tower posing as a palm tree additionally evokes the dystopian feel Del Rey has also cultivated in her lyrical portrayals of Los Angeles and California. Not to mention highlighting the “ersatz” quality L.A. and CA are frequently mocked for. And yet, for as maligned and made fun of as this milieu still is, it seems to keep inspiring. Even if much of that inspiration appears to be yielding similar statements and visuals. All of which can now be linked back to Del Rey kickstarting the “California trend” with her sophomore record (heralded by “West Coast” being the first single from it).

    In any case, it is said that all great artists inspire imitations (e.g., Easton Ellis ripping off Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays for Less Than Zero). And Del Rey herself is but an imitative pastiche of so many California-centric bands and musicians past. So perhaps there’s no harm done, per se, by Miley emulating the chanteuse she once collaborated with on “Don’t Call Me Angel” (which seems to be crying out for a follow-up single from just the two of them entitled “Call Me City of Angels”). She might even have something slightly new to say about the state. But don’t get your hopes up on that front. Only time—and California—will tell.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Revenge Is A Dish Best Served In Subterfuge: The Pale Blue Eye

    Revenge Is A Dish Best Served In Subterfuge: The Pale Blue Eye

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    It’s easy to forget about Edgar Allan Poe’s “lost months” at West Point. For any cursory knowledge of the author would never lead one to guess he was much of a military man (which he, of course, really wasn’t). And yet, so much of that brief time at the Academy was certain to solidify his confirmed identity as a “thinking man.” More specifically, a morbid thinking man. While Scott Cooper’s The Pale Blue Eye is entirely fictional (and based on Louis Bayard’s 2003 novel of the same name, which itself won an Edgar Allan Poe Award), the one fact it’s grounded in is Poe’s attendance at West Point circa 1830. Prior to that, it was in 1827 that Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army after struggling to pay for his education. So yes, it was a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures, and it didn’t take long for Poe to rally for being discharged and sent to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York instead. It is perhaps this snowy, bleak setting (read: Upstate New York) that gives The Pale Blue Eye its Sleepy Hollow-esque quality. Except with far more seriousness than Tim Burton is usually wont to offer in his movies.

    Indeed, by commencing with a Poe quote from “The Premature Burial,” (“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?”), followed by the stark image of a man hanging from a tree, Cooper delves right into the macabre and doesn’t relent. For, going beyond just the one-trick pony note of “macabre” (as Burton also showed again in the softcore gloom of Wednesday), Cooper weaves the insidiousness of the murders of cadets that begin with that hanged man into a larger, more profound message about oppressive patriarchal institutions that churn out “Men” with The System’s seal of approval.

    But The Pale Blue Eye is hardly any kind of “stylized biopic” about Poe, for his character is but an auxiliary one to the lead: retired detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale). Summoned to the Academy after Cadet Leroy Fry’s (Steven Maier) body is discovered at that tree, Landor is plucked out of said retirement by Captain Hitchcock (Simon McBurney) and Superintendent Thayer (the perpetually sour-faced Timothy Spall). The latter being known as the real-life “Father of West Point.” Detective Landor was a father once, too—though his daughter, Mathilde a.k.a. “Mattie” (Hadley Robinson), has been gone for some time, described as having “run off” somewhere. This would be lonely and heartbreaking for a father under any circumstances, but Detective Landor’s sentiments are made all the more pronounced by the fact that he has been a widower for the past two years. Granted, that hasn’t meant his bed has been cold, with a local barmaid named Patsy (Charlotte Gainsbourg, too underused in this role) often spending her nights in his cottage. It’s at the bar she works where Detective Landor makes further acquaintance with Poe (Harry Melling, in the part he was born to play), who previously advised him that the murderer he’s looking for is surely a poet.

    At the bar, Poe elaborates that because of the nature of the crime (a man’s heart being ripped out after his death), the man Landor is looking for simply has to be a poet for, “The heart is a symbol or it is nothing. Now take away the symbol and what do you have? It’s a fistful of muscle of no more aesthetic interest than a bladder. Now to remove a man’s heart is to traffic in symbol. And who better equipped for such labor than a poet?” Landor briefly indulges him before moving on in his search for a culprit, eventually deciding that Poe could be very useful to assisting in the case. For his soft-spoken, unimposing demeanor makes him ideal for hiding among the shadows and gathering intel about potential suspects. It is in this way that Cooper’s underlying theme about such institutions as the U.S. Military Academy gradually comes into the spotlight. For, soon enough, when Poe becomes a suspect himself, he laments to Landor, “If I were to kill every cadet who had abused me during my tenure here, I’m afraid you would find the Corps of Cadets reduced to less than a dozen. Now, if you must know, I’ve been a figure of fun from my very first day here. My manner, my age, my person. My…aesthetics. If I had a thousand lifetimes, I could not begin to address all the injuries that have been done to me.”

    Thus, we have a prime example of a “fraternalistic” institution established in the United States’ early history serving as one of the most germinal paragons of how patriarchy deliberately seeks to quash men like Poe. Those gentle, delicate spirits that the “desirable” meathead archetype can’t understand, therefore must mock and subdue. Fittingly enough, a review for the novel version of this tale from The New York Times commented of this oppressive landscape marking Poe’s earlier years, “The regimented, gloomy world of West Point, with all its staring eyes and missing hearts, forms a perfectly plausible back story to the real-life Poe’s penchant for tintinnabulation, morbidity and pale young women, first initial L.” That woman, in this instance, being Lea Marquis (Lucy Boynton, the Anya Taylor-Joy to Melling’s erstwhile Harry Beltik role in The Queen’s Gambit). A pale girl, to be sure, for she is afflicted with some mysterious illness that makes her cough a lot and go into arbitrary seizures that make her look decidedly “possessed by the devil.” Her brother, Cadet Artemus Marquis (Harry Lawtey), is of the meathead variety at the Academy. A real ringleader, of sorts—as Poe finds out after being invited to a secret society-type meeting by Artemus after curfew.

    The boys (posing as men) at this little gathering consist of people like Cadet Randy Ballinger (Fred Hechinger), parading an antagonistic air toward anyone perceived as weak, such as Poe. It is in moments like these that Landor’s contempt for an institution of West Point’s nature proves what he says to Captain Hitchcock when the latter demands, “Mr. Landor, do you harbor a latent hostility toward this Academy?” Landor replies, “I am risking my life on behalf of your precious institution. But yes. I do believe that the Academy takes away a young man’s will. It fences him with regulations and rules. Deprives him of reason. It makes him less human.” Hitchcock, offended, asks, “Are you implying the Academy is to blame for these deaths?” Landor assents, “Someone connected to the Academy, yes. Hence, the Academy itself.” Hitchcock decries, “Well that’s absurd. By your standard, every crime committed by a Christian will be a stain on Christ.” Landor confirms solemnly, “And so it is.”

    As we learn more about why Landor is so disgusted with how such an institution as the Academy does stamp out the will (and heart) of many a young man, turning them cold and unfeeling, we see Poe’s own heart growing fonder of Lea. But even she has her special machinations when it comes to stringing Poe along, never knowing that, in this alternate account of his history, she will be the true inspiration for “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Landor, in his own way, as well. In point of fact, this entire cutthroat milieu is what Cooper wants to reiterate helped to form Poe as an author. As Cooper himself remarked, “…it’s these events that occur in our film that shaped his worldview and helped him become the writer that he became—with the recurring themes that deal with the questions of death and the effects of decomposition and reanimation of the dead and mourning; all those are considered part of his dark romanticism.”

    His worldview was also undeniably shaped by having been subjected to the “frat boy fuckery” of both the U.S. Military and its West Point Academy, where, like Landor, Poe no doubt learned something about the cruelty of most men, ready to take their repressed urges and latent rage on someone else more powerless—in this case, an innocent girl.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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