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Tag: Culled Culture

  • War of the Denim Brands Trying to Play Up the 2000s (a More Marked Time of White Supremacy BTW) Instead of “Great Jeans”

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    Ever since Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle got it so wrong with their jeans ad, it’s been a free-for-all of shade-throwing on the ad campaign front. It started with Beyoncé, who released the final installment in her series of Levi’s commercials about two weeks after the American Eagle campaign was unveiled. Though, thanks to the daily rounds of fresh invective, the AE campaign still felt much more recent (especially by modern standards, when anything more than a day old is “old”) when Beyoncé’s Levi’s commercial dropped. Almost as if she (and Levi’s) were purposefully trying to show them “how it’s done.” And yet, even Beyoncé, often deemed as “ironclad” or “bulletproof” on the instant success front as Taylor Swift, didn’t exactly alight the masses with her campaign. Which, perhaps worse than saying something “incendiary,” said nothing much at all. 

    Thus, when Gap emerged with its own “little response” (whether admitting that it was a response or not) to the whole jeans controversy in mid-August, they decided to say it best by saying it with Katseye (don’t worry if you hadn’t heard of them until now) bopping around amongst many other dancers to the tune of Kelis’ signature 2003 hit, “Milkshake.” Which apparently feels as “fresh” and “relevant” to the youths of today as it did to the millennials of yore (particularly after the song cameo’d in 2004’s Mean Girls). And, on a side note, it would seem Kelis takes less issue with the song being used to sell denim than she does with it being used to sell Beyoncé herself. Or, more specifically, her music. For who could forget Kelis’ none too favorable reaction to “Mrs. Carter” sampling “Milkshake” for track four of Renaissance, “Energy”? So unfavorable was the reaction, in fact, that Beyoncé “quietly” just removed the sample the same way she removed the phrase “Spazzin’ on that ass” from “Heated” (replacing it with a perhaps even more suggestive phrase: “Blastin’ on that ass”).

    But there’s nothing “quiet” about the reanimation of “Milkshake” in 2025, the year when the saturation of 00s pop culture has reached an ostensible new apex, even though few thought that could be possible after Euphoria makeup and the remake of Mean Girls in 2024. But no, 2025 is gunning hard for the 00s to come back (even in terms of Lindsay Lohan making her own umpteenth “return” with Freakier Friday, released the same year, incidentally, as “Milkshake”). 

    Ironically enough, however, the 00s were a prime time for white supremacy. Reigning truly “supreme” in that no one was talking about the surfeit of whiteness in media at the time. Or the fact that someone like Jennifer Lopez or Lucy Liu was about as “exotic” as Hollywood was willing to get in film, music or any other entertainment medium. That lack of representation, it was all just accepted. Taken at face value. And this is part of why Sweeney and American Eagle (itself a brand very much associated with the 00s, along with Abercrombie & Fitch) might be the most “authentically” 00s of all in that they unleashed an ad campaign that assumes the presence of a customer mindset that truly is still “locked in” with that era.

    The era when the blonde girl with the “‘hot’ body” (to borrow a phrase from Janis Ian’s [Lizzy Caplan] chalkboard plan on how to take down Regina George) was never to be questioned, made fun of and certainly not accused of promoting white supremacy with a dubious tag line (“Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”) that was paired with an even more suggestive commercial “monologue” (“Genes are passed down to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color… My jeans are blue”).

    Thus, the Katseye x Gap campaign stood out even more by not only calling upon 00s semiotics and sounds, but also adhering to what the tenets of capitalism do best by repackaging what’s old, making it “new” again and selling it back to the masses. And since Gap commercials at their most successful are always known for the “all-white backdrop,” this latest one hit all the right notes of nostalgia. Considering that’s about the only thing everyone can afford to get high on now, it’s being ramped up all the more with each passing year.

    Hence, Addison Rae, a Gen Zer who clearly identifies as a millennial, also getting in on the 00s nostalgia action with her own ad campaign for Lucky Brand Jeans—an ultra 00s-associated brand. Accordingly, Women’s Wear Daily described the jeans she’s promoting as “a reimagined version of a look from Lucky Brand’s early 2000s archive.” What’s more, Addison rolled her sleeves (or is it cuffs in this case?) even further up by actually getting involved in the design process by serving as creative director for this specific line of ultra low-rise flare jeans. That fit, of course, being the pinnacle of 00s-era fashion, with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears exemplifying the trend in the early aughts. 

    As for Addison’s “commercial” (directed by Mitch Ryan), it didn’t go quite as viral as Gap’s (directed by Bethany Vargas, whose most recent credits include the likes of Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” video). Though there is still something like “choreo” in the mix after it opens with Addison walking out onto a stage area in her Lucky Brand Jeans as her own song, “High Fashion,” plays (obviously not as instantly recognizable as “Milkshake”). Right from the beginning, the tag line, “Wear Lucky, feel lucky” immediately pops up. And it isn’t lost on any millennial girl that one of Britney’s biggest hits in the early 00s was “Lucky.” Or that she herself was a wearer of Lucky Brand (along with all the other fashion “staples” of the day: Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie, Ed Hardy, Juicy Couture, etc.).

    The visual comparison to Britney that “AR” continues to draw was not lost on anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the 00s. And yet, despite Spears being everyone’s favorite reference, in the denim wars that have taken the U.S. by storm since July, it seems that Katseye is the clear winner of this round. Even if Addison’s campaign has a level of finesse, class and vague freshness beyond the mere regurgitation of a milkshake that boasts, “I know you want it/The thing that makes me/What the guys go crazy for/They lose their minds.”

    And what guys and girls alike are all losing their minds for this year is 00s stylings, whether in the world of fashion or otherwise. Though someone might want to remind them all that this particular decade was nothing if not pro-white supremacy. But try telling that to a generation that’s somehow managed to romanticize George W. Bush a.k.a. make “Bushcore” happen.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Charlotte York: Not Necessarily the OG Practitioner of Shrekking, But Definitely the Most Successful Example of the Intended Result

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    Like “delulu” or “skibidi,” there seems to be no shortage of unexpected and (brainrot-inspired) slang words cropping up in the mainstream (and hell, even being added to the dictionary) in 2025. So it is that yet another word no one expected to crop up as “a thing” this year is “Shrekking.” Because, after all, it’s not as though Shrek 5 is out until next year. In any case, it’s a term that provides yet another testament to just how dire, how desperate dating (if it can even still be called that) has become in the post-swiping era. Not solely in the “straight” world either. Though that’s most assuredly, as Sabrina Carpenter would attest, where the male pickins are slimmest. 

    For those who couldn’t guess, the meaning behind the newly popular term is meant to indicate when someone is “dating down” a.k.a. lowering their expectations in the looks and personality (and, of course, etiquette) department in the hope that, because of said person’s glaring deficiencies, they might at least deliver in terms of treating you nicely instead of like shit. Alas, as Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City said in the pilot episode, “I’ve been out with some of those guys. The short, fat, poor ones. It makes absolutely no difference. They are just as self-centered and unappreciative as the good-looking ones.” In other words, just as dickish and horrifying on the behavior front. 

    And, talking of Sex and the City (which is probably less tiring than talking of And Just Like That… or its series finale), it isn’t Miranda who is most known for “dating down,” despite that infamous line in the pilot, but rather, Charlotte York (Kristin Davis). More specifically, it’s her beloved dynamic with Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler), the “Shrek” of the relationship, that serves as at least part of the reason why women remain convinced that going for a guy who is less attractive than them will result in their thus far elusive “happily ever after.” Because, yes, ultimately Harry does turn out to be “living proof” (even if only in fictional form) that Shrekking can work. 

    Granted, more concrete, real-life examples of women doing so have not proven nearly as successful, with perhaps the first “prototype” in the land of the famous being Marilyn Monroe. And although it’s Arthur Miller’s appearance in comparison to hers that are called out the most (see: “Egghead Weds Hourglass”), Joe DiMaggio wasn’t exactly a looker either. In any event, Marilyn seemed to set a precedent for future hot girls (both famous and “civilian” alike) to lower their standards in the “aesthetics department” as well, all in the hope that there was something to this idea that uglier men surely must be nicer. Often times, however, it seems the uglier the dude, the crueler he actually is. Not so with Harry though…

    But back to the real-life examples of women who “dated down” and, unlike Charlotte, did not have the same fairy-tale ending. There was Princess Diana with Prince Charles (married for fifteen years, though living separate lives for a large bulk of that time), Christie Brinkley with Billy Joel (married for nine years), Julia Roberts with Lyle Lovett (married for just under two years) and Drew Barrymore with Tom Green (married for all of nine months). Shockingly, it was the latter who filed for divorce from her, though both cited irreconcilable differences. Much the same that Charlotte would with Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan) thanks mostly to her inability to reconcile with his erectile dysfunction. Even though it’s his mother (as usual), Bunny (Frances Sternhagen), who is the one making things feel so irreconcilable most of the time. This ramps up in the season five episode, “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number,” when Bunny traipses into “Charlotte’s” apartment one morning after the latter had just finished, shall we say, vetting her next Prince Charming, Justin Anderson III (Peter Giles). But it doesn’t take long for Bunny to chase him away by announcing that Charlotte is still married to her son. Sure, technically. Even though they’ve been separated for ages by now. 

    Bunny’s “pop-up” appearance, however, is what ultimately sends Charlotte straight into the arms of her true Prince Charming, initially mistaken for mere “Shrek” in the season five episode, “Critical Condition.” This is the first time Charlotte encounters her ogre, so to speak, after realizing that 1) she needs a lawyer to get Bunny off her dick about the apartment belonging to the MacDougals and 2) the lawyer she’s currently consulting with on her would-be messy divorce from Trey is too hot to be herself around. Or, as Carrie phrases it in a voiceover, “Charlotte realized she could never be as ugly as she needed to be in front of a man she considered so handsome.” It’s at that very moment that “gross” Harry, the other partner at the firm, walks in to grab a bagel and starts eating with all the grace of, well, a beast (with Charlotte and Harry at another point being described by Carrie as “the bachelorette and the beast”). Suddenly, Charlotte sees the potential in being able to speak freely about Trey—to get as “ugly” as she wants—with Harry. Thus, “And just like that, Charlotte changed lawyers.” And, in the process, would end up finding her Prince Charming as a result of quote unquote lowering her standards. 

    Of course, Harry’s “style” (sartorially, hygienically and otherwise) still takes some getting used to for Charlotte. And if it weren’t for the “hot s-e-x,” as she spells it out to Anthony (Mario Cantone), she might not be so easily enticed to go for the Shrekking maneuver before it had this name. But, in the next episode after meeting Harry, “The Big Journey,” he manages to turn on all the charm long enough to seduce Charlotte into bed (it doesn’t hurt that the bed in question is inside a very cheesy—but “hot”—bachelor pad he’s conveniently offered to show Charlotte as a way to help her find a new apartment). Out of nowhere, and much to her dismay, she finds herself falling for Harry’s line about her “perfect pink lips” and how he can’t stop fantasizing about them.  

    In the wake of the tryst, Charlotte confesses to Anthony at a gay club, “He’s my divorce lawyer and I don’t even like him,” in addition to, “I don’t wanna date him. He’s not very attractive.” And, as Charlotte made clear from the outset of the series, her criteria for Mr. Right not only includes a certain kind of job and “pedigree,” but also a certain kind of look (read: Ken doll handsome). Probably not just because Charlotte is vain, but also because she’s genuinely thinking about the “right” biological combination that will make her kids look attractive as well. 

    With Harry, however, all that staunch “logic and reason” of Charlotte’s goes right out the window along with her panties. For, by the time the finale of season five, “I Love a Charade,” rolls around, she can’t deny that not only is it “the best sex of her life,” but that she really does like Harry. That still doesn’t make it easy for her to totally ignore his general uncouthness or hairy back, but, in the end, she can’t deny that Shrekking actually paid off in a big way for her. Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) certainly couldn’t say the same about The Turtle (Timothy Wheeler) in the season one episode of SATC titled “The Turtle and the Hare.” Because, while The Turtle was willing to go along with all of Samantha’s “fixer-upper” ideas for him, Harry—a true Shrek through and through—did well to never much bother trying to alter his “crass” ways or physical appearance for Charlotte. Except a botched attempt at trying to get his back waxed for her in “I Love a Charade” (something that evidently “took” in subsequent seasons, for his hairy back never makes a cameo again). 

    In fact, it would turn out to be Charlotte making all the personal changes in her life for Harry, going so far as to convert to Judaism so that he’ll ask her to marry him (this plot, too, hits its rough patch in the sixth season, but eventually resolves by episode six, “Hop, Skip and a Week”). And while every other relationship in SATC can never manage to stand the test of time, it’s Charlotte and Harry’s that keeps on going strong, even in And Just Like That… (“zany”—read: non sequitur—as their plots are in these “later years” of their marriage). 

    Alas, Charlotte is among the rare examples to have gotten such a great relationship out of her Shrekking endeavors (which is probably why it’s fictional). And while many (especially women) are willing to try Shrekking, most end up only getting “Shrekked.” In other words, deigning to let someone less attractive have the privilege of accessing their body only to still end up being disappointed and/or getting their heart broken by the Shrek of the hour.  

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Cardi B Trolls the “Imaginary Playerz” in Her Latest Pro-Opulence Single Sampling Jay-Z

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    Following the release of what Cardi B had hoped would be a “summer anthem,” “Outside” (an overt diss at her ex-husband, Offset), she’s trying her hand again at securing a higher-charting hit with “Imaginary Playerz.” Named after and sampled from Jay-Z’s 1997 song (a deep cut from In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 that’s actually spelled correctly), the single finds Cardi B being slightly less “relatable” than usual. Mainly because the entire focus of the song is on her fashion prowess, her haute couture savvy. In addition to, as usual, flexing about her superiority. 

    Unlike “Outside,” “Imaginary Playerz” was special enough to Cardi to make a video for it, which she co-directed with Patientce Foster, her long-time collaborator in various ways since she started out as Cardi’s publicist in 2015. To commence the video, the two decide to give Puff Daddy vibes (back when he was called that) in the “Been Around the World” video as she rolls up to her private jet and begins to boast, “The shit these bitches be braggin’ about is like/Shit I was doin’ in like 2016, type shit/Like (why these bitches hatin’?)/You bitches don’t even know the difference between vintage and archive, like.” That last word said in a voice that sounds more than slightly reminiscent of Nicki Minaj, Cardi’s on-again, off-again nemesis at this point (for Nicki has, of late, been much more interested in “destroying” Megan Thee Stallion and, for a minute there, SZA). However, that Cardi should also opt to sample from a Jay-Z song lends further fuel to the idea that she’s goading Nicki, who recently called out Jay not only for owing her millions of dollars through Roc Nation, but also the CEO of said company, Desiree Perez, who was pardoned by Donald Trump in 2021 for previous drug-related offenses in the 90s. 

    Minaj brought this up in July of ‘25, seething, “You were pardoned by President Trump… I mean it kind of implies you guys are cool with him while y’all seem to pretend to be against him. Or are y’all not his friend either anymore just like Diddy? I mean if someone pardoned me we’d be friends for life.” The mention of Diddy as everyone seems to go along with the false belief that Jay-Z had nothing to do with his “antics” (to say the least) in the late 90s and early 00s for the sake of, essentially, not wanting Beyoncé to be cancelled too is also a bold move on Nicki’s part. Just as it is for Cardi to sample from him and act proud about it merely because Jay has been “cleared” in the eyes of the law. But then, Diddy has too, so what does that really say? 

    Regardless, Cardi feels she has nothing to apologize for as she continues to deride those many people (particularly women) “beneath her” via lyrics like, “Bitches, I leave ‘em all fucked, fists be balled up/Y’all hoes look cheap, that shit don’t cost much.” As though to prove she lives the glamorous life, for the first minute or so of the video, Cardi remains in a fixed point near her private jet (alternating between scenes of her outside of it in one bombastic outfit and scenes of her sitting in the back seat of her chauffeured car in a different over-the-top ensemble). In the next scene, she’s off to Mykonos (per the caption on the screen) on a yacht, bedecked in an oversized white hat that puts the “Javier” design Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) wore to his funeral in Sex and the City to shame (though, of course, no hat could ever be as shameful as the gingham bonnet Carrie Bradshaw [Sarah Jessica Parker] wore in And Just Like That…). 

    As she flaunts her opulent lifestyle, complete with butlers (or waiters, if you prefer) emerging from the water to serve her on the beach, Cardi lives up to the line, “It’s really easy for me to talk this shit, ‘cause I live this shit.” And that, ultimately, is what “Imaginary Playerz” is all about: putting those who pretend that they’re “somebody” in their place, with Cardi explaining, “Y’all talk big shit, but guess what? Your life is imaginary. You got imaginary titles, imaginary careers…” Even those fellow rappers that do technically have a career aren’t safe from Cardi’s wrath as she reminds, “My flop and your flop is not the same/If you did my numbers, y’all would pop champagne.” This assertion goes for “Outside,” which, although it didn’t hit the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 (instead peaking at number ten), it did go to number one on the Rhythmic chart and number two on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. So yes, Cardi has a “right” to brag with a certain wiseness when she says, “Quicker they lift up, the quicker they fall down/Poor thing, Twitter must be gassin’ them heavy” (side note: Cardi has 36.4 million followers to Nicki’s 28 million on said platform). And yes, it’s pointed that Cardi would refuse to call Twitter “X.” 

    In the next segment of the video, Cardi jets off to Paris, as is her wont in the years since she appeared on the cover of Vogue (also calling out in her lyrics, “I’m the one who showed these girls what fashion could be/The first rap bitch on the cover of Vogue”). Having become a regular at Paris Fashion Week (which she paid for in flak circa 2021), this year was no exception as Cardi showed up to answer the question to her own album title, Am I the Drama? The answer, in haute couture speak, is a resounding yes (with Cardi re-wearing those key looks from her various Paris Fashion Week appearances at the end of the video). And she brings it in the form of her fashion and luxury displays that only amplify in the Paris portion of the “Imaginary Playerz” video, with Cardi getting a pedicure in a foot bath filled with expensive champagne (in the next scene, she’s being served a different bottle of Perrier-Jouët).

    Ah, and speaking of champagne, it was on 2018’s “Champagne Rosé” (a Quavo track featuring Madonna and “Miss B”) that Cardi rapped, “They say my time is tickin’/These hoes is optimistic.” Now, she’s the one saying other rappers’ time is ticking, loosely quoting Andy Warhol when she says, “Now your fifteen up, you already out of time/I’m a legend, they gon’ hang my heels from the power lines.” This a reference to the landscape of her native Bronx, which, like J. Lo (with whom Cardi collaborated for “Dinero“), she still consistently makes mention of in her songs as a means to “stay true” to her roots. 

    Of course, if Cardi were really forced to go back to that life she led in said borough before hitting the big time, it’s unlikely she would feel all warm and fuzzy about it, instead missing the finer things. So yes, do be fooled by the rocks Cardi’s got, because she’s very much no longer Belcalis from the block. And with her braggadocio and pro-luxury stance on “Imaginary Playerz,” she continues to make that abundantly clear. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Cinderella’s Got to Go: With A Matter of Time, The Clock Strikes Midnight as Laufey Steps Even Further Into Her Own Musical Skin

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    Nothing about Laufey’s musical journey has been conventional. Perhaps the biggest example of that was becoming an “overnight” sensation during the pandemic while posting videos of herself singing her own original music intermixed with some beloved covers. The reaction got Laufey’s attention, and she decided to release an EP without going through the conventional channels of a record label. Titled Typical of Me, the seven-track offering quickly rose up the charts of her “niche” genre, including in the US (climbing all the way to number two on Billboard’s Traditional Jazz Albums and Jazz Albums charts). An impressive feat for a relative unknown who self-published the record. Something that one of Laufey’s obvious influences, Taylor Swift, might have wished she had done instead of signing with Big Machine Records, thus owning all of her masters from the start.

    But then, Swift has always been about the conventional channels for success, complete with sacrificing a college education in favor of putting all her efforts into becoming a teenage country singer. Laufey wasn’t willing to play that game. In fact, despite her own early prosperity on singing competition shows like Ísland Got Talent and The Voice Iceland, she opted to attend Berklee College of Music. And yes, she chose to finish her degree even after realizing the career potential of her virality. So it was that she graduated in 2021, a year after her brush with internet fame. 

    Throughout everything, Laufey can still maintain, as she did to CBS Sunday Morning’s Tracy Smith, “There’s not a single part of myself that has changed my artistic interests to follow some sort of trend.” Which is exactly how Laufey has arrived at an album that is as comfortable in her musical skin as ever. As her third record, A Matter of Time perfects what Everything I Know About Love (2022) and Bewitched (2023) established. Only this time, it’s true that Laufey really is 1) telling you everything she knows about love, having ostensibly experienced it for the first time while in the process of recording the album and 2) she really is bewitched by another: “mere mortal” Charlie Christie. At least, that’s the speculation with the most heat at present, with Laufey neither confirming nor denying the rumors. Such is her belief in separating her personal and professional life. 

    And yet, the personal so clearly bleeds into the professional as a result of her music. And A Matter of Time is perhaps the pinnacle of that reality thus far. Opening with, as an album with this title should, “Clockwork,” Laufey instantly sets the tone for her lovestruck aura on this album. Except, on this particular track, she discusses the unique stress of falling in love when it’s with a friend, singing, “Swore I’d never do this again/Think that I’m so clever I could date a friend.” For, as Vickie Miner (Janeane Garofalo) in Reality Bites, once said, “Sex is the quickest way to ruin a friendship.” Whether or not Laufey’s new love started out as a friend, she certainly seems to know a lot about “the transition” as she continues, “He just called me, said he’s runnin’ late/Like me, he probably had to regurgitate [one of the sickest—pun intended—rhymes in recent memory]/I know it’s irrational, at least I’m self-aware/I’m shivering, maybe I’ll stay home/‘Oh shit, he’s here!’” 

    Once Laufey surrenders to the date, awkwardness or not, she realizes, “I think I might be loving this romantic night/Damn, he’s smiling, staring back at me/We’re at the arcade, think it’s going perfectly/I know I’m dramatic, but I caved in at his touch/I want him forever, oh my God, I’ve said too much.” Appropriately, Laufey originally teased the song on TikTok—an entity her fans are far more familiar with than an analogue clock that makes the “tick tock” sound, like clockwork. As for Laufey’s concluding admission, “But good God, I think he fell in love/Tick tock, and I fell in love too/Like clockwork, I fell in love with you,” it leads quite seamlessly into the sentiments of “Lover Girl,” the third single from A Matter of Time. 

    As a song that explores what happens “after the fall(ing in love),” Laufey is a combination of self-deprecation (“Lovestruck girl, I’d tease her/Thought I’d never be her”) and a puddle of mush (“I can’t wait another day to see you”). Ruing the day she ever “allowed” herself to become a “lover girl.” Of course, it’s not something one can stop once they’ve been hit with Cupid’s arrow (though, if you’re MARINA, you prefer to turn the tables on Cupid). Something Laufey apparently didn’t learn until now, in her mid-twenties. This “late bloomer” energy speaking to the old soul she ostensibly embodies. Along with the clear influence of Old Hollywood movies on the whimsy and romance of the worlds she creates in her songs. Indeed, Laufey is a self-proclaimed lover of Golden Age Hollywood musicals (e.g., Carousel, Oklahoma!, An American in Paris and The Sound of Music), something that shines through in a track like “Lover Girl.” 

    However, if “Lover Girl” is all exuberance and butterflies, Laufey’s aim appears to be to gut-punch her listeners with the tonal shift on “Snow White” (because Cinderella isn’t the only fairy tale heroine reference here) an instant classic in the annals of songs about beauty (or, more specifically, the pressures and impossible expectations on women to “look hot”). Speaking on this topic (still much more pertinent to women than men) also serves as an apropos segue into a song like “Castle in Hollywood,” which explores and dissects the end of a friendship between two women. Undeniably, it’s rare to come across a song like this in pop music, with most female musicians focusing only on their breakups with men. But here, Laufey acknowledges, as she told Rolling Stone, “Most women I know of had a friend breakup that’s just as bad, if not worse than, a romantic breakup. Women have such a strong, deep empathy that it makes friend breakups, especially female friendships, really hard sometimes. It’s a whole lot harder to be like ‘fuck you’ to another woman who’s changed your life in some way. I wish them the best, but I’m also messed up for life because of it.”

    This comes across in the heart-wrenching chorus, “I think about you always/Tied together with a string [more Folklore-era Taylorisms, which tracks since this song is produced by Aaron Dessner, who alternated on song production with Laufey’s usual go-to, Spencer Stewart]/I thought that lilies died by winter, then they bloomed again in spring/It’s a heartbreak/Marked the end of our girlhood/We’ll never go back to our castle in Hollywood.” The implication in that last line being that all the shine has worn off their “fairy tale/happily ever after” friendship. For any girl who’s ever lost a friend they held dear (whether in their formative years or otherwise), this song is sure to resonate. However, despite this being an elegy for a friendship lost, Laufey still finds a way to bring up her new love when she says, “I’m dating the boy that we dreamеd of/I wish I could tell him about us/I wish I could tell you how I finally fell in lovе.”

    Alas, falling in love is hardly the cure for all of Laufey’s ills, as she makes clear on “Carousel” (named, no doubt, in honor of that Hollywood musical she loves so much). The song being, for all intents and purposes, Laufey’s take on Lorde’s “Liability.” That much becomes immediately apparent when she opens the song with the line, “My life is a circus/Hold on for all I bring with me.” This belief that she’s caught in a circus (said in a way that isn’t as triumphant as Britney Spears on “Circus” singing, “All eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus”) was further cemented on CBS Sunday Morning when she admitted, “I was always a little bit, like, felt a little bit like a circus act.” In other words, like some kind of “freak.” In meeting this new love of hers, Laufey is accordingly terrified to lose him, confessing, “You make me nervous/Take my sincere apology/For all of my oddities/My recurring comedies/I know I’m on a/Carousel spinning around/Floating up and down.” She then adds, “Such a spectacle/You signed up for one hell of a/One-man show/Tangled in ribbons/A lifelong role/Aren’t you sorry that you fell/Onto this carousel?”

    If he’s a “stand-up guy” (like Lana Del Rey thinks Jeremy Dufrene is), then surely he won’t mind. Even so, Laufey can’t help but think, “I’m waiting for you to see/The things that are wrong with me/Before you’re on my/Carousel spinning around/Floating up and down/Nowhere to go.” Fortunately, the “Silver Lining” is that, whoever this guy is, he does get on the carousel, going round and round with Laufey to the point where she declares on her lead single, “When I go to hell, I’ll go there with you too.” That’s it. That’s the silver lining. Because a girl has to take what she can get when it comes to “ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate-ing the positive,” as Bing and the Andrews Sisters would remind.  

    However, it’s difficult to do that on “Too Little, Too Late,” which is uniquely told from a male perspective (ha! something Taylor hasn’t done in a song yet). And, evidently, Laufey seems to think that men are just as emotional and romantic as women when it comes to “the one that got away.” Accordingly, there’s a palpable tension throughout the song, like this man (as created by Laufey) might burst at the seams with his sense of regret. As Laufey told Rolling Stone, “I wanted [the sound] to be tense the whole time. No distinct chorus, no distinct verse, just a constant uphill and then for it to bang out into a wedding scene. It’s so dramatic.” That it is, concluding with the emotionally eviscerating verse, “I’ll toast outside your wedding day/Whisper vows I’ll never say to you/‘Cause it’s too little, all too late.” Indubitably, it has the ring of Swift tune. But Laufey’s got her own unique stamp, and, after such intense drama, the whimsy of “Cuckoo Ballet (Interlude)” is not only another mark of her uniqueness, but also a much-needed reprieve from the intensity of “Too Little, Too Late.” What’s more, it’s not just some “throwaway” interlude, clocking in at three minutes and forty seconds. At times, sounding like a mashup of instrumentation out of The Nutcracker-meets-one of Laufey’s favorite Old Hollywood musicals, there’s nods to several Laufey songs, including an instrumental of “Lover Girl” (think: “Lover Girl Reprise” or “Lover Girl, Bridgerton Edition”). 

    The dazzling and, at times, bittersweet interlude leads into the even more dazzling and bittersweet “Forget-Me-Not,” an ode to Laufey’s home country of Iceland (now, thanks to her, no longer only associated with Björk). Hence, her decision to record the track in Iceland with the Iceland Symphony. The latter’s contribution lending an even greater emotional depth to the chorus, during which Laufey laments, “Love you forever, don’t let go of me/I left my own homeland to chase reverie/Gleymdu mér aldrei þó ég héðan flýg/Gleymdu mér aldrei, elskan mín.” Those final two lines translating from Icelandic to: “Never forget me even if I fly away from here/Never forget me, my love.”

    Elsewhere, she describes the type of landscape that not everyone would necessarily be “enticed” by…unless they grew up with it: “I miss the wind, stone cold kiss on my cheeks/Bends in your body, the hope of your spring/Millions now hear my soliloquy/I’m still that child on a black sand beach” (and now, so is Addison Rae in the “Headphones On” video). To be sure, Laufey sings of her homeland as though she’s singing to a lover she had to leave behind, admitting as much to Rolling Stone when she said, “This song sounds like a love letter to a guy.”

    But what doesn’t sound like that at all is the track that follows, “Tough Luck” (which served as the second single from the album). Combining the songwriting styles and tones of Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, Laufey lays into this ex about all of his own shortcomings despite him being the one to try making her feel inadequate the entire time. But no, Laufey isn’t having it, confidently giving it right back when she declares, “You think you’re so misunderstood/The black cat of your neighborhood/Tough luck, my boy, your time is up/I’ll break it first, I’ve had enough/Of waiting ‘til you lie and cheat/Just like you did to the actress before me/Oops, she doesn’t even know/You won’t be missed, I’m glad to see you go.” 

    Alas, despite all her cool, “I’m so over you” posturing, “A Cautionary Tale” is yet another track that indicates she’s just a heart-on-her-sleeve-wearing fool who can’t let go. “Born to be a giver [much like Chappell Roan]/Destined to pay the toll,” Laufey tries to use her own sad story as a cautionary tale to whoever is listening and might find themselves falling prey to l’amour. Even if, by Laufey’s own account, A Matter of Time is “about opening yourself up to a lover, or a person, or the entire world, giving them every single part of yourself.” Even if you know the extreme risk involved in making yourself so vulnerable. Only to regret it when another person (inevitably) disappoints you, as Laufey analyzes in the chorus, “I gave it too much, I gave myself up/I lost sight of all my dignity/I’ve always been smart, my chameleon heart/Took your draining personality and gave it to me/I wanted to please you, this performance of a lifetime/My heart to you handed, you took it for granted/And made me the villain.” Or, as Taylor would say, “I don’t like your little games/Don’t like your tilted stage/The role you made me play/Of the fool, no, I don’t like you.” 

    However, Laufey switches back to Rodrigo-style lyrics when she mourns, “And I can’t fix you, God, I tried, the hourglass I shattered just in time.” Yet another evocative image that brings to mind a now antiquated timepiece. After all, A Matter of Time is all about the clock running out. Which is why it makes plenty of sense that Laufey would describe the tone of the record as “that moment when Cinderella finds out it’s struck midnight and she’s running.” As for the whole “midnights” and clock thing being “already done” by Taylor with, what else, Midnights (complete with a Cinderella-themed video for “Bejeweled”), it’s really Kylie Minogue that Laufey appears to be borrowing from the most via her album cover, which looks ever so much like the cover of Minogue’s greatest hits album, Step Back in Time: The Definitive Collection (including the way Minogue, too, is posed like her legs are the hands of the clock). 

    But, with the next song, “Mr. Eclectic” (not to be confused with Taylor’s “Mr. Perfectly Fine”) Laufey is not only “borrowing” from Sabrina Carpenter, but also herself, with an opening that mirrors the tempo and bossa nova stylings of “Lover Girl,” and a theme that echoes the shade-throwing of “Tough Luck.” As for the Carpenter comparison, it’s all in lyrics that smack of Short n’ Sweet’s “Dumb & Poetic,” particularly when SC sings, “Try to come off like you’re soft and well-spoken/Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen.” Laufey feels the same about “Mr. Eclectic,” of whom she accuses, “Bet you think you’re so poetic/Quoting epics and ancient prose/Truth be told, you’re quite pathetic/Mister Eclectic Allan Poe.” In another Short n’ Sweet kind of moment (specifically, on “Slim Pickins,” when Carpenter bemoans, “This boy doesn’t even know/The difference between ‘there,’ ‘their’ and ‘they are’/Yet he’s naked in my room”), Laufey berates, “Did you еver stop and give a wonder to/Who just who you wеre talking to?/The very expert on the foolish things/That men have said to woo and win me over/What a poser, you think you’re so interesting.” 

    Having purged herself of such “toxic types,” Laufey can finally breathe some proverbial “Clean Air.” This being the metaphor she wields on the penultimate track of the digital version of the album (with the vinyl version also including a bonus track of Laufey’s cover of “Seems Like Old Times”). With its sparse guitar strings that gradually transition into a country-like rhythm, Laufey happily—even chirpily—announces, “My soul has suffered, get the fuck out of my atmosphere/I’m breathing clean, clean air.” It’s a lot like Britney Spears’ own purging of a toxic boyfriend-turned-ex (in her case, it retroactively sounds directed at Justin Timberlake), telling him on her 2001 track, “Cinderella,” “I’m sorry, just trying to live my life/Don’t worry, you’re gonna be alright/But Cinderella’s got to go.” This doesn’t refer to the scene of “Cindy” running away from the prince when the clock strikes midnight, but rather, telling her now ex that she can no longer be the subservient, docile woman he counted on and took for granted for so long. She’s freeing herself of that burden, as Laufey is on many occasions throughout A Matter of Time. 

    But it’s with “Sabotage,” the poignant slow jam of a denouement, that Laufey cuts to the core of her relationship issues. And, more often than not, they have to do with how, as she self-criticizes, “I get in my head so easily I don’t understand, I’m my worst enemy/You assure me you love me and seal it with a kiss/I can’t be convinced.” In this sense, the song obviously should have been called “Self-Sabotage.” Echoing the lyrical motifs and fears expressed on “Carousel,” Laufey takes her phobia of ruining a perfectly good relationship to the next level by warning her lover, “It’s just a matter of time ‘til you see the dagger/It’s a special of mine to cause disaster/So prepare for the impact, and brace your heart/For cold, bloody, bitter sabotage” (in Taylor speak, that translates to, “Combat, I’m ready for combat/I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?…/ I’ve been the archer, I’ve been the prey/Who could ever leave me, darling?/But who could stay?). The sweeping, trippy musical outro then mimics something out of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, complete with the abrupt stopping point in the instrumentation. A jarring cut, as though the clock has run out. 

    And, to that end, the title of the album has a two-pronged meaning. On the one (clock) hand, it’s just a matter of time before you fall in love. On the other, it’s just a matter of time before the clock starts running out on the romance (or, to quote Lana Del Rey, “You and I/We were born to die”). The overall positive side of it (because “you’ve got to ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the positive/E-lim-i-nate the negative”), though, is that at least Laufey is teaching younger generations how a clock actually works. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Doja Cat Is An 80s Music Video Girl in “Jealous Type”

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    Like Charli XCX with her 2022 video for “Baby,” Doja Cat has been very inspired by the visual cachet of 1980s aesthetics for her new era. One marked by the release of Vie, her fifth studio album. As the French word for “life” (hence, calling her tour the Ma Vie World Tour), it seems Doja wants to showcase plenty of vigor in the first single from the record, “Jealous Type.” A song with the same 80s vibe as its accompanying video, directed by Boni Mata. 

    And while Doja might have stirred controversy by previously writing Hot Pink and Planet Her off as nothing more than “cash grabs,” it seems she actually quite liked the cash, hence a return to this more “accessible” pop sound (not unlike the one that The Weeknd has been banking on for years; so perhaps Doja took a page from his 80s playbook after collaborating with him on the remix of After Hours’ “In Your Eyes”). A sound that was noticeably absent on her “adversarial” fourth album, Scarlet. What’s more, there is no producer out there that creates hit pop songs with 80s-inspired beats quite like Jack Antonoff (just ask Taylor Swift), who co-produced the song with Y2K.

    As such, from the moment Doja presses the power button on her very 80s-era electronic equipment at the start of the video, the sound is one of pure “Decade of Excess” ebullience. To boot, Doja has the confidence to commence the song with the chorus (rather than easing listeners into it), “Boy, let me know if this is careless, I/Could be torn between two roads that I just can’t decide/Which one is leading me to hell or paradise?/Baby, I can’t hurt you, sure, but I’m the jealous type/I’m the jealous type.” This, in truth, being a refreshing admission in a climate where everyone seems to be so la-di-da (and/or polyamorous) in relationships. In fact, probably not since 2013 has someone been so frank about their jealousy (hear: “Jealous” by Beyoncé). Such an “antiquated,” “unevolved” trait as it is in matters of l’amour these days.

    But since Doja Cat is technically a millennial (try as some might to bill her as a “Gen Z pop star”), perhaps she can’t help but be of a time and mindset when it was still acceptable to admit to being, well, the jealous type. Thus, the unapologetic verse, “I said, ‘You wanna do what now with who?’/I don’t need a pin drop or a text tonight/I ain’t even coming out with you/You don’t wanna show me off to your ex or your friends tonight/Nigga, you must be on molly/‘Cause y’all ain’t kick it when we started up/And if she really was a friend like you said she was/I would’ve been locked in, but I called your bluff, ha/No girl enjoys trying to tough it out for a party boy/Everyone wants you and you love all the noise/You want what you can have, but I made a choice/I’m not your type (boy, let me know).” 

    During the first portion of the video, a blonde wig-wearing Doja watches herself dressed in a leopard getup in the video projected on her wall, almost as if she’s aroused by her own image (which also isn’t out of the question in an era as narcissistic as this one, regardless of this visual being “set in the 80s” or not). Maybe that’s why she starts to strike some tantric-meets-Madonna-esque yoga poses in front of it before Mata cuts to another scene in Doja’s very Patrick Bateman-styled abode (again, just like Charli’s in the “Baby” video, except Doja’s is clearly in Los Angeles—hence, all the space).

    In this segment, she’s outfitted in red lingerie while dancing in her hallway. It doesn’t take long for another scene to start cutting into this one, with Doja now dressed in a form-fitting metallic pink dress as she dances in front of an elevator (yes, it’s quite the versatile house). All of the scenarios the viewer has seen thus far then start to sort of collide into one another, with Mata then inserting yet another new setting for Doja to be featured in: the exterior of the house (which looks like it was made in the style of a miniature from Beetlejuice). The only thing that looks more 80s than the interior. 

    Standing out front is Doja next to a limo. And in that limo is, who else, Doja. But not the same Doja, the leopard-outfitted one from the screen (side note: the other Doja ogling her outside is wearing leopard-print lingerie). Living the “glamorous life,” as Sheila E. (and now, Addison Rae) would call it. Sipping champagne in the back, perhaps too unbothered with all her wealth to worry about such petty emotions as jealousy. 

    Another swift cut then sees the various worlds of the video bleeding into each other as the red lingerie-bedecked Doja starts dancing inside the elevator where the pink metallic dress-outfitted Doja was dancing in front of. It’s in the elevator that a miraculously appearing fire sprinkler starts raining down on Doja as she’s doing her seductive dance moves. In a moment, of course, that’s not unlike what happens to Jennifer Beals as Alex Owens in Flashdance, pulling the chain above her onstage chair to make it rain…water down onto her already scantily-clad body. This being the iconic opening scene of the movie. Indeed, Flashdance was simultaneously criticized and heralded in its time for being among the first movie of its kind to emulate the “MTV style” of showcasing “non sequitur” scenes that “read” like standalone music videos rather than scenes from a movie. The same can be said of the style wielded here, which is, of course, very meta considering it is a music video in and of itself. 

    As the song comes to a close, Doja repeats the lines, “Oh, I’m jealous, baby, yeah, I’m jealous/Oh, I’m jealous, baby, I’m the jealous type.” A sentiment not unlike the 2020 Bebe Rexha single that Doja herself is featured on, “Baby, I’m Jealous” (from the much underrated Better Mistakes). And as the mélange of Doja’s various postmodern selves continue to intermingle, courtesy of what would been called “slick MTV editing” back in the 80s, she finally presses the “off” button on her “ancient” entertainment system, leaving the audience wondering if she finally got so turned on by herself that she decided to go out in that limo and pick up some sex workers, Patrick Bateman-style. 

    And, speaking of dangerous types like Bateman, since Mariah is actively looking for the “Dangerous Type,” she might very well find it in the likes of a “Jealous Type” like Doja. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • With “Everybody Scream,” It’s Clear that Florence + the Machine Isn’t Done With the World of Dance Fever

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    It’s been three years since Florence + the Machine released arguably her best album to date, Dance Fever. In that time, she embarked on the Dance Fever Tour (from 2022 to 2023), which, well before Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, seemed to further forge the unbreakable and, that’s right, feverish bond shared between her and her fans. With the first single from her new era, “Everybody Scream,” it almost feels as though she’s responding to that intense period in much the same way Swift is also about to with The Life of a Showgirl. And yes, it’s only too appropriate that Welch and Swift recorded and released a song together (“Florida!!!”) while both were in the thick of their respective tours. 

    With Welch seeking to capture the feeling she gets while onstage (and lighting it up, as it were), the theme of “Everybody Scream” draws easy comparisons to “Morning Elvis,” the fourteenth and final track on the standard edition of Dance Fever. Throughout the song, Welch touts the stage as her simultaneous bane and salvation—though mostly the latter. Or, as she phrases it on “Morning Elvis,” “And if I make it to the stage/I’ll show you what it means/To be saved.” As for the “if” part, the song refers to a time in her life when she was often too drunk or hungover to do much of anything, let alone make it to Graceland, where she had planned to visit “the King’s” home circa 2012 during the Ceremonials Tour. But, considering Presley’s own substance abuse issues, Welch isn’t wrong when she says, “I never got to see Elvis/I just sweated it out in a hotel room/But I think the king woulda understood/Why I never made it to Graceland.” Undoubtedly. 

    However, unlike Elvis, Welch managed to get herself together long enough to become sober, understanding that it was ultimately doing more harm than good not only to her creativity, but to her ability to perform. The thing she so clearly loves most in the world. And yet, as she told The New York Times, “I thought the way to hang onto your rock n’ roll roots was to be the drunkest person in the room.” That “philosophy” clearly no longer being the dominant belief in her life. Instead, it’s as though a combination of witchcraft and performing has replaced her erstwhile drinking compulsion. Granted, Welch was always a “witchy woman,” but it’s a “shtick” that’s most definitely ramped up since the release of Dance Fever (even giving Stevie Nicks a run for her strega money). The album inspired by a tincture of the Covid lockdowns and early modern Europe—specifically, the choreomania phenomenon of that period. Within the context of confinement, it was the idea of being able to dance and sing and generally make merriment again within a communal setting that sparked the broader Dance Fever concept. For, although she had once yearned for her tours to be over so that she could take a break, the advent of the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions led to the verse in “Morning Elvis” that goes,  “And after every tour, I swear I’ll quit [Madonna, too, has said the same thing before]/It’s over, boys, now this is it/But the call, it always comes/And the songs like children beggin’ to be born/But, oh, I guess I got my wish/But anything, anything, anything but this.” 

    The “this” was an inability to perform in public for what amounted to two years. So it was that, like many musicians during Covid, Welch spent her time crafting and plotting the next album, to be released at a time when everyone could “commingle” again. And oh, how she and her fans did just that on the Dance Fever Tour. This period being an undeniable inspiration to the opening verse of “Everybody Scream”: “Get on the stage, and I call her by her first name/Try to stay away, but I always meet her back at this place/She gives me everything, I feel no pain/I break down, get up and do it all again/Because it’s never enough, and she makes me feel loved.” The “she” in question represents not only the “muse” that keeps “forcing” her to feel inspired, but also, one might say, the “Goddess of Performing” (or maybe just the Goddess of Dance, Terpsichore). A fellow witch that keeps enchanting Welch, enticing her back to the stage. Where the spotlight burns hot with seduction. Not just because “here, I don’t have to be quiet/Here, I don’t have to be kind/Extraordinary and normal all at the same time,” but because it is a place where she most truly feels alive and among “her people.” The same goes for Florence + the Machine fans when they’re in attendance at one of her shows. Only too happy to oblige Welch when she commands, “Everybody dance!/Everybody sing!/Everybody move!/Everybody scream!”

    So no, Welch isn’t being a “braggart” when she flexes, “I’ll make you sing for me, I’ll make you scream.” And from the instant that the whimsical sound of “Everybody Scream” begins, complete with Welch’s pythoness-esque vocalizing, it’s apparent that this is a song that very much still exists in the world of Dance Fever.

    This includes working once again with director Autumn de Wilde, who Welch began collaborating with back in 2018 (via the video for “Big God”), as well as choreographer Ryan Heffington (who worked on the choreo for Dance Fever’s “King,” “My Love,” “Free” and “Heaven is Here”). However, this time around, Welch is branching out in terms of who she’s co-producing with. That is to say, not Jack Antonoff or Dave Bayley. At least, if the co-producers of “Everybody Scream” are anything to go by: Mark Bowen (of Idles), who also co-wrote the track (along with, incidentally, Mitski), James Ford (perhaps now most known as being part of Last Shadow Puppets) and Aaron Dessner (of The National, but perhaps now most known for co-producing Taylor Swift songs). 

    As for some of the “dual meanings” of the song, it can be argued that although, in the same way that Miley Cyrus’ “End of the World” isn’t really about the imminent apocalypse that keeps revealing signs of itself every day, just because Florence + the Machine’s “Everybody Scream” isn’t about the only thing left that seems like a viable (and affordable) coping mechanism doesn’t mean it can’t still be interpreted that way. Hence, the image of Welch screaming into a hole that’s been dug into the ground of some rural setting (one of the clips she teased before releasing the video) holding so much weight for non-performers and performers alike. After all, how else is one supposed to deal with living in this ever-maddening, ever-decaying world? 

    For Welch, it seems, the best way to do so isn’t just performing onstage for her fans or screaming into a hole, but also wandering through the (Yorkshire) countryside in a bright red dress (the kind of red that can be described as “devil red”) with some fellow “witches” screaming as they flank her. This giving plenty of Dance Fever (read: medieval) energy. As a matter of fact, the overarching sense of women instilling “fear” in others by expressing themselves freely (particularly through dance) is one of the core concepts behind the record, repeated again in “Everybody Scream.” 

    In a Universal Music press release for Dance Fever, it was stated, “The image and concept of dance, and choreomania, remained central as Florence wove her own experiences of dance—a discipline she turned to in the early days of sobriety—with the folkloric elements of a moral panic from the Middle Ages. In recent times of torpor and confinement, dance offered propulsion, energy and a way of looking at music more choreographically.” The same elements are at play in “Everybody Scream” (therefore, likely the eponymous album itself). Not just the sound and lyrics, but especially the accompanying visual, during which Welch essentially takes over a room, spellbinding those in her orbit as she dances on a table and watches them all become “possessed” by some unseen force (hint: it’s the power of her performance…and the generally free feeling of being in a “safe space”). 

    And so, once again Welch is turning to notions of choreomania as related to “moral panic” in the period just after the Middle Ages and at the dawn of the Renaissance. Except that, this time around, the continued exploration of these themes arrives at a time when the wielding of moral panic (a.k.a. satanic panic) by a certain Orange Creature (a devil in his own right) for purposes related to constantly securing “the Christian vote” is only too resonant (and the reason why people need all “the witchcraft, the medicine, the spells and the injections” they can get). As is the fact that Florence + the Machine is releasing Everybody Scream on Halloween (ergo, filming part of the video at the spooky Wythenshawe Hall in Manchester), the time of year when the divide between the realms that separate the living from the dead is meant to weaken.

    However, if the dead should deign to enter the realm of the living this year, they might be hard-pressed to find the difference between that ilk and themselves. Save for the precious few “rambunctious” types, like Welch, who still remember what it is to be alive. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Alex Consani’s Declaration, “Being in a Relationship is Fun, But, Like, So Much Work,” Is Indicative of a Much Bigger Zeitgeist in Dating and Monogamy (RIP)

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    Although Amelia Dimoldenberg has had many guests on for Chicken Shop Date this year, among the most memorable still remains Alex Consani. Not just because she has the blasé “audacity” to say she’s from California so she doesn’t know geography (a.k.a. California is the only geography worth knowing in the U.S., or at all), but because, despite the overall “premise” of Chicken Shop Date (tongue-in-cheek or not) being about Dimoldenberg’s bid to find “true love”—or at least a “steady” someone—Consani disinterestedly declares, “Being in a relationship is fun, but, like, so much work.” 

    This statement might seem “innocuous”/intended to be “cute” enough, but it’s telling of something larger. Particularly amongst those in Consani’s generation (Z, in case you couldn’t guess). And that is, of course, that the pervasive sense of entitlement/a “me first” philosophy/narcissism in general has reached such a zenith that most people of “dating age” really don’t see the point. And besides that, why bother when everything is on demand at the touch of a button (or swipe of a screen)—dick and pussy included? Hence, Consani has effectively announced what has been quite evident for the past several years, which is that Gen Z, and even many beyond that generational boundary, are rejecting the notion of what a “conventional” relationship used to mean. And yes, to a certain extent, what Consani is saying isn’t exactly groundbreaking or “revolutionary.” In fact, Whoopi Goldberg already said it all with her 2016 quote, “I’m much happier on my own. I can spend as much time with somebody as I want to spend, but I’m not looking to be with somebody forever or live with someone. I don’t want somebody in my house.” 

    It was that final line in the quote that launched a thousand memes, with many of them including the text, “Whoopi Goldberg on Marriage: ‘I don’t want somebody in my house.’” Goldberg herself is a baby boomer, and her feelings about “needing” a man (or rather, not needing one) have also become increasingly common within a generation that represents one of the heights of what was once considered “traditional values.” But for an increasing majority of women, particularly those who are within a certain income tax bracket, the “point” of a relationship has only diminished in value over time. 

    Here, too, it can be argued that Candace Bushnell was the first modern “revolutionary” to put a spotlight on this reality in her “Sex and the City” column, writing, “For the first time in Manhattan history, many women in their thirties to early forties have as much money and power as men—or at least enough to feel like they don’t need a man, except for sex.” And no, that comment is certainly not specific to Manhattan. What’s more, it seems that, increasingly, men are scarcely “required” even for sex, what with the many advancements in the world of self-pleasure and fertility. Moreover, men most definitely have their pick of ways and means to get what they want out of a woman (ersatz or otherwise) without ever having to “date” her (see also: the rise of sex robots). 

    At another point in one of Bushnell’s columns, she quotes one of her friends saying, “Love means having to align yourself with another person, and what if that person turns out to be a liability?” To be sure, the number one way that a person can be a “liability” to someone else is financially. Think: romance scams. Then, of course, there’s a different kind of investment that occurs when one attempts being in a “traditional” relationship: an emotional one. 

    And when, often inevitably, that sense of emotional attachment/investment goes bust, it can leave the person who got more burned in the relationship kicking themselves for putting so much time and effort into nurturing something that didn’t “pan out.” Something that couldn’t last. Indeed, more and more, it appears as though younger generations are having the spell of “forever” broken not only by cold, hard reality, but the virtual absence of the same steady diet of rom-coms that were once fed to previous generations, including millennials. Without such propaganda to “promote the lie” anymore, it has become even more of a challenge to convince people that “true love” or “eternal love” is actually “a thing” and not a “capitalist conspiracy” (one that Beyoncé and Jay-Z are still working hard to sell). 

    To boot, someone like Consani is the epitome of what happens when a person grows up entirely on and with the internet. The concept of “real life” or ever being “turned off,” performance-wise, is, thus anathema. A concept that makes it even more difficult to fathom a person’s ability to ever get to know someone in a truly “real” (read: offline) context. In addition to this, there are some who posit that, despite Gen Z being the “loneliest” generation (again, blame the internet) and the one most likely to be single, it isn’t all doom and gloom with regard to the changing face of what a relationship means. As a “generational expert” commented to Newsweek, “[In the future], we’ll [probably] see more communal living, chosen families and alternative relationship structures that align with Gen Z’s values of autonomy and mutual respect. If older generations want to blame Gen Z for killing relationships, maybe they should ask themselves why young people don’t see relationships as a safe or beneficial investment anymore.” 

    Ah, that ugly term again: investment. A word that connotes just how much relationships have come to be seen more as work and less as something rewarding and romantic by sheer virtue of not having to be alone all the time. However, gone are the days when being alone was seen as an undeniable stigma (as further evidenced by the recent series finale of And Just Like That…). In truth, you’re probably more likely to be looked upon as a freakshow in the current climate for being in a committed, monogamous relationship than you would be for “flying solo.” The “work” of the former far outweighing the “fun” of it, as far as Consani’s kind is concerned. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • On How Tess and Anna Made Jake a Fetishist in Freaky Friday

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    With Disney clearly letting its hair down with just how “freaky” Freakier Friday can be, the laxity of what constitutes “family-friendly” “fun” has further increased in the years since the 2003 version of Freaky Friday was released. A movie that already pushed some boundaries on “appropriateness” levels…at least by erstwhile “Disney standards.” Granted, Disney is also known for having “hidden” sex messages/jokes in its movies—and no, not just in the clouds of The Lion King. But the upping of the ante on Jake Austin (Chad Michael Murray) being a total fetishist for older women in general, but Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) in particular, has seen the company reach a new height of “open perversion.” Though, to be fair to Jake, it’s not his fault he started falling for Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan) right at the time when her mother, Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis), took up residence inside her body.

    What’s more, it seemed that, within the universe of the movie, Jake being attracted to Anna is almost as scandalous as him being attracted to her mother, with comments on Anna being too young for Jake getting made a few times. And it’s true, when Lohan was playing fifteen-year-old Anna, she was sixteen. When Murray was playing presumably eighteen-year-old Jake, he was twenty-one. So yes, any way you slice it, Tess-as-Anna isn’t wrong, from a legal standpoint, when she tells Jake, “Truth be told, you’re way too old for me.” But, at that time—circa ‘02 (when Freaky Friday was actually filmed), it wasn’t unusual in the least to cast much older actors still feigning being younger as romantic interests for teen girls. To boot, Lohan herself would start dating then twenty-four-year-old Wilmer Valderrama when she was still seventeen. The relationship only lasted six months, but it still landed her a guest spot on That ‘70s Show as Danielle, Fez’s (Valderrama) short-lived girlfriend. So Murray, at twenty-one playing eighteen (his presumptive age, for that’s what he would have to be in order to so freely lust after Tess), is hardly as offensive as Valderrama at twenty-four dating Lohan. However, what is “offensive” to most, particularly in a culture that abhors when a woman “dares” to act like a man, is a forty-four-year-old (Curtis’ age at the time of filming) “encouraging” a twenty-one-year-old-playing-an-eighteen-year-old in his amorous ideas about her. 

    Then again, it seems many people—of all ages—still have amorous ideas about the now sixty-six-year-old Curtis, who recently did a TikTok “ad” for the movie in which her “low-cut top,” as it’s being described, caused more than a few double takes (at those “double Ds,” to wield the finishing line to “double take” that everyone else was thinking). Not to mention Curtis’ suggestive sentence structure: “You’re going to join with a big group of people who are finding something really sweet at the end of the summer to remind them what it is to be alive. I’m just privileged that I get to take you on the ride.” Said by someone not showcasing their rack, the sentiment might not feel so innuendo-laden. And so, it’s yet another strike in the column against Disney being “family friendly” with Freakier Friday. Though the main one is that Jake, now all grown up (or even more grown up than he seemed before), has apparently developed a fetish for much older women. Something that, needless to say, began with the mind fuck of being super into Anna while he thought she was Tess.

    Indeed, Anna did herself a terrible disservice in Freaky Friday by not trying harder to act more like a dull, oppressive adult. More specifically, with the stick-up-her-ass vibe that Tess has. Instead, she makes Tess look “edgy,” “cool”—millennial. Worse still, she talks all about her musical tastes, which just so happen to align with Jake’s. This making him perhaps hardest of all during a scene when he’s apparently able to kick back and chill in the coffee shop where he works once Anna-as-Tess walks in. At one of the tables, the two discuss the bands they like (Ramones) and the ones they don’t (The White Stripes—and yes, not liking said band is a controversial opinion). And then, as they’re having their “moment,” a Bowling for Soup cover of Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” comes on over the speakers of the cafe. When this happens, Anna-as-Tess really imprints (sexually imprints, if you will) on Jake as the two start singing the lyrics, “When I’m not with you I lose my mind/Give me a sign/Hit me baby one more time.” 

    Catching herself in this intense flirtation, Anna-as-Tess realizes she has to get the fuck out of there before she really does end up doing something lewd with Jake while still in her mother’s body. But it’s too late; the effect it creates leaves Jake absolutely hooked on the woman he thinks is Tess, running after her to tell her, “I don’t know what’s going on here, okay? I don’t know what this whole thing is, all right? I just…I feel like I know you.” As a matter of fact, he does. It’s the same girl he was initially drawn to at the beginning of the movie, when she was still Anna in her own body.

    Alas, when it comes to Anna effectively ruining her eventual romance with Jake by using all her best lines on him as Tess, perhaps she’s ultimately the one to blame for ruining Jake forever. As viewers see in Freakier Friday. For, despite Jake being an adult who seems pretty put together in that he managed to turn his musical passions into owning a record store, The Record Parlour (in real life, it’s a different Chad who owns the store: Chadwick Hemus), the instant he clocks Tess hiding out on the floor behind one of the shelves, all those lustful feelings come flooding back. And naturally, a Britney reference is again made during this scene, with Tess holding Spears’ In the Zone (because …Baby One More Time would have been too played?) album in front of her face as a means of “camouflage.”

    The irony, of course, is that, once again, the woman that Jake thinks he’s talking to is not Tess at all. This time, it’s her soon-to-be granddaughter-in-law, Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons), who has found herself trapped in this body. And, like Anna before her, she has an amply ageist reaction to seeing what she now looks like in the mirror. For, where Anna said Tess looked like “the Crypt Keeper,” Lily appraises her new “aesthetic” as follows: “My face looks like a Birkin bag that’s been left out in the sun to rot!” However, Jake doesn’t seem to think so. More attracted than ever to “the one that got away.” And it can be assumed that perhaps his ongoing, lingering attraction to Tess is at least part of what led to a breakup between him and Anna back in the day, with Anna subsequently getting pregnant at twenty-two and making an evidently big deal about raising her daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), on her own. But also with the help of Tess, who has now taken some of her therapy services to podcasting. This likely being further proof to Jake that she’s so “with it” for someone her age. 

    Besides that, he already appeared to develop an aversion to any woman younger than him in Freaky Friday when, while Tess is in Anna’s body, she acts so stodgy and demanding that it leads Jake to the conclusion, “I think you’re right. You’re too young for me.” With Tess, on the other hand, it seems like his mantra is, “The older she gets, the better.” But since she still has no interest in making him her boy toy in the sequel, Jake has to do arguably the freakiest thing of all in the movie: settle for an older woman who looks like Tess…the way Anna made her look in 2003. Talk about a highly specific kink. And a highly scandalous sexual hang-up to appear in a Disney movie.

    Then again, maybe it’s proof that, despite the movie coming out during yet another Republican presidency, things have managed to get slightly more progressive. Or is “uncomfortably weird” the more accurate phrase? One supposes it depends on the level of fetishism the viewer himself has for Tess Coleman, ergo Jamie Lee Curtis. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lola Young, Too, Would Like to Say, In Essence, “Please Don’t Try to Find Me Through My ‘D£aler’”

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    If any chanteuse (still living, at least) can identify with the struggles of addiction, it’s Lana Del Rey. After all, her teenage alcoholism is part of what landed her in boarding school exile. Hence, her numerous songs alluding to these struggles, these demons—whether written during or after the period she battled the hardest with it (hear: “Boarding School,” “Get Drunk,” “Off to the Races,” “This Is What Makes Us Girls” and “Bartender,” to name a few). And yes, her predilection for addiction has often extended toward “bad men,” to boot. 

    Her own track called “Dealer,” however, is less personal and more geared toward “someone else’s narrative.” A sweeping, tongue-in-cheek number she worked on with The Last Shadow Puppets back in 2017, when she called what they were doing “a little rock band on the side.” Among the songs to see the light of day from that project were “California” (which appears on Norman Fucking Rockwell), “Thunder” and “Dealer” (the latter two appearing on Blue Banisters). Another, “Loaded,” was “given” to Miles Kane, whose vocals might be the core of what makes the single memorable (much more memorable than the album it hails from, Coup de Grace), but there’s no denying the songwriting style is decidedly “Del Reyian.”

    As it is on Lola Young’s “d£aler,” the third single (following “One Thing” and “Not Like That Anymore”) from her forthcoming third album, I’m Only Fucking Myself (or I’m Only F**king Myself, for the more sensitive types). And, similar to “Not Like That Anymore,” “d£aler” emphasizes Young’s attempts to be less self-destructive, and more self-care oriented. Though God (or whoever) knows that’s usually much easier said than done. 

    Co-produced by Solomonophonic and Manuka (who also co-wrote the lyrics with Young), the song’s jaunty sound doesn’t quite align with some of Young’s woeful musings, including the opening verse, “I spent all day tryna be sober/I drowned in my misery, crawled up on the sofa/And I still love him/The way I did when I was nineteen, but it’s not easy to let him know/I spent all day wishin’ the day was over.” The complex, dichotomous emotions Young conveys are akin to Lana Del Rey screaming on her “Dealer,” “I don’t wanna live/I don’t wanna give you nothing/‘Cause you never give me nothing back/Why can’t you be good for something?/Not one shirt off your back.” 

    In a similar fashion, Young has grown weary of her own lover, which, in this case, doesn’t just refer to a literal person, but also drugs—and self-sabotage itself. Her greatest love. And, as she stated of the overarching theme of I’m Only Fucking Myself, “[It’s] my ode to self-sabotage, my chance to claw myself back from the edge of defeat.” In order to do so, she must give up on all her unhealthy habits/coping mechanisms that have held her back up until now, ergo her entire life. This entire version of herself that now needs to be shed like an unwanted skin. Because sometimes, running away from yourself (de facto, your problems) really is the best way to start over. Which is why Young belts out in earnest, “I wanna get away, far from here/Pack my bags, my drugs and disappear.” Okay, so she can’t quite give up the drugs just yet. But what did you expect? The “cold turkey” approach is impossible.  

    So it is that she seems to be addressing her tangible (read: fuckable) lover more than drugs when she sings, “Tell you, ‘No,’ make it clear/That I’m not coming back for fifteen years/I wanna write a note, leave it with/My next door neighbor who don’t give a shit/I wanna get away, far from here/Pack my bags and tell my dealer I’ll miss him.” Or, as Miles Kane, through Lana Del Rey’s “Dealer,” puts it, “Please don’t try to find me through my dealer/He won’t pick up his phone.” In other words, the people in both of these songs no longer want to be contacted or found by the erstwhile toxic presences in their life. Opting to start anew in one way or another, even if it’s not as drastic as leaving town and ghosting everyone in order to really “begin again.” Indeed, Enid (Thora Birch) from (the appropriately titled) Ghost World’s “number one fantasy” comes to mind when listening to Young’s song. That Enid fantasy being, “I used to think about one day just not telling anyone and going off to some random place. And I’d just disappear and they’d never see me again.” 

    Young certainly captures that fantasy in the Conor Cunningham-directed visualizer for “d£aler,” which features her looking behind her (a.k.a. at the viewer) from the back seat of a convertible with the blow-up doll version of herself (the same one that appears on her album cover) “driving.” This itself serving as a kind of metaphor for how she never really feels that in control of her own actions. As though operating from an entirely dissociated perspective. But whatever “POV” you look at it from, “d£aler” (British-ified in its spelling or not) has some marked similarities to what Del Rey and Kane are putting down in their song of the same name. Closing it out with, “555 [this indicating that they’re giving out a fake number to anyone who tries to reach them]/Please don’t try to find me through my dealer (9275, 555)/He won’t pick up his phone (now you’ve got a busy tone)/All circuits are busy, goodbye/All circuits are busy, you’re high.” 

    In addition to channeling some Del Rey energy on this single (aside from the title alone), the comparisons that Young so often gets to Amy Winehouse remain accurate as well. Except that, ironically enough, “d£aler” is, in essence, her anti-“Rehab.” Her declaration that she’s getting “clean.” Or at least trying to become less self-destructive. Not just by moving away from her dealer, but by quitting a relationship that’s ultimately unhealthy. If only Winehouse had done the same with Blake Fielder-Civil before it was too late. For if anyone needed to “tell you, ‘No,’ make it clear/I’m not coming back for fifteen years,” it was Winehouse. But hopefully, her story can still serve as a cautionary tale about the pratfalls of gravitating toward all that is bad for you to someone like Young. In turn, funneling that tale through her own music. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Freakier Friday: A Mélange of Lindsay Lohan’s “Greatest Hits” (The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday and Mean Girls)

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    Because there was no way Lindsay Lohan was ever going to crawl out of the depths of the toilet into which her career descended after the 2000s, a sequel to Freaky Friday was probably inevitable after her trio of Netflix movies failed to truly relaunch her as a “star” (stop trying to make “Lohanaissance” happen). And since Jamie Lee Curtis has always had a kind heart, she was fully on board with the project. One that came about right as a certain capitalization on “millennial nostalgia” was part of the motivation behind what could get “new” content greenlit (see also: the forthcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2 or even Shrek 5). What’s more, because Lohan performed “favorably enough” in her Netflix films (which, to be clear, are all absolute shite, with Irish Wish taking the cake), it seemed that Hollywood was ready to take a chance on her in a more legitimate way again: the studio movie. 

    And, considering that Lohan has such a history with Disney Studios, who better than that entity to give her the opportunity to be in a “right proper” movie as the lead for the first time in eighteen years. For, in all honesty, Lohan hasn’t been in a major studio movie as the star since 2007’s Georgia Rule, which was the first time when her party life really started to affect her professional life in that the producer of the movie, James G. Robinson, actually had to write Lohan a letter telling her what a fuck-up she was and that she needed to get it together for the sake of the production. Among the highlights of that letter were the accusations that Lohan “acted like a spoiled child” and had “frequently failed to arrive on time to set.” (Perhaps just another way in which she wanted to channel Marilyn Monroe.) These latenesses or full-stop absences were due to, per Lohan and her representatives, “not feeling well.” Something Robinson addressed in the letter by saying he was “well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called ‘exhaustion.’”

    So yes, 2007 was not only a bad year for Britney, career image-wise, but also for Lohan. Indeed, it’s no secret that part of Freakier Friday’s cachet is a desire to see someone who was so trashed and hounded by the media in the 00s come back from the trauma of it all. Since it’s apparent that Britney really didn’t. Though it can be said Lohan’s former frenemy (and part of the trio in the car that night in 2006 that launched a thousand headlines and memes), Paris Hilton, has been vindicated in the last decade as well. In large part, thanks to a rebrand that essentially sought to erase her 00s image of being a vacuous (and racist/homophobic) party girl. 

    In Lohan’s case, however, there hasn’t been a rebrand, so much as a constant return to the movies that made her famous in the first place (even Irish Wish had callbacks to Freaky Friday and Mean Girls)—extending to her nonstop and inexplicable wealth of endorsement deals. So of course, not only would she want to be in a sequel to Freaky Friday, but also continue to allude to the other two primary films that made her a success in her childhood and teen years: The Parent Trap and Mean Girls (because other movies in her Disney oeuvre, like Life-Size, Get a Clue and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, were much more niche). As for the former film, the parallels appear immediately in the form of the warring dynamic between Anna Coleman’s (Lohan) daughter, a quintessential “California girl” (complete with the surfing predilection), Harper (Julia Butters), and a new-in-town, rather stuck-up British classmate of hers named Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons). Obviously, it reeks of the dynamic between Hallie Parker and Annie James (both played by Lohan) in The Parent Trap (yet another remake of a Disney movie in Lohan’s oeuvre). Something Lohan was sure to play up with some of her sartorial choices on the infinite publicity tour for Freakier Friday.

    As for the high school that Harper and Lily attend, once again, it was filmed at none other than Palisades Charter High School, just before it burned down in January 2025. As a matter of fact, Curtis was certain to cite Freakier Friday as a love letter to Los Angeles in the aftermath of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, with the movie also being shot at the now burned-down Altadena Town & Country Club for Tess’ (Curtis) a.k.a. Lily-as-Tess’ pickleball scene. To an extent, maybe Freakier Friday is “passable” as a love letter to said city, but, more than anything, it’s a love letter to Lohan’s short-lived career heyday. Almost as if to further emphasize that point, Elaine Hendrix a.k.a. the “evil (would-be) stepmother” of The Parent Trap, Meredith Blake, is given a totally non sequitur role as “Blake Kale” (the first name of course being a nod to Meredith’s last name), an editor in charge of handling the piece on Anna’s biggest client, the mononymous Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). Because, that’s right, Anna is now a talent manager for musicians rather than being one herself, with the running story being that she “gave up” her chance at being a “rock star” because she had Harper. Indeed, the math of the movie places Anna at twenty-two years old when she had her child, with thirty-nine-year-old Lohan playing “thirty-six-and-a-half” and sixteen-year-old Butters playing fourteen. So sure, it’s like a Gilmore Girlsage difference. Though Anna and Harper hardly share the closeness of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel). Nor is Tess exactly “Emily Gilmore [Kelly Bishop] material.” 

    For, once again, Freakier Friday, like its 2003 predecessor, is meant to highlight the fraught, contentious relationship between a teenage girl and her mother—and that mother’s imminent wedding to a dude she resents. Only this time, it’s Anna going through it with Harper, who, like Anna as a teenager, has little empathy for her mother’s profession or her plans to get married to some “interloper.” More specifically, her nemesis Lily’s father, Eric (Manny Jacinto). And, obviously, with this new form of Asian representation in the sequel, the way the “magic” of the body swap (presently a quadruple instead of a double one) works can’t be “offensive” the way it was in the first movie. That is to say, with a Chinese restaurant owner touting a garish accent giving Anna and Tess a fortune cookie with the same fortune inside of it (“She did something… Some strange Asian voodoo,” Tess-as Anna declares).

    And so, as a sign of its “updated” views from the original, the magic comes from a daffy, “multi-hyphenate” psychic/fortune teller named Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer, another SNL alum besides Chloe Fineman who appears in the movie). And no, what isn’t included in the trailer is the wannabe demon voice she gives at different points in the process of delivering their “prophecy”: “Change the hearts you know are wrong, to reach the place where you belong.” It’s a much more reduced “curse” than the one in the fortune cookie that Tess and Anna get: “A journey soon begins, its prize reflected in another’s eyes. When what you see is what you lack, then selfless love will change you back.” 

    Regardless of the revamped wording, it’s the same old method for returning to one’s body in Freakier Friday, though Tess and Anna apparently have convenient amnesia about the fact that “all” it takes is empathizing with the person you can’t stand in order to be restored to your body. But it’s Harper and Lily who are told the little rhyme by Madame Jen, information they keep from Tess and Anna once they realize that now that they’re the adults, they can make the decisions that will free them from a life saddled together. It is especially Lily who doesn’t want the nuptials between Anna and Eric to happen, for it would mean potentially having to stay in Los Angeles. And London is where, supposedly, her heart lies—along with a fashion school she wants to attend. Harper, too, would rather die than leave her beloved L.A. and all the surfing potential that comes with it. And so, like Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Cady Heron (Lohan) in Mean Girls, the two hatch a plan to take down their respective parent’s relationship rather than Regina George (Rachel McAdams). Hence, the creation of a list titled The Plan that looks a lot like the style and structure of what Janis writes on her chalkboard (in addition to mimicking Hallie and Annie’s plot to get their parents back together, rather than tear them apart). 

    Unfortunately for Lily, Harper, while in her mother’s body, has the chance to understand just how genuine Eric’s love for her mother is, making it more difficult to treat him like shit so that the relationship can disintegrate. Part of that plan being to get Harper-as-Anna back in contact with Jake Austin (Chad Michael Murray), who now owns a record store. This giving director Nisha Ganatra and writer Jordan Weiss (best known for Dollface) the chance to further play up the nostalgia of the 00s by having Lily-as-Tess loom in the background with Britney’s In the Zone album cover over her head as “camouflage” (later, she’ll also use Madonna’s True Blue). All while she advises her on how to be “seductive”—these instructions not only proving Lily’s inexperience with boys (though she insists she has a French boyfriend), but additionally prompting Jake to question whether or not Harper-as-Anna is having a stroke. What’s more, Jake’s fetish for older women (but especially Tess) has only gotten more pronounced since the Coleman women fucked with his head back in ‘03. Apparently to the point where he’s still “got it bad” for women who dress like Tess did when Anna was in her body (and also have Tess’ same short haircut from that era). 

    In order to “dig Jake up,” so to speak, Lily-as-Tess tells Harper-as-Anna about a “database for old people” known as Facebook. Just one of many “generational gap” jokes made at the expense of Anna and Tess. But, more than anyone, Tess, who bears the brunt of all the ageism. This mainly perhaps 1) Curtis knows how to deal with this kind of comedy without making it feel totally mean-spirited because she’s “in on the joke” herself and 2) Lohan isn’t quite ready to put a spotlight on her current status, from the Gen Z viewpoint, as being “old.” Which is why the only cutting remark she really gets from her daughter is about how Anna’s skin feels like it’s crying out for water. Then, of course, there’s the same dredged-up bit about teenagers being able to eat whatever they want because of their metabolism. Or as, Tess-as-Anna triumphantly phrases it to Anna-as-Tess while eating fries in Freaky Friday, “This food may make you blow up like a balloon, but it will do nothing whatsoever to me.” 

    And, for some, Freakier Friday will do nothing whatsoever for them. Because not everyone is charmed by the nostalgia that Freakier Friday largely coasts on, with a review from Time (the one that was scathing enough to get Curtis’ attention) saying it all with the title, “Freakier Friday Is Humiliating to Everyone Involved.” Other, kinder reviews cite Curtis as the saving grace of the movie, for it’s clear she’s having the time of her life playing Tess playing a teenager…again. And this, in truth, is the bulk of what makes the movie feel so exuberant. Even as it cashes in on the well-worn storylines and “winks” from Lohan’s past filmography. For while it’s designed to be a vehicle for her, Curtis is the one who stands out the most (sort of like what happened with Angelina Jolie outshining Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted—which is probably going to get a sequel any day now). 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • When It Comes to Her Father-Daughter Dynamic, It’s Just as Madonna Once Said: “Life Is a Circle”

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    There was a time in Madonna’s life when it probably would have been unfathomable (mostly for Madonna herself) to imagine having a close relationship with her father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone. But it seems that, with time, not only has the Queen of Pop “softened,” but so, too, has her father. At least in terms of his erstwhile strict views on how his daughter should act. The very same views that forged Madonna on the path toward becoming famous as a direct result of her perennial rebellion, her staunch flouting of “the rules.” Or, as she once put it, “I wouldn’t have turned out the way I was if I didn’t have all those old-fashioned values to rebel against.” So yes, there’s no denying the masses that came to adore and admire Madonna have none other than Mr. Ciccone to thank. A man who was himself raised with some very strict, old-fashioned values. After all, his parents were of the Greatest Generation, and “Old World” Italian immigrants, to boot.  

    Part of the Italian diaspora that took place from 1880 to 1924, Michelina Di Iulio and Gaetano Ciccone settled in the Beaver County area (yes, of course Madonna’s roots would have such a suggestive name), with Silvio, their youngest son, being born in Aliquippa. Eventually, “Tony” as he came to be known, thanks to the Americanization of many Italians (whether genuinely dal vecchio paese or “first generation” and beyond), started working in a steel mill in Pittsburgh. It doesn’t get more working class than that. But Tony clearly wanted to transcend this status, to take advantage of the then still believable and achievable American dream that would allow him to have the better life his parents had immigrated to the U.S. for in the first place.

    As Madonna told Time in 1985, “My grandmother and grandfather spoke no English at all. They weren’t very educated, and I think in a way they represented an old lifestyle that my father really didn’t want to have anything to do with. It’s not that he was ashamed, really, but he wanted to be better.” And so, he became an optics engineer after serving in the Air Force, where his friendship with a fellow Airman led him to Madonna Fortin, a Bay City native, as her eldest daughter, Madonna Jr., would be. Though, of course, to her eventual fans, there was only ever one Madonna—theirs. MLVC: Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. 

    To Madonna herself though, M Sr. would forever loom large as the idol of her own life, saying during Truth or Dare, “She seemed like an angel to me.” That opinion would only increase the more that time went on in the years after Madonna Sr.’s death from breast cancer when “Little Nonnie” was just five years old. And it was her mother’s death that seemed to harden Tony all the more, to reinforce that he had to be strict with his children. And that, furthermore, they needed a new mother figure to help light the way. Enter Joan Gustafson, the Ciccones’ housekeeper. In somewhat cliché fashion, Tony would end up marrying her because, hey, what is the ideal wife if not a housekeeper? He did so in 1966, three years after Madonna Sr.’s death. Obviously, Madonna was not a fan. Neither of Joan, nor of her father being so quick to seemingly “forget” all about his real wife.

    Besides that, it was apparent that Madonna was exhibiting some classic signs of the Electra complex, which she, for all intents and purposes, openly addressed in the abovementioned Truth or Dare. This when telling her then bestie, Sandra Bernhard, “I had those dreams for, like, a five-year period after that. That’s all I dreamed about was that people were jumping on me and strangling me and I was constantly screaming for my father, and no sound would come out.” Bernhard then asked, “And what happened when you woke up? Were you crying?” Madonna replied, “I’d just be sweating and afraid and I’d have to go to sleep with my father.” This “subconscious” word choice leaving it open to plenty of innuendo-laden connotations since she didn’t opt to instead say something more measured, like, “I had to go into my father’s bedroom and fall asleep there.”

    Even so, Bernhard practically invokes what follows when she further questions, “How was that when you slept with him?” Without missing a beat, Madonna says, “Fine, I went right to sleep—after he fucked me.” She starts laughing and quickly adds, “No, just kidding.” Though, of course, there was a small kernel of truth in what she said in terms of wanting to “possess” her father fully, to have ownership over all aspects of his love, in a way that she wouldn’t ever be able to from a romantic/sexual perspective. And certainly not after Joan entered the picture to kick Madonna out of Tony’s bed—literally. 

    The friction Madonna experienced with Joan, who she had nothing but contempt for as a teenager, based on comments about Joan making her wear the same exact dress patterns as her sisters and refusing to let her use tampons, only compounded the friction she already had with her father, who she undeniably resented for bringing a strange woman into their home. A woman who was now not only replacing Madonna Sr., but also Madonna, with the latter taking on the “wife role” as the eldest daughter. With Joan in the mix, it appeared as though Madonna’s drive to “get the hell out of Michigan”—or, for the time being, at least out of her father’s house—became only stronger. Breaking out of there at eighteen to attend the University of Michigan on a dance scholarship, Madonna dropped out after a year to answer the apparent call of destiny by moving to New York in 1978, a maneuver that caused a major rift between her and her father, who couldn’t understand why she would throw away a college education and a solid path to that “better life” his own parents wanted for him, and all because of some whim. A whim that even Madonna herself couldn’t fully explain, apart from taking Christopher Flynn’s advice to go where it was all happening, get on a faster track to becoming a professional dancer through Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. 

    Once she moved to the proverbial big city, Madonna’s ties to her father grew frayed, something she reflected on in that ‘85 Time article with the assessment, “When I moved away for a long time we weren’t really that close. He didn’t understand what I was doing when I first moved away. First I was a dancer and I would call him and say, ‘Well, I’m dancing.’ He never, well, he’s a sensible guy, and what’s dancing to him? He can’t imagine that you can make a living from it or work at it or be proud of it or think of it as an accomplishment. He could never really be supportive about it.” And yes, there were many times when he urged her to just give up and come back to Michigan, but the thought of doing that is what actually kept her going during some of her darkest days in New York, vowing that to return home would be the ultimate failure—the ultimate way to prove that her father was right. 

    After Tony started hearing his daughter’s songs on the radio, however, he couldn’t deny that it was Madonna who had been right. That she did “make something of herself” as she says in Truth or Dare. But as Madonna’s star rose, so, too, did her penchant for pushing buttons, for stirring up controversy. One of the apexes of that occurring in 1989, with the “Like A Prayer” video, which no doubt gave Tony a shock as much as any devout Catholic. And yet, despite stating, “More than anything, I want my father’s approval, whether I want to admit it or not,” that has never prompted Madonna to shy away from doing “scandalous” things, mainly of a sexually-charged nature. This infamously reaching an apex in the 1992-1993 era, with the back-to-back unleashing of Erotica, the Sex book, Body of Evidence and The Girlie Show. And yes, even before this point, Tony was obliged to ask his daughter of the Blond Ambition Tour, “You undress in this performance?” She balked, “No, of course I don’t.” But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t have other people undress later on in The Girlie Show. What’s more, Tony is also recorded asking Madonna if she would “tone down” her performance during the night he chose to come see the Blond Ambition Tour. She immediately replies, “No, because that would be compromising my artistic integrity.” 

    Her unwavering devotion to her craft, her work, however, is something that has always innately bonded her to Tony, who she credits for her incredible work ethic. And then, later on in life, when she had children, it seemed that she could better understand where her father had been coming from with all of his strictness. With Madonna herself turning out to be quite the “stickler” for the rules she made for her own children to abide (including, most illustriously, not letting them watch TV). 

    In more recent years, as Tony entered his nineties (indicating that Madonna, too, might have the same longevity—something she’s alluded to in her Madame X Tour, during one of the banter sections), it seemed that Madonna grew ever more protective of their relationship, of keeping him close. This even more important after the back-to-back deaths of Joan and Madonna’s younger brother, Christopher (at one point a frequent artistic collaborator of hers in the late 80s and 90s before the pair had a falling out), in September and October of 2024, respectively. This just a year after Madonna’s oldest brother (and overall sibling), Anthony, died in February of 2023.

    So yes, the sense of loss in the Ciccone family has been palpable of late. Which is surely part of why Madonna had a Thanksgiving with Tony at the table in ‘24, sharing pictures of her children and father, along with a caption that read, “Watching him cry in the cemetery when we buried my brother Christopher—right after he lost his wife—was a moment I will never forget. Spending time with him and all my children on Thanksgiving was Medicine for the Soul.”

    In June of ‘25, Madonna shared another post featuring an image of herself and Tony (plus Madonna’s current much younger boo, Akeem Morris, for an added bit of freaky-deaky cachet) in honor of his 94th birthday (June 2, 1931), captioning it, “Congratulations for riding the roller coaster of life with humor and sanity intact. Thank you for sharing your mantra in life with me, which is: ‘I’m gonna go until the wheels fall off.’”

    This year, as Madonna turns sixty-seven, not only does she herself continue to adhere to that mantra despite all the naysaying against her (she’s too “old” to keep putting out music, she should just pack it in, etc., etc.), but she also appears as in touch with her father’s Italian roots as ever, spending yet another birthday in Italy. The place that essentially helped give her what Norman Mailer called “a heart built out of the cast-iron balls of a hundred peasant ancestors.” Madonna’s own patriarch being a very integral one of those hundred “peasant ancestors.” For, yes, life truly is a circle, as M sings on 2019’s “Extreme Occident” (or, as she says in a different way on 2003’s “Easy Ride,” “I go round and round/Just like a circle/I can see a clearer picture/When I touch the ground, I come full-circle/To my place and I am home/I am home”). And it’s a circle that has led her right back to the father she once so vehemently rebelled against. But whose love and approval she still so badly wants.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Party of One: With the And Just Like That… Series Finale, Michael Patrick King Gives Carrie the Ending He Always Wanted To—Albeit Poorly Executed

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    As has been Michael Patrick King’s wont throughout the third and final season of And Just Like That…, there have been a lot of callbacks to previous scenarios in Sex and the City. Whether this is truly intentional or not—or just a matter of not “remembering” the similarities (like not remembering that Lisa Todd Wexley’s [Nicole Ari Parker] dad had already died in season one)—the fact remains that the overall effect makes it seem less “calculated” and more like King and co. were out of truly fresh ideas. 

    With the supposed final chapter on Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) closing (though, based on past occurrences, viewers know that Bradshaw always has a tendency to “reanimate”), her conclusion is not only somewhat forced—a means to repair the ending that she was given for the series finale of Sex and the City—but also a redux of SATC’s season five episode, “Anchors Away.” In it, the running motif is based on something Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) tells her friends, including Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall): “Everyone knows you only get two great loves in your life.” She then spells out, without thinking, that Big (Chris Noth) and Aidan (John Corbett) were Carrie’s, leaving her somewhat flummoxed about what that’s supposed to mean for her romantic future. However, another running theme, one that’s always been there in this particular show, is that the city of New York is her great love. Or, as she cheesily puts it to the others, “You’re never alone in New York, it’s the perfect place to be single. The city is your date.” 

    That doesn’t mean the city still won’t make you feel like shit for being “alone,” as it does when Carrie, in her bid to have a little date with herself, de facto New York, ends up caught in a rainstorm after realizing the Guggenheim is closed on the day she wants to visit it (so much for being a seasoned New Yorker). Even though, at present, the Guggenheim is open seven days a week. In any case, as a result of the closure and bad weather, she’s led to Café Edison (another now defunct NYC institution); never mind that, geographically speaking, it wouldn’t have been possible for her to just “stumble into it” a few blocks from the Guggenheim, seeing as how it was about a forty-five minute walk to do so (Carrie instead describes it as a mere “several wet blocks later”). But then, SATC has never prided itself on a sense of realism—so how could anyone have expected that And Just Like That… would? 

    However, one thing that both shows undeniably have in common is parading the question that King brought up on Kristin Davis’ Are You a Charlotte? podcast, the question that has been at the core of the narrative from its inception: “Am I enough? Am I enough alone?” In “Anchors Away,” it seems as though, for Carrie, the answer is still no. In fact, she’s disturbed from the outset by her experience at Café Edison, when the proprietor barks, “Singles at the counter!” Carrie tries to push back with, “Oh, I was hoping to get a table—” “Singles, counter!”

    At said seating arrangement, Carrie is further horrified by a glimpse into her future via the other woman at the “singles counter,” Joan (played by Sylvia Miles, a New York fixture until her death in 2019), who begins gabbing with her immediately. Taking a shine to Carrie because she sees something of herself in this person, Joan announces of the singles counter at the café, “We single gals gotta have a port in the storm, am I right?” Carrie doesn’t look so convinced of that being true as she observes Joan crushing some white powder on her plate. Joan explains, “Lithium. I like to sprinkle it on my ice cream. You ever try it?” Carrie says she hasn’t and, when further questioned by Joan about what “mood elevator” Carrie is on, the latter tells Joan she isn’t “on” anything. Joan smiles, saying she used to be like Carrie until she broke up with some guy named Morty in ‘82, adding, “Thought somebody better would come along. Never happened.” Obviously, Carrie feels the sting of that comment, having recently ended things with Aidan for what was then the second time. 

    What’s more, the question of the week for her column is whether or not, “when it comes to being carefree single girls, have we missed the boat?” For Carrie, the idea of losing her ability to be single without judgment a.k.a. being single while also being “of a certain age” is what scares her the most. More than being single itself. Which is why, later, at the Navy party (with Fleet Week also being a through-line of the episode), Carrie takes a look around at the goings-on—including Charlotte flashing a tit to one of the Navy officers—and realizes this kind of scene isn’t for her anymore, informing Samantha, “I was right. This ship has sailed. And, tragically, I’m still on it.” 

    In the so-called final episode of And Just Like That…, “Party of One,” Carrie is met with a similar feeling in the opening scene, which itself echoes the one when she’s at the “singles counter” with Joan. Only instead of having a live “seat mate” this time, And Just Like That… aims to show just how far Carrie has been thrust into the future—apart from the robot servers and digital menus—with a Tommy Tomato stuffed toy (sure to become a real thing after this…then again, maybe not). This is the “creature” she ends up sitting across from at the restaurant. Of which she tells the host, “I was walking by. It looked so interesting.” A comment that sounds borderline racist in that an Asian restaurant would be described as “interesting” to her at this juncture of her existence in NYC. Or the fact that, also at this juncture, she should be surprised by a menu presented to her on an iPad, where she selects the items she wants via the screen. Treating it as though she’s never seen one before at another restaurant, Carrie goes through a whole “I’m so naïve” bit before the host that seated her presents her with the abovementioned Tommy Tomato, beaming at Carrie as she explains, “You don’t have to eat alone.” 

    This time, she’s even more horrified/affronted than she was when she got saddled with Joan at the singles counter. And also this time, the geography of where Carrie ends up eating totally doesn’t match the reality of where she would be. For the location it’s shot at, Haidilao Huoguo, is in Flushing. Oh sure, Queens might have come up in the world, but definitely not to the point where Carrie Bradshaw would fuck with it on a whim. Though that isn’t to say she wouldn’t shlep to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, which is where it looks like she, Charlotte, Lisa and Seema (Sarita Choudhury) are when they attend a bridal fashion show. Before entering said show, Carrie recounts what happened to her: “Ladies, they put a boy doll across from anyone eating alone.” Not exactly great publicity for Haidilao Huoguo, but oh well.

    What’s more, gone are the days when, as in the season two episode, “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?,” the relative “lack of technology” didn’t make such an experience feel all the more sad and bleak. And yes, at the end of said episode, Carrie has the same epiphany about an “okayness” with potentially being alone forever, delivering the voiceover, “Instead of running away from the idea of a life alone, I’d better sit down and take that fear to lunch.” She does just that, and, since phones weren’t pervasive in 1999, when the episode aired, she didn’t even have that as a crutch for sitting alone at a restaurant either, proudly declaring, “So I sat there and had a glass of wine…alone. No books, no man, no friends, no armor, no faking.”

    This constant exploration of what it would mean to be truly alone, perennially single is the North Star of the SATC universe (in addition to the four friends being each other’s true soul mates). Coming up repeatedly every time Carrie found herself, yet again, in the position of being an “old maid” (another trope that arises in the season five episode, “Luck Be An Old Lady”). In AJLT, with the realization that both Big and Aidan, her “two great loves,” as Charlotte once put it, are no longer options—seeing as how Big is dead and Aidan is overused (which is really saying something considering how overused Big once seemed to be)—Carrie, for the first time, doesn’t appear as though she’s holding out hope for someone to be her “other half” in the future. 

    As she tells Charlotte during their “walk and talk” after the bridal fashion show, “Who will I be alone? Yes, I know I’ve lived alone a lot, but I’ve never lived alone without the thought that I wouldn’t be alone for long.” She then concludes, “I have to quit thinking: maybe a man. And start accepting: maybe just me.” Charlotte, of course, refuses to give credence to the idea that being single at Carrie’s age is acceptable (just as she refused to accept it back when they were all “spring chickens”). Or that it might be a genuine possibility, which is why she decides to invite Mark Kasabian (Victor Garber), the art gallery owner that employs her, to Thanksgiving at Miranda’s, hoping Carrie will see that there are, in fact, still plenty of non-jank fish in the sea. Even at “their age.”

    Carrie, of course, isn’t having it, mainly because she’s never been even remotely attracted to nice guys (this, too, was part of why Aidan never really “did it” for her—granted, he showed himself to be a true asshole later on, which was, funnily enough, when she was most committed to the relationship). But Carrie isn’t so quick to get on board with Charlotte’s plucky attitude about “male prospects” for the future, with even Duncan Reeves (Jonathan Cake), the British bloke she finally slept with after a season of flirtatious energy, not panning out as a viable suitor. 

    All of which leads Carrie—and the viewer—back to what she had said at the end of the SATC series finale, “An American Girl in Paris (Part Deux)”: “The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.” As King reminded, “That was the sort of mission statement of Sex and the City. The interesting trick to it is Carrie then answered a phone call from a man who was coming to be with her [Mr. Big]. [But] it was always in my mind, ‘What happens if there’s no phone call?’ How strong of an individual do you have to be to make that same sentence when there’s no one on the horizon?” With Carrie adding to that sologamist line while answering Big’s phone call, “And if you find someone to love the ‘you’ you love, well, that’s just fabulous.”

    But in And Just Like That…, with Big dead, Aidan insufferable and Carrie being “too old” to have as many options on the dating scene as before, it appears King saw the opportunity to give his ultimate main character the ending he wasn’t bold enough to back then. The ending he didn’t think viewers would accept back then: “The woman realized she was not alone. She was on her own.” This being the “dazzling prose” Carrie chooses to conclude her 1800s-era manuscript with, despite the recommendation her agent gives her about how this would be a tragedy, especially for the time period. 

    And yes, viewers would have been ready to accept this conclusion—if only it hadn’t all been delivered so poorly…and so randomly, to boot. Complete with the much talked about clogged/overflowing toilet scene, which has absolutely no relevance or use to the episode. It can’t even be argued that it offers “comic relief” value. It’s just full-stop disgusting and basically mirrors the belief that this entire series was a turd that kept floating up. Until now. For that was it, the end. Finito. No more. And, by playing the SATC theme song during the credits, it just goes to show that King and co. were fundamentally trying to signal that all they wanted was to do their best to give the original Sex and the City the ending they thought it deserved. The more “courageous” ending for Carrie. For, as King also told Davis on her podcast, SATC was always about “the anarchy of saying single people are enough, being single is enough.”

    However, the way Carrie makes it look in these final scenes of AJLT, it doesn’t come across like that at all. Not even with the contrived musical selection of Barry White’s “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything” (which, by the way, is still much too easily associated with Ally McBeal—the eponymous character of said series, incidentally, ending up “alone” as well, perhaps proving it was more avant-garde in its day than SATC). 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • PinkPantheress’ Gambit: The “Romeo” Video

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    The success of PinkPantheress’ nine-track mixtape, Fancy That, continues with yet another video from one of the songs on the album, “Romeo.” A mid-tempo ditty that happens to be the final track on the album, and yet another that samples from Basement Jaxx (specifically, their 2004 hit, “Good Luck”)—after “Girl Like Me,” which itself samples from the well-known Basement Jaxx single, “Romeo.” But perhaps PinkPantheress thought it would be too on the nose to use the latter sample in her own song of the same name. Just as she seemed to think it would be too on the nose to set her Iris Luz-directed music video in Verona while wearing some Renaissance-y ensembles. And besides, she already explored the Regency era in her Bridgerton-inspired video for “Tonight.” So why bother returning to the “deep past” again? 

    Still, it’s apparent she wants to pay some kind of homage to the Shakespeare play that everyone associates the name Romeo with, thus wielding other specific character names from Romeo and Juliet in her “Pink Cubs” group chat (e.g., Rosaline, Paris and Mercutio). Before revealing these texts, however, PinkPantheress sets the stage for where the milieu of the video will be with a title card that reads: “Summer 2025: A competitive chess tournament takes place in South London. This video was filmed at that tournament.” As such, PinkPantheress seemed to take plenty of advantage of the opportunity to be amidst some fellow chess pros, save for Destin Conrad, who just happens to be playing the “video vixen,” as he calls himself in the Instagram post mentioning the video’s release. 

    However, while Conrad might not be a chess guru, PinkPantheress certainly is, with chess prowess in her blood thanks to being the niece of five-time British Women’s Chess Champion Susan Lalic (who also holds the chess titles of International Master and Woman Grandmaster). Perhaps wanting to finally show off that side of herself in a more immortalized way (read: the music video medium), in addition to waiting for The Queen’s Gambit to more fully fall away from public consciousness, PinkPantheress goes all out on revealing her fervor for the game. Which also acts as a kind of metaphor for what happens when a person falls in love, maneuvering and posturing in a manner that might lead him or her to attract—lure—the other person successfully and to “make them” fall in love in return. 

    In this sense, the idea of one’s would-be lover acting as a kind of “opponent” is only too real. Along with the symbolism of putting as much strategy into winning their love as what goes into moving the pawns on a chessboard. And, to be sure, it often does feel like some unseen “hand” is moving us forward or backward in this chessboard called life, which also applies to matters of l’amour. 

    Luckily for PinkPantheress, who, at times, looks more like she’s at a speed dating event than playing chess, she hasn’t fallen in love, knowing better as she tells (or rather, lip-syncs telling) a reporter interviewing her about her “strategy,” “Step one, don’t let yourself fall in love/‘Cause that is not fun.” Because it’s never fun to not be the one in control, and falling in love with another person means exactly that: losing all control. Something a chess queen like PinkPantheress simply can’t abide, instead acting as the ringleader of all the other players at certain points in the video that give way to more fantastical moments. Like PinkPantheress in the center of a giant chessboard (placed atop a tartan print, of course, in keeping with the Fancy That visual motif) surrounded by players/backup dancers who look as though they’re dressed in marching band uniforms (while a chess uniform would essentially amount to a suit jacket, button-front shirt and maybe a tie).

    Appearing at one point as though she’s scaled to the same size as a chess piece, it somewhat harkens back to a scene in Megan Thee Stallion’s “Whenever” video when she rides on the “horse chess piece” a.k.a. the knight. In fact, it’s PinkPantheress’ move with the knight at the end of the video that wins her the tournament. And, since life imitates art, she opts to make the final scene of her holding the trophy she seemed to so effortlessly win. And yes, if there was a trophy for Most Aloof in Matters of Being Pursued, she might just get that too, if “Romeo” is anything to go by. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Woman of the Hour and Saoirse Ronan on The Graham Norton Show: Two Key Moments in “The Culture” Right Now That Tell a Larger Story

    Woman of the Hour and Saoirse Ronan on The Graham Norton Show: Two Key Moments in “The Culture” Right Now That Tell a Larger Story

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    In a now viral moment on The Graham Norton Show that, to Saoirse Ronan, came as a complete surprise, the actress casually “quips” (while being totally serious) that a woman is always thinking about what she might be able to wield as a weapon for impromptu self-defense purposes. The remark came during a “har-har-har” discussion among actors Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal (these two on the promotional circuit together thanks to Gladiator II) and Eddie Redmayne, with Washington confirming his combat training by Navy SEALs during the filming of The Equalizer. Norton then questioned, “[So] you can kill something with anything?” Washington responded with an emphatic affirmation, with Redmayne then weighing in, “I find some of the techniques though that you learn, like some of the things Paul taught us, is how you can use, um, how you can use your phone if someone’s attacking you—the butt of your phone.” And it’s here that he pantomimes the gesture, about to continue to say more until Mescal foolishly interrupts, “Who’s actually gonna think about that though? If someone attacked me, I’m not gonna go, ‘Phone.’”

    Amid the yuk-yuks between the men, Ronan tries to interject, but the laughter is still too raucous, settling down long enough for Redmayne to agree, “That’s a very good point.” Well done, chap, for saying something totally ignorant. Ronan then takes the chance, before the conversation shifts again, to say, “That’s what girls have to think about all the time.” A nervous hush falls over the men, with Mescal and Redmayne quickly agreeing, as though suddenly realizing that this whole exchange could be a PR nightmare (and it kind of is). Ronan then delivers the coup de grâce by asking the audience, “Am I right, ladies?” The audience returns a loud cheer of approval. Norton is then very quick to change the topic, not even addressing what Ronan said, lest the episode become “too political.”

    Of course, everything is always political, and that’s a reality that has become even harder to ignore in these increasingly divided times. That Ronan made this comment on the heels of the release of Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, Woman of the Hour (a movie loosely based on “The Dating Game killer”), says that fear of men is very much on women’s minds. More than ever, perhaps. Or at least more than ever in the twenty-first century. That Woman of the Hour looks to a story from the twentieth, specifically 1978 (and jumping around in time to other years in the seventies), is extremely telling of how not so far we’ve come with regard to the way women are treated by men. To be blunt, like objects designed solely for men’s pleasure and mind games—whether women want to participate in that or not. One such victim in the fictionalized account of Rodney Alcala’s serial killing spree throughout the seventies is Sheryl Bradshaw (played by Anna Kendrick and based on Cheryl Bradshaw—not sure what the point of one letter change was to “Sheryl” for the character, but anyway…).

    To set the stage for the rampant and systemic misogyny that Sheryl faces as an aspiring actress (which is ratcheted up from “ordinary” misogyny against “civilian” women), Woman of the Hour opens with Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) and one of his victims, Sarah (Kelley Jakle, who also appeared in the Pitch Perfect movies with Kendrick), in Wyoming, 1977. Giving viewers a snapshot of his modus operandi in terms of killing style, Alcala has lured Sarah to a remote, isolated location by insisting this is the best place (presumably for setting and lighting) to take photographs of her. As he tells her to talk about herself so she can loosen up, she tells a familiar tale of abandonment by a boyfriend, his shitty behavior best exemplified by the fact that he left her despite Sarah being pregnant with his child. As she lets the tears fall while Alcala continues snapping photos like the creep he is, she admits, “I knew he was risky, but fuck it, everyone’s risky.” The statement adds an eerie layer to the fact that she’s come to this isolated hilltop with a man she doesn’t know. A man who prides himself on “always getting the girl” via his aura of “sensitivity” (hence, wielding the artist/photographer card all the time) and saying cornball shit like, “You’re beautiful.” And then, all at once, showcasing his “Mr. Hyde” personality by going for the jugular—literally.

    The way he murders Sarah is also meant to show viewers another frequent tactic of Alcala’s, which was to strangle his victims just enough for them to lose consciousness, but not kill them entirely. Once they revived, he would continue toying with them again, providing a slow, cruel and psychologically taxing death. As he does to Sarah. This harrowing scene then leads into one of a completely different kind: Sheryl auditioning for a role in front of two male casting directors who talk to each other as though she’s not even there. When they finally remember her presence because she asks if they want her to read again, one of the casting directors (Geoff Gustafson) gets around to asking her, “What year did you graduate?” (from her Columbia acting program). It’s almost as “subtle” as just coming right out and saying, “How old are you?” A shade-throwing query on the casting man’s part, as it’s meant to indicate he thinks she looks too old. Not just for the part she’s auditioning for, but in general. This treatment of her as though she’s a piece of meat is not only in keeping with the cattle call vibes of any audition (open or closed), but the way women are regarded overall. As though to really drive home that point, the other casting director (Matty Finochio) concludes with, “And you’re okay with nudity, right?” Sheryl replies, “No, it’s just not for me.” The casting agent who asked the question then takes the opportunity to eyeball her chest and assure, “Oh, I’m sure they’re fine.”

    When she gets to her apartment building, there’s no respite from sleazy male behavior to be had there either, for she must contend with the presence of her neighbor, Terry (Pete Holmes), who she clearly dreads running into. Even so, he seems to be a constant in her life as a fellow actor that often runs lines with her. But that doesn’t mean that Sheryl wants him to be lingering all the time, which he constantly is, refusing to take the hint as he follows her into the apartment while her phone is ringing. Answering it to find that it’s her agent, Sheryl tries to motion for Terry to leave so she can talk in private, but he refuses to take the hint. Just as he refuses to see that Sheryl could simply want a friendship from him, and not anything romantic. Alas, after finding out that the only gig she’s “landed” (requiring no audition, of course) is as a contestant on The Dating Game, she goes out for a drink with Terry to drown her sorrows. Taking advantage of her vulnerable emotional state, Terry tries to make a move. Obviously, her knee-jerk reaction is to recoil, at which time Terry is the one who has the audacity to be offended and start acting weird and distant.

    Rather than make him feel worse—as though it’s Sheryl’s responsibility to make him feel any way at all—she placates by insisting she wants to stay for another drink. And then placates further still by waking up in bed next to him the following morning. While some might “blame” Sheryl for this result, any woman who has ever been put in such an awkward position knows that it can become both more awkward and even dangerous if the rejection isn’t “corrected.” What’s more, at that time in society, ensuring men’s egos were as stroked as their dicks was still a significant part of being a woman. Even post-women’s “liberation.”

    To interweave Sheryl’s existence with those of Alcala’s victims is a potent storytelling device on screenwriter Ian McDonald’s part. Not just because it helps show the depth of Alcala’s crimes (and the extent to which various cries for help to stop future harm went unnoticed or unheard), but because it gives viewers a glimpse into not only Sheryl’s quiet life of exploitation and demeanment, but also her own near brush with potential death. This feeling of her having a “sliding doors” moment in terms of whether she actually concedes to going on a “date” (a.k.a. weekend getaway in Carmel, the prize from The Dating Game) with Alcala.

    Beyond the stage where sexist “banter,” encouraged by the host, Ed (Tony Hale), an audience member, Laura (Nicolette Robinson), recognizes Alcala as the man who approached her friend on the beach, the man she was last seen with before being found dead. Starting to have a panic attack not only over seeing him again, but seeing him in this context, she flees the studio in an anxiety-ridden rush. Her boyfriend, Ken (Max Lloyd-Jones), eventually follows her out to the car see what’s wrong. When she explains that she’s very sure the man on the stage is the same man who killed her friend, all Ken does is try to assure her that it’s not. That the Establishment would never have allowed him on a stage so “legitimate.” This brushing away of her very real information and feelings is representative on a larger scale of the way that women’s so-called overreactive behavior is handled by “the men in charge.” Though, as Woman of the Hour makes apparent, the only thing they appear to be in charge of is ensuring that the patriarchy continues to hold, ergo women keep getting harmed and abused.

    The macabre sentence that reads, “A serial killer wins a dating game show” is a grim reminder that the most nefarious of men can be the most charming (see also: Ted Bundy). Wearing their mask for the public and then ripping it off behind closed doors. Even some of the more overtly chauvinistic predators (e.g., Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein), for as grotesque as they are out in the open, tend to be even more so in private. As McDonald noted of coming up with the script at the time when Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” audio leaked,

    “…in order for bad men to flourish, a lot of good people, quote unquote, have to look the other way in order for this behavior to sort of perpetuate itself. And that was the thing that I found really interesting about him, because on a lot of true crime websites, you will hear people sort of compare Rodney Alcala to like Ted Bundy, because they’re both well-educated. And kind of handsome, but that’s kind of the extent of it, because beyond that, they’re actually really different people. Ted Bundy was a chameleon, and he was really good at making himself look like something he wasn’t. And Rodney Alcala sort of never pretended to be anything but what he was. And so, it was everybody around him that sort of accommodated that. And that was the thing that I found really interesting about him.”

    In fact, it seemed as though the more overt (like appearing on national television) and risk-taking he was, the more he got away with. The ways in which Alcala was allowed to flourish in his crimes as a direct result of the Establishment/law enforcement ignoring not just women’s pleas, but not caring at all about the threat to women’s lives, is exactly why Ronan would, in 2024, still be able to make such a chilling comment about women needing to think about protecting themselves pretty much all the time. Because the same skeptical, do-nothing attitude persists at the top of the power food chain. To boot, there is an ironic element to the fact that The Graham Norton Show set has a 70s-esque color palette and aesthetic as Ronan sat there among the three “bachelors,” so to speak, momentarily trying to stave off some of their inherent misguidedness about what women contend with on the regular.

    So while Ronan made a “small” comment and Kendrick a “small” film, both recent moments in “the culture” are extremely germane to the lack of physical and emotional safety women still feel with regard to men. As for the length of Woman of the Hour, the somewhat clipped runtime (especially considering the subject matter) is due to a taut pace designed to create a constant sense of unease within the viewer. Particularly women who already recognize the feeling so well. Women who, like Ronan, are aware that you always need to be on your toes when you’re out in public, but most especially at night…in those dark parking lots and on the sidewalks—anywhere on the street, really.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Voss Water Repetition in Smile 2 and What It Says About Film Product Placement Today

    The Voss Water Repetition in Smile 2 and What It Says About Film Product Placement Today

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    Perhaps even more than the various terrifying scenes of Smile 2, what audiences are seeming to remember most after seeing Parker Finn’s sequel is the rampant product placement for Voss water. Woven so “naturally” into the script as a kind of “character quirk” that Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) feels the need to grab a bottle of Voss every time she feels “out of control.” And yes, this is explained in fairly elaborate detail to her best friend, Gemma (Dylan Gelula, who will forever be Xan in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). A best friend who, for the last year, was an ex best friend due to Skye’s Britney Spears-in-2007-level breakdown after getting in a car accident with her boyfriend, Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson). Both were, it should go without saying, intoxicated and, no, her boyfriend did not survive the crash.

    In the aftermath of the accident, Skye only began to use drugs and alcohol all the more (coping mechanisms and all that rot), acting out erratically toward those in her life who were closest to her…Gemma included. But now that she’s being essentially forced to make a comeback (again, sort of like Britney after her 2007-early 2008 turmoil), Skye has never felt more alone or more mistrustful of the numerous sycophants around her. This extends to her “momager,” Elizabeth (Rosemarie Dewitt), and their joint assistant, Joshua (Miles Guitierrez-Riley). Hence, her desire to reach out to a no-bullshitter like Gemma again.

    Right after she gathers the courage (not to mention summoning the total loss of pride and dignity) to call Gemma and admit that 1) she misses her and 2) she wants her to come over for some emotional support, Skye makes a beeline for the Voss water, chugging it as though she’s just come off the field in the wake of scoring the winning goal for some nail-biting soccer game. The audience doesn’t yet know why Voss water is such a “thing,” perhaps initially assuming that there won’t be any explanation at all about it—that it’s just one of the more glaring examples of unapologetic product placement in recent years. In fact, maybe not since Pizza Hut in Back to the Future II has product placement been so unabashed. Except, in that case, the product and its distinctive logo were used to underscore a point about all the so-called advancements that would happen in the future. Conversely, in Smile 2, the brand is less about “progress” (unless referring to the emotional kind) and more about convenience. And, obviously, Finn thought that having Skye actually say the brand name might be the one way to go “too far” with product placement.

    However, just because “Voss” isn’t said aloud at any point doesn’t mean that Finn doesn’t end up calling plenty more attention (than is really necessary) to the brand via her character quirk. One that is explained when Gemma obligingly materializes at her apartment despite all the bullshit Skye put her through during her atomic meltdown. Unfortunately fro Gemma, she shows up just as The Smiler (which has, by now, possessed Skye for about twenty minutes’ worth of the movie) has done a hallucinatory number on the pop star, prompting her to act more skittish and erratic than usual. And also sending her straight for the bottle…of Voss water.

    That’s right, she doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that the two haven’t spoken or seen one another in a year before she goes for the Voss as a source of comfort. Watching her drink an entire bottle, all Gemma can say is, “Thirsty?” It’s then that Finn gives Voss its real moment to shine by interweaving it (albeit using a generic name: water) into the dialogue as Skye explains, “This therapist from my recovery program, she suggested that anytime I feel overwhelmed by the urge to use or get drunk, that I should stop whatever I’m doing and drink a full glass of water. It’s supposed to be some form of acknowledgement for what I can and can’t control.” (Never mind that Voss bottles aren’t exactly “a glass” of water.)

    Though that doesn’t really seem to apply to what brand of water she has available to her. Granted, Voss is supposed to be “renowned” for being reserved solely for the bougie set (it even seems to appear—or at least a bottle that has the exact same size and style—in Anora, when Vanya [Mark Eydelshteyn], rich son of a Russian oligarch, hands “Ani” [Mikey Madison] the water she asked for while over at his mansion). Even though it was once rumored to be bottled at the same source where tap water comes from in Iveland, Norway. But one supposes that rich people are willing to shell out high amounts (let’s call a bottle of Voss five dollars) so long as they’re told the product is of the “finest” quality. For, as is the theme in Smile 2, it’s all about what you think anyway, not reality.

    As for what the elaborate and heavy-handed use of product placement in Smile 2 reflects in the movie-going audiences of today is that, more than ever, people need not just repetition to remember a brand, but to have the product become a part of the storyline in a way that ends up being “integral” to either the character or the plot. And, in this case, both—though the viewer won’t know just why it’s so central to the more hallucinatory aspects of the plot until much later in the movie.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Smile 2: Stars—They’re Just Like Us!, Or: Even Pop Stars Get Demonically Possessed

    Smile 2: Stars—They’re Just Like Us!, Or: Even Pop Stars Get Demonically Possessed

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    With such pressure to outperform the success of 2022’s Smile, writer-director Parker Finn wanted to approach the movie’s sequel from an entirely new angle. And what could be more divergent from the setting of the first movie than the (theoretically) high-glamor world of pop stardom? In Smile 2, the pop star in the eye of the proverbial storm is Skye Riley (Naomi Scott)—think of her as an Ashley O (Miley Cyrus) from Black Mirror type, or even a Celeste from Vox Lux sort. Or, if one wants to make real-life comparisons, there are a few similar options to choose from, including Halsey and Lady Gaga. It is the latter that Naomi Scott specifically calls out as a source of inspiration, particularly her early 2010s aesthetic and musical vibe.

    But then, of course, there is the Britney Spears element of it all—not just in terms of Skye being scrutinized for her “bad,” drug-addled behavior, but also because of the nature of her relationship with her mother, Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt). It is she who embodies the entire Spears family by acting as her “momager” and, therefore, usually being most concerned with how much money Skye can make for “them” (but really, for Elizabeth). During her “off the rails” period, Elizabeth was clearly more concerned with “getting her back on track” for financial reasons as opposed to reasons related to concern for her well-being. Which, yes, smacks of the way Britney was given essentially no time to recover after her 2007 through early 2008 breakdown before she was cajoled into putting out new music and going on a tour. In many regards, too, Skye’s substance abuse and mental breakdown that caused her to cancel her last tour bears a similarity to Jocelyn’s (Lily-Rose Depp) backstory in The Idol (and yes, Spears was also the blueprint for creating the Jocelyn character, as was the abovementioned Ashley O).

    In order to do some “damage control” for that breakdown, which came to the fore after she got in a car accident with her boyfriend, Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson—that’s right, the son of Jack), while both were intoxicated, Skye agrees to make her first promotional appearance in a year on, of all things, The Drew Barrymore Show. Which makes plenty of sense when one takes into account the meta nature of Drew Barrymore being an essential to the opening of any horror movie.

    What’s more, there’s even another new pop star in the game that exhibits occasional similarities to Skye—at least in terms of her emotional fragility. That pop star being, of course, Chappell Roan. Particularly in terms of how creeped out Skye starts to get by her obsessive fans—even if that’s due, in part, to “The Smiler” (as the demonic essence/antagonist of the movie is called) making them seem creepier than they actually are…to an extent. Because everyone knows fandoms really can come across that way. In any event, the “creep factor” doesn’t just include The Smiler’s ability to make fans at a meet-and-greet smile at her in that eerie, plastered-on way, but also its ability to make them seemingly appear anytime, anywhere. Most chillingly of all, inside of her massive NYC apartment, where one especially notable scene (the one where a gaggle of them are leering/diabolically smiling at her from within her closet, before chasing after her throughout the abode) comes off as a re-creation of how Roan must more than occasionally feel about her own obsessive fans: like they’re going to fucking murder her and wear her skin.

    Needless to say, The Smiler is tapping into Skye’s dormant anxieties about her fans and their potential for “going totally psycho” on her at the drop of a fedora hat (that’s a 2003 Britney reference). To be sure, The Smiler is having an even easier time toying with and preying upon the headspace of a pop star, though that’s not why Finn opted to make Smile 2 come from this perspective.

    Instead, Finn’s decision to render the Smile 2 universe from the view of a pop star was largely due to his desire to challenge himself with the difficulties that setting and lifestyle would present. As Finn recounted to The Wrap, “I really wanted to step back from what I had done in the first film, and try to be like, ‘What is the least likely path forward for a sequel?’ I really wanted to challenge myself and drill down. Any idea that I could come up with that first week or two, I was like, ‘This is too obvious.’ I really held it to task.” The result is a breed of horror that’s right at home with pop music and celebrity, for as many a famous pop star keeps emphasizing more and more: there’s nothing fucking scarier/more potentially life-threatening than being known on an international level. Making the pressures of an already demanding job become further compounded by all the scrutiny. Add a “cosmic evil beam that no one else can see” into the mix and the pressure becomes insurmountable (which, in Skye’s case, results in severe bouts of trichotillomania).

    Indeed, this turns out to be one of the most surprising statements of Smile 2: that it’s almost a kind of defense/“let’s have more empathy” for famous people manifesto. As The Wrap phrased it, “This isn’t someone who can suffer in isolation. Everyone will see her disintegrate.” And that makes everything feel so much more heightened—not just for Skye, but for the audience watching, often suffering from second-hand embarrassment as they watch her “biff it” in very public scenarios. For example, while acting as a presenter at a music industry charity event, Skye not only goes out onstage nwith smeared lipstick (after swatting away a bug from her face backstage), but also proceeds to act increasingly unhinged once the teleprompter ceases to show her what she’s supposed to say next.

    Of course, no matter what she says or does next, in the end, just as it was in Smile, Skye 1) can’t even be sure what is and is not reality and 2) it won’t matter if it is or not anyway since The Smiler is bound to have his “committing suicide” way with her. Granted, the manner in which the “entity” does it this time around has far graver consequences for the witness(es) of her death. But at least those taking in Skye’s demise can relish that certain “Stars—They’re Just Like Us!” quality. Even if nothing could be further from the truth.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Shake, Shake, Shake (It), Anora, Or: Pretty Woman This Is Not (Unless One Is Referring to the $3,000 Version Of It)

    Shake, Shake, Shake (It), Anora, Or: Pretty Woman This Is Not (Unless One Is Referring to the $3,000 Version Of It)

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    By now, it’s no secret that Sean Baker is known for his keen ability to give insight into the world of a certain kind of working-class ilk (even if this insight is occasionally deemed by some as “exploitative” or “poverty porn” [as was the case with The Florida Project]). Not just sex workers (as he also did in 2015’s Tangerine), but undocumented immigrants (2004’s Take Out) and even “aged out” male porn stars (2021’s Red Rocket). With Anora, Baker’s pièce de résistance (based on the film winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes—the first American move to do so since 2011’s The Tree of Life), he returns to his favorite kind of working-class hero yet again: the sex worker.

    Like Halley (Bria Vinaite) in The Florida Project, Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison, in her undeniable breakout role) is a stripper. Unlike Halley, she isn’t averse to having sex with select clients outside of the club (called Headquarters). In this instance, Ivan a.k.a. Vanya Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn): the twenty-one-year-old son of a Russian oligarch…though Anora won’t unearth that important detail until a bit later. And even when she does find out, it still seems unbelievable seeing as how this man-boy comes across as being so guileless, so utterly “unsmooth.” But also funny, as far as Anora can tell. And you know what they say: being able to make a woman laugh can go a long way as a man (clearly).

    So when he invites her over to his mansion in the Mill Basin part of Brooklyn (the mansion in question was, at one point, actually inhabited by a Russian oligarch), she accepts this offer—this “business transaction.” This encounter leads to another and before Anora knows it, Vanya is presenting her with a “proposition.” Not at all dissimilar to the one Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) did to Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) in Pretty Woman (though some viewers’ gut reaction might be to draw a slight comparison to 2019’s Hustlers due to the stripper instead of “prostitute” element).

    A movie, incidentally, that was originally titled $3,000 (or just 3000)—the amount Edward agrees to give Vivian for her to spend the week with him. Anora, instead, gets $15,000 (inflation and all that). And, in a moment of dialogue that is almost certainly an homage to Pretty Woman in Anora, Vanya starts his offer at ten thousand, to which Anora replies, “Fifteen.” He agrees, with Anora admitting she would have stayed for ten, and Vanya saying he would have gone up to thirty thousand. It mimics Vivian telling Edward, “I would’ve stayed for two thousand” and him smirking, “I would’ve paid four.”  

    As soon as the money matter is settled, Anora packs her bags to stay with Vanya and, just as Vivian before her, she’s essentially there to be at his beck and call, with plenty of “lovin’” to provide in between (so much “lovin’,” in fact, that Baker and his wife/frequent producer, Samantha Quan, effectively served as the “intimacy coordinators” of the movie by demonstrating what sex positions that Madison and Eydelshteyn should be in for their various fuck scenes). Vanya’s overt inability to please a woman (which isn’t always a mark of inexperience so much as a common defect in most men) doesn’t even seem to bother Anora. After all, she’s getting paid. And besides, she has a good time with him. A “good time” that is, of course, furnished in large part by all the available money that Vanya has at his disposal to spend. Whether this means throwing a lavish, drug-addled New Year’s Eve party at his mansion or jet-setting off to Vegas on a whim because one of his friends tells him that’s where they had the best ketamine, money is the anthem of “no desire left out of reach.”

    And what Vanya seems to desire (for more than just a week) is Anora, still insisting her name is Ani (pronounced like Annie not Ah-nee). Even if playing up her “exotic” background has done nothing but work in her favor, particularly since part of the reason Vanya was “referred” to her at Headquarters is because she’s the only one among the dancers who can speak a bit of Russian thanks to her Brighton Beach upbringing (also attributing her knowledge to a Russian grandmother that never learned to speak English).

    And so, in this moment, when Vanya first becomes captivated by Anora, one might say it fits the Pretty Woman tagline of: “She walked off the street, into his life and stole his heart.” Only it doesn’t take long to understand the most fundamental difference of all between Pretty Woman’s narrative and Anora’s: one deals with a man pursuing a woman who happens to be a sex worker, and the other deals with a boy pursuing a woman who happens to be a sex worker. And that distinction makes all the difference in the world, as Anora must soon find out the hard way. But before her rude awakening, it truly does feel as though she’s “hit the jackpot,” as one of her friends and fellow strippers, Lulu (Luna Sofia Miranda)—think of her as the Kit De Luca (Laura San Giacomo) of the movie—tells her in the midst of her walking out of the club for good.

    Lulu, however, is actually genuinely happy for Anora. Whereas Diamond (Lindsey Normington), another girl who works at the club and serves as a regular adversarial force in Anora’s life, seethes about the news, jadedly predicting that the marriage won’t last more than two weeks. Unfortunately, Diamond’s “prophecy” will turn out to be accurate, as Anora’s “bliss” (mainly lolling around while Vanya does drugs and/or plays video games) is violently interrupted by the appearance of two goons under the instruction of Toros (Karren Karagulian), Vanya’s godfather and the proverbial whipping boy of his parents when something goes wrong.

    As for the goons, Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov), they’re quick to realize that Anora is their only leverage once Vanya bitches out and flees the scene, leaving his so-called beloved to fend for herself. It is in this moment that Anora should be aware that she’s been had, that everything Vanya said was total bullshit, making him far worse than what the pearl-clutchers would call a prostitute because he feigns his emotional intimacy with so much more skill. But no, Anora is convinced that Vanya will come through for her, that the reason he ran off is to figure out a solution so that they can stay together, even as his parents try to rip them apart from their remote position in Russia.

    Naturally, they’re not staying “remote” for long, telling Toros that they’ll be in town the next day to sort out this “nonsense” (to use a word now automatically associated with Sabrina Carpenter). All the while, Anora remains shockingly (and naively) steadfast in her belief that the marriage isn’t going to end, that Vanya and she will find a way to “work it out,” to make his parents accept the “reality” of their nuptials—ostensibly forgetting that rich people can create whatever reality they want, whenever it suits their purpose.

    Thus, the Pretty Woman comparisons stop at the abovementioned key plot point of Vanya enlisting Anora as his escort for the week. Unless, of course, one chooses to go with the original version of Pretty Woman, 3000, which includes an ending that finds Edward tossing Vivian out on her ass and throwing the money at her once she’s back on the street to quiet her down, so to speak. Otherwise, Anora is less Pretty Woman and much more Nights of Cabiria vis-à-vis the cad-ish behavior of the man who is supposed to “rescue” her from her former existence.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Harley Quinn Behavior Takes Hold in Suburbia: Lady Gaga’s “Disease” Video

    Harley Quinn Behavior Takes Hold in Suburbia: Lady Gaga’s “Disease” Video

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    While Lady Gaga’s current focus might be to shake the disease of Lee Quinzel after her foray into the DC Universe with Joker: Folie à Deux, she’s actually embodying her version (and even a dash of Margot Robbie’s) of the character more than ever in the video for “Disease.” Directed by Tanu Muino (always expanding her “directing stars” repertoire, from Cardi B to Lil Nas X to Doja Cat), the setting for the video takes place in an “Anywhere, USA” type of suburbia (Gaga is clearly cosplaying in and with this backdrop, what with being a “big city girl” her entire life)—granted, is there any other type? In fact, the first frame almost recalls the look of the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands, except without the pastel color palette.

    Indeed, this particular neighborhood is decidedly drab, complete with the beige cars that pass Lady Gaga by while she’s bowled over on the hood of a car, blood coming out of her nostrils. The driver responsible for hitting her? Why, herself, of course. Or at least the version of herself that looks like she’s wearing an updated edition of the plague doctor costume (you know, the one with the beaked mask) with some Freddy Krueger-esque gloves. Part of that update is showing only one extremely bloodshot eye through her leather gimp mask. In fact, this entire “aesthetic” and scene seems straight out of a Ryan Murphy series (and, yes, Gaga has been “under his tutelage” before, so it doesn’t surprise).

    Unfortunately, just as the two appear to get somewhat comfortable with one each other’s presence, yet another hostile version of Gaga in a sandy blonde wig shows up behind the black-haired Gaga to attack. This all speaks to Gaga’s statement about the music video, which she distilled via her Instagram account by saying, “I think a lot about the relationship I have with my own inner demons. It’s never been easy for me to face how I get seduced by chaos and turmoil. It makes me feel claustrophobic. ‘Disease’ is about facing that fear, facing myself and my inner darkness, and realizing that sometimes I can’t win or escape the parts of myself that scare me. That I can try and run from them but they are still part of me and I can run and run but eventually I’ll meet that part of myself again, even if only for a moment.” To be sure, there is a lot of running in “Disease,” mainly by the black-haired “matrix” Gaga (to use a term from The Substance).

    It is this “real,” “core” self that is perpetually attacked by other, more hostile iterations of her personality. In this sense, too, Gaga doesn’t seem to have fully shed her “Lee Quinzel skin.” Which is perhaps why the next “milieu shift” out of the suburban exterior is in a dark indoor setting that looks like an “office-ified” version of Arkham (and also kind of like that office Billie Eilish is in for the “Birds of a Feather” video). Chained to a metal bar that runs across the room at almost ceiling length, the only thing that keeps Gaga from total wrist and arm torture is being able to step on another Gaga below her while Plague Gaga looks on from behind a glass window. As for the pair of Gagas she’s observing, the two are in the same “skivvies” getup and wig (one with blonde roots and black hair) as they get into a tussle with one another. Nothing Madonna didn’t already do in the 2002 video for “Die Another Day.”

    In the next scene, Plague Gaga is in the car again in hot pursuit of Matrix Gaga, who realizes this bitch is trying to run her over (talking of Madonna, the A Functioning Gay Instagram account made a series of memes with various pop stars in cars during one of their music videos, cut in such a way so that it looked like they were the ones about to mow her down—obviously, Madonna in the “What It Feels Like For A Girl” video was the first slide among the many). Determined to “hit her mark,” Matrix Gaga is equally as determined to outrun this hostile version of herself. Alas, as Gaga also added to the above statement, “Dancing, morphing, running, purging. Again and again, back with myself. This integration is ultimately beautiful to me because it’s mine and I’ve learned to handle it.” In short, to “embrace her inner darkness.”

    That much is effectively done with a scene of Plague Gaga in the middle of the suburban street dancing erratically (which has been her way in the past—namely, the circa The Fame and Born This Way eras that her “Little Monsters” idealize so much) as many fall leaves blow violently around her. Which, of course, is in keeping with the suburban aesthetic, what with gardeners and their leaf blowers being a staple of that environment. Her “willingness to look ugly” (even if in a still-manicured way) is also in keeping with the Harley Quinn school. Because the motto remains: “Cute but psycho, psycho but cute” (even if the cuteness isn’t always “coiffed”). And that Plague Gaga sort of is as she vomits black bile onto Matrix Gaga while the latter lies prostrate on the pavement in front of her.

    Apparently, this grotesque gesture is all it takes for Matrix Gaga to fathom that Plague Gaga is not the enemy—she’s just the “slightly kooky” side of herself that she can’t suppress. Therefore, it’s better to treat that aspect of herself with kindness if they’re to inhabit the same headspace (even though that trick wouldn’t work at all if this were set in the Smile universe—and, speaking of, Gaga was the model for the Skye Riley [Naomi Scott] character in Smile 2).

    The peace between the two is ephemeral, however, with Matrix Gaga suddenly running away from Plague Gaga again, only to end up trapped in the space between two houses that start closing in on her (relating to the claustrophobic feeling Gaga mentioned above). And as Matrix Gaga appears to accept being “stuck,” the final scene cuts to Plague Gaga strutting down the suburban street, her back to the camera—off to the next destination where she might torment someone from the inside. Harley Quinn, a former psychologist (before becoming more “patient material”), also knows the power of such mental warfare.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Every Subject That Nobody Wants This “Illuminates” Already Happened on Sex and the City

    Every Subject That Nobody Wants This “Illuminates” Already Happened on Sex and the City

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    As though to prove a point about Sex and the City’s long-lasting impact, Megan Thee Stallion recently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to tell him, despite other things she had to promote, that she had only just started watching the show and couldn’t believe how long she had slept on it. It would seem that the creator of Nobody Wants This, Erin Foster, might have been banking on people (like Megan Thee Stallion) to continue sleeping on said show—otherwise why borrow so many tropes from it? Not least of which, of course, is that its female lead, Joanne (Kristen Bell), would have to convert to Judaism in order to be with Noah, a rabbi who she encounters at a dinner party hosted by her friend and “PR gal,” Ashely (Sherry Cola). Which is where the SATC comparisons already start to flicker in. Because while, sure, Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) didn’t have to convert to Judaism for Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler), it was an integral part of the storyline in terms of “making their relationship work” (in addition to Charlotte having to overcome how much less attractive Harry was than her).

    But, obviously, Joanne’s character is much more in line with Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) “breed.” For, like Carrie, Joanne is something of a “sexual anthropologist,” using her dates as fodder for her podcast, called, naturally, Nobody Wants This (on a related note: to “update” Carrie’s column shtick for the present, she does get a podcast on the SATC “sequel series,” …And Just Like That). The difference between her and Carrie (apart from sartorial bombast) is that Joanne “co-researches” the dating scene with her sister and best friend, Morgan (Justine Lupe). It is Morgan who serves as the three-in-one sounding board—embodying the Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte characters all at the same time—for all of Joanne’s dating woes/horror stories. And this is something we’re given insight into from the moment the show starts and Morgan comes to collect Joanne from a bad date that the latter ditches out on because the guy keeps talking way too much about his grandma and the tragedy of losing her when he was twelve.

    The shit-talking of the first scene segues into the podcasting (and continued shit-talking) of the second scene, wherein Morgan not only expositorily informs Joanne that they’ve recorded one hundred and nineteen episodes, but that, throughout each one, she has revealed the same thing over and over again: “When you find a nice, normal guy…you find fault with him.” Case in point: “Grandma Guy.” Morgan further proffers that maybe Joanne doesn’t even want to find a real relationship, a theory that of course has truth to it since, without “bad date inspiration,” she’ll end up like Carrie in the season five episode, “Unoriginal Sin,” lamenting, “I’m not getting laid. Therefore…I’m getting laid off” (though, ultimately, she wasn’t).

    This “deliberately self-sabotaging” epiphany comes for both women. That’s right, even blind-to-everything Carrie is forced to have this epiphany about herself after a bad breakup (the first one, anyway) with Mr. Big (Chris Noth). The “breakthrough” occurs when her friends make her see a therapist named Dr. G (Anne Lange), who has another patient named Seth (Jon Bon Jovi) that Carrie keeps flirting with in the waiting room. It’s only after the two finally have sex that they each understand why there were attracted to one another. For Seth, it’s because he immediately loses interest in a woman after sleeping with her. For Carrie, the according revelation is, “I pick the wrong men.”

    As for Joanne, she’s more open about the joy of picking the wrong men for the sake of “the story” a.k.a. her podcast, which has started to gain enough traction to become considered as worthy of being a corporate acquisition. This almost “willful” choosing of the wrong men is done in a similar vein as Carrie, who relies on not just her friends’ relationship horrors, but her own in order to come up with a weekly column called, what else, “Sex and the City.” It is in this headspace that Joanne gleefully accepts Ashley’s invite to a dinner party where all the male guests “sound terrible.” Including a rabbi named Noah Roklov (Adam Brody, perennially resurrected, if one will pardon the Christian allusion). Except that Noah turns out to be the man she’s instantly attracted to upon entering the space. Only she doesn’t know he’s the rabbi because he doesn’t come out and admit it, instead going along with her mistaken assumption that it’s another guy at the party with a beard.

    When she does get the big unveiling of his identity, the reaction is that there is no romantic future whatsoever. But, of course, that’s what makes the allure all the more prominent. Which is how she ends up walking into his temple soon after (such Carrie behavior) to exchange a “witty repartee” also in the style of “flirtatious” Carrie when Noah jokingly asks, “Are you a member of this temple?” She replies, “You guys do memberships? Is there a gym?” Ho-ho-ho-har-har-har.

    In “Either Aura,” the third episode, Joanne spends the majority of it dissecting a text and the lack of response it gets the way Carrie would spend entire brunches and lunches dissecting something Big or [insert name of some other asshole here] did and what it “means.” Then there is the kind of spiraling she does in the season three episode, “Drama Queens,” wherein it takes Aidan (John Corbett) ignoring her for her to suddenly comprehend that losing his interest would be the worst thing ever. That’s the same kind of spiral Joanne is on throughout “Either Aura,” waiting for Noah to respond to a text that her sister tells her was “weird” (the text being: “I think I’m pregnant” in regard to how good their first kiss was).

    At first, Noah’s availability is almost a detriment to his “desirability.” Because, as Carrie says in “Drama Queens,” “I’m used to the hunt and this is just…effortless. It’s freakin’ me out.” Charlotte eventually has to interject, “I don’t believe this! Now we’re dumping guys for being too available!” The prospect of Noah not being available (you know, for other reasons besides being a rabbi) is equally as terrifying to Joanne, prompting her to wonder (or being unable to “help but wonder”) if she’s a “good” person. As in, morally decent enough for a rabbi.

    All of this making “her stomach flip all on her own” (another Carrie quote from “Drama Queens”) plays into Carrie’s pondering for her column: “When things come too easy, we’re suspect. Do they have to get complicated before we believe they’re for real? We’re raised to believe that course of true love never runs smoothly. There always have to be obstacles in Act Two before you can live happily ever after in Act Three. But what happens when the obstacles aren’t there? Does that mean there’s something missing? Do we need drama to make a relationship work?”

    If that’s genuinely the caveat, then Joanne and Noah are destined to be together (and predictably do end up that way for the season finale). Their density of “obstacles” are further compounded by Noah essentially acting ashamed to be with her in the fifth episode, “My Friend Joanne.” Needless to say, this smacks of the “Secret Sex” episode of SATC in season one. The allusion to it, whether “intentional” or not, is already made in the first episode of Nobody Wants This, when Morgan mentions a guy named Greg who wouldn’t be seen with Joanne in public. But this thread picks up again when Noah takes her to a Jewish youth camp in Ojai and suddenly acts the opposite of a loving boyfriend when he realizes his boss is going to be there and, thus, introduces Joanne to a colleague as a “friend.” It takes some of the teen girls at the camp to spell it out for her: he introduced her as his friend. Hence, they’re definitely not together as solidly as she thinks.

    To be sure, as Noah tells his brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons), “I’m not ready to face the whole ‘I’m dating a shiksa’ thing” in public. In fact, he’s convinced he won’t have to because Rabbi Cohen (Stephen Tobolowsky) won’t be there…or so he thought. But when the big boss shows up, Noah fully fathoms just how much is at stake for him, career-wise, in dating someone as non-Jewish (read: totally white bread) as Joanne. Who also happens to be coming across as Carrie-level clingy in this episode, whining to Noah when he tells her they have to cancel their Carmel trip because of his unexpected work commitment, “What am I supposed to do? Just stay at home alone?” Yes, bitch, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. In addition, apparently, to being unavoidably disgusted when a man is too “nice.”

    Or, in Noah’s instance, too “sniveling.” Specifically, to Joanne’s parents, who he meets in the sixth episode, titled “The Ick.” And, what do you know, it’s an episode that speaks exactly to what Sex and the City already did in season six with “The Ick Factor.” Centered on Carrie’s “steady” of the moment, Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov), being way too over the top—therefore, “icky”—with his romantic gestures, Carrie struggles vis-à-vis how to deal with someone so cringingly saccharine.

    Much the same as Carrie, Joanne can’t “digest” a man who brings flowers “for respect” and says obsequious things that end up involving him doing a bad Italian accent (specifically, so he can utter the word “Prego”—as in the nasty sauce brand—when Morgan says she found an old Prego jar to put the flowers in). Morgan, attuned to her sister in ways that no one else is, clocks the look on Joanne’s face when taking in all of the icky things going on with Noah in this scenario. When Morgan calls her out about having the ick, Joanne tries to deny it—to which Morgan warns, “You can’t fight the ick, it’s like a Chinese finger trap: the harder you pull, the stronger it gets.”

    But naturally, as it happened for Carrie and Aleksandr, Joanne is able to surmount her icky feelings thanks to being candid with the object of her ick about it so that said object can work to remedy being so “icky.” However, if Aleksandr’s eventual fate is something to go by, Noah isn’t totally out of the woods in terms of redeeming himself as Joanne’s “forever person” (besides, that wouldn’t make for “compelling television,” n’est-ce pas? Gotta leave viewers on their toes).

    The grand denouement of Nobody Wants This is the bat mitzvah of Noah’s niece, Miriam (Shiloh Bearman), who grudgingly goes along with the Noah’s mom/her grandma Bina’s (Tovah Feldshuh), desired theme: “Miriam Takes a Bite Out of the Big Apple.” A more than slightly traitorous choice in L.A., but perhaps Bina is aware that the Jewish population in NY is larger, with L.A. coming in second in the U.S. after it for having largest population of Jewish people.

    To the point of New York versus L.A., it must also be said that, as Sex and the City’s “fifth character” is New York, Los Angeles plays a key supporting character in Nobody Wants This (even if it additionally betrays L.A. by having what can be called a “Philip Roth book cover font” for its title card).

    What’s more, much of Sex and the City was rooted in a “Jewish undertone” (apart from just Carrie bandying “keywords” like “mazel tov” so annoyingly) precisely because it was set in New York (see also: Charlotte’s wedding episode in season six, “The Catch”). Indeed, that was pretty much the extent of the “ethnic diversity” that the show “allowed” for. With Nobody Wants This, there’s about that same amount of “diversity” despite the narrative taking place in a city as racially varied as L.A. And yet, the show appears to count on the glamoring distractions of familiar storylines from Sex and the City—whether it relates to overbearing mothers, awkward situations with vibrators, emotionally distant men or fundamental incompatibility. And maybe part of that reliance stems from Foster underestimating just how many viewers can still cite Sex and the City episodes like scripture.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lady Gaga Focuses on Shaking the “Disease” of “Lee Quinzel”

    Lady Gaga Focuses on Shaking the “Disease” of “Lee Quinzel”

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    It doesn’t seem coincidental that Lady Gaga would opt to release a new single soon after the critical and commercial failure of Joker: Folie à Deux. Even if it was by no means as remotely affronting as House of Gucci. In fact, Joker: Folie a Deux seems grossly misunderstood…and this is coming from someone who generally loathes Lady Gaga performances in film (and possibly in general). Regardless, it’s easy to discount one’s own internal voice when the negativity of others is so loud. Thus, it would appear that, despite how she might have originally felt about the role—being so effusive in interviews promoting both the film and the accompanying record she made for it—Gaga’s confidence has given way to all-out embarrassment. An embarrassment that has called for the immediate signaling of yet another new “era,” with some “insiders” positing that the failure of Joker’s second installment made Gaga see the light in terms of realizing she’s better suited to focusing on the pop star avenue.

    Another “assist” in terms of coming to that realization was her fiancé, Michael Polansky, who Gaga cites as the person that convinced her to pivot back more fully to pop. Per Gaga, “Michael is the person who told me to make a new pop record. He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music.’” Perhaps that’s part of the reason Gaga entrusted him to help her co-write “Disease,” the first single from what will be LG7 (for those who count Harlequin as LG6.5). And yes, apparently enough time has passed since the pandemic for such a track to come out. However, ostensibly not wanting to take any chances on whether or not she had a hit, Gaga tapped Cirkut and Watt to co-produce the moody, “Judas”-like music. And, speaking of that 2011 single, the “ah-ahhhs” she repeats are pointedly similar to the ones in “Judas.” Again, no coincidence, for she’s well-aware that everyone has been clamoring for her to return to, at the bare minimum, “Born This Way-era Gaga”—though many would prefer that she returned all the way back to The Fame.

    And that she has, with the “dark pop” sound also recalling a single like 2010’s “Dance in the Dark.” But this song in particular bears lyrical traces of Depeche Mode and sonic ones that sound more like an Atticus Finch/Trent Reznor production. The Depeche Mode correlation isn’t difficult to find seeing as how they have a song called “Shake the Disease.” Released in 1985, it felt like a pointed time to wield such a title when taking into account the AIDS epidemic. Even if Depeche Mode was merely creating a “love metaphor” with the chorus, “Here is a plea from my heart to you/Nobody knows me as well as you do/You know how hard it is for me to shake the disease/That takes hold of my tongue in situations like these.”

    Just as Lady Gaga is creating her own love metaphor with the “Disease” chorus, “I could play the doctor, I can cure your disease/If you were a sinner, I could make you believe/Lay you down like one, two, three/Eyes roll back in ecstasy/I can smell your sickness, I can cure ya/Cure your disease.” And cure it with what else but love, of course. A metaphor she already made use of on 2017’s “The Cure” (alas, not an homage to the band). Complete with lyrics like, “If I can’t find the cure, I’ll/I’ll fix you with my love/No matter what you know, I’ll/I’ll fix you with my love.” Things get decidedly non-consensual when she also adds, “And if you say you’re okay/I’m gonna heal you anyway.” With “Disease,” too, Gaga paints herself as something of an everyday superhero and her love a superpower—or at least a panacea.

    So it is that she sings, “Screamin’ for me, baby (ah-ah)/Like you’re gonna die (ah-ah)/Poison on the inside/I could be your antidote tonight.” At least this time she uses the language “could be your antidote” instead of essentially foisting a potentially unwanted “cure” on the object of her affection. At the outset of the song, she assures, in a somewhat Ariana Grande fashion (read: “Ain’t got no tears left to cry”), “There are no more tears to cry/I heard you beggin’ for life/Runnin’ out of medicine/You’re worse than you’ve ever been.” But if the “medicine” has been Gaga all along, then how could he have ever run out considering her enthusiasm for administering the antidote?

    As for medicine as metaphor, Jennifer Lopez also made use of it in her 2019 song, “Medicine” (obviously). But instead of presenting it as a “love injection” analogy, Lopez warns, “Think you need some medicine/I could be your medicine, yeah/Think you need some medicine/Give you a taste of what you give out.” Gaga, instead, prefers the romantic use of the allegory, continuing to insist, “I can cure your disease” (something Isabella “He put his disease in me” Rossellini would have been grateful for in Blue Velvet). One wonders, of course, which lyrics might be attributable to Polansky. Perhaps he was the one who thought to paint a picture of “Stefani” sleeping at night with the lines, “You’re so tortured when you sleep [sounds like Billie Eilish]/Plagued with all your memories/You reach out, and no one’s there/Like a god without a prayer.” Unsurprisingly, there had to be just a touch of Madonna in the lyricism (#likeaprayer).

    But what is decidedly not Madonna-like in terms of Lady G’s music is the fact that her albums, for quite some time, have left most people disappointed when comparing them to her first two releases. With Madonna, it took arguably until her fifth studio album, Erotica, for people to be truly disappointed by her musical output (and that was largely due to the puritanism of the early 90s in America). With Gaga, by album three (Artpop), things were taking a dive.

    And while “Disease” is being universally praised (a.k.a. most are just grateful Gaga isn’t putting out still more show tunes), it’s never a good sign when people say the phrase “return to form” in that it entails one has been out of step for a while in terms of “giving the people what they want.” Incidentally, something Lee tells Joker they should do. And it seems Gaga has taken Lee’s advice, even while in the process of shaking the “disease” that role turned out to be for her.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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