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Tag: Genna Rivieccio

  • Endless Summer Vacation Shows Off Miley Cyrus’ Internal War Between the Carefree, Independent Spirit and the Hopeless Romantic

    Endless Summer Vacation Shows Off Miley Cyrus’ Internal War Between the Carefree, Independent Spirit and the Hopeless Romantic

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    Although Miley Cyrus set the tone for her new record, Endless Summer Vacation, with the sologamist anthem that is “Flowers” (the track that also kicks off the album), there are many incohesive statements regarding love and attachment on what marks Cyrus’ eight studio effort. Billed as a so-called love letter to Los Angeles (though those moments feel few and far between), Cyrus isn’t exactly giving Lana Del Rey a run for her money on paying homage to that milieu. And it does bear noting that both transplants have seemed to make L.A. into their “forever home.” Though, when it comes to a Sagittarius like Miley, “forever” can be a more laughable word than it is to most.

    Cyrus’ Sagittarian steez indeed takes hold of the entire album. Not just in how schizophrenic the emotions expressed can be, but also the sonic landscape itself. For if listeners thought “Flowers” was going to be a consistent benchmark, they would immediately realize otherwise via the tonal shift that takes place on “Jaded,” a twangy semi-ballad in the spirit of “Angels Like You”—complete with the part where Miley takes the blame for a relationship’s inability to work out. So it is that she declares, “I’m sorry that you’re jaded/I could’ve taken you places/You’re lonely now and I hate it/I’m sorry that you’re jaded.” But not sorry enough to have been a little less “cuckoo,” as the opposite sex so often likes to brand women that are too “emotional.” Still, Cyrus isn’t the only one responsible for the “misdeeds” that led to the end of this whirlwind, reminding, “You’re not even willin’ to look at your part/You just jump in the car and head down to thе bar ’til you’re blurry/Don’t know when to stop, so you take it too far/I don’t know whеre you are and I’m left in the dark ’til I’m worried.” This echoes fellow L.A. lover Billie Eilish’s sentiments on “Happier Than Ever” when she sings, “You call me again, drunk in your Benz/Driving home under the influence/You scared me to death, but I’m wasting my breath/‘Cause you only listen to your fucking friends.” The bottom line appearing to be: men can’t deal with their emotions, so they drown them in the numbing agent of alcohol.

    The theme switches up sonically and lyrically again on “Rose Colored Lenses,” with Cyrus ruminating on the promise of a new relationship to an alt-rock tune. The promise of it, of course, depends on keeping the rose-colored glasses on (hence, name-checking the album’s title in this particular song). This usually involves never leaving the sex haze of the room (“Never wanna leave this room”) one is in with that new person. Perhaps like her own version of “La Vie En Rose,” Cyrus suggests, with the benefit of her glasses on, “We could stay like this forever, lost in wonderland/With our head above the clouds, falling stupid like we’re kids/Wearing rose-colored lenses, let’s just play pretend/Wearing rose-colored lenses, pretend we’ll never end.” Sooner or later, unfortunately, the door to the sex room has to open, and real life has to creep in. If for no other reason than to wash the sheets (“Somehow the bedsheets are dirty/Like sticky sweet lemonade”).

    Yet real life still doesn’t quite creep in on “Thousand Miles” featuring Brandi Carlile. Ideal for soundtracking the life of Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) on Poker Face, Cyrus ramps up her twang again to sing, “I’m not always right, but still, I ain’t got time for what went wrong/Where I end up, I don’t really care/I’m out of my mind, but still, I’m holding on like a rolling stone/A thousand miles from anywhere.” A harmonica instrumental toward the end punctuates the “ramblin’ man” vibe of the song before leading into “You.” Sadly released too late to serve as the theme song for the show of the same name, “You” was already premiered during Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party. Another stripped-down, mid-tempo kind of ballad that the former Hannah Montana has perfected over the years, Cyrus insists, “I want that late-night sweet magic, that forever-lasting/I’m kind of crazy ’cause that’s how you make me/I don’t need Jesus ’cause, baby, you saved me, I’m done/But only if it’s with you, oh.” It’s the type of song one could also imagine being in a 90s romance road movie (maybe even, sardonically, Natural Born Killers).

    The transition from “AM” to “PM” that Cyrus mentioned while discussing the album for the Disney+ special, Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions), occurs with “Handstand.” It instantly demarcates itself as the most auditorily divergent song on Endless Summer Vacation. And yes, “Handstand” also possess a few Del Rey connections. For one, the spoken word poetry sound of her intro that harkens back to Del Rey reciting T. S. Eliot on Honeymoon’s “Burnt Norton,” and, for another, flexing about being able to do a handstand while Del Rey recently admitted to far less agility via the lyric, “I haven’t done a cartwheel since I was nine.” So one imagines a handstand is out of the question as well. Cyrus’ commitment to fitness, however, has never been more apparent than it is with this album’s promotion. Not just in the Madonna-reminiscent (see: the image from the Sex book where she’s suspended in mid-air naked) cover, but in a video like “Flowers,” wherein she shows off her physical prowess as though to say to anyone who ever thought it was a good idea to leave her: look what you’re missing. To that end, Cyrus always comes across as the one to leave first, following the adage, “Leave before you’re left.” And, if possible, do a handstand on the way out. Perhaps some of the reason behind the uniquely different sound on this track comes from Harmony Korine collaborating on the lyrics (likely the spoken ones). But the following bravado-oozing lines feel like they’re all Miley: You’re questioning the science, ’cause you don’t understand/How I’m doing what I’m doing in a fucking handstand/You found it so impressive that I do it again/My other one is busy, so I use my left hand.”

    Shifting sounds like shifting gears (a car analogy for an “L.A. record,” after all), “River,” the second single from Endless Summer Vacation, switches things up after that brief foray into the auditory equivalent of a drug trip. “River” is instead awash in the 80s-inspired beats that characterized Bangerz (hip hop appropriating though it might be), “River” is as sexual as one would expect from a Sag like Cyrus, who can’t help but use the word to her innuendo-making advantage. This includes lyrics like, “Heart beats so loud that it’s drownin’ me out/Livin’ in an April shower/You’re pourin’ down, baby, drown me out.” If it was slightly more seductive-sounding, it could easily pass for lyrics on Madonna’s “Where Life Begins” from Erotica, during which she sensually notes, “I’m glad you brought your raincoat/I think it’s beginning to rain.” Splooge, cum, orgasm—get it? Anyway, Miley’s in good company now for making such overt allusions using water.

    With James Blake and Sia joining in on the songwriting credits for “Violet Chemistry,” there feels like a bit of tonal influence from both as Cyrus creates something like a thematic follow-up (nightlife-wise) to “Midnight Sky.” With the latter remarking, “Yeah, it’s been a long night and the mirror’s tellin’ me to go home/But it’s been a long time since I felt this good on my own,” “Violet Chemistry” offers, “Tonight, we’ll just be wrong/Ain’t done this in so long/We ain’t gotta talk, baby, we’ll keep the stereo on/Stay a while, stay a while with me/Stay a while, don’t deny the violet chemistry.” Cyrus is also sure to mention that she doesn’t really care if this is a one-night stand or “eternity,” she just wants that carnal flesh now, announcing, “There’s something between us that’s too major to ignore/May not be eternal but nocturnal, nothin’ more.” This might be the most L.A.-oriented element on the record, in fact.

    Returning to playing the jilted lover we first got to know on “Flowers,” “Muddy Feet” featuring Sia feels like another dig at Liam Hemsworth as Cyrus spits accusations like, “Back and forth/Always questioning my questioning/Get thе fuck out of my head with that shit/Get the fuck out of my bеd with that shit.” She also wants the person in question to “get the fuck out of my house with that shit,” having cultivated her own space in the wake of the divorce—reminding one of the Whoopi Goldberg aphorism on marriage, “I don’t want somebody in my house.” Especially if they have muddy feet. Elsewhere, Cyrus adds with venom in her voice, “You’ve watered the weeds and you killed all the roses/Worthy arrives when the other door closes.” Even if the “worthy” being turns out to be yourself (as “Flowers” reminds). Sia joins in for the “Woah, oh, oh, oh, mm” outro that fleshes the song out before leading into “Wildcard.” Another Sag anthem, to be sure.

    Questioning her “adroitness” in playing the role of “wifey” (a.k.a. being monogamous), the conflicted feelings Cyrus displays throughout Endless Summer Vacation are at total war here. On the one hand, she wants a love that lasts forever (that impossible word again), but on the other, she’s a free spirit who “can’t be tamed.” And so, as though providing her version of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Cyrus addresses the difficulties presented in pursuing a wildcard like her as she opens with the wry verse, “Do you wanna play house?/I could be your wife/Go and meet your mom in a dress too tight/Maybe I could stay and not break your heart/But don’t forget, baby, I’m a wildcard.”

    The push and pull of the life monogamous versus the life sologamous additionally shows up in the lines, “I love when you hold me/But loving you is never enough/And don’t wait for me/‘Cause forever may never come.” Cyrus also gives a nod to “Flowers” with the lyrics, “I walk in the door, with my lips stained red/Pillows on the floor and the flowers dead.” The implication being that she’ll have to buy her own again, now that she’s caused another relationship rupture with her wildcard tendencies. The emotions of this segue perfectly into “Island,” on which Miley ponders whether she truly loves being alone or not. Musically, there’s a slight hint of interpolating George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” as Cyrus goes over the pros and cons of being so steadfastly independent. Indeed, to be as independent as she announced she could be on “Flowers,” it’s no secret that one has to be rich. The kind of rich that can get you away from all the riffraff. Private island rich, if you will. Thus, Cyrus describes the scene, “I’m on an island, dirty dancing in the sun/So close to heaven, but so far from everyone/Yeah, I’ve got treasures buried underneath the sand/But I’m still wishing for the love that I don’t have.” In short, it has a very “money can’t buy happiness” motif. Further intensified by Cyrus asking throughout the chorus, “Am I stranded on an island? Or have I landed in paradise?” Many actual island dwellers are forced to ask themselves the same thing outside the summer months. Because no, despite climate change, it’s no endless summer vacation for the “ordinaries” in this life.

    It appears that, in the end, Cyrus decides in favor of independence on this track, noting, “And I won’t lie, it sure gets lonely here at night/But no one here needs nothin’ from me and it’s kind of nice.” This assertion, however, is once more belied by a track like “Wonder Woman,” the true denouement of the album (because the demo of “Flowers” doesn’t really count). Like the faint tinges of “Careless Whisper” on “Island,” this ballad has traces of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” all over it. Accordingly, it’s designed to be type of song that will wreak tears as Cyrus speaks of the proverbial “strong female” who never dares to show emotion (lest it slow her down with accusations of being “weak”). Dissecting the fragility of women and how they’re made to feel as though it’s an Achilles’ heel rather than a source of strength, Miley once more channels Madonna via her 2015 song, “Joan of Arc.” On it, Madonna laments, “I never admit it, but it hurts/I don’t wanna talk about it right now…/I’m not Joan of Arc, not yet/But I’m in the dark, yeah/I can’t be a superhero right now/Even hearts made out of steel can break down/I’m not Joan of Arc, not yet/I’m only human.”

    Alas, the last thing patriarchal society wants women to be is human. Miley knows this only too well as she depicts the “wonder woman” who stifles it all, singing, “She’s a wonder woman/She knows what she likes/Never know she’s broken/‘Cause she’s always fine/She’s a million moments/Lived a thousand lives/Never know she’s hopeless/Only when she cries.” And when she does cry, it’s of course only in private…otherwise, she might be branded as “crazy” like Britney Spears (recently accused of being just that once more after crying in an Instagram video). Vulnerability is, after all, not “sexy,” right?

    As for the bouts of vulnerability Cyrus reveals on Endless Summer Vacation, they ultimately betray her “tough girl” act. This is also reflective in her breakaway from RCA Records for the release of this album in order to fulfill a different contract with Columbia (sorry Mariah). The perk? It’s in conjunction with her own Smiley Miley imprint. Therefore, Cyrus is simultaneously mirroring the independent spirit of most musicians during this epoch while also holding fast to the romanticism associated with having a Major Label Deal. In effect, it’s never been a more schizophrenic time to be alive. Especially for a woman. And that much is chaotically (but catchily) conveyed on Endless Summer Vacation.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Latina Sade All Day: Kali Uchis’ Red Moon in Venus

    Latina Sade All Day: Kali Uchis’ Red Moon in Venus

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    When asked about the title of her third album on The Cruz Show, Kali Uchis kept the answer simple with, “I’m a Cancer, I’m very, like, run by the moon…I believe in all that shit, the moon and the stars.” As we all should if we want to lend some form of structure to an otherwise chaotic universe. With Red Moon in Venus, Uchis feels it all (as so many Cancers do), letting out any past pain with assurances that everything is forgiven and that she’s in a good place now.

    This much is made clear from the outset, as the twenty-five second interlude leads into “I Wish You Roses.” The interlude, called “In My Garden,” opens with the Adele-grafted line, “Hello, can you hear me?” followed by, “I just wanted to tell you in case you forgot… I luh you.” With that Uchis leads us into the Tame Impala-esque musical intro to her lead single, one that advocates for having positive feelings toward one’s ex in a world that often champions otherwise (hear: any Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus or Lana Del Rey song). Such positive vibes include the evolved outlook, “If you and my heart should someday drift apart/I’ll make surе to give you these blеssings because they’re all I’ve got.” However, Uchis does a tongue-in-cheek one-eighty in the final verse, taunting, “You’re gonna want me back/You’re gonna want me bad.”

    Based on the sexual prowess she exudes on the next track, “Worth the Wait” featuring Omar Apollo, it’s not, um, hard to understand why her ex-boo might want her back. The ambient R&B groove that permeates the record persists on this Vicky Nguyen, J.LBS and Omar Apollo-produced number. Its sensual tone is reflected in lyrics like, “The mirror’s on my ceiling/So I can watch you top me/Deep in my knees I got weak/Baby, you know I’m a freak/Wanna get naughty, nasty” and “Baby, take off my clothes/‘Cause I got somethin’ to show ya/Show you the things that words cannot say/Show you it was worth the wait/I think you deserve a taste.” But Uchis isn’t all sexual seduction, keeping it super real in the second verse when she says, “Most people don’t know how to love, that’s why they’re empty/Nothing will ever be enough, that’s why they envy/Gotta be careful with my heart because I love deep [Cancer shit]/Quit tellin’ me you wanna put a baby in me/If your affection for me’s truly only skin-deep/I don’t wanna end up just another broken family.” This stemming from her own childhood traumas, complete with being kicked out of the house when she was in high school as punishment for coming home after curfew and skipping class.

    “Worth the Wait” transitions seamlessly into “Love Between…” Notably featuring an interpolation of The Temprees’ 1972 single, “Love… Can Be So Wonderful,” Uchis was compelled to update the song with language that wasn’t gender-specific. Herself a bisexual, Uchis changes the line, “Love between a boy and girl can be so wonderful” to “Love between two human beings can be so wonderful.” It isn’t a drastic alteration, but it makes all the difference in the world—especially to those listening who are not heteronormative as fuck. As Uchis herself remarked, “I felt so inspired by the song, but wished it wasn’t gender specified and felt called to breathe fresh life into it. The verses, I wrote very naturally in a freestyle sort of way; just random thoughts when falling in love.” Although it’s theoretically upbeat in sentiment, the unspoken additional sentence to, “Love can be so wonderful…” is: “…until the bottom drops out.”

    But maybe it won’t if the sex stays continuously fire. So it is that the “feelin’ on yo booty” genre that characterizes Red Moon in Venus intensifies with “All Mine.” Unapologetically possessive, presumably over her real-life boyfriend, Don Toliver, Uchis declares, “Go and tell the world (let ’em know)/Let all these hoes know/Who’s the only girl that can make you cry/I wonder if it hurts how hard they try/To take what’s mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.” Because, sure, millennials and Gen Zers can pretend to be as evolved as the day is long with claims of championing open relationships and gender fluidity, but, ultimately, a bia is going to try and keep her man to herself.

    Speaking of Don Toliver, he’s featured on the following track, “Fantasy” (with Uchis taking a big risk on affronting Mariah by using that title). The most uptempo ditty on the album thus far, production from Jahaan Sweet and P2J complements Uchis describing her desire to perpetually live in the “fantasy” stage of a relationship—when everything is all romance and hot, hot sex. So it is that she sings, “Love all on me, spend it on me/Babe, if you don’t worship me/It just don’t work for me [more of a Taurus mood than a Cancer one]/Love all on me, everyone needs love…/I just want the fantasy/Love it when you worship me.” There goes the Venus aspect of her album title getting carried away again.

    And, talking of the love goddess, “Come Te Quiero Yo” (“How I Love You” in English) is an effusive expression of what The Righteous Brothers would call “that loving feeling.” Parading her Latina roots, Uchis, in the spirit of Selena, J. Lo and Shakira before her, switches between both Spanish and English to express her protectiveness over her relationship. Regardless of outside opinions. With that in mind, Uchis commences the song with, “Dicen que no me conviene” (“They say you don’t suit me”) and later announces, “Mira, bebé, it doesn’t matter what they say/They don’t love you/Who cares what they love/Como te quiero yo/I want you constantly, eternally, unconditionally/‘Cause we got issues, everyone does/Si no hay drama, no hay amor.” That last line being a very Latino outlook on love, meant to be filled with passion in a way that Anglo-romance just isn’t (see: all that repressed shit in Jane Austen novels). And yet, Uchis does channel one group of white women very particularly here: The Shangri-Las. For they notoriously sang about boys who were seen as “no good” by their friends and parents, only to make him all the more desirable.

    The Spanish flair carries into “Hasta Cuando,” which has a contrasting message to “Come Te Quiero Yo” in that Uchis is brushing off an obsessive ex here rather than embracing her current love. She asks of this deranged ex in question, “¿Qué haces diciéndole a la gente/Que tuvimos relación, cuando eso no pasó?” (“What are you doing telling people/That we had a relationship when that didn’t happen?”). If it sounds vaguely like Mariah’s “Obsessed” in lyrical content, you wouldn’t be wrong, with that theme escalating when she says, “It’s sad that you’re still obsessed/Keep lyin’ on me” and “Hasta cuándo tú vas a hablar de mí? (How long are you going to talk about me?)/Déjame ser feliz (Let me be happy)/Ah, ah, you’re obsessed/Ah, ah, you’re obsessed.” Uchis doesn’t seem too bothered by the haters though, shrugging, “Y despertando envidias como siempre, querida (“And arousing envy as always, my dear”).

    The midtempo “Endlessly” finds Uchis cementing her neo-Sade status (and yes, she did confirm Sade’s influence on the record by saying, “Definitely. I love Sade. I think she’s a legend”). With production from Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins and Marvin “Toneworld” Hemmings, Uchis establishes a jubilant insistence upon endless love (Diana Ross would approve) as she chants throughout the chorus, “Forever and ever, ever and ever, ever/You never can never, ever seem to get enough/Can never, ever seem to get enough/Forever.” Hopefully, this honeymoon phase (the most beloved “moon phase” of all) with Don Toliver will last. But if not, we’re sure to get a fantastic breakup album after this.

    What follows is among the most memorable tracks off Red Moon in Venus, “Moral Conscience,” which finds Uchis warning, “One thing about Karma: that bitch will find you.” Uchis then leads into the foreboding chorus, “When you’re all alone, when you’re all alone/You’ll know you were wrong/You’re gonna feel it, you’re gonna feel it.” Not exactly in keeping with the “I Wish You Roses” atmosphere that Uchis introduced at the beginning of this sonic journey. So whoever did her wrong must have done something real bad to get this reaction.

    As for why Uchis would subject herself to someone so shitty, well, 1) there aren’t a lot of quality people out there and 2) as she herself diagnoses, “I guess I was just lookin’ for the love no one’s showed me in my childhood.” The person she’s referring to clearly gave her more of the abusive same, however. Which is why Uchis curses, “Well, I hopе you feel it, I hope you find what you’re looking for/Surroundin’ yourself with praisе/But the truth sets in on those nights alone/And I can only scream all these feelings I have about it.” Like MARINA with 2019’s “Karma,” Uchis is endlessly (like the song) faithful in Karma’s penchant for collecting on a debt as she sings, “Hope you’re at least real with yourself/I hope you know when karma comes ’round/Knockin’ down on your door/She’s comin’ to collect/‘Cause karma won’t forget.”

    On the second interlude of the album, “Not Too Late,” Uchis exudes more flexing bravado as she goads, “It’s not too late to admit you love me” and “You won’t find me twice and this, I promise.” She also brings back the Spanish to emit an especial confidence in the lines, “Conozco bien lo que es sentirse fuera de lugar (de lugar)/Cuando te vi, sentí por fin que encontré algo real (real)/Me encantan esos ojos cafecitos con azúcar (azúcar)/Tu mami dijo que yo me parezco a una puta/Dile que este cuerpo es arte, me parezco a una pintura (pintura)/Esta figura es una dulzura (dulzura)/Vea mi cintura y este culo natural (natural)/Me quieres comer el pussy, se nota.” This translating to: “I know well what it is to feel out of place (of place)/When I saw you, I finally felt like I found something real (real)/I love those brown eyes with sugar (sugar)/Your mommy said that I look like a whore/Tell her that this body is art, I look like a painting (painting)/This figure is a sweetness (sweetness)/See my waist and this natural ass (natural)/You want to eat my pussy, it shows.” Confidence is key, indeed.

    But it’s a confidence that erodes on her most Sade-sounding cut of all: “Blue” (not to be confused with the MARINA song of the same name). Lamenting from the outset, “I’m not broken yet/But sometimes it sure feels like it,” Uchis proceeds to paint the picture of being slowly cast aside by the object of her desire. She accuses, “When you treat me like a stranger/How do you get cold so fast?/‘Cause there ain’t much to make me ever walk away, yeah/Guess I love you way too hard/But you’re breaking my heart with your body language.”

    Despite her lover’s callousness toward her, she still can’t help but ask, “What’s the point of all the pretty things in the world if I don’t have you?/Yeah, there’s no point of much anything in the world if I don’t have you…/I guеss that’s my own fault for makin’ you my world, now all I feel is blue.” A cautionary tale about investing too much in any one person (particularly if their gender is male), to be sure. There’s even a certain SZA on “Kill Bill” tinge (via “Hate to see you happy if I’m not the one driving” and “I got me a therapist to tell me there’s other men/I don’t want none, I just want you”) when Uchis adds, “I don’t wanna see you with nobody else, I just wanna love you” and “I know I could go and find someone new/But they would never be you.”

    “Deserve Me” featuring Summer Walker feels like the “Part II” component of the “Blue” narrative as Uchis makes it clear from the get-go, “Finally stopped calling/Tryna forget your face and put these thoughts to rest/Can I move on?/Gotta get this off my chest/Wanna feel light as a feather, just wanna feel okay, is that okay?” Having been taken for granted, Uchis and Walker chime in together, “I like it better when you’re gone/I feel a little less alone/You know I never needed you/Didn’t deserve me, you don’t deserve me.” It’s a realization many women come to sooner or later, with Walker elaborately speaking on the ingratitude of her erstwhile flame by lambasting, “You don’t deserve the love I give you/Make me wanna take the pussy back/You don’t even know how to act/I don’t deserve the shit you put me through/Like you don’t know that you’re lucky/Make a cute nigga feel ugly.” One could easily imagine Charlotte York repeating this last phrase to Harry Goldenblatt when he didn’t propose in a timely fashion.

    The second single, “Moonlight,” which Uchis recently promoted on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, returns to the “good vibes only” tone that “I Wish You Roses” established as Uchis expresses (while using a bevy of Lana Del Rey keywords, mind you), “I just wanna get high with my lover/Veo una muñeca cuando miro en el espejo” [“I see a doll when I look in the mirror”]/Kiss, kiss/Looking dolly, I think I may go out tonight/I just wanna ride, get high in the moonlight.” Having opened for Del Rey for 2018’s LA to the Moon Tour, perhaps Uchis was loosely influenced by her vocabulary (including the signature, “Kiss, kiss” from “National Anthem”). Whatever the case, this is the closest we may ever get to a Del Rey-Sade lovechild.

    Ending on the optimistic note (complete with the sound of water washing against a shore for a “rebirth” effect) she also started with, “Happy Now” seems to be the result of having purged any negative energy or feelings that the red moon might have allowed to course through her in all its power to “send your emotions into a spin.” Just like Uchis, as her own veritable red moon, has done to listeners with this album. Singing, “Can we be happy now? I wanna be happy now,” she makes it sound so easy—like it’s a decision anyone can take and decide to simply be. She then concludes the song with the line, “Just wanna remember all the good things”—and listeners will surely remember nothing but that with regard to Red Moon in Venus.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The “Difficult” Woman

    The “Difficult” Woman

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    There is no shortage of examples of the “difficult” woman in history. Better known as “crazy.” For when a woman is deemed too difficult, the crazy label always comes in quite handily for those looking to silence her “psychotic” nature. Few ever stopping to consider that “psychotic” behavior is pretty much anything that doesn’t fit into the limiting box put forth by patriarchal society. And that limitation is very much by design. Hence, the rate at which far more women are diagnosed with “mental problems” than men. Because, shit, they straight-up invent mental disorders specifically for women (see: hysteria, Angry Woman Syndrome, Post-Abortion [Stress] Syndrome)—all created to hem in very natural reactions that would not be seen as “problematic” in men.

    People have continued to fool themselves into believing that “we’ve come so far” and that a level playing field has been formed. One on which women can thrive and “have it all.” That odious phrase that would never need to be applied to men because they’ve always had everything, no questions asked. Looking back on the women who have been branded with the “cuckoo” mark, it’s plain to see they were set up to fail. Frances Farmer, Zelda Fitzgerald (who was somehow viewed as “crazier” than F. Scott), Sylvia Plath, Princess Diana and, perhaps most illustriously of all, Britney Spears. Frances and Zelda were both relegated to mental institutions; Plath suffered her “madness” while only able to cast some of it out of her through her poetry and The Bell Jar; Diana was painted as the irrational, paranoid woman, whose paranoia was then preyed upon by the likes of Martin Bashir for profit.

    Britney, however, might have suffered the worst “consequence” of all: being betrayed by her own family. Who used the perception of her “insanity” (a.k.a. a normal reaction to living in a fishbowl and having every move she made interpreted as another sign of her incompetence) to their benefit. Specifically, Jamie and Lynne Spears colluding with Tri Star Sports & Entertainment’s Lou Taylor to entrap Britney in a conservatorship. Truly, the stuff of Hollywood horror story legend.

    As many remember, it was Britney snapping one night on February 16, 2007 (thus, the mocking t-shirt that reads: “I Feel Like 2007 Britney”) by shaving her head at a Tarzana salon that provided all the cannon fodder anyone needed to call her “crazy.” Frances Farmer endured a similar phenomenon on October 19, 1942, spurred from the instant she was stopped by a police officer for being parked on the side of the road with her high-beams on in a blackout zone (this being a wartime practice meant to prevent enemy aircrafts from detecting a target). Talking back to the officer (including telling him, “You bore me”), she was accused of being drunk (without any test actually given) and thrown into the clink for the night before she paid her bail.

    Other “drunk and disorderly” accusations were lobbied at Farmer in subsequent months that year as well. Namely, while in Mexico to shoot a movie version of John Steinbeck’s Murder at Laudice. Upon arriving, she found that the shooting script wasn’t even completed, so what the fuck else was she to do but entertain herself while she waited? Something any man in her position would have done as well—without the curse of being called “drunk and disorderly.” It was Mexico in the 1940s, what did anyone expect? Especially since the movie never even started filming.

    This led, soon enough, to “too much free time” on Farmer’s hands as she was additionally accused of disturbing the peace. She then endured something akin to the Spears family’s treatment of their star member upon trying to return to her Santa Monica abode after the botched film shoot, only to find that it had been cleared of all her possessions and another family was living in it. Farmer stated that her mother and sister-in-law were responsible for this abrupt ousting, after which she ended up staying at a room in the Knickerbocker Hotel. Of this bizarre turn of events, Farmer would later remark, “I suppose it seems peculiar that I never asked questions, or received an accounting, but I didn’t give a damn. At the time I neither knew nor cared.”

    Just before her “forced transference” to the Knickerbocker, studios were continuing to pass her around during this period. Mainly because Frances was declared to be a “difficult woman” for actually “deigning” to make suggestions about the character she was playing. Per Patrick Agan’s The Decline and Fall of the Love Goddesses, “She incurred studio wrath by demanding they rewrite the glamor out of [her] character [Calamity Jane in Badlands of Dakota] and give her back her original grittiness. Again she lost the battle and another mark was chalked up against her on Hollywood’s list of troublemakers.” That word “troublemaker” being reserved for any woman who doesn’t do as she’s told without “making a fuss” about it. The same went for women like Plath, Fitzgerald and Princess Diana, who were viewed as “problematic” and “threatening” because of their unwillingness to suffer in total silence. Plath spoke out in her venomous writing, and so did Zelda and Diana, for that matter (with the latter doing so secretly through biographer Andrew Morton).

    All these examples, of which there are so many more, prove solely that the “difficult” woman is often not so difficult at all. She merely expressed herself “out of nowhere” (as though she hadn’t been saying the same thing for some time while being ignored) when a man in the oppressor position expected her to go along as usual (e.g., Britney saying no to “one dance move” and then being admitted to a psychiatric facility by her father in 2019). And the same cycle of gaslighting a woman into thinking she’s “crazy” continues (for if she wasn’t to begin with, she certainly would be if forced to endure enough repetition of mantras like “you’re crazy,” “you’re imagining things,” et cetera).

    Just look at Britney being accused of insanity every day on her Instagram now that she’s free. For, no matter how many monuments or “holidays” we seem to generate (e.g., Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day) to tell us that women are important and deserve to be heard without the risk of seeming “difficult,” the actions of the world daily persist in emphasizing the contrary.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Society Once Asked, “Where’s the beef?” Nicki Minaj Plans to Stew It With Her Own Record Label

    Society Once Asked, “Where’s the beef?” Nicki Minaj Plans to Stew It With Her Own Record Label

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    As a woman in the music industry, there’s never been a better time to show the patriarchy how useless it is by starting one’s own label (though let us never forget that Madonna already set that bar a long time ago with Maverick). Ultimate proof that “the suits” have been capitalizing on the myth of their “indispensability” for far too long. Among the ranks of female musicians to have recently started their own label is MARINA, who founded Queenie Records in late 2022. But while MARINA is known for being a more, shall we say, collaborative personality, Nicki Minaj has a reputation for starting beef with just about every interaction (almost Azealia Banks-style)—usually with fellow female rappers. Thus, for her to establish a record label would theoretically mean she’s willing to pack in her combative ways in order to “fully show up” for the musicians she wants to sign. And sure, she claims, “When I get behind an artist, y’all know how I do shit for people that’s not even signed to me. Imagine what I’ma do for the ones that’s signed,” but when anyone rubs her the wrong way, it’s game over.

    One of the latest female rappers to do that was Latto (evidently, taking Cardi B’s erstwhile spot for most threatening new addition to the scene). The beef arose when Minaj called out Latto as an example of a new artist who didn’t deserve such reverence compared to her, this being catalyzed by the Recording Academy’s decision to move Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” into consideration for the pop category instead of the rap one while putting together their nomination list (in the end, “Super Freaky Girl” didn’t make the cut at all, while Latto’s “Big Energy” received a nomination in the category of Best Melodic Rap Performance). Minaj’s response to this was, “They stay moving the goalposts when it comes to me. If you can’t tell by now there is a concerted effort to give new artists things they don’t deserve, over artists who have been deserving for many years.”

    This echoed Minaj’s contempt for Cardi’s early success as well. However, rather than start a Twitter war as she did with Latto, the beef came directly to Nicki at a New York Fashion Week party in 2018. When Cardi famously got elbowed in the side of the forehead by one of Minaj’s security guards before then throwing her shoe in Minaj’s direction. The feud’s boiling point was spurred by Cardi’s irritation over “lies Nicki was spreading,” in addition to threatening other musicians in the business that she wouldn’t work with them if they chose to work with Cardi. Taking to Instagram Live after the incident, Cardi expressed, “You lie so much you can’t even keep up with yo fuckin’ lies.”

    Latto felt similarly when Minaj forced her into the drama over the Grammys by tweeting, “This Karen has probably mentioned my name in over 100 interviews…but today, scratch off decides to be silent; rather than speak up for the black woman she called her biggest inspiration.” The accusation came after Latto texted her privately in support of her statement about the unfairness of the category classification for “Super Freaky Girl,” prompting Latto to remind Nicki when she dragged it out in public, “1st of all I texted u cause I didn’t wanna do the internet sht w sum1 I looked up to. I do agree but the way u going about it seems malicious.” Hence, Latto definitely not looking up to Nicki anymore by the time it was all over, complete with getting #40YearOldBully to trend on Twitter. Latto then shared a recorded phone conversation she had with Nicki (because she knew “who tf I’m dealing with”) that featured Nicki accusing Latto of trying to put herself “above” other female rappers a.k.a. Minaj. All in all, it doesn’t sound as though Minaj would create a very “safe space” to nurture up-and-coming female artists in. Especially with the Lil’ Kim prophecy in mind that went: “She wanted to be the only female out there… she wanted to be out there by herself.”

    As the beefs rack up, it appears Minaj might end up being just that in more ways than one. Particularly if she alienates more women trying to or who actually get signed to her label. As Cardi concluded on her 2018 Instagram Live, “You’re out here fucking up your legacy looking like a fucking hater.” And yet, there was a time when creating controversy of this nature was considered “good” for one’s rep. These being in the pre-woke days of pop culture, when everyone could freely admit that they got off on the drama. With the present climate, the urging for women in rap to partake of a more “room for everyone” spirit has been met with continued venom from Miss Chun-Li herself—making it slightly difficult for her to transition into a 2020s climate. But, apropos of “Chun-Li,” it was Minaj herself who insisted, “They need rappers like me/So they can get on their fuckin’ keyboards and make me the bad guy.”

    Yet it seems Minaj is only too adept at doing that to herself (all while refusing to admit to the Taylor adage, “It’s me, hi. I’m the problem it’s me”). This is perhaps because Minaj comes from an old school sensibility regarding what rap entails. More than just the music itself, it is (or was) about a lifestyle centered on beefing. As Minaj once phrased it, “Rap is different now. You gotta pretend you like people and stuff. Everybody’s gotta get on the bandwagon. They get on the love bandwagon, and they get on the hate bandwagon.”

    To play both sides of old and new school takes on what rap should include outside of the music itself, Nicki is known for firing shots behind the scenes while paying “respect” in public—ergo, Latto taping the aforementioned conversation wherein she called Latto “delusional” for saying other female rappers were flourishing. With that in mind, is there any nascent female rap aspirant that would really dare to fuck with Minaj’s label knowing how petty (no reference to her husband intended) she can be? That might be why Minaj was certain to specify, “Don’t think my label is just rap, or Black, or anything. We got some other genres of music.” For, if not, Minaj is liable to get jealous if another woman on her label actually did succeed a little “too well”—conjuring the image of the lyrical threat, “These birds copy every word, every inch/But gang-gang got the hammer and the wrench.” Minaj has also reiterated her contempt for any woman who tries to compete for her throne on her latest single, “Red Ruby Da Sleeze” (during which she also alludes to the Latto beef, in addition to “potentially” shading Megan Thee Stallion with the line, “I don’t fuck with horses”).

    Continuing her beloved tradition of sampling, Minaj used Lumidee’s “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)” (itself a sample from Steven “Lenky” Marsden’s Diwali Riddim compilation) on the follow-up single to the Rick James-grafted “Super Freaky Girl.” Minaj, whether aware of it or not, appears to tongue-in-cheekly include Lumidee’s original verses at the end: “If you want me to stay/I’ll never leave/If you want me to stay/Love endlessly.” In other words, she wants everyone else to love her endlessly…not the other way around. Which certainly makes for plenty of beef-stewing on a new label. Or, if nothing else, the building of a new kind of Barbz army.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • On Lana Del Rey “Raising A Generation” (And Whether Or Not That Was Necessarily A Good Thing)

    On Lana Del Rey “Raising A Generation” (And Whether Or Not That Was Necessarily A Good Thing)

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    For whatever reason, when Lana Del Rey first arrived onto the scene, she appealed endlessly to the ten through twelve-year-old set. Like a “goth” version of Britney Spears, this chanteuse’s talk of obsessing over boys and/or being broken-hearted by them spoke to a generation of girls who had yet to even “snag” a boyfriend. Among that generation was Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, both of whom have come forward of late to declare their unwavering love for Del Rey (despite Rodrigo being far more of a Swiftie). Eilish’s gushing has been markedly more consistent (e.g., “Lana raised us”) than Rodrigo’s, who seemed to become a fangirl in time to present Del Rey with an award at the Billboard Women in Music Awards.

    The award in question was the “Visionary Award.” Something that one would think might actually require a bit more…vision. At least in terms of not reiterating the same tropes about “he hurt me, I love him still” (a.k.a. “he hit me and it felt like a kiss”). Del Rey herself is the first to admit that, when it comes to the “world building” (as she and everyone else is suddenly calling it) of her albums, “boyfriends!” are the key inspiration behind it all (cue Swift saying, “Hey, that’s only okay when I do it!”). So no, few of Del Rey’s songs are capable of passing the Bechdel Test. And few people can say that perpetuating this motif of obsessing over men is a “good thing” to imbue in subsequent generations. Even so, Del Rey, despite a “low-key presence” overall, has saturated “the culture” with her “visionary” status. A branding that feels somewhat ironic when considering that all Del Rey has done, fundamentally, is raise another generation of women who fixate on men, their opinions of women and what women can do about it to claim vengeance (e.g., write a song about the jilting—though not everyone gets that luxury). Eilish has her series of such songs, from “Wish You Were Gay” to “Happier Than Ever” to “Lost Cause.” And, naturally, Rodrigo’s entire debut album, Sour, is directed at (supposedly) one boy in particular: Joshua Bassett.

    So yes, perhaps Del Rey effectively did “raise” a generation (even if Taylor had a record deal years before Del Rey achieved mainstream success). Indeed, that’s just it: there’s no denying her influence in the music of the moment. And while that influence has been championed as a boon for female musicians being able to show their “sad girl” vulnerability without shame, it’s really caused a reversion to the usual tropes of twentieth century feminine capitulation to male dominance. Which, to be sure, is very paradoxical when taking into account that there’s never been a time in the music industry when women have been so “at the center of it.” Yet now that they are, the one thing they still want to talk about, despite all the “progress” we’ve made as a society, is: men.

    Del Rey’s overall conservative views on relationships (complete with how they ought to be monogamous) provide insight into why Gen Z musicians like Madison Beer (also name-checked by Del Rey at the Billboard Women in Music Awards), Eilish and Rodrigo are still parroting back the same tired sentiments. Eilish, at least, throws in the occasional reference to Gen Z anxieties, according opioid addictions and a general disaffection vis-à-vis the end of the world’s imminence (in short, Euphoria is a Billie Eilish song). Del Rey is instead all about the undercurrent of decay that belies the shiny veneer of Americana from the era she’s most inspired by: the 1960s. Alas, that decade also favors the aforementioned “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” “philosophy” on heteronormative relationships. Take the abuse, glamorize it and repeat when one relationship ends and a new one begins. Of course, Del Rey has mentioned being accused of glamorizing abuse in a “trailblazing” sort of way—as though she “forged the path” for women like Ariana Grande, Doja Cat and Cardi B (as if), each of whom are mentioned in her illustrious “question for the culture.”

    That question resulted in an expected backlash about her racially specific list (save for the blackfishing Ariana) that also included Camila Cabello, Kehlani, Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé. She would later backpedal on why she chose to mention these women by insisting they were her favorite singers. Though, patently, at least one fellow white woman named Billie Eilish should have made the list if we’re talking bona fide preferred musicians. Now, conveniently, Del Rey actually is playing up Eilish—along with Rodrigo and Beer—as her true “favorites.” Perhaps because it’s actually “safe” to say that she paved the way for them (without causing a “race war”). Even if Beer is obviously more of an Ariana Grande knockoff with a pre-plastic surgery Megan Fox aesthetic.

    As for the aesthetic that made Del Rey famous circa 2012 (incidentally, when Beer was just starting out), she took the stage at the Billboard Women in Music Awards in an approximation of that looQue. Arriving in front of the mic with said “persona” (though Del Rey would vehemently deny ever having one) faintly recognizable from the 2012 era—complete with a vague beehive, liquid eyeliner and false eyelashes—Del Rey herself mused, “I don’t exactly have a long-term vision at all.” Clearly…for if she did, she might have been able to see that continuing to tout the same lyrical themes for the past decade has had one pronounced effect overall: “Seasons only change/It’s always been the same.” This being a quote from Madison Beer’s song, “Showed Me (How I Fell In Love With You).” Del Rey, in the end, didn’t “change” the game, just played it a bit more “offbeatly” at a time when retro wasn’t as “in”—what with Amy Winehouse releasing Back to Black about two years before Lizzy Grant began her attempts at making it as a professional singer.

    Just how little things have really changed under the guise of having done so is indicated in the fact that there even needs to be a “Women in Music” Awards put on by Billboard. For it speaks to the persistent love of division in America, centered on the identity politics (for fuck’s sake, Idris Elba can’t even say he doesn’t want to be hemmed in by the label “Black actor”) that sow these “partitionings.” Nonetheless, Del Rey and her acolytes are convinced that she’s a visionary when, in truth, her messages have been maintainers of the status quo with regard to male-female power dynamics. At another point in her acceptance speech for being a “visionary,” she added, “I’m so grateful to be in the best company I’ve ever been in,” alluding to the new generation that will ostensibly persist in placing far too much emphasis on male views and acceptances of women.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Link Between Sammy Fabelman and Dawson Leery

    The Link Between Sammy Fabelman and Dawson Leery

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    Despite the many accolades (rightly) showered upon Steven Spielberg’s latest addition to an auteur’s oeuvre, The Fabelmans, quite a few critics seem to be overlooking the fact that the character based on Spielberg himself, Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle), bears many similarities to another youthful filmmaking aspirant: Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek). Granted, the creator of Dawson’s Creek, Kevin Williamson, could have easily modeled Dawson, in certain respects, on Spielberg, perhaps nodding to that very fact by making Dawson (doubling for Williamson as well) obsessed with Spielberg…far more than the latter is with John Ford (memorably played by David Lynch) in The Fabelmans. But what was less public knowledge at the time when Dawson’s Creek first aired in 1998 was the affair Spielberg’s mother had with a man named Bernie Adler—his name changed to Bennie Loewy (played by Seth Rogen) in the movie. Yet, coincidentally, Dawson’s own mother, Gail (Mary-Margaret Humes), is having an affair as well. Like Sammy, it is Dawson who unearths his mother’s indiscretion—one that his father, Mitch (John Wesley Shipp), would prefer to ignore the signs of due to his own worshipful attitude toward his wife.

    This, too, mirrors the way in which Burt Fabelman (Paul Dano), the character based on Spielberg’s father, Arnold Spielberg, worships Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams), based on Spielberg’s mother, Leah. Then, of course, there is the ultimate connection between Dawson’s Creek and The Fabelmans in that Michelle Williams played Dawson’s first major crush (much to Joey Potter’s [Katie Holmes] dismay), Jen Lindley. Not to get too Oedipal, but Sammy clearly does a bit of crushing on his own mom, even if “solely” from the point of view of placing her on a pedestal like some kind of goddess. As Spielberg once said of Leah, “My mom didn’t parent us as much as she sort of big-sistered us. She was Peter Pan [so no wonder he wanted to direct Hook]. She refused to grow up.” Much the way Dawson (and Spielberg, for that matter) does with his fantasies of being a director and remaining in a pre-puberty state wherein Joey doesn’t start to question the “ease” of sleeping in Dawson’s bed anymore. With Dawson as an OG of having the aforementioned Peter Pan Syndrome, it bears noting that Spielberg is, in his own way, certain to remind the Peter Pan Syndromers known as millennials and Gen Zers—via the tagline, “Capture every moment”—that the very existence of the camera has long spurred people to do just that even before the advent of social media. Hence, Sammy’s constant filming of various “snippets of life” from his family’s day-to-day. Some of it even imbued with a vague plotline (as shown in The Fabelmans, a young Sammy uses all the toilet paper in the house to transform his two younger sisters into mummys).

    Like Sammy, Dawson is also an unapologetic cinema geek—his room decorated with movie posters for Schindler’s List, The Color Purple and Always, among others. As Williamson noted of the hyper-specific set design, “Dawson’s bedroom was sort of a temple to Spielberg, and so I had to write a letter to him because he retains the rights to all that stuff. And I was like, ‘Please, Mr. Spielberg, you don’t know me, but I was this kid. I had this bedroom. I had all your posters in my bedroom. Can I please present Dawson the way that he really was?’” Surely, Spielberg knew something about being the film nerd, in addition to wanting a character and his world to come across as authentically as possible.” Thus, Spielberg “wrote back and he wrote the loveliest response. He was like, ‘You can use everything.’ [But] he gave one condition: no mention of his wife or children. ‘Just keep it to me, and you can do whatever you want.’” That stipulation seems especially poignant when understanding, thanks to The Fabelmans, how much making movies ultimately tore Spielberg’s nuclear family apart. To boot, Spielberg is likely protective of his personal life so that he might use it for his own material later. This resulting in The Fabelmans.

    Itself resulting from Spielberg’s dad insisting on “Sammy” cutting their camping trip footage into a movie. But had he not done so, he might never have realized his mother was stepping out on Burt with Bennie. Said camping trip home movie technically being a “Spielberg film,” such a fact cuts to what Dawson tells Jen in season one of Dawson’s Creek: “I believe that all the mysteries of the universe, all the answers to life’s questions, can be found in a Spielberg film. It’s a theory I’ve been working on. You see, whenever I have a problem, all I have to do is look to the right Spielberg movie and the answer’s revealed.” Jen replies, “Have you ever heard of a twelve-step program?” Funnily enough, it’s Sammy’s great-uncle, Boris (played by Judd Hirsch, who steals the movie), that informs his great-nephew, “We’re junkies, and art is our drug.” Dawson is much the same, even if the “art” he made didn’t always come across as quite so promising in the same way that Spielberg’s early 8mm movies did. Yet both adolescents were decidedly “late bloomers” with women because of a combination of their social awkwardness and a preoccupation with turning life into art instead. Things are just so much more controllable that way.

    Boris also states in his foreboding speech to Sammy, “Art will give you crowns in heaven and laurels on Earth, but it’ll tear your heart out and leave you lonely. You’ll be a shanda [a.k.a. disgrace] for your loved ones. An exile in the desert.” This much happens to Dawson when he proceeds to make a movie (called, lamentably, Creek Daze) about his botched romance with Joey, who breaks up with him in season two—after all that hemming and hawing about wanting to be together, too. And so, since he can’t get it right in life, he tries to in art. Much the same way as Sammy, who partially blames himself for unearthing an unwanted reality through film to begin with (something of an irony, considering film was founded on a premise of escapism). Alas, as Spielberg himself remarked of watching what he found on those home movies of the camping trip, “The film told me the truth, where my eyes couldn’t perceive it.”

    That Dawson ends up turning his own life into sellable fodder in the form of a WB series (what else?) called The Creek provides an added element of Spielbergness—what with the auteur eventually unable to resist the urge to tell this story of his mother. Not just of her “affair of the heart” with Bernie, but the fact that Leah was an artist forced to repress that urge for the sake of family. Hence, Boris’ other warning, “Family, art. It’ll tear you in two.”

    Appropriately, Spielberg seemed to have waited for both parents to die before rehashing the tale in cinematic form. Dawson likely wouldn’t have been as generous. But it seemed karma was on his side regardless in the final episode of the series as he tells Joey and Pacey (Joshua Jackson) over the phone, “You’ll never guess who I’m meeting tomorrow.” “Spielberg?!” Joey and Pacey shout at the same time in delight. And maybe Dawson really did meet him…and affect him enough for Steve-o to take some inspiration for his own stylized character. A prime example of those (i.e., Williamson/Dawson) inspired by someone giving unwitting inspiration to that very person later on (à la Billie Eilish with Lana Del Rey). Or maybe Williamson simply had the idea sooner to loosely dramatize Spielberg’s early life.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Magic Mike’s Last Dance Takes A Pretty Woman Route (With More Sexist Implications)

    Magic Mike’s Last Dance Takes A Pretty Woman Route (With More Sexist Implications)

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    Just when you thought you had seen the last of “Michael Jeffrey Lane” (Channing Tatum), he comes along and decides to surprise you. As perhaps only a male stripper can. Even if a “retired” one. Indeed, Mike is rather easily lured out of his retirement with a few mere words from a “wild card” of a socialite named Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek Pinault—since we must add that last part to her name now). A woman Mike encounters at a party where he’s tending bar. Just another in a series of gigs that he’s been forced to take on in the wake of his furniture company closing. For, per our as-of-yet unknown narrator, a global pandemic isn’t very conducive to one’s business. And, considering the last time we saw Magic Mike was in the pre-apocalypse era (2015), things are looking even bleaker for the “ex” stripper than they did in Magic Mike XXL (which features, among other presently fallen stars, Amber Heard and Stephen “tWitch” Boss).

    So it is that our narrator also informs us, “Like many forty-year-old millennial white males, Mike Lane found himself alone and adrift in an ocean of failed relationships and unrealized dreams.” Because, no, fulfilling drink orders was not his “dream.” Though, in some ways, bartending isn’t unlike stripping. You’re still performing a series of acrobatic maneuvers ultimately aimed at pleasing people. As Mike seems to almost immediately please Maxandra by disarming her during their first interaction via the question, “You gettin’ what you want?” When she does a double take at this, he clarifies, “With the fundraiser. It looks like it’s going all right.” Something in her shifts, as though a light has gone on—especially after Mike mentions, “People like to look at what they can’t have.” Hearing from a party guest that Mike used to be a stripper (/maybe more), Maxandra is emboldened to invite him into her house after the party is over.

    When Mike insists he doesn’t do “that” anymore, and that the price to make him would be sixty thousand dollars, Maxandra offers six thousand. And so begins “the dance.” Lucky Daye’s “Careful” plays over the speakers of her living room as Mike delivers a seduction that borders the fine line between sexy and comedic (as most seductions are fundamentally absurd). It’s already at this early juncture that we can see the parallels that align Pretty Woman with this particular installment of the Magic Mike series. For in no other Magic Mike movie was there any older, well-to-do “patron” offering cash in exchange for no sex. At first anyway. For on that initial night when Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) is picked up by Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) and taken to the Regent Beverly Wilshire, she’s all about securing the bag. Until she realizes that, for Edward, the encounter isn’t really about sex—though, again, not until later. When Vivian tells him in the car on the way, “I never joke about money,” Edward replies, “Neither do I.” They seem like a perfect fit right out the gate. The same goes for Mike and Maxandra, the latter, in her Edward role, challenging Mike to make more of himself. To actually pursue his true passion. This is broached when she inquires, “Do you like bartending?” Mike shrugs, “Sure, uh, it’s not really what I do, but yeah. Why not?”

    Vivian essentially feels the same way about prostitution, but clearly makes the most of it (this includes calling herself a “safety girl” when she shows Edward an array of condoms from the selection contained within her thigh-high boot). Edward, however, can already see that she’s so much more—finding out just that when he catches her with dental floss in her hand, as opposed to the illicit drug he assumes it must be (stereotyping sex workers as usual, but, hey, it was the 90s). Increasingly charmed with Viv throughout the night, the two finally “seal the deal” to the background of an I Love Lucy episode, of all things. The following day, just as Maxandra will ask of Mike, Edward proposes they spend a much larger block of time together (one week to Mike and Maxandra’s one month). As Edward puts it, “I will pay you to be at my beck and call.”

    As will Maxandra for Mike, promising him the original sixty thousand dollars he suggested if he accompanies her to London. Cajoled into going, despite having no idea what the “job” he’s being offered actually is, Mike finds out that Maxandra believes in his talent and potential so much that she’s enlisted him to be the new director/choreographer of a play she wants to revamp called Isabel Ascendant—which means they’re keeping the first scene from said play and turning it into, essentially, a Chippendales act.

    The “May-December” romance that continues to blossom throughout this period of collaboration is astutely observed by Maxandra’s daughter, Zadie (Jemelia George)—she being the one who has been intermittently inserting her narrations this whole time. While Salma Hayek Pinault is fifty-six, Julia Roberts—ergo, Vivian Ward—was twenty-three in 1990, when Pretty Woman came out. A vast difference compared to Mike’s forty (Tatum himself is actually forty-two). Roughly the age Richard Gere was in 1990. The gap between Gere and Roberts was obviously larger in part because it was (and is) so commonplace for men to pursue younger women without half as much judgment as older women opting for younger men. This is made patent when Maxandra’s husband, Roger Rattigan (Alan Cox), who seems to be some faint foil for Hayek’s own rich husband in real life, cuts her down by saying, “I know when you’re being used. Don’t you see that? Darling, I know we’re all getting old, but I didn’t know you were so desperate.” No one would ever dare say such a thing to Edward about his younger woman choice—instead only making mention that she’s a hooker as a point of contention.

    The power and age dynamics at play in both Pretty Woman and Magic Mike’s Last Dance are what make the tension (primarily sexual) in both feel so palpable at any given moment. And while both Edward and Maxandra could have “chosen” any non-“for pay” companion, each thought they were going to spare themselves from emotional attachment if it was under the guise of a “business proposition” instead.

    In the famous final scene of Pretty Woman, Edward asks Vivian, “So what happened after he climbed the tower and rescued her?” Vivian replies, “She rescues him right back.” The same goes for Mike and Maxandra, even if the latter does have to abandon “her” fortune in order to be with Mike. Because, naturally, the fortune belonged to her husband, who, quelle surprise, has an utterly strangling series of prenup clauses that makes it impossible to live freely without just abandoning the cash altogether. But at least Maxandra can acknowledge the unfairness of being in an Edward role without actually being an Edward. This by telling her driver/butler, Victor (Ayub Khan Din)—the requisite Barney (Héctor Elizondo) of the movie—“[Mike] believes in me, and I have to go tell him that our show about empowering women is dead because I’m so fucking powerless.” Nonetheless, Mike will not let her give up all they worked toward during their last few weeks together. Which is why Maxandra’s power, in the end, is still delivered by the presence/swooping in of a man. Making her little better, “station in life-wise” than Vivian.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • No, Nepo Baby Isn’t An “N Word” That Can Be Reappropriated By Its Own Kind

    No, Nepo Baby Isn’t An “N Word” That Can Be Reappropriated By Its Own Kind

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    It was rather incredible that Hailey Bieber had lived in the celebrity bubble for so long that she truly believed her decision to don a shirt that read “Nepo Baby” would be met with something like laudatory praise from “the normals.” Not just for “having a sense of humor,” but for turning something “negative” into something “positive.” Because, to be clear, anything that is the truth is deemed “negative.” It always has been, but never more than at this present moment in “the culture.” And nepo babies do not like the truth underlying one of the latest terms coined by the internet.

    To defend themselves in the wake of the backlash that crescendoed somewhere after New York Magazine released an article called, “She Has Her Mother’s Eyes. And Agent: Extremely Overanalyzing Hollywood’s Nepo Baby Boom,” the celebrity narrative being peddled is that they actually have to work “twice as hard” (per Gwyneth Paltrow’s assurance) to secure a foothold in the industry. To quote Cher Horowitz, “As if.” For, in contrast to the reality such nepo babies are inventing in order to tell themselves their privilege isn’t that vast or beneficial, the industry loves a nepo baby. Because, not only is there some assurance of “consequence” (i.e., shame to the family name) if a nepo baby doesn’t perform well, but there’s also the beloved “built-in audience” that agents, producers and everyone trying to make money in between so adore.

    Lily Allen, a nepo baby who falls more under the radar because, in all honesty, few people outside of the UK are that familiar with actor Keith Allen or producer Alison Owen, also chose to wade into the conversation. Her means was yet another deflection of the issue at hand by remarking, “The nepo babies y’all should be worrying about are the ones working for legal firms, the ones working for banks, and the ones working in politics, if we’re talking about real world consequences and robbing people of opportunity.” In case Allen (now a progenitor of her own nepo babies) didn’t receive the announcement, the TikTok generation couldn’t give less of a fuck about being part of those industries. They all want to be “stars,” Pearl-style. So yes, it very much matters to them when an opportunity to be in entertainment does feel like it’s being “guarded” in favor of someone else with “industry clout.”

    Allen went on to say that when nepo babies are mere children, “We don’t care about money or proximity to power yet. Many of the nepo babies are starved of these basic things in childhood as their parents are probably narcissistic.” Then what if—and here’s a big ask—celebrities decided not to spawn. That would seem to solve the problem Allen is calling out as being specific to famous parents, adding, “[The] entertainment business is not parent friendly e.g. touring/months away shooting. It can be hard to see one’s own privilege when you’re still processing childhood trauma, and a lot of these kids haven’t figured that out yet.” Does she happen to know that no business is parent-friendly or very sympathetic at all to one’s masochistic decision to spawn? At least rich and famous parents can afford child care for fuck’s sake. Unlike the non-nepo babies who are abandoned most of the day while their underpaid parents go out to shake their ass for the cash.

    And so, the one thing that became fairly obvious after the discourse blew up—also thanks to Bieber’s shirt—is that, if your parents are blue links on Wikipedia, the general response of late is that you can go fuck yourself with any commentary about anything. No matter how “rational” or “reasonable” it might sound from the nepo baby perspective. Of course, defenders (even non-nepo ones) of the nepo baby will be quick to swoop in and say something like, “They never asked to be born, let alone did they even have a decision about who it would be to.” This being yet another mode of deflection. Like, can everyone just admit that it’s better? Why try to keep the reality shrouded in secrecy? That if you had the choice between being born to Dullsville and/or Povertyville circumstances, most would choose not to be. Even if it meant the sacrifice of dealing with constant media scrutiny. As most rappers say in a nutshell, “Scrutinize me all you want—I’m rich and you’re not, n***a.”

    Another question that seems to have been brought up in the wake of the nepo baby witch hunts was: how are there suddenly so many of them? Is the baby boom in question a novelty? Or is it just that, in the past, celebrity progenitors were either 1) less inclined to spawn or 2) more inclined to keep the privileges automatically given to their children under wraps? But no, everyone knew Liza was Judy’s child, or that Carrie was Debbie’s, or that Kate was Goldie’s. Maybe what’s fundamentally changed in Hollywood isn’t the rampant presence of nepotism, but the public’s bovine acceptance of it. Like taking sexual abuse as par for the course of getting one’s “foot in the door” (by allowing a man’s penis in theirs) of the industry, many outsiders also long-accepted that some people were simply going to have an easier time “cracking showbiz” because of the connections they were born having. In effect, this is a #NotMeToo movement—“I didn’t get the same treatment as that nepo baby in the running because my last name means nothing.”

    As for Hailey Bieber’s grasp at “owning” the phrase, some non-nepo baby celebrities tried to be polite about the “effort,” with Charli XCX weighing in, “I respect the nepo baby t-shirt attempt.” Whereas actual nepo babies, like Gwyneth (of course), were quick to jump in and praise Baldwin-turned-Bieber’s bid to repurpose the “slur,” gushing, “I might need a few of these.” For, obviously, celebrities are hoping to achieve what Black people did with that other “n” word: turn a derogatory term into something that’s no longer “offensive,” or something to be ashamed of. After all, nepo babies are so unaccustomed to enduring shame like the rest of those aspirants who have had to sacrifice dignity in the name of “booking a gig” (which they often don’t). But maybe the t-shirt that everyone really wants to see on “commoners” in response to celebrities like Baldwin-Bieber is: “Stop trying to make reappropriating ‘nepo baby’ happen.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Among the Ruins, The Mall Will Tell of What Society Used to Be (And Can’t Help But Remain)

    Among the Ruins, The Mall Will Tell of What Society Used to Be (And Can’t Help But Remain)

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    In episode seven of The Last of Us, “Left Behind,” Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is taken on a late-night expedition to see a relic and wonder of the past: the mall. Even in “non-post-apocalyptic” (so we tell ourselves) America, said milieu has become something of a relic, regardless of remaining a “novelty” to those who didn’t grow up with it as the end all, be all of hangout locations (see: Billie Eilish in the video for “Therefore I Am”). To Ellie, taken there by Riley Abel (Storm Reid), her best friend and former roommate at the FEDRA military school, it is just such a novelty.

    Although Ellie is initially reluctant to accompany her bestie on this mysterious nocturnal journey, Riley soon makes good on her promise of it being “the best night” of Ellie’s life. Which, yes, is a testament to how bleak things have gotten. After the two sneak into the complex where the endless slew of shops is housed, Riley sets up the majesty for a first-time viewer of the mall by telling Ellie to go ahead of her and call out once she’s gone through the hallway and turned right. When Ellie announces, “I’m here, now what?,” Riley turns every light on in the place to reveal the beautiful embodiment of capitalism in all its decayed glory.

    Ellie, usually unimpressed by just about everything, stares out at the commercial abyss in stunned wonder. A classic case of being glamored by the bells and whistles of capitalism. Almost like an Eastern bloc defector in the Cold War creeping into America to see what all the fuss is about. To paraphrase what Ruben Östlund said during most of his interviews promoting Triangle of Sadness, “Capitalism won over communism during the Cold War because it was sexier.” In short, Reagan had the snappier quotes (e.g., “Socialism only works in two places: heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it”). And, talking of quotes, one thing Östlund actually did say during an interview was, “Capitalism is so good at exploiting all our needs and all our fears, where we live, our food, and makes money out of our creativity and everything we do.” In other words, it knows how to seduce better than Peitho.

    Watching Ellie unwittingly absorb capitalism’s neon seduction without appearing to be aware of or understand its detriments makes it all the more facile for her to become enamored of “the way it used to be.” That is to say, before the overrunning of the Earth by fungally-controlled zombies. And, as Riley assures her, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” we can see that’s very true when Ellie is additionally wowed by the mere presence of a working escalator. Although Riley had only planned on billing four aspects of the mall as “wonders,” she chooses to call the escalator one as well, seeing how much it dazzles Ellie. The second is a merry-go-round, the third is a photobooth (typically overpriced at five dollars) and the fourth is the arcade—particularly meta seeing as how The Last of Us is based on a video game. But the game referenced in this episode is Mortal Kombat II, which Ellie has a poster of in her room at military school.

    When Riley confesses that she’s leaving Boston that night for good (stationed elsewhere by the Fireflies she’s joined up with), Ellie, in her state of sadness and rage, nearly opts out of the fourth-turned-fifth wonder of the mall: the Halloween costume shop. Unable to repress her lovelorn feelings, she goes back into the bowels of the mall when she hears a scream she assumes is coming from Riley, only to find it’s a sound effect of one of the props in the costume shop. The two then proceed to find love in a hopeless place, as they both give in to the romance that only capitalism can furnish, even in its “dormancy.” Kissing each other after Etta James’ “I Got You Babe” ends, one might say it was all the proverbial “wining and dining” Riley did that got Ellie to finally surrender to her true feelings. For, even in the post-apocalypse, girls just wanna be shown you care through material things (like volume two of a pun book).

    Which is perhaps why the most depressing aspect of “Left Behind” isn’t that Ellie and Riley will not have a happy ending after at last admitting their affection for one another, but that the allure of the mall (and all it represents), in spite of being theoretically defunct after an apocalypse, will not die. Its metaphor lives on (for you can’t kill an idea, etc.). This ultimate emblem of consumer culture can still manage to hypnotize and seduce people. Even if it’s a person who doesn’t know any better about the effects of capitalism—you know, the ones that ultimately lead to things like the level of global warming that can cause a fungal infection to adapt to body temperatures and become hospitable in humans, thereby creating the post-apocalyptic state in The Last of Us in the first place. That a ravenous zombie ends up attacking them in the final scenes feels only too poignant as well, considering that ravenous zombies were (and are) the primary clientele of the mall in its heyday.

    Leading one to ask, from within the context of the show: was it really “better” then, when places like the mall functioned to make us all feel as though we were “civilized” members of a “society”? Or should the one benefit of a post-apocalypse be that you don’t have to feel like you’re still constantly being brainwashed to “want” useless things (like, as Ellie and Riley point out, lingerie)? Then again, considering Ellie still has to do pre-apocalypse shit like PE, it seems unclear what, exactly, is meant to truly differentiate our current climate of societally-imposed expectations and misplaced obsessions from a post-apocalyptic one.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Fire and Ice Combine For Something Nice: Karol G and Shakira’s “TQG”

    Fire and Ice Combine For Something Nice: Karol G and Shakira’s “TQG”

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    Having only freshly released her fourth album, Mañana Será Bonito, Karol G’s “TQG” featuring Shakira already marks the fifth single from the record. Granted, Karol G got a bit of a head start before the album’s official announcement was made, with singles like “Provenza” and “Gatúbela” coming out in the spring and summer of 2022. Nonetheless, “TQG” somehow feels like the first “real” single from the album. Shakira might have more than a little something to do with that, especially considering how much she’s been in the spotlight of late thanks to her Gerard Piqué-slamming track, “Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions #53.” The reemergence of Shakira’s signature “sass” (and ass) has only helped contribute to the clapback vibe of “TQG”—an acronym for “Te Quedó Grande.” This loosely translating to: “Too much for you to handle.”

    On Beyoncé’s 2016 track, “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” she similarly boasted of being “too much” for the man who jilted her (a.k.a Jay-Z), flexing, “Blindly in love, I fucks with you/‘Til I realize I’m just too much for you/I’m just too much for you.” Where once it was the ultimate curse for a woman to be called “too much” (a not so veiled code for: “too much to deal with because she actually shows her emotions and intellectual complexities”), it’s now owned as a badge of honor (hence the new adage, “If I’m too much for you, then go find less”). For no woman wants to attract the kind of man who can’t “handle” a little “emotionalism” (this being a word certain men use to describe a woman’s expression of any feeling whatsoever). This is the type of man that Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) once characterized as being averse to “Katie girls”—a The Way We Were reference to those non-gays in the audience who don’t get it. And yes, Mr. Big (Chris Noth) is just that sort of breed (though it didn’t stop Carrie from continuing to lust after him). Preferring instead the “simple girls” that Pink so often loves to talk shit about despite such rhetoric no longer being considered chic.  

    Both Shakira and Karol G are ostensible Katie girls as well. Yet, unlike Beyoncé (an undercover simple girl), neither of these women are willing to forgive their erstwhile significant other for their transgressions, with Shakira once again referring to Gerard Piqué when she sings, “Seeing you with the new girl hurt me, but I’m now set on me/I’ve forgotten what we lived together, and that’s what you’re offended by/And even my life got better, you are no longer welcome here.” As for Karol G, her poisonous ex inspiration is Anuel AA (side note: Shakira collaborated with him on 2020’s “Me Gusta” before Karol G knew how it was going to turn out…but how’s that for full-circle retribution?). Despite being engaged to Karol G for two years, he ended up marrying a fellow rapper named Yailin La Más Viral—even had a baby with her before deciding to ditch her, too. So when Karol G declares, “You left saying you got over me/And you got yourself a new girlfriend/What she doesn’t know is that you’re still looking at all my stories,” one can really tell who the “muse” behind the lyric is.

    Karol and Shakira then goad their exes in concert via the chorus, “Baby, what happened?/Thought you were very in love?/What are you doing looking for me, honey/If you know that I don’t repeat mistakes/Tell your new bae that I don’t compete for men.” A sentiment that sounds similar to when men say, “I don’t have to pay for sex.” The confident bravado of the song is mirrored by its Pedro Artola-directed video, in which, while channeling Loud-era Rihanna with her red hair, Karol G takes up the mantle for Ri in “Can’t Remember to Forget You,” which also featured Shakira. In stark contrast to the lament and yearning of that single (released almost ten years ago now), “TQG” is a sign of the times for women who are no longer naïve or trusting enough to put up with multiple affronts from men. They’d rather turn such pain into profit, as Shakira mentions on her Bizarrap session with the line, “Women no longer cry/Women get paid.”

    Karol G confirms that with her verse, “I don’t have time for something that doesn’t do anything for me/I changed my route/Making money like sport/Filling my bank account with shows, the car park, the passport/I’m harder, the press reviews say.” Or perhaps “more wizened” is the better choice of words. Therefore not so prone to buying into the usual male bullshit, featuring such greatest hits as, “You know I love you, baby,” “It was only one time,” “It didn’t mean anything,” etc.

    With the video opening on images of Karol G projected on screens throughout the globe (including the many screens present on an airplane), she does a freefall off a building as Artola cuts to Shakira in an icy blue bodycon dress amid a snowy backdrop. After all, men have such a knack for turning women “cold” with their behavior. Karol G then appears on the scene in a contrasting red number that coordinates with her hair before the two transition to the opposite environmental milieu: fire burning all around them. For that’s the trail they’ve left in their wake after being burned by the men who did them wrong, only to scorch those men’s earth in recompense.

    As Karol G takes a page from the Shakira aphorism, “Hips don’t lie,” they dance suggestively in unison (even throwing in a portion of the beloved “Anitta dance” from “Envolver”), as though taunting any and every ex who made the mistake of thinking he could do better. The setting then shifts to a snowy one again as the rage in each woman subsides in favor of a cool, calm collectedness that her ex can no longer penetrate.

    That calmness being further emphasized by the The Truman Show-inspired blue sky-painted wall they hit at the end, complete with stairs leading to an open door (the possibilities presently wide open now that the whole world is their oyster without some cloying, complaining bloke to diminish their worth and make them feel guilty for it). And yes, someone—a slavish man—is watching them on TV in their bathtub in the final scene. For what else can any man do but watch as women continue to prove their superior value over and over again?

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Exile” Is The Perfect Song to Murder Your Ex To (And Other Reasons You, Season 3 Remains A Standout Compared to Season 4: Part One)

    “Exile” Is The Perfect Song to Murder Your Ex To (And Other Reasons You, Season 3 Remains A Standout Compared to Season 4: Part One)

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    With the first portion of You’s fourth season out, it bears noting that there have been few scenes as indelible as one that took place in the final episode (“What Is Love?”) of season three, during which Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) drags his wife’s corpse across the floor to the tune of Taylor Swift’s “exile.” A song from folklore that was released as the second single, it features Bon Iver, and accordingly maximizes that overall “sad indie” sound Swift was going for back in 2020, when most people wanted to slit their wrists because they couldn’t do much besides go to the grocery store (spoiler alert: that’s all life boils down to anyway). To play it contrasted against the murdering and disposal of one’s significant other, therefore, lends a different layer of “sadness” to the tune, which is all about having outgrown the person who is now your ex—with the female counterpart in the duo noting that she had given plenty of warning signs before the imminent demise (therefore echoing the theme and structure of Postal Service’s “Nothing Better”). Swift and Iver rue in unison, “I think I’ve seen this film before/And I didn’t like the ending/You’re not my homeland anymore/So what am I defending now?/You were my town, now I’m in exile, seein’ you out/I think I’ve seen this film before/So I’m leavin’ out the side door.” This being exactly what Joe does after he sets their house ablaze with the stove.

    At the beginning of the episode, Joe mentions Shirley Jackson’s declaration (in her story, “Pillar of Salt”) about how suburbia is where people start to come apart. Unravel. Mentally, needless to say. More specifically, the quote goes, “Upstairs Margaret said abruptly, ‘I suppose it starts to happen first in the suburbs,’ and when Brad said, ‘What starts to happen?’ she said hysterically, ‘People starting to come apart.’” Yes, there’s an entire genre about “coming apart” in the suburbs (mostly written by Richard Yates). But Joe has been “split” since childhood, pulling something of a Dexter Morgan by compartmentalizing his “alter ego” and using it for “good.” Joe, of course, views “good” as killing anyone who gets in the way of his “ownership” over a current obsession. The latest in season three (briefly extending into season four before Joe gets distracted by a new girl to pump) is Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle). The surly librarian (is there any other kind?) who makes Joe all the more certain that marrying Love (Victoria Pedretti) and having a child with her was a huge mistake (and not just because it entailed all those sex scenes Badgley now won’t do). Even though he plays the “protective papa” role well enough, he’s not so caring about Henry as to take him along when he flees from Madre Linda (a fictional town meant to be somewhere in the Silicon Valley realm). “It wasn’t fair of me, but it was the right thing for Henry,” he assures the viewer as the finale comes to a close. The abandonment comes after finishing Love off, of course.

    Tidily wrapping up his “chapter” in Madre Linda by turning Love into a “Mrs. Lovett” figure, Joe bakes a meat pie with one of his toes in it (which he cuts off himself—committed to the authenticity of the narrative he’s trying to create). The wordy email Joe then sends to the HOA on Love’s behalf when he’s done putting together all the fake details goes, “I moved to the suburbs because I bought into the dream. Community, prosperity and, most of all, safety. But I never felt safe here. Judged from day one, for my past, my body, how I was raising my child. If I wasn’t perfect, I would lose it all. A game so rigged, it could only exist in a world that hates women.” It all sounds pretty rational until the suicide note Joe pens (making him all the more “undercover” misogynistic because he thinks he can write women so well) veers into a rant about how she needed to do what she “had to” in order to really protect her family: kill the adulterer next door, kill and frame the anti-vaxxer who got her child sick, trap the couple (Sherry and Cary) who tried to “sabotage” her, etc. Of course, these were things Joe was complicit in, pawning his own crimes off on her and leaving her holding the (body) bag, as it were. Thanks to the benefit of her corpse to take the blame for everything. As women so often do no matter what their “motives” might have been. Men like Joe, on the other hand, are examined and analyzed so as to determine what might have went wrong in their life to make them “this way.” Women, not so much. They’re either psycho bitches or docile duckies who can get along in a patriarchal society.

    In this regard, another appropriate track from the folklore album to have included in this episode might have been “madwoman,” on which Swift laments with a controlled rage in her voice, “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/What about that?/And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry.” She builds on the theme of being branded as the “crazy” woman (usually as a result of the wonders of gaslighting) with the chorus, “And there’s nothing like a mad woman/What a shame she went mad/No one likes a mad woman/You made her like that/And you’ll poke that bear ‘til her claws come out/And you find something to wrap your noose around/And there’s nothing like a mad woman.” Sometimes referred to as, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

    Which is why Love decides to kill Joe when she unearths his roaming attraction for Marienne. Alas, after Joe outwits her plan to kill him with his own plan to kill her, Love rightly assesses, “We’re perfect for each other.” The way Joker and Harley Quinn are (how fitting, then, that Love’s last name is Quinn). They’re both “anti-heroes,” if you will. Speaking of that particular single, Penn Badgley’s commitment to Swift’s work under the pretense of being “Joe Goldberg” continued when he joined TikTok to enact his own “Anti-Hero” challenge by trying to run away from himself, only to find that it was him, hi, he’s the problem, it’s him. This realized after trying to run away from the person chasing him, only to open the door and find the pursuer (himself) there, too. And yes, so much of Swift’s oeuvre can be sardonically applied to You, especially a song like “You Belong With Me.” Then there’s “Bad Blood,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Blank Space,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “All Too Well,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “I Did Something Bad,” “Don’t Blame Me,” “Call It What You Want,” “Lover,” “The Archer,” “ME!” and, specifically for season four, “London Boy.” The list of applicable songs from Swift goes on and on, but something about “exile” being wielded for this particular scene would make it difficult to top in terms of other songs from her canon being placed over a certain moment in You.

    Despite this unforgettable soundtrack instance, You’s third season, expectedly, was met with eyebrow raises from most viewers (except probably Cardi B) who weren’t about the suburbia-driven plot, and felt that the show was starting to drag. Regardless, the You team is on board for a five-season track to wrap up any supposed “arc” for Badgley’s character. Who, incidentally, was only really challenged by Love (this being part of why he killed her—men hate being outdone by a woman in their “field”). A person described as having “no loyalty for anyone but herself.” Sounds, ultimately, like Joe. The difference being that he uses the guise of “doing the right thing” to justify every murder, as well as the subsequent inevitable need to abandon the life he faked in a new city because of his obsession du moment.

    At the conclusion of “What Is Love?,” Joe can feel good about what he’s done. Even tell himself that he created a legacy for Love that she herself never would have secured by turning her into “a bit of a folk hero” (hence, folklore being the perfect album of Swift’s to pull from). “More famous, even, then Guinevere Beck.” With the dragging of her poisoned (with aconite) husk to the kitchen area (where women belong, right?), the brutal coda of a relationship that a man decided needed to end on his terms is highlighted with macabre flair in the lyrics, “So step right out/There is no amount of crying I can do for you/All this time/We always walked a very thin line/You didn’t even hear me out.” The next round of verses then includes Taylor’s echoing rebuttal via, “You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)/All this time I never learned to read your mind (never learned to read my mind)/I couldn’t turn things around (you never turned things around).”

    Joe, it would seem, hasn’t been able to turn them around in season four either. But at least in season three, underloved as it was, there was a far more memorable scene to tie to it than there has been thus far in season four. However, the trailer for Part Two of the season has teased the return of Love. Whether it’s in a haunted, Shakespearean (because London?) sort of way or not, perhaps it means further use of Swift’s music somewhere in the fray. For, in spite of Badgley noting of Joe’s likely take on Swift, “I think, unfortunately, he would despise her. Because she’s successful and blond, maybe? I don’t know, but I think he would,” she’s thus far provided the most iconic marriage between music and action in the series. The only song that could really outdo it would be Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” played during the series finale.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Some Are Buying The Shards Because They Have To, And Others To Flex Financially

    Some Are Buying The Shards Because They Have To, And Others To Flex Financially

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    In yet another instance that very much proves Andy Warhol’s aphorism, “Art is what you can get away with,” the shattering of an expectedly expensive “Dog Balloon (Blue)” by Jeff Koons has turned out to be a collector’s wet dream rather than a tragedy. The decimation of the blue chrome sculpture (crafted from French Limoges porcelain) occurred in, where else, Miami. A place where art is not meant to be appreciated, so much as made into as much of a gimmick as possible (see: the banana taped to a wall at Art Basel that sold for $120,000). So maybe it’s to be expected that some “unassuming” observer at the “VIP art opening” for Art Wynwood would be casual and careless enough to bump into the stand displaying the work. Of course, perhaps it was on the gallery representing the piece, Bel-Air Fine Art, for placing so much faith in the supposed human ability to be graceful and delicate. Least of all around art valued at $42,000.

    Although Bel-Air Fine Art could have technically furnished the expensive piece with a vitrine encasement to avert such a disaster, “When something is for sale, they take a chance on it because they don’t want to diminish the spectacular appearance of it to somebody who might be there to buy it.” This said by a security consultant named Steven Keller, who also added, “A lot of times [art gets damaged] because people are not careful enough and because they can be incredibly naïve about art.” Understatement of the century. But at least he was polite enough to use the word “naïve” instead of the more candid “philistine.” The hoi polloi plodding through galleries with their camera phones at the ready for the “perfect” shot or selfie has only added to the risk factor of “art assault” over the years.

    With humanity also living in a time when it is assumed that everything is “fake” or “staged” for the sake of some larger “virality scheme,” many at the art fair believed it was another stunt in the style of what Banksy did to one of his own paintings, “Girl With Balloon” (there’s just something about art with the word “Balloon” in the title that makes it ripe for ruin, one supposes). Rigging it to self-destruct (a.k.a. shred itself) if it ever went up for auction, the painting did just that at a 2018 Sotheby’s gathering, where onlookers were treated to the simultaneous delight and horror of watching the work get obliterated. Originally bought for the price of 1.4 million dollars, the destroyed version of itself went for the even higher amount of 25.4 million (the same preposterous increase in value might occur for Koons’ shards as well).

    Later, Banksy would quote Picasso on the matter with, “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.” But when that urge isn’t calculated at all, as was the case with this klutz (or possibly just another oblivious being) of a woman at the art fair, it becomes merely another example of how the public is so often ignorant and undeserving of art, despite art’s very audience being (occasionally) intended for such ilk. And yet, there’s a reason art has been shrouded behind the moated world of the affluent for most of its existence: they’re not so damned careless with it. Obviously, if they’re willing to shell out millions in order to possess it. And, once upon a time, they were even willing to offer their patronage in order to secure it (clearly, rich people have evolved into stingier cunts since then).

    In contrast, someone like Keith Haring was off-put by the idea of art being “owned” by the rich class, insisting, “Art is for everybody” (with the necessary caveat being, “Art is for everybody who can be around it without destroying it.”) Hence, his preference for the graffiti-oriented medium, scrawling his work in spray-paint on trains, walls and every highly visible surface in between. Jean-Michel Basquiat had a similar philosophy to his contemporary before the art world came knocking and rendered his work “gallery-worthy” with their approval.

    Jeff Koons, needless to say, has been “gallery-approved” for decades, setting a record as the only living artist whose art (specifically, “Rabbit”) was able to fetch as high of a number as ninety-one million dollars at an auction. With “Balloon Dog (Blue), Shattered,” he might set another record. Mainly for how absurd the art world can get, in addition to how much “ruins” can be sold for. That the incident has happened at a time when humanity itself is living among the ruins that most companies can still turn a profit out of is perhaps too painfully poetic to acknowledge. We’re all willing to open our purses for the shards, as it were. It’s just that some of us are doing it for basic survival, whereas others are doing it to flex their financial clout on something especially superfluous.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Heaven Knows What: The Rihanna and Lana Del Rey of Movies

    Heaven Knows What: The Rihanna and Lana Del Rey of Movies

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    In 2011, Rihanna released the music video for “We Found Love.” Directed by Melina Matsoukas, its central focus is Rihanna in the role of a drug-addicted “mischief-maker,” crazy in love with the “Clyde” of the duo, played by Dudley O’Shaughnessy. It was made instantly immortal for its indelible images of Rihanna and O’Shaughnessy in a bathtub together, at a skate park together, in a field together (Rihanna running topless through it caused quite the stir in County Down), at a fish and chips restaurant acting fools together and, of course, doing donuts in a car together. All throughout the video, the interspersed images of pills falling, eyes dilating and explosions in the sky are intended to mirror the effects of a drug-addled mind—and how such a mind can also suffer the effects of being addicted to the drug called love (as Kesha once said, “Your love is my drug”).

    Rihanna’s relationship intensity being fueled by the cocktail of drugs and abuse speaks to the common intertwinement of both when it comes to a woman staying in such a harmful (on every level) situation. It truly is addictive, this state of masochistic “pleasure-pain.” And that’s why the video’s opening narration from Agyness Deyn is so honest and affecting as she says, “It’s like you’re screaming, and no one can hear. You almost feel ashamed that someone could be that important. That without them, you feel like nothing. No one will ever understand how much it hurts. You feel hopeless; like nothing can save you. And when it’s over, and it’s gone, you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back. So that you could have the good.” This much applies to Harley Boggs (Arielle Holmes), a homeless heroin addict flitting from place to place in New York City. Once upon a time, she did so with her beloved, Ilya (Caleb Landry Jones), but at the beginning of the Safdie brothers’ Heaven Knows What (based on Holmes’ memoir Mad Love in New York City), she has been forsaken by him as a result of her “catting around.” More than likely in exchange for a much-needed dose of smack. This occurs after the somehow stressful (it’s always stressful with the Safdie brothers) opening scene of the two making out passionately on the ground as though they’re in the privacy of a bedroom instead of in a very public place. But then, there’s no such thing as “dignity” when you’re addicted to heroin…or love.

    Moments later, a scene of Harley sobbing outside the library reveals that the dynamic has shifted—and Ilya has cut her off from his supply of love. So it is that the Romeo and Juliet nature (in all its desperate and dramatic flair) of the narrative takes hold, with Harley telling Ilya that she’ll prove her love for him by going to the great length of killing herself as a means to assure his forgiveness. Cold and unmoved by her earnest pleas for him to absolve her, Harley sets about procuring a razor blade by panhandling for the money as the voiceover of her reading a goodbye note to Ilya explains, “Ilya dearest, I need you to know that I love you, baby. And I need you to know how sorry I am. Really. I never wanted to die. I don’t know what will become of you now, and I won’t ever know if you’ll really forgive me. I’ll always love you, even in death, and I’m so sorry that things had to come to this. Love forever, Harley.” It’s that last tortured “love forever” in particular that reminds one of something out of a Lana Del Rey song, with the oft-melodramatic singer promising such things as, “I love you the first time/I love you the last time/‘Cause I’m your jazz singer/And you’re my cult leader/I love you forever, I love you forever.” Yes, it sounds a lot like something born out of Harley’s mind as well. And, appropriately enough, both Ultraviolence and Heaven Knows What were released the same year: 2014.

    It was the title track from Del Rey’s sophomore album that also vowed, “I will do anything for you, babe/Blessed is this union/Crying tears of gold like lemonade.” It bears a similar lack of self-respect to what Harley would (and does) say to Ilya, who patently treats her like shit. Worse still, knowing he can do just that and she’ll still come crawling back for more. It is this type of “love” that is so often romanticized in film and, yes, pop songs. Going as far back as the Shangri-Las (straight out of the very decade Del Rey so often culls from for her own lyrical landscapes), the “brooding” “bad boy” dissected in such ditties is often not worth dissecting at all—because he’s just an asshole, full-stop. No further analysis required. But to someone as young and impressionable as Harley, who got into the heroin “scene” because of Ilya to begin with (sounds a lot like Amy Winehouse with Blake Fielder-Civil, don’t it?), there is a litany of “viable” excuses for such behavior. “He’s really sensitive on the inside” or “He’s so brilliant and misunderstood,” etc., etc. Holmes herself met the real Ilya when she was in her teenage years, trying heroin for the first time with him when she was seventeen (“only seventeen/But she walks the streets so mean,” as Lana would describe).

    Despite the abyssal spiral Harley falls down because of her dependency on both heroin and Ilya’s love, she echoes the Del Reyian sentiment, “And I love your women and all of your heroin,” as well as, “Creeping around while he gets high, it might not be something you would do” or even, “It hurts to love you/But I still love you.” But where Heaven Knows What is meant to be an unglamorous portrait of life as a drug-addicted lovefool, Del Rey’s purpose in her music often feels like the opposite, with the singer herself even illustriously remarking on how she’s been accused of “glamorizing abuse,” namely in romantic relationships. As for her romanticization of drugs and “the lifestyle,” Del Rey even has a song called “Heroin,” from her 2017 album, Lust for Life. Speaking to her version of Ilya, an ex named Rob Dubuss, Del Rey laments, “I’m flying to the moon again/Dreaming about heroin/How it gave you everything/And took your life away.” The same can be said of Ilya, who overdoses in real life and in the movie iteration of events.

    After Harley takes up with another, more “put-together” addict named Mike (Buddy Duress), he ends up getting into an altercation with Ilya in the park. Ilya plays dirty in the fight (by throwing a makeshift morningstar crafted out of several razor blades into Mike’s hand), and, in the wake, Mike nurses his wound in an ATM vestibule with Harley. It’s there that he asks her, “You still love him though right?” “Of course,” Harley says without hesitation. Looking at her like she’s a pathetic madwoman, she continues, “I know he does fucked-up things, all right? It doesn’t matter what he does… I can’t help that I love him.” Some say that’s the very definition of love—being able to look past all the horrid aspects of a person (e.g., Eva Braun with Hitler). And, thanks to how magical it’s all made to seem despite the torture in movies and literature, that’s what many non-fictional characters believe, too.

    Mike persists in poking a hole in Harley’s so-called love for Ilya by demanding, “You think you’re gonna be in love with him forever?” She says with certainty, “I know I will be.” Again, this channels the Del Reyian panache of a song like “Blue Jeans,” wherein she declares, “I will love you till the end of time/Probably a million years.” For a brief moment in the third act of Heaven Knows What, we think maybe Harley might get her wish for a love that lasts “till the end of time” as she rejoins with Ilya and the two buy bus tickets bound for Florida (it’s always Florida with New Yorkers). Naturally, Ilya feels obliged to break up the happy reunion for no reason other than a whim (likely based on needing to shoot up without sharing). So it is that he talks the driver into letting him off the bus, leaving Harley behind without a second thought. In many respects, the portion of the film that ensues reminds one of Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens, with the similarly street-bound Wren (Susan Berman) finding herself walking along a highway, of sorts (read: the George Washington Bridge), totally lost as to what to do next without the man she had briefly secured in her life. Along the route, a lecherous driver keeps hounding Wren to get in the car, finally clinching the “proposition” with, “Got a better place to spend your time?” Wren looks back at that moment with a look of recognition on her face, as though it’s suddenly dawned on her that, no, she doesn’t.

    A comparable look appears on Harley’s face when she finds herself back at a Dunkin’ Donuts sitting amid Mike and his cronies, the former regaling them with some bullshit story. The question Mike had demanded of her previously in the ATM vestibule then comes to mind: “You just wanna be his woman your whole life? Don’t you wanna be your own person?” In the end, that’s what Holmes had to become in order to save herself from the same fate as Ilya’s. As for what became of Harley, it seems she reached that exploding point in her relationship manifested by the conclusion to “We Found Love.” Only to lose it almost as quickly as it arrived. But as it is said, “Easy come…painful as fuck go.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • If You Can Afford It, The Punishment Doesn’t Have to Fit the Crime: Infinity Pool

    If You Can Afford It, The Punishment Doesn’t Have to Fit the Crime: Infinity Pool

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    “Let’s get away,” he said. “Find some inspiration,” he said. A few days in Li Tolqa (a fictional town that serves as Anywhere, Vacationland) cures James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) of such notions. Staying at a posh resort with his wife, Em (Cleopatra Coleman), the contention between the couple is tangible from the outset of Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, with the audience seeing nothing but the pitch-blackness of their room as Em asks James, “Why are we here? It isn’t helping. You’re so frozen these days. I can’t even tell if you’re sleeping or awake.” The only answer James might be able to vaguely provide is that he’s looking to cure “writer’s block” (but really, just being a bad writer) with a change of scenery. Instead, they gloss over the tiff and go down to eat breakfast, whereupon Em half-heartedly hopes they might be able to catch the omelet chef.

    A wide shot of James in an empty dining area sets the tone for the overall ominousness of the resort, with Cronenberg’s ensuing tilted shots of the resort’s amenities circling around slowly (as though mimicking the motion of water going down a drain) as we see scenes of the beach, the tennis court and, of course, the infinity pool. An image that will be returned to again and again throughout the film. Cronenberg (determined to top his father, David, in the genre of “weird shit”) then cuts to one of the resort’s employees, Ketch (Ádám Boncz), wearing an eerie, disarming mask (called an “ekki” mask, and, naturally, available for sale at the gift shop) while he explains how it’s about to be the monsoon season in Li Tolqa and that, “This period before the storm is known as ‘Umbramaq,’ or ‘The Summoning.’” Apropos, of course, considering that, in coming to Li Tolqa, James has unwittingly summoned the likes of Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth), an actress on vacation with her husband, Alban (Jalil Lespert). James encounters her within seven minutes of the film’s opening, as a local on a motorbike tears through the resort’s beach, causing fear and panic among the privileged vacationers.

    When James asks (in the robotic manner his wife can’t stand) to no one in particular, “What’s going on?,” Gabi, watching the scene unfold calmly, replies, “Someone’s making a statement.” James looks over at her and says, “What do you think he’s trying to say?” Taking lascivious liberties (as we’re soon about to see her do in a big way), Gabi gets closer to him to put her finger at the center of his neck and remark, “He’s saying he’d like to put a long knife right through here. And after you die, he’ll hang your body at the airport to scare off the other tourists.” Titillated by her as it is, Gabi seals the seduction by mentioning that she loved his book, called The Variable Sheath, of all things. And yes, James’ “sheath” is about to become very variable. He just doesn’t know it yet…still lulled into a false sense of security by Alban and Gabi’s seeming harmlessness as the latter invites James and Em out to dinner at the Chinese restaurant in town that James had previously told Em he didn’t want to go to.

    At dinner, James and Em learn that Alban is a retired architect, while Gabi is an actress with a specialized niche in “failing naturally.” A.k.a. the type of actor one would expect to find in an infomercial about a product that can make the viewer’s life so much easier. As they get around to inquiring about what James does to pay the bills when he’s not writing, Em chimes in, “He married rich.” “Well, it’s good for an artist to have a patron, isn’t it?” Alban adds. Em quips, “Oh sure, I’m in danger of becoming a charitable organization at this point.” The tension, of course, is palpable—even if Em and James try to laugh the comment off as a joke. And then there’s the sexual tension between Gabi and James, mounting when the quartet goes out dancing at the nightclub afterward. Intoxicated by the sense of excitement Gabi brings (as well as the claim that she’s read his book), James talks Em into going on a picnic with her and Alban the next day, despite Em’s misgivings about leaving the resort. What with the guests being told that they’ll probably be mugged, raped, killed or all three at once if they leave the confines of the property. But James is determined to “go along for the ride” with the Bauers. Which seems like the right choice when Gabi effectively sexually assaults James with an unexpected hand job right as he finishes pissing in a secluded area. As men like to say of women though, he definitely enjoyed it. And he might have coasted on that “good time” feel for the rest of the night were it not for the quartet pulling an I Know What You Did Last Summer after James runs over a man crossing the road and Gabi then insists they leave the body there without calling the police.

    But even despite the man being a “nobody,” it doesn’t take long for the police to arrest James and Em after a guard at the resort gives up the information (compensated accordingly to do so) that they were locked off the property the previous night around the time the crime in question occurred. At the police station, Em easily confesses to what James did, and soon the officer in charge of delivering James’ punishment is telling him about the Revised Process of Doubles Act of International Visitors and Diplomats. In other words, to avoid the country’s usual penalty of death for such a crime, “For a significant sum, the state will build a double to stand in for your execution.” Stunned and practically speechless, James nonetheless finds himself signing the paper that will allow it all to happen, extracting the large sum of cash to pay off the authorities to do the job.

    When the execution they’re forced to watch is over, Em tries to pack their shit up faster than an ostrich can run so that they might get the fuck out of dodge. But something in James’ eyes indicates he has other plans in mind, coming up with the ruse of not being able to find his passport so he can stay. Clearly, he’s gotten off on the sight of watching himself being killed. But more than that, James finally seems to understand how real the statement “getting away with murder” is when you exist on the right privileged perch to do so. As Em reels in disgust over James’ blasé attitude about what just happened, he makes an excuse to go to the front desk, where he encounters Gabi again. She explains to him that she and Alban have been through the “process” as well, and that there’s really something quite exhilarating about it, isn’t there? In fact, that’s why they keep coming back to Li Tolqa every year.

    As James tends to agree, Gabi introduces him to a whole crew of rich folk who get off on the ability to commit crimes on their vacation with no fear of recompense. Well, apart from the literal payment required to get out of what would be the punishment for the “ordinaries.” As the group proceeds to tell James that pretty much everything is illegal in Li Tolqa, and that it’s a wonder anyone has remained alive at all in this country, one can see the faint joy in his eyes over having joined up with such an “elite” cabal. Especially with members that can so effortlessly compartmentalize between what happens “on vacation” and “in real life” (a chasm the audience will note in how casually Gabi is able to say her distancing goodbye to James at the end, as though nothing fucked-up happened at all).

    As for the vagueness of place that Li Tolqa and its extremely conservative laws represent, it allows for the milieu to double as so many potential countries. While most of the film was shot in Šibenik, Croatia, it feels intended to be “one of those” Asian or Latin American countries where lawlessness and abject poverty join forces to become any American tourist’s worst nightmare once they’re “off the property.” But initially, James sees this unexpected doubling process as a sweet fantasy. With Gabi opening his eyes to all the possibilities of being a depraved libertine. The inevitable problem with that arrives when he sees one fucked-up sight that he can’t unsee, and now, suddenly, he decides to dig up the passport he feigned losing so that Em would ultimately leave him on his own at the resort while he pretended to “sort it out.” But even for James now, the vacation has been tainted and is decidedly over.

    Unfortunately, he didn’t realize he needed Gabi and co.’s permission to leave as they show up in hot pursuit of his bus on the way to the airport. In a more sinister version of what goes on during the side-by-side cars driving scene of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Gabi waves a gun at James and taunts him to get out of the bus and stop acting like the coward he is. More depravity ensues. Except, this time, James is far less of a willing participant, as though his eyes have been opened to how foul it all is. These people. Their “predilections.” But perhaps more foul still is the fact that he can’t deny he’s one of them.

    More than just a commentary on how money can buy your way out of consequences, it’s a statement on the Western tourist (primarily the American kind) who thinks that all the world is their playground, and that another country’s laws and customs don’t (and shouldn’t) apply to them. The rude awakening that comes when such a “theory” doesn’t pan out then tends to result in international news (e.g., the stabbing of Mario Cerciello Rega), followed by the guilty party selling the rights to the movie or TV show.

    Cronenberg takes the idea of the rich and/or the American assuming themselves to be above and better than everything (à la The White Lotus) and puts an even more macabre spin on how thrilling it can be for the rich to be able to commit gruesome crimes with no worry of consequence. And yet, that’s what happens all the time with or without the use of a clone to accept the punishment. All one really needs in “non-sci-fi” life is the best lawyers money can buy.

    It is often said that the first iteration of an infinity pool was the Stag Fountain at the Palace of Versailles. How fitting considering the French’s notoriety for revolting against the ruling class that oppressed them (which they haven’t done with half as much conviction since the French Revolution that eventually rendered the Palace of Versailles into a tourist attraction). Thus, it’s only right that Cronenberg keeps going back to the infinity pool shot, returning to it once more at the close of the film. And it makes sense to title the movie as such and wield it so strongly as a symbol beyond the concept of James’ new “infinity” of doubles. After all, infinity pools are most frequently attributed to the type of luxury resorts that only the affluent (or middle-class in debt) can afford. That it represents an illusion buttressed by hundreds of thousands of dollars funneled into its design also feels like a pointed dig at the rich themselves.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Welcome to My Island, Bitch” Is the New “It’s Britney, Bitch”

    “Welcome to My Island, Bitch” Is the New “It’s Britney, Bitch”

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    For those who didn’t think Caroline Polachek’s bop, “Welcome to My Island,” could get any better, Charli XCX has arrived to give her own take on it. One delivered in the “persona” of a decidedly creamy smooth pop icon goddess (as Madonna likes to call herself). In this regard, XCX continues to adopt the same braggadocious tone we’ve come to know and love on Crash, translating it into a “remix” that feels like a dripping-in-decadence song unto itself. Indeed, Polachek’s faint presence in the background of her own single is overshadowed by XCX with far more overtness than Taylor Swift doing the same to Lana Del Rey during “Snow on the Beach.” But that’s to be expected when Polachek trusts in XCX’s brilliance to remake a song based on their past collaborations together (including “New Shapes,” which also featured Christine and the Queens). And the brilliance XCX provides here is no exception to the rule.

    As someone who has transformed parodying pop stardom to the point where she can perhaps no longer blur the line between the parody and the real, the George Daniel and Charli XCX remix of “Welcome to My Island” fits right in with XCX’s simultaneous mockery and embracement of excess. In short, all the trappings of stardom and its according wealth. Among such trappings being island getaways at the drop of a custom-made hat. After all, there’s a reason so many celebrities buy private islands—it’s the ultimate milieu where no rules need apply to them (not that they really do elsewhere either). And yes, Richard Branson, who Charli name checks in the song with, “I guess I’m on my Richard Branson wave/No virgin, but I knew just how to behave,” is among the many “eccentric” (read: difficult because they can be) celebrities to own an island.

    What’s more, when Charli says she knows just how to behave, she means she knows just how to misbehave, regaling us with her double entendre-filled description, “You can drive me down to Florida and fuck me for days/Back at the start, think you knew that I was dangerous/I’ve done a couple bad things if you catch my drift/I told him, ‘Baby, you can pull up on the landing strip’/And if you do it right, welcome to my island, bitch.”

    It’s that last line that XCX has remade with the blunt addition of the word “bitch” that has rendered this version of “Welcome to My Island” arguably more iconic than Polachek’s original (which isn’t an easy feat considering how amazing it is already). And there’s no denying a touch of the Britney influence in “coming up with” that one-word addendum. XCX being a fan of Spears (like most of us), it’s certain that “Gimme More” has played a part in her pop music inspiration, perhaps finally manifesting at its most obvious with the straightforward declaration, “Welcome to my island, bitch.” For if Britney could make a similarly simple announcement so memorable by adding “bitch” (i.e., “It’s Britney, bitch”), then surely Charli could, too. And so she has, with an anthem that touts the glamor and indulgence of what being on an island connotes to those who don’t actually have to live on one full-time. For, as most who endure that fate know, it hardly feels like a 24/7 vacation, so much as a 24/7 nightmare.

    More than just the lyrical depictions, however, it is the sonic landscape—courtesy of Jim-E Stack, Dan Nigro, Danny L Harle, Caroline Polachek and George Daniel—that transports us into an environment so carefree and bacchanalian that it’s almost (almost) as good as actually being in, say, Ibiza (where this song should probably be playing on a loop throughout the summer). And for the landlocked plebes who will never make it to such exotic locations evoked by “Welcome to My Island,” the track alone will have to suffice, ingratiating itself among the Lavish Getaway Canon with other “rare breed” singles such as “La Isla Bonita.” And as for John Donne, who said, “No man is an island,” well, that’s probably just because he had never met a millionaire or billionaire with his own to prove otherwise.  

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Penn Badgley Confirms What You Already Knew: It’s A Sexless, Sexless, Sexless, Sexless World

    Penn Badgley Confirms What You Already Knew: It’s A Sexless, Sexless, Sexless, Sexless World

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    There are some who have speculated that we live in such a sexless time because of technology. Not just because porn made the transition to the internet, but because the human has essentially “become one” with the screen. Inferring an inherent lack of tactility that has extended into a general absence of desire for “tangible flesh.” Of course, this mainly applies to the generation known as Z, being that they’ve never experienced an era when the screen wasn’t an additional bodily appendage. And as the AI fuses into “RI” (“real” intelligence), the prospect for any interest in sex as it once existed in our erstwhile “horn dog” society continues to dissipate—and all with the sanction of those formerly most involved in “presenting it.” That is to say, Hollywood actors.

    So it is that, on the heels of a Penn Badgley feature in Variety called “You Don’t Know Penn Badgley: Surviving Gossip Girl, Staying Sober with Blake Lively and Finding Himself in a Sexy Serial Killer,” the key remark many have taken away is the declaration on Badgley’s part that he will no longer “do” sex scenes. In the Kate Arthur-written article, she prefaces his aversion to a common expectation of the average mainstream actor’s job description with, “Less typically, he was also concerned [about] how inherently sexual the role [of Joe Goldberg] was, and how many intimate scenes he would have to film. In later seasons, the show has had an intimacy coordinator, but when production began in 2017, that job didn’t exist. The whole series revolves around Joe’s romantic fixations, and how he gets the women he’s fallen for to submit to his charms. You has a ton of sex.” But not so much in its fourth season, where Joe, now under the assumed identity of Jonathan Moore, has taken a shine to the “British prude” identity of an Austen character as he finds himself enmeshed in the inner circle of an elite London friend group (yes, it sounds kind of like Gossip Girl). Hence, the presence of a moniker like the “Eat the Rich Killer”—a “branding” that proves anti-capitalism is still capitalism in that it can be sold.

    Among that crew is Kate Galvin (Charlotte Ritchie), a woman who initially passes herself off as “different” from the rest of her born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-their-mouth ilk but actually turns out to be the richest one among the lot (as is usually the way with rich people trying to pass themselves off as “just like us”). Before Joe finds this out, he’s already gone down the rabbit hole of his obsession with her, sidelining the one that brought him to Europe in the first place: Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle). When he follows her from Paris to London, he ends up staying in the latter city after a cover identity falls into his lap thanks Elliot Tannenberg (Adam James), a fixer hired by Love’s (Victoria Pedretti) father to find and kill Joe. Obviously, Elliot conveniently opts for a different approach to dealing with Joe, and now, “Jonathan” is on his merry way to clothed “sex” in a garden with Kate by episode three.

    But, as Badgley was sure to mention in the Variety interview, “[On-set romance is] not a place where I’ve blurred lines. There’s almost nothing I could say with more consecration.” Which means he’s apparently “blurred” his memory about dating Blake “Serena van der Woodsen” Lively while the two starred in Gossip Girl together. Nonetheless, Badgley insisted, “That aspect of Hollywood has always been very disturbing to me—and that aspect of the job, that mercurial boundary—has always been something that I actually don’t want to play with at all.” And yet, if he, and more actors like him, don’t want to “play with” it, then one must ask the blunt question: what, exactly, are you being paid the big bucks for to have so many “caveats” and “limitations” in order to take on a role?

    Ah, but then there is the cry of “artistic integrity” and “morals.” It is the latter category that finds Badgley hesitating on sex scenes more and more as he told Variety, “It’s important to me in my real life to not have them… [To] my fidelity in my relationship… And actually, it was one of the reasons that I initially wanted to turn the role down. I didn’t tell anybody that. But that is why.” Ironically, the person he wants to show fidelity to is Domino Kirke, the sister of Jemima a.k.a. Jessa from Girls, a show that prided itself on gratuitous sex scenes. Maybe that’s why Kirke was the one who encouraged him to do it regardless of his “misgivings.” And, after all, if Taylor Swift could loosen the reins on Joe Alwyn to “let” him engage in all the sex scenes of Conversations with Friends (which Jemima Kirke also appears in), then surely Domino could do the same. Even if Badgley might have had the option to give Joe more action through the wonders of CGI—as was the case in, of all movies, You People, when Jonah Hill and Lauren London didn’t actually kiss at the end.

    In point of fact, the sudden inalienable right of the actor to become “bashful” about the notion of onscreen intimacy—at a time when intimacy coordinators are actually in existence to make everything feel as “safe” as possible—seems to open the door further for AI as an option to oust real actors from the jobs they won’t actually do. Regardless of how many millions they’re being paid to do it. Whether or not the shift in Hollywood’s willingness to “perform” stems from being a reflection of the sexless culture at large, there’s one thing that’s certain: “sexiness” as a concept has all but disappeared in large part because all mystery has disappeared. Once an industry that could pass itself off as something to aspire to with the tinsel and glitz promoted in now-defunct movie magazines like Photoplay and Screenland, the gradual decline of post-studio system Hollywood coincided with the advent of entities like television and, then, the internet. Therefore, unchecked gossip rags like TMZ and Perez Hilton that effectively dismantled any notion of “glamor” or “aspirational desire” re: being famous. A notable example of that in the 00s occurred with Britney Spears as she went from being the teen dream to a “Jezebel slut” who “deserved” her downfall, courtesy of constant media stalking that drove her to rightful madness.

    Incidentally, Spears was a large part of why sexiness remained strong in the early 00s before giving way to the “trashy-chic” aura exuded in the mid-00s by paparazzi shots of her looking sloppy drunk while exiting a club or accidentally flashing her pantyless snatch as she got out of a car. Decidedly not sexy so much as sleazy because it took away all semblance of mystery. An additional factor in the assurance of sexlessness in entertainment today is the result of the post-#MeToo reckoning, with most men quaking in their boots about being accused of “untoward” behavior. Least of all portraying something that might end up being construed as “non-consensual” or “glamorizing rape.” With that in mind, the Badgley feature was also sure to point out that the actor is increasingly uncomfortable with sex scenes because “he’s also now older than his romantic interests on the show. ‘Didn’t used to be the case,’ he says.” And, where once even the vastest age gap between stars (i.e., Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina) wouldn’t have caused the slightest bat of an eyelash, in the present moment, the only person still willing to carry on with that type of shit is, well, Woody Allen.

    What it all amounts to is that the overall climate of fear about doing or saying or, yes, acting the wrong way has undeniably and “subconsciously” fed into the sex scene about-face among actors like Badgley, who insist that such scenes are “superfluous” or “don’t add anything to the story.” Obviously, someone like Paul Verhoeven would disagree. But then, he’s of a different generation (and also not American). More of the Bernardo Bertolucci school of thought on “impromptu” sexual interactions (e.g., the infamous butter rape one in Last Tango in Paris), as Sharon Stone would later note of Verhoeven’s snatch shot in Basic Instinct, “After we shot [the movie], I got called in to see it. Not on my own with the director, as one would anticipate, given the situation that has given us all pause, so to speak, but with a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project. That was how I saw my vagina shot for the first time, long after I’d been told, ‘We can’t see anything—I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on.’”

    And yet, as mentioned before, actors now have the unprecedented advantage of working on sets that would never allow for something like what befell Maria Schneider or Sharon Stone to happen again. Only to thumb their nose (or genitals, in this case) at it and declare, “No, I have my principles.” Thing is, if one is getting paid for anything, no such claim can really be made.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Your Place or Mine Pulls From The Holiday and A Lot Like Love For a Banal Effect

    Your Place or Mine Pulls From The Holiday and A Lot Like Love For a Banal Effect

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    It seems telling that the intro to Aline Brosh McKenna’s latest rom-com, Your Place or Mine, is set in the 00s. Namely, 2003. We’re hit over the head with this (along with so many other things) “time period,” not just with a title card that says: “it’s 2003,” but with the additional “cutesy” explanation of the year via, “how can we tell?” followed by arrows that point to accessories worn by the characters the viewer is introduced to, including “trucker hat,” “flat-ironed hair,” “wallet chain,” “pointless earring,” “so many layered shirts” and “wonderbra®”. And yet, for all this “attention to detail,” the song echoing in Debbie’s apartment, “The Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani featuring Akon, didn’t actually come out until 2006.

    In any case, it’s “telling” that Brosh McKenna would set the movie at the start of the 00s because this feels like the type of cut-and-paste script she might have actually written in the early 00s, before securing clout with 2004’s Laws of Attraction (before that, her only credit was 1999’s forgettable Three to Tango starring Neve Campbell and Matthew Perry). After that, The Devil Wears Prada assured her place in the rom-com hall of fame, only to be further cemented by 27 Dresses and Morning Glory. Things took a dive with I Don’t Know How She Does It and We Bought a Zoo, but there was the promise of Brosh McKenna’s rejuvenation and renaissance in Cruella.

    Which is why for Your Place or Mine to follow that up and mark Brosh McKenna’s directorial debut almost leads one to believe that the movie is a script she had lying around in a drawer from back in the day that she nipped and tucked for a quick paycheck. At least, that’s the preferable thing to believe as we watch the predictable plot, which so overtly pulls from Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday and another Ashton Kutcher-starring movie from, quelle coincidence, the 00s called A Lot Like Love.

    Just as it is in the latter rom-com, Debbie Dunn (Reese Witherspoon) and Peter Coleman (Kutcher) are two best friends who have sex when they first meet and then devolve into the friend zone, where both are ostensibly “comfortable,” but each one has also long known that there’s a lingering attraction, they just have to repress it deep, deep down until the “appropriate” moment comes (i.e., end of Act Two). At the beginning of the movie, Brosh McKenna tries to “pull a fast one” on the audience with a “trick” split screen intended to make the viewer believe Debbie and Peter are in the same bed together twenty years later as Debbie looks into his eyes and wishes him a happy birthday.

    But no, there’s someone else in Peter’s bed as the camera pans over to his girlfriend du moment, Becca (Vella Lovell, a beloved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend alum), asking if he wants coffee. The split screen then becomes pronounced as the captions “Los Angeles” and “New York” provide the geographical context, both locations themselves being a tired cliché in rom-coms about “making a choice” (see also: Friends With Benefits—not to be confused with No Strings Attached, a similarly-premised movie also starring Kutcher). But Your Place or Mine appears designed almost deliberately to be one long, drawn-out cliché.

    What’s more, considering how self-aware Brosh McKenna is re: the genre, and how meta she was able to get with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (co-created with Rachel Bloom, who appears in the movie as Scarlet), Your Place or Mine comes across almost like a knowing taunt on her part. As though to say, “Yeah, this is my genre, watch me dance circles around how easy it is to write one.” Easy to write, sure. Easy to differentiate from all the rest? Not so much. And Your Place or Mine thusly falls easily down the drain of other generic rom-coms fit for the Hallmark Channel.

    The only thing to set this one apart from such comparable schlock is that two higher-tier (read: higher cost) actors happen to be in the lead roles. But that does little to salvage what is an unapologetic “by the numbers” rom-com, complete with a requisite dramatic airport reunion in the third act. Then, of course, there’s Debbie’s initial assurance that her heart is made of stone, and that any energy that might be funneled into the search for romance has to go into caring for her only, highly-allergic-to-just-about-everything son, Jack (Wesley Kimmel, yes, Jimmy Kimmel’s nephew—because Hollywood nepotism). So who could possibly melt that “stone” but Peter? A man who himself declares that he’s an “unknowable piece of shit,” which is what he told Debbie after they first hooked up, offering it as a warning and a very viable reason not to pursue anything further with him.

    But now, twenty years later, Peter is very known to Debbie. Needless to say, no one knows him better than she does. And obviously, both of them have sold out on the lofty dreams they had when they first met, with Debbie wanting to be a book editor and, oh how perfect, Peter wanting to be a writer. In the present, Debbie has settled for “accountant” while Peter has veered into the nebulous “businessman” role—sure to mention that he makes a lot of money, without ever actually saying what he does. It’s on-brand for how vague “business” is and how undeserving of the salaries the people who work in it are. Plus, it’s important for the surrogate father figure in Jack’s life to be flush with cash as he swoops in to watch over Debbie’s precious spawn when her ex-husband’s girlfriend, Scarlet (Bloom), backs out of the “gig” after securing an acting job in Vancouver. Just one of many convenient and overt plot devices hurtling us down the path toward Debbie and Peter’s inevitable conclusion: happily ever after.

    In between, there will be one or two “snafus” at best, including Debbie catching the eye of a highly eligible bachelor named Theo Martin (Jesse Williams), who, well look at that, happens to be an Important Editor at Debbie’s favorite publishing house, Duncan Press (which might as well be called Duncan Hines). Even more “coincidental” still: Peter has a perfectly-polished manuscript in tangible form that Debbie can just hand right over to Theo, apparently taking solicitations if the person presenting them also has a snatch he might be interested in. And yes, it goes without saying that Debbie’s bold move is going to make Peter upset about offering up a “very personal work” without his consent. But, “luckily” (read: lazily), the outcome of the book’s publication is never shown later on.  

    While Debbie is gallivanting around neurotically in New York with one of Peter’s exes, Minka (Zoë Chao), intended as “comic relief” as opposed to all-out annoyance, back in L.A., there is the inexplicable presence of Steve Zahn, who, one supposes is playing a character named Zen (much downgraded from Mark Mossbacher in The White Lotus). Although he declares himself to be another rich man, he essentially lives in Debbie’s backyard “gardening” a.k.a. lending the requisite “zany” flair, as that’s just about all the “comedy” Brosh McKenna can muster for the script. With the romance element, too, being a bit lacking.

    Indeed, the one-note thud this entire production lands with is the only thing that makes it truly “standout.” That is to say, a shining beacon of banality, complete with the closing title cards, “And they lived happily ever after” and “just kidding marriage is hard but they had a good life.” Hopefully one filled with as few clunkers in the movie viewing realm as this attempt at teaching Rom-Com 101 to screenwriting students.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Rihanna Gets Through the Halftime Show

    Rihanna Gets Through the Halftime Show

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    For those wondering if Rihanna “ate” at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, the expression feels especially pointed considering most were curious as to whether Ri was sporting a food baby or an actual one inside her stomach as she materialized on a platform suspended in midair to deliver her first “live” performance since the 2018 Grammy Awards, where she was obviously able to move much more lithely as she cameo’d onstage for DJ Khaled’s rendition of “Wild Thoughts.” Back then, she was feeling an all-pink look—specifically an Adam Selman dress with 275,000 crystals sewn in and a complementing flower placed behind her ear. For this year’s unexpected reemergence, the color of choice was period red, as it has been for quite a few lately. Namely, Doja Cat at the Schiaparelli show during Paris Fashion Week and Sam Smith and Kim Petras during their Grammys appearance (you know, the one that allowed Madonna to cause such an uproar).

    From the moment Rihanna “arrived,” it was clear she was making no attempt to foil the public’s speculation by not only rubbing her belly “nurturingly,” but also accentuating the bump with a red Loewe jumpsuit zipped down to just below her stomach, allowing it to better protrude with a form-fitting red bodysuit underneath—capped off by a red bra plate. It was decidedly “apocalypse chic.” And, no doubt, Rihanna might be raising both of her children in just that type of climate… not that it will much matter to a billionaire who can better “shield” her spawns from most people’s reality. In that rich person’s vein, Rihanna opted to open the show with “Bitch Better Have My Money,” which all of her fans have responded to in the affirmative by continuing to support her non-musical endeavors in the form of Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty.

    Interpolations of “Phresh Out the Runway” briefly punctuated Rihanna pantomiming the “dirt off her shoulders” move as she then segued into “Where Have You Been” from 2011’s Talk That Talk intermixed with hints of “Cockiness (Love It)” from the same album. A.k.a. the song that has an A$AP Rocky remix featuring such increasingly canceled lyrics as, “Tell RiRi I go re-retarded on the remix” and “Cuckoo for your cocoa/Your flying fish is my favorite dish.” Sticking with the sonic theme of the Calvin Harris-oriented dance sound of the 2010s that solidified Rihanna as a reigning queen of the charts, she then transitioned into “Only Girl (In the World).” Which at least wasn’t co-produced by Dr. Luke (like “Where Have You Been” was, among other tracks on Talk That Talk). But Rihanna couldn’t stay away from Talk That Talk too long as she went back to said album to perform its seminal single, “We Found Love,” as fireworks burst forth from the, um, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. And yes, it feels slightly like a troll on Rihanna’s part to say, “We found love in a hopeless place” at a football game. With hints of “S&M” thrown in, there was a moment where Rihanna let the microphone fall away from her mouth and cease to bother “hiding” that certain portions were lip synced with as little care as she “hid” her baby bump. But this is a maneuver she’s no stranger to, having also noticeably done it during a medley of her songs at the 2016 MTV VMAs (of which this performance slightly echoes, in addition to coming across like another Savage X Fenty fashion show clip).

    It was throughout “We Found Love” that Rihanna employed the use of her eighty backup dancers for optimal effect, mimicking something out of the Never Been Kissed playbook when The Denominators, led by Aldys (Leelee Sobieski), show up to the prom in white jumpsuits as double helix DNA (the prom theme being “Made for Each Other”). While the dancers go all in on the choereo as a “Rude Boy” remix then plays, the camera eventually moves through them to reveal Rihanna lip syncing the signature line, “Come here rude boy boy, is you big enough?” A$AP has clearly answered in the confirmatory based on the presence of bébé numéro deux. A quick mention of “kiss it better” and Rihanna keeps the TikTok attention span pacing consistent as she subsequently offers up 2016’s “Work” (which Drake likely watched with a tear in his eye), the lead single from her last album, ANTI. “Wild Thoughts” followed as Rihanna taunted, “I don’t know if you could take it/I know you wanna see me nakey, nakey, naked.” A line that felt tongue-in-cheek in its goading nature… considering how clothed she was and how few people want to see a pregnant woman naked unless they have some kind of fetish. She then walks the runway flanked by her dancers while they actually dance as she takes it relatively easy. This isn’t shaming Rihanna (the only thing she should be ashamed of here is reneging on her original stance about the NFL) for knowing her limitations while pregnant, so much as a confirmation of her need to lean even further on the available “diversion” smokescreens of a live performance that lend it more flair than there actually is. This being more pronounced because she couldn’t participate as much in her condition.

    After “Wild Thoughts,” Rihanna gave a brief snippet of “Birthday Cake” (because, again, she clearly favors Talk That Talk) before leading the audience into “Pour It Up,” the non-kid-friendly track that reinforces, among other damaging messages of pro-capitalism, “All I see is dollars signs” and “Money make the world go ‘round.” Once upon a time, Ye knew that was true as well—before he blew it all up for the sake of going on one too many anti-Semitic rants. Although presently invisible to the likes Jay-Z (who, surprisingly, did not join Ri onstage at any point for “Run This Town”), Rihanna is no stranger to legitimizing controversial people, as she recently did with Johnny Depp for the Savage X Fenty Vol. 4 fashion show. That said, she felt obliged to throw in something of a non sequitur track after “Pour It Up”: “All of the Lights.” Which was not a Rihanna song, but a Kanye one from 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy featuring Kid Cudi and the Super Bowl headliner in question. It seemed like a “dog whistling” way to pay homage to Ye, as though she was saying, “I know you’re still out there.”

    That message persisted when she transitioned into “Run This Town,” a Jay-Z song from 2009 that featured, of course, Rihanna and, you guessed it, Kanye. At the time, Jay had proudly declared of the song’s title, “We basically run this town. It’s myself, Rihanna and Kanye. It’s pretty much it.” In the present, it’s clear that neither of the three do (Rihanna making that apparent with this ultimately “phoning it in” performance, complete with “flexing” by briefly stopping to reapply some makeup from her own line). What’s more, Rihanna couldn’t help but come across as though she was ripping off Jay-Z’s wife with the pregnancy serve, for, like Beyoncé at the 2011 MTV VMAs alluding to her “with child” status by announcing at the beginning of “Love On Top,” “I want you to feel the love that’s growin’ inside of me,” Rihanna “unwittingly” gave new meaning to her lyrics from “Diamonds” (preceded by the penultimate track, “Umbrella”) at the end of the show. For instead of saying, “I saw the life inside your eyes,” she sort of just incoherently trails off after “inside.” And yes, the entire audience saw the life inside of her while she performed somewhat lifelessly (despite the expected ass-licking accolades from various media outlets that remind one of the age-old Ambular query: “Hello? Am I the only one who thought it reeked?”). And one does question how much she values the life inside if she was willing to perform on a precarious, visibly teetering platform raised, at times, sixty feet in the air. Then again, breaking a contractual obligation with the NFL sounds far more dangerous.

    Additionally, it was also in the spirit of Beyoncé, who relied on the bells and whistles of a lot of backup behind her at the VMA performance where she made her pregnancy public, that Rihanna enlisted the scores of dancers dressed in white, hazmat-esque jumpsuits to do more of the heavy lifting that her own body oughtn’t be doing at this time. The illusion of “fanfare” was also added to by the constantly moving, suspended-in-the-air platforms that were an innovative technique designed to minimize “alterations” to the stadium’s grass. So no, it wasn’t about creativity, so much as practicality and serving the God of Football.

    Thus, what Rihanna did for the Halftime Show, in essence, was act like a billionaire, delegating most of the responsibility to others (manifest during a moment when she stands in front of all her agilely gyrating dancers during “Work” in the “overseeing pose”) to make the final product appear as though she had “carried it off.” Which is all the performance did: “passed.” As such, there was nothing truly memorable about the show other than Rihanna’s reliance on the “party trick” of happening to be pregnant at the same time the event coincided.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Like A Surgeon, Letting Perfectionism Run Amok: On the Latest Backlash Against Madonna’s Face

    Like A Surgeon, Letting Perfectionism Run Amok: On the Latest Backlash Against Madonna’s Face

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    Anyone who sees Madonna rather regularly (perhaps better phrased as “any Madonna fan”) is likely wondering why people are acting as though this is the first time they’ve noticed that she’s had very noticeable plastic surgery. But then again, every so often, when Madonna makes an especially public appearance, as she did at the 2023 Grammy Awards, this usual, collectively expressed outrage about her looking like, apparently, Jigsaw from Saw comes about. And so begins the requisite news cycle about the alterations to her face (which once constituted being the emblem of an entire cover story for a 2008 New York Magazine article entitled “The New New Face”).

    This time around, though, something feels slightly different about the commentary. That is to say, more people (specifically, females) were inclined to come to her defense in the matter, with a slew of women commenting on how Madonna’s overwrought plastic surgery was a classic case of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t as a woman enduring the accursed aging process. This goes tenfold for women in entertainment, who are subject to unrelenting scrutiny that so often comes in the form of the public comparing images of their younger selves to their current selves (an entire TikTok trend, to boot). The commentary then becomes something to the effect of, “She used to be such a beautiful girl”—the implied follow-up to that statement being either, “She’s really let herself go” or, if she’s had the plastic surgery tacitly expected of her, “She doesn’t even look like herself anymore.”

    This is where Madonna’s face presents an even more philosophical question: what really is “the self”? Is it the carapace we walk around in, or is it so much more than that? Of course, celebrity culture and the society it reflects would like us to believe: not so much. And Madonna, for all her exhortations to be yourself and come as you are, has also fallen prey to that trap. Those who have come to her rescue in print, however, might offer up the notion that if this is what she wants to look like, that’s her right and prerogative. Except, what no one seems to want to acknowledge is that Madonna is suffering from some very overt signs of body dysmorphia, unable to see herself objectively at this juncture…as made evident by her over-the-top, smoothed-into-oblivion face filtering on Instagram. These being the “renderings” of her appearance that she wants to see herself as, in contrast to the other image—the one she accused of being merely a case of “close-up photos of me taken with a long lens camera by a press photographer that would distort anyone’s face!!” This written in an Instagram caption that felt obliged to address all the controversy directed at her after making an introduction to Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of “Unholy” at the Grammys.

    Her intro speech for that duo was, alas, met with a leaden thud among the audience, whose lack of response evoked the crickets chirping effect when she asked in a half-hearted shouting voice, “Are you ready for a little controversyyyy?” The audience, it seemed, was not. Jaws ostensibly dropped to the floor in stunned silence as they watched a version of Madonna that was later compared to Miss Trunchbull from Matilda proceed to inform the masses, “If they call you shocking, scandalous, troublesome, problematic, provocative…or dangerous [this last word said as she lifted her skirt to the side to show off some leg], you are definitely onto something.” But none of that, least of all her leg showoff, seemed to resonate with audiences as much as her face. And to get back to that word, “problematic” (which is also what Kim Petras is despite many seeing her as a triumph for trans musicians everywhere), Madonna has become just that over the years not because she has had plastic surgery, but because she essentially refuses to have a truly candid conversation about it. Which would be far more in the spirit of the “rebel heart” she views herself as being (in addition to simply not kowtowing to the expectation that a woman should have any plastic surgery whatsoever).

    The only flagrant allusion Madonna has ever made to having work done arrived in the 2003 video for “Hollywood,” during which, to be on-brand with lyrics simultaneously extolling and deriding the vanity of Hollywood, Madonna is shown getting a series of Botox injections under duress. Though, clearly, she has been only too willing to go under the needle and knife in the two decades since that song was released. Which is why the most interesting thing about this entire “debacle” was that, at no point did Madonna address her plastic surgery at all… nor has she ever (though this addiction to the surgeon’s knife is an obvious extension of her perfectionistic nature). Instead, she wielded her go-to offensives in the aforementioned Instagram missive by saying, “Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in. A world that refuses to celebrate women past the age of forty-five and feels the need to punish her if she continues to be strong willed, hard-working and adventurous.”

    But ultimately, that’s not really what Madonna was being punished for in this instance. What she got punished for, as a few called out, was having the gall to “show her work” (a.k.a. “You’re Not Offended That Madonna’s Had Plastic Surgery, You’re Offended That You Can Tell”), which is how Monica Hesse for The Washington Post phrased it. This being a reference to a passage Hesse recalled from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, during which “the Bennet sisters are taking turns playing piano at a social gathering. Middle sister Mary ‘worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments’ and was the best player of the group, but Elizabeth, ‘easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well.’” Hesse’s point being that Madonna pulled a Mary (namesake-wise, that’s pretty appropriate) by quite literally showing her work. But again, that’s what she’s been doing for some time now, so it’s almost a source of confusion as to why this public appearance in particular was so jarring for people. Maybe the hairstyle she sported over-accentuated “the work.” Maybe the ensemble—intended to be a nod to her Erotica-born Dita persona—was causing a heightened awareness of her face somehow. Who knows? But even for all of Hesse’s well-meaning intentions to defend Madonna, there was still some insulting rhetoric at play when she said, “There was nothing subtle or easy about what had happened to Madonna’s face. There was nothing that could be politely ignored. The woman showed up as if she’d tucked two plump potatoes in her cheeks, not so much a return to her youth as a departure from any coherent age.”

    So much for solidarity in sisterhood. Which Jennifer Weiner also attempted backhandedly with an op-ed of her own for The New York Times in which she speculated that perhaps this is just Madonna’s latest “brilliant provocation.” Another calculated bid for stoking controversy and a “conversation,” if you will, therefore attention. And attention, in Madonna’s mind, has always gone hand in hand with relevance. For, like Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Madonna has adhered to that aphorism repeatedly throughout her storied forty years in the music industry. This time around, however, there seemed to be no calculation on her part behind being talked about, but rather, it was a “happy” accident (via unhappy circumstances) that she could convert into yet another dialogue about ageism against women in particular and the patriarchal double standards about how a woman of “a certain age” should or should not look.

    But her attempt at that conversation fell as flat as her rapport with the Grammy audience when, in the same post condemning ageism, she not only didn’t acknowledge having surgery at all (which is what people were shocked by), but also opted to, once more, filter the shit out of her face as she announced, “I have never apologized for any of the creative choices I have made nor the way that I look or dress and I’m not going to start.” Again, the heavy use of filters sort of negates that assertion about not apologizing for how she looks. She continued, “I look forward to many more years of subversive behavior—pushing boundaries, standing up to the patriarchy and most of all enjoying my life. Bow down bitches!” That last Beyoncé-grafted quote is not only cringe-y because it further confirms Madonna feels she needs to rely on others more “relevant” than herself for legitimacy, but also reminds one of bell hooks’ essay, “Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister?” A merciless criticism of Madonna’s careful manipulation of the queer and BIPOC communities to further her own narrative that brings us to another question about using the critique of her face as a sign of misogyny. For if she feels the reaction to her visage is rooted in misogyny, then one must also ask: is getting massive amounts of plastic surgery really standing up to the patriarchy or simply continuing to work within it (and actually fortify it)? Something that Madonna has done for her entire career. A reality hooks touched on when she wrote, “Madonna [has] clearly revealed that she can only think of exerting power along very traditional, white supremacist, capitalistic, patriarchal lines.”

    Before Madonna would go so hard at the surgeon’s office, hooks was also apt in pointing out, “Madonna often recalls that she was a working-class white girl who saw herself as ugly, as outside the mainstream beauty standard. And indeed what some of us like about her is the way she deconstructs the myth of ‘natural’ white girl beauty by exposing the extent to which it can be and is usually artificially constructed and maintained.” If that was true in 1995, when hooks’ essay was published, it’s true on an entirely new, more sinister level now.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • It’s Celebrity Blind Eyes, Hi. Celebrity Blind Eyes Are the Problem, It’s Them: Taylor Swift’s Decision to Host a Grammy After-Party at the Chateau Marmont

    It’s Celebrity Blind Eyes, Hi. Celebrity Blind Eyes Are the Problem, It’s Them: Taylor Swift’s Decision to Host a Grammy After-Party at the Chateau Marmont

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    The dark pall cast over the Chateau Marmont has been ongoing since 2020, when The Hollywood Reporter published a damning article in September entitled “Rot at Hollywood’s ‘Playground’: Chateau Marmont Staff Allege Racial Discrimination, Sexual Misconduct and Neglectful Management.” The “neglectful management” in question was ultimately attributed to hotelier and, yes, manager André Balazs, who bought the Chateau in 1990. Sixty-one years after the hotel—at that time, an apartment building—opened. For it was in February 1929, eight months before the infamous stock market crash, that the Chateau Marmont opened to the public. Described as, “Los Angeles’ newest, finest and most exclusive apartment house… [it is] superbly situated, close enough to active businesses to be accessible and far enough away to ensure quiet and privacy.”

    That assurance of privacy is what has captivated the hotel’s celebrity clientele for years. And the timing of the eventual hotel’s opening as lavish apartment residences seemed unexpectedly fortuitous in that the Great Depression era that arose soon after forced its original owner, Fred Horowitz, to sell the building to Alfred E. Smith for $750,000 in cash. This was in 1931, just a year before the 1932 Olympics would be hosted in L.A. Thus, Smith’s decision to convert the fledgling apartment building (which no one could pay the rent on during the Depression) into a hotel proved to be a business savvy maneuver—and cement the hotel’s reputation as a haven for privacy for decades to come.

    But privacy in the celebrity realm often becomes code for: turning a blind eye to egregious behavior. As Harry Cohn grossly said, “If you must get into trouble, go to the Marmont.” And many have heeded that advice, even if only “harmlessly” (see: Lindsay Lohan not paying her bill). In the wake of that aforementioned The Hollywood Reporter article, the barrage of information and testimonies gathered from employees about what cost to “the little people” that “privacy” has come at prompted a certain business associate (who preferred to remain anonymous, of course) of Balazs’ to remark to THR, “I’m reconsidering the Chateau through a totally different lens now. All of the talk of it being a ‘playground,’ of it exalting ‘privacy.’ It really was just a system that protected white men in power.” Maybe that person was genuine in their statement… or just trying to “adapt or die” in a climate that can’t help but increasingly roll its eyes at white men. At best. At worst, shame them into oblivion—granted, that’s pretty hard as most white men have no sense of shame.

    Least of all Balazs, who coined the illustrious aphorism: “All good hotels tend to lead people to do things they wouldn’t necessarily do at home.” Even though a lot of rich people probably do treat “the help” like shit at home as well, maybe they feel obliged to delight in such degradation more so when the help isn’t actually “theirs.” Like, say, Sonia Molina Sanchez, one of the subjects of the THR article and a Chateau housekeeper for roughly ten years at the time of the piece’s publication. Per THR, Sanchez “tells of an incident six years ago in which a male guest began masturbating while she was cleaning his room. She reported what happened to her manager, hoping the man would be barred from the hotel. However, the guest continued to visit (she didn’t service his room again). ‘[Management] made me believe that they were going to deal with it, but they didn’t do anything… They made me feel unsafe at work. Every time I saw him, I was reliving my experience. I felt abused again.’”

    This particular subject and scenario feels especially poignant when taking into account that the latest high-profile celebrity to turn a blind eye to the Chateau’s sordid past and business practices, Taylor Swift, has been a vocal proponent for victims of sexual harassment, having been one herself “thanks to” sleazy ex radio DJ David Mueller, who groped her during a 2013 meet-and-greet. Upon immediately reporting the incident to her mother, management and security team, Mueller was fired from the station soon after. And yet, being a white man, he figured he could gaslight her into believing she had imagined the whole thing, countersuing her for “defamation”—despite some very strong photographic evidence of the incident. A photograph that Swift did not want shown to the public, but then TMZ went and shot that to shit, leaking the photo that very much revealed some untoward behavior on Mueller’s part.

    Perhaps if Swift had had the Chateau on her side, she might have maintained some privacy vis-à-vis the photo. And yet, it is an institution like the Chateau that protects the very people that Swift has sought to call out on songs like “The Man,” wherein she asks, “When everyone believes ya, what’s that like?” Despite Balazs’ cushion of power (a byproduct of wealth), it was easy for many to believe the “low-level” employee who said of Balazs’ erratic mood swings spurred by drug-taking in THR, “It’s like having an alcoholic, drug-addicted father, but it’s your CEO.” Surely, Swift can empathize with that as well, what with her whole Scooter Braun debacle (of which she described as being subject to his “incessant, manipulative bullying”).

    Another interviewee for the article was an unnamed producer who noted, “The Chateau is such a long-running show. It’s this weird beast that kind of slipped by and shouldn’t exist as it is, but it does. But if you were to say, ‘It needs better HR and proper compliances and codes and egalitarianism at the door,’ it loses its touch.” One could say the same of celebrities themselves becoming truly “moral” in a manner that would require them to actually “walk the talk” (instead of just talking the talk), as it were. For Swift isn’t unaware of the controversy that surrounds the hotel, nor the implications of choosing to ignore its legacy.

    The same went for Beyoncé and Jay-Z when they threw an Oscars after-party at the Chateau in 2022 amid a hospitality workers’ union boycott of the establishment that began after the flagrant mistreatment of the staff came to light via THR. While the duo might have cited—if they actually cared to exhibit a guilty conscience—the fact that Bar Marmont, where the party was held, constitutes a “separate” property from the Chateau, it is nonetheless part of the same holdings company, owned by Balazs. Jay-Z also tried to mitigate the “bad look” with the consolation that he’d be bringing in “his own team” to “staff the after-party.” How kind of him. Besides, what does a New York loyal care about the rights of L.A. workers? Or Swift, another New York loyal (though not born there), for that matter?

    The answer has been made clear yet again by the latter’s decision to host a Grammys after-party at the Chateau. As Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Peterson said of Jayoncé’s Oscars after-party, it’s “not morally good.” But celebrities, who have flocked to the amoral Chateau Marmont for the past two centuries, go there precisely for that reason. Whether they want to admit it or not. This includes even the “pure” ones, like Swift. Who, for whatever reason, remains unbesmirchable. We saw that much after all the controversy over Swift being the worst offender for private jet use quickly blew over. Sometimes, all it takes is an album release for people to forgive even the worst of sins. And Swift has been forgiven repeatedly for all of hers, including her country roots that unavoidably touted a white bread existence, even if not “directly.”

    For it wasn’t until Swift started to transition to pop, moved to New York and become “correctly woke” that she finally saw fit to include people of color occasionally in her music videos (this includes the “unwittingly” Black Mirror-esque video for 2019’s “Lover”). Shit, she even threw in a fair quota for the aggressively white and heteronormative “All Too Well” video. And so, being “racially aware” all of the sudden now that she spent some time living (in a bubble) in New York, one would think that, if the sexual harassment the Chateau allows to flourish wouldn’t make Swift think twice about having her Grammys party there, then maybe the history of racial discrimination toward its employees would. Embodying an Abercrombie & Fitch practice of only allowing white employees “on the floor” and POC employees in the proverbial back, the same thing that went on at many an A&F store would also go down when Balazs showed up, with supervisors girding their loins in anticipation for his arrival ensuring that the “right” (read: white) employees were up front and center.

    A more recent article (from The Atlantic) on the dilemma posed for celebrities in continuing to relish the “experiences” provided by the Marmont asked: “Can debauchery and decency co-exist? Can luxury accommodate fair labor practices and still feel luxurious?” The response is obvious to any celebrity willing to be truthful: no. Though an ostensibly fair deal struck between Balazs and his employees, with the former capitulating to the establishment of a union, would like to make people believe otherwise. Thus, a happy ending for all that allows celebrities like Swift to feel comfortable turning a blind eye to the Chateau’s notorious track record. One that isn’t likely to dissipate just because, golly gee whiz, there’s a union now.

    In that same The Atlantic article, writer Xochitl Gonzalez notes realistically, “I also couldn’t help wondering how much the contract will change workers’ experience on the job. They’re better-compensated; they have retirement benefits and other protections. But the agreement does little to shield them from entitled or inebriated guests. It did what I used to do: it threw money at the problem.” And because of that, more “wholesome” celebrities like Swift can feel good about supporting the institution, indulging in the type of reverie that only it can provide. With a “Marmo lover” like Lana Del Rey (Swift’s musical “scissor sister,” of sorts, thanks to a shared man in Jack Antonoff that resulted in a flaccid collaboration like “Snow on the Beach”) also showing up to the after-party.

    But then, that particular chanteuse has been a long-time supporter of the Old Hollywood “glamor” the Chateau represents (openly licking its asshole at the beginning of her career with a song lyric that declared, “Likes to watch me in the glass room, bathroom, Chateau Marmont” and an interview or two filmed there to play up the “glamorous” vibe she was going for back then…before devolving her “persona” into an uncharacteristic deadbeat soccer mom aesthetic). So have many people who just can’t let go of the inanimate L.A. icon. Especially now that it’s “cleaned up” its act, surely. Though it seems rather convenient that it did so just in time for the many after-parties of the 2023 awards season (with the union contract ratified in December of 2022).

    Gonzalez isn’t so naïve about the concession to a union either, concluding in her The Atlantic piece, “I’m not sure whether a great place for the wealthy can ever be a great place for those who serve them. In a business where the key word is yes, unions can police employers, but the whole point of a luxury experience is that no one polices the guests.” Even ones as “tame” and “dulcet” as Swift and her ilk.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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