Fyre Festival

Fyre festival was supposed to be an up and coming, massive, luxurious, music festival in the Bahamas. Tickets cost between $500 to $1,200 with an impressive artist line up including : Blink 182, Major Lazer, Disclosure, and many others. Many celebrities including multiple Victoria's Secret models, Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin have promoted the festival on all forms of social media including instagram and twitter. Because of these celebrities influence and promoting skills, many people have bought tickets to the anticipated festival. However, the festival seems to be the exact opposite of what it promised. Most of the music acts have dropped out of the festival, the luxurious tents and canopies that were promised are actually left over disaster relief tents from USAid, and the gourmet meals turned out to be anything but. Interesting how much trust people put in celebrities who are paid to promote new events and products.

Here is an interesting article from one of the people who worked on the festival: http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas-disaster.html

Roseanne is baaaack...

Maybe. It isn't officially official yet. But apparently ABC (the original's airers) and Netflix (pro poachers) are vying for a reboot of Roseanne, the 90s classic blue-collar sitcom.

I don't know if you guys remember this show as fondly as I do. It's kind of our Happy Days - the daughter, Darlene (Sarah Gilbert, so funny) was as close to the Fonzie of my childhood as anyone. The definition of unaffected cool, the non-traditional girl who still couples with a cute boyfriend in the program's course. Thinking back, characters like her, and Buttercup on Powerpuff Girls, and Daria of Daria all had the same anti-establishment, tough girl, gender ambiguous thing going on. That was a character type that I think really emerged in TV in the 90s, following Reagan and the reactionary culture of the 80s.

Watching clips of Darlene in her flannels... can I really say that type wasn't an influencer on me? That having the most popular sitcom in the country feature these outspoken, boyish, dgaf females didn't make me feel more comfortable going to school in boy's basketball shorts, rejecting anything pink - my 4th grade rebellion against the gender binary?

I hope this show comes back, and with John Goodman and Roseanne attached (and she herself, such a fascinating figure in gender politics, having been dealt so much derision and disrespect from men throughout her career), it'll no doubt be worth watching. But I think for me, it'll always live in the 90s/early 2000s, giving me (along with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Full House) my weekly dose of American Family. I wasn't any blue collar Chicago kid, but I connected with this family, and so far as formative sitcoms go, I can appreciate it - plus Roseanne Barr is the homie.

Supplemental Post: The It Girl Cycle

While scrolling through my Apple Newsfeed, I came across an article on Anne Hathaway and her currently evolving star persona from "utterly-annoying" to put the articles words nicely, to "likable." I think it's a really fascinating look at a current star who's image has ebed and flowed for years now.

The article then breaks down the phases of the "it girl" using examples like Jennifer Lawrence and Taylor Swift, tying it strongly to sexism.

Article: http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/10/15179082/anne-hathaway-publicity-cycle-hathahaters-jennifer-lawrence-taylor-swift

The Met Gala is IMMINENT!

The first of May is the Met Gala – known by alternate name: The Oscars of Fashion. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala is themed every year to benefit the Met Costume Institute, and this year, the theme, or suggested dress code for the gala is “avant-garde.” Specifically, it is “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between.”

Rei Kawakubo is a 74-year-old fashion designer who arrests the fashion world with designs that shock and vitalize. Big names like Lagerfeld and Marc Jacobs are huge fans of her line, Comme des Garcons, because of her breath of “newness,” never recycling her own designs, and prioritizing art over wearability. Kawakubo’s designs can be seen below:

Why is this important? Well, it’s super different from the past Met themes. The Hollywood Reporteris calling it “anti-glamour,” as Kawakubo’s designs have rarely touched red carpets, and at this year’s Met, they’ll be worn by many, many stars. They say it’ll be easy for icons like Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim K to adopt, but a little weird for more classically styled stars like Selena Gomez, Tom Brady, Gisele, the like.

Further, I think this year’s avant-garde theme is fitting with a lot of recent news on stars intersecting fashion.

A$AP Ferg, a rapper, recently partnered his streetwear brand, Traplord, with Uniform, a socially conscious and sustainable label produced in Africa, that gives a uniform to a child in Africa for every item sold.

Elle Magazine also just launched Elle Fashion Now, a new interactive platform that will spotlight emerging, new designers from around the globe. Viewers can vote for their favorite looks – a push for multiplatform engagement?

Finally, luxury brand Jimmy Choo just opened itself up to stockholders.

Commes des Garcons’s website wears only three words: “Wear Your Freedom.” I know Kawakubo has been around for 40+ years, and I know her prices ($240 for a fedora) are far from “common people,” but as the first designer to be featured at the Met since YSL in the 80s, there’s a huge distinction between the two brands. Does this mean luxury high fashion may be at the state of displacement by a more hybrid, offbeat aesthetic? 

Supplementary Post #6: Viola Davis's Oscar Speech

I've been thinking a lot about some of the speeches we heard at this year's Oscars - namely, Viola Davis's. Here it is if you haven't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHTXbGG68T8

It's an emotional speech -- and I really do believe there aren't many better actresses out there today, but she propounded something quite problematic for me:

"I became an artist—and thank God I did—because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life." 

To suggest that Hollywood storytellers are the only professionals capable of "celebrating" a life is plainly off-putting. It didn't help Davis that just a few speeches prior the directors of the short documentary winner "The White Helmets" said that White Helmet volunteers had rescued over 70,000 lives in the middle East. I would think those brave volunteers who risk their lives every day are just a bit more qualified to "celebrate" a life than even the most daring of thespians. 

Core Post #5 - JLO

In Beltran’s “The Hollywood Latina Body as Site of Social Struggle,” Beltran explores white anxieties manifested in representations of the non-white body. In closing, Beltran argues that Jennifer Lopez isn’t just another “victim” to society’s deeply embedded Eurocentric beauty favoring, and consequently another ethnic, sexualized body. Rather, Beltran calls Jennifer Lopez “empowered and empowering,” via “asserting qualities such as intelligence, assertiveness, and power” while simultaneously boasting her not-white, not-tall, not-model-thin body as beautiful (82).

I really resonate with the idea of setting forth an alternative standard of beautiful, that is equally as beautiful as the white standard. However, as this article was written in 2002, I would argue that while many of Beltran’s ideas of white primacy make a lot of sense, and are reminiscent in today’s star representation, I largely oppose her structuring of the white, curveless body as the most stable and most powerful. And this is a good thing. Meaning, I argue that the thin, tall supermodel body is no longer the most highly desired, and that there exist a range of equally desirable bodies for the general public to strive for, and this is a very good thing. What’s more, modern media loves the butts of white celebrities – Blake Lively, Emily Ratajowski, Scarlet Johannson, Demi Lovato, Jennifer Lawrence, Miley Cyrus and much much more.

While it might be easy to attribute the swelling prominence of curved bodies in Hollywood to the rise of ethnic bodies like J-Lo, I would argue that this is a rather big claim, evidenced by big booty – white – predecessors like Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe. However, Beltran’s claim that a white body is most desirable definitely has substance, especially on the grounds of the racial hierarchies of Latina and African American women in history. Here, Beltran writes that the black and Latina body were represented as the “sexualized Other,” “hypersexual,” “more in touch with their bodies,” and therefore inferior, all because of their exaggerated rear ends (81). Further, this exaggerated feature “presents” the woman who possesses the feature to the male gaze, and Beltran transfers this idea to the representation of J-Lo’s rear end in media, posing that she is also, “presenting.”

The idea that J-Lo “presents” herself to the white and male gaze on the terms of her big butt is super interesting, yet contradicted by the agency that she wields that is supposedly derived from her big butt. To explore this, “epistemology of the butt.” Here, the author connects the “big rear end” to ideas that ultimately re-enslave women to their bodies. At its core, the big rear end serves no purpose – it “upsets white notions of beauty and good taste” by exhibiting three signs of excess: excess of food, shitting, and sex (189). To me, this all makes very good sense, but how does J-Lo enter and flip the marginalized status of the “big rear end” to work in her favor? Negrón-Munaner writes that J-Lo is able to by taking control of her body, reclaiming the “big rear end.” She does this through playing the right roles that don’t draw attention to her ethnicity, while simultaneously offering her body to the Latina community as an “identification site” for beauty. All of this is incredibly fascinating, and I am curious on the way the “non-normative” body has transgressed over time to 2017.

Serena William

Serena Williams made headlines when she posted a snapchat holding her belly and with the caption “20 weeks”, revealing to the world that she’s pregnant! 20 weeks means she won the Australian Open (her 23rd grand slam win), while she was pregnant.

Of course, people still found a way to minimize her accomplishments and focus more on who her partner (co founder of Reddit is). Her announcement did not come without insensitive and racist comments. She took to instagram to respond to the comments made by tennis player, Ilie Nastase who said “Let’s see what colour it has. Chocolate with milk?”,  about her unborn baby.

Madonna News

A Madonna biopic is in works apparently, because the documentary is not enough.

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/madonna-biopic-blonde-ambition-universal-1202394295/

UPDATE
Madonna responds to the news of a biopic about her life, and she is not happy! Madonna took to Instagram after the news about the biopic receiving some traction, and stated, "Only I can tell my story".

http://ew.com/movies/2017/04/25/madonna-blond-ambition-biopic-instagram/

Supplementary Post #5 - Handmaid's Tale Shies Away from "F" word

As many of you may have seen over the weekend, The Handmaid's Tale cast (specifically, Elisabeth Moss) from the new Hulu series were under fire for refusing to call the story a feminist one. 

Here's the article with the full story:

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/handmaids-tale-hulu-feminist-elisabeth-moss

And here's Moss's quote that caught flack:

“Well, they’re both human beings. They’re the same height,” she quipped, adding later, “For me, [The Handmaid’s Tale is] not a feminist story. It’s a human story because women’s rights are human rights. So, for me it’s, I never intended to play Peggy as a feminist. I never intended to play Offred as a feminist. They’re women, and they’re humans. Offred’s a wife, a mother, a best friend. You know, she has a job. And she is a person who’s not supposed to be a hero, and she falls into it. And she kind of does what she has to do to survive, to find her daughter. It’s about love, honestly, so much of this story. So for me, you know, I never approach anything with any sort of, like, political agenda. I approach it from a very human place, I hope.”

For me, this seems like a canned answer from Moss -- one which Amazon should be quite ashamed they concocted. Why would an up and coming studio adapt one of the most beautiful and controversial pieces of 20th century literature at this moment, today? Because it is relevant - now more than 10, or even 20 years ago. And for the lead actress to avoid confronting women's rights and equality - one of the main themes of the novel (which, by no accident, is one of the most pressing issues facing America in the current political climate) is quite a cop out by the marketing powers that be. It would be naive to think Amazon execs, the showrunners and Moss didn't discuss these themes extensively during the making of the show - so why not open up that conversation to the public too?

In my mind, they're afraid to politicize a new series. They're afraid to marginalize it. And if this is just some marketing ploy, the negative attention they've received over the last 48 hours, no matter how good the show is to save itself, will undoubtedly make them second guess their strategy.  

Supplementary Post - Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump

In face of the recent news that Bill O’Reilly, of the top-rated cable news show, “The O’Reilly Factor” being forced out at Fox News – with a substantial payoff – I came across a few articles delving deeper in what exactly led to this decision.

For me, I have never watched any of O’Reilly’s show until last fall, when O’Reilly made news for his highly criticized “Chinatown” segment. Here, O’Reilly mocks elder Chinese who don’t speak English, laughs at his own jokes about karate, etc. He does this under the guise of a “man on the street” surveying residents of Chinatown about the (then) upcoming election. It was really jarring for me to watch this segment, but after reading Amy Davidson's New Yorker article, "FOX LOST BILL O’REILLY, BUT IT STILL HAS DONALD TRUMP" regarding his comparisons to Donald Trump, it’s my opinion that a lot of his allegations fit well to his persona.  

Here’s what I’ve found to be the most striking points of the article:

• -               Over the years, the Fox network has paid over $13 million on behalf of suits considering O’Reilly’s behavior.
• -               O’Reilly’s “behavior” comprises over five cases for sexual assault
• -               One of his daughters told a court examiner that she had seen him choking her mother and dragging her down a flight of stairs.
• -               Like O’Reilly, as we know, Trump has a name colored by misogyny, further evidenced with his own set of sexual assault lawsuits.
• -               Donald Trump has publically bashed Megan Kelly, boycotting the debates mediated by her, and at times considering boycotting Fox News entirely
• -               However, Trump was willing to go on the O’Reilly show, in which he glowed in compliments from the host.
• -               Evidently, after the Times ran a story about O’Reilly’s sexual assault settlements, O’Reilly responded:
• o   “I know Bill. Bill’s a good person. I don’t think Bill would do anything wrong.”

So, we can see a connect between O’Reilly and Trump. My question is – although O’Reilly is “forced out” of his position and Trump isn’t, will O’Reilly actually endure any tangible consequences? For the damages he has inflicted on women and his co-workers? For parading misogyny and racism on air as… humor? O’Reilly gets a payoff with his contract, and according to his ownstatement released regarding his departure, he is very clear that he’s definitely not sorry.