Reaching Critical Mass

blackfashion: Tina Turner photographed by Knoepfel &...

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:27:50 -0400

Tina Turner photographed by Knoepfel & Indlekofer for Vogue Germany April 2013

Hair: Jennifer Wagner
Makeup: Luca Mannucci
Stylist: Nicola Knels

YES. WERK.

L’ÉTRANGER

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 09:40:06 -0500

newyorker: For this week’s issue, Lauren Collins travels to France, where the...

This morning, I woke to Rihanna Instagramming photos of herself...

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 08:39:00 -0500

This morning, I woke to Rihanna Instagramming photos of herself on the banner of today’s Sunday Times and on the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine (above).

The Barbadian pop-star had this to say:

badgalriri: When your face is pic-stitched to Princess Diana’s on the cover of The Sunday Times…. I mean… #extraordinaRIHbehavior

and this:

badgalriri: Just so happens I came home drunk to this in a pile of papers outside my hotel room! My lil Bajan behind, never thought these many people would even know my name, now it’s next to Princess Diana’s on the front of a newspaper! Life can be such a beautiful thing when you let it be #yourejealous :)

But I don’t get the impression she actually read the article. What caught my eye was not Diana or Rihanna but Camille Paglia! Paglia makes the call that “Rihanna is the new Diana,” primarily based on the claim that “both developed a false intimacy with photographers and the public and began to cannibalize themselves in their futile search for security in love.” I don’t think Rihanna should be so flattered, after all.

There’s something intrinsically manic about fandom, isn’t there:...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 17:14:00 -0500

There’s something intrinsically manic about fandom, isn’t there: for example, Eminem’s haunting “Stan” (above) or Lady Gaga’s gruesome take on her own “Paparazzi” at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (below)? Judy Garland once said, “Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.” Does the proper performance of fandom demand “dying” to become the admired other?

Do you know where you’re going to?

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:22:00 -0500

Do you know where you’re going to?

gradientlair: haydenwilliamsillustrations: Destiny’s Child by...

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 12:00:20 -0500

gradientlair:

haydenwilliamsillustrations:

Destiny’s Child by Hayden Williams

This is stunning. It reminds me of the fashion sketches that I would look at in seamstress’ books with my late mom, who was a seamstress.

Fabulous. How very Bob Mackie.

Has anyone ever noticed how Eminem’s “Like Toy Soldiers” and...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:29:00 -0500

Has anyone ever noticed how Eminem’s “Like Toy Soldiers” and its corresponding music video rhetorically shift the meaning of Martika’s 1989 #1 pop hit, “Toy Soldiers”? Various outlets report “Toy Soldiers” is about losing a friend to drug addiction, and it emphasizes a Reagan-era message of personal responsibility for one’s actions:

If I don’t stop, the next one’s gonna be me…

Eminem’s “Like Toy Soldiers,” however, deletes drugs from the song (where it was only implied, anyway), and its music video displaces the message of personal responsibility to one that addresses the external conditions that make martyrs of too many young rap artists. Call it “Don’t hate the player, hate the game” theory.

But is blaming “the game” really code for contemporary Americans’ inability to take responsibility for playing with fire?

Florence Welch’s rhetorical theory: “Words are empty air.”

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:25:00 -0500

Florence Welch’s rhetorical theory: “Words are empty air.”

My favorite scene from Silver Linings Playbook, a true...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:02:54 -0500

My favorite scene from Silver Linings Playbook, a true “Hollywood ending” not in the original source text but that upholds the romantic comedy genre.

The First Lady says, “Swerve.” (Source: The New York Post)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:50:00 -0500

The First Lady says, “Swerve.”

(Source: The New York Post)

newyorker: Inaugural dresses are not just casual cultural...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:38:18 -0500

newyorker:

Inaugural dresses are not just casual cultural relics; not for any First Lady, and especially not for Michelle Obama…

Amy Davidson on why the First Lady’s inaugural dress is an important subject: http://nyr.kr/XV7BgT

Photograph by Mario Tama/Getty.

“Some may dispute the quality of our President, but nobody disputes the quality of our First Lady.”

In light of the debate over Beyoncé’s lipsynced “Star-Spangled...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:35:52 -0500

In light of the debate over Beyoncé’s lipsynced “Star-Spangled Banner,” I wanted to take this opportunity to say:

Yo, Beyoncé, I’m really happy for you, I’m-a let you finish, but Maya Rudolph had one of the best ‘Star-Spangled Banners’ of all-time!

ACTing UP: “Philadelphia Action Figures” So wrong, yet so right....

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:22:00 -0500

ACTing UP: “Philadelphia Action Figures”

So wrong, yet so right. How perfect is that Jason Robards action figure?

-from SNL S19: E12 (aired February 5th, 1994)

Dying that RuPaul retweeted this.

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:35:00 -0500

Dying that RuPaul retweeted this.

Ah! I hadn’t even thought about how Dirty Dancing is...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:34:17 -0500

Ah! I hadn’t even thought about how Dirty Dancing is itself a kind of “coming out” narrative! Thanks, John!

Watching Dirty Dancing again since coming out and coming into my...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:43:36 -0500

Watching Dirty Dancing again since coming out and coming into my feminism, I recognize there’s a lot of pleasure in the film for feminists and queer-identified people. In spite of its consummately heteronormative narrative, Dirty Dancing is about a love that is “taboo.” It’s about a woman who “talks back,” who insists on the ability to do what she wants, who resists the patriarchal fantasy and conscription of “virginity.”

(And, fun fact, it’s written by a woman and directed by a gay male.)

The debate that’s animated feminism since the 1970s…

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 10:42:53 -0500

The debate that’s animated feminism since the 1970s…

tyleroakley: “C’mon” - Ke$ha Ke$ha goes on a psychedelic trip...

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:00:49 -0500

tyleroakley:

“C’mon” - Ke$ha

Ke$ha goes on a psychedelic trip — and does her best Sue Lyon — for her newest music video.

andrew-michael: Let’s remember who the real queens are.

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:51:31 -0500

andrew-michael:

Let’s remember who the real queens are.

broodingsoul: This is not entirely inaccurate. The magic of...

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:01:30 -0500

broodingsoul:

This is not entirely inaccurate.

The magic of rhetoric!