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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Anonymous asked: Thoughts on Jane Birkin? - Talented elegant actor-musician-model? Overrated at everything but she was pretty? Or, never thought about it, but she did design a nice bag for Hermes?

My thoughts about Jane Birkin is that she is and will always remain an all round feminine icon. Plain and simple.

That’s not just my contrarian view because she was an icon that overlapped into my grandparents’ and parents’ generation of the late 60s and 70s but it’s also the view of many French today too. I knew of her because her songs alongside Françoise Hardy and other French chanteuse were always playing on my parents stereo system growing up overseas. Indeed so well-documented is the love affair between Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, that to picture it retrospectively is to watch a flickering series of film stills in one’s mind. Enter the young British actress in 1970s Paris, basket swinging nonchalantly from one arm, baby daughter clasped carefully in the other, dancing down Boulevard Saint-Germain with the thoughtful French musician’s adoring figure at her side. They loved, smoked and fought fervently, their ten-year-long affair an archetype of that between musician and muse in bohemian Paris, and 40 years after its dissolution, the French still can’t get enough.

As you allude to in your question, she has famously said of herself and Serg Gainsbourg that, “He was a great man. I was just pretty.” Which has led a small minority - especially those in her native England - to be dismissive of her as a long forgotten pretty face of the 70s and who was over-rated because she was nothing without riding on the coat tails of the crooning bad boy, Gainsbourg. On the face of it it was a very disingenuous remark to make because Gainsbourg was indeed a great man (as a musician and French cultural male icon) but she was so much more than a pretty face. I strongly suggest that she was just being her usual self-deprecating Anglo-self and one who remains to be a tad embarrassed at 73 years old to be continued to be lauded as a genuine timeless French style and chanteuse icon.

No one can doubt that Jane Birkin has always had some talent as an artist. Birkin has enjoyed a long career in the arts as a singer, songwriter, actress, and director. Her longevity is one proof of her staying power. Arguably though, it is her reputation as a style icon, and more specifically being the namesake of the iconic Hermès Birkin bag for which she is best known today. She might well have been Gainsbourg’s baby doll (his words) but she was very much her own popular muse and actress.

This may surprise many but Jane Birkin has appeared in over 70 films over several decades. As an actress it is often forgotten how good she is because most of her films were made in France and she rarely did films outside of France.

She was already known even before she hooked up with Gainsbourg. She was born in 1946 to an actress mother, Judy Campbell, and her Royal Navy lieutenant-commander and spy, David Birkin. Her mother was an acclaimed actress of her generation and muse to the older Noel Coward. She had a typical upbringing that one might call comfortably posh upper middle class. She was already married at 17 to film composer, John Barry (yes, the same John Barry who composed all the music for the James Bond films and other Hollywood films (Out of Africa, Dances with Wolves, Cotton Club etc) in 1965 but divorced in 1968 with custody of their daughter. Birkin quickly became part of the swinging London scene in the 1960s and appeared briefly in a handful of films.

Birkin was already well known but it was her nude turn in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up that really put her on the map. Even today it’s seen as one of the iconic films of the swinging sixties.

She famously arrived in Paris unable to speak French with her newborn daughter in her arms. The story goes that she was offered the lead role in the 1968 French film Slogan alongside Gainsbourg after sobbing through her screen test. Starring alongside Serge Gainsbourg, Birkin performed with him on the movie’s theme song. It was on that film set that they would begin their truly passionate relationship as well as artistic collaborations throughout the 1970s.

Indeed a year later in 1969 they both released the song that has forever defined them both to non-French people around the world, the duet “Je t’aime…moi non plus” which was met with scandal and disapproval by the Vatican and banned in many countries.

It may have solidified Birkin’s status as the British-born emblem of French chic but in all honesty it also drowned out her notable acting talents. Although Birkin took a brief hiatus from acting to return as Bardot's lover in the 1973 film Don Juan or If Don Juan Were A Woman (for which she got rave reviews because she held her own against Bardot),

it was only until 1975 in Gainsbourg’s own first film Je t’aime…moi non plus that her acting was properly honoured. Again, because of the damn song, people forget that she was nominated for Best Actress César Award (The French version of the Oscars or the Brit’s version of the BAFTAs). To be nominated for a César as best actress in a culture of truly talented actresses is saying something.

This wasn’t a flash in the pan. She was nominated again in 1984 for Best Actress César Award for her role as Alma in La Pirate - directed by her then partner, Jacques Doillon with whom she did another critically acclaimed film La Fille Prodigue (1981). Her work led her to work on stage with critically acclaimed directors such as Patrice Chéreau. She worked with director Herbert Vesely on Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung in 1980, appearing as the mistress of Austrian artist Egon Schiele, played by Mathieu Carrière. Jacques Rivette collaborated with her in Love on the Ground (1983). The jury of the 1985 Venice Film Festival recognised Birkin's performance in Dust as amongst the best of the year, but decided not to award a best actress prize because it was decided by the jury that all of the actresses they judged to have made the best performances were in films that already won major awards - Dust won the Silver Lion prize so she lost out.

In 1991 she was again nominated for a César Award but this time as best supporting actress in the classic La Belle Noiseuse directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli and Emmanuelle Béart.

She did of course English films but much more sporadically. She put in a famous turn in both the delightful Hercule Poirot movies starring Peter Ustinov, Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun. She also appeared in Merchant Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998) (which also used her song "Di Doo Dah”). In 2016 she had the lead role in La femme et le TGV, a short film directed by Swiss filmmaker Timo von Gunten. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. I believe after it was widely reported that she had no plans to return to acting.

I think it’s the parochialism of the Anglo cultural world that has led to this misconception that she wasn’t an actress of note when in fact she has always been up there with the best of French actresses of her generation.

As a singing icon she has been frozen in time. Her fame for one song have clouded a proper critical appraisal of her singing talents. And I think here I have to be honest and say that her critics - from a purely singing technical point of view - might have a point her being over hyped. Not that Jane Birkin ever said she was a great singer as she described herself self-deprecatingly as singing through more keys than a locksmith.

As a singer, Birkin is of course is known for that song that cheekily and perhaps even enviously reinforces the tropes the non-French world have about the French and amour. In 1969, she and Gainsbourg released the duet "Je t'aime... moi non plus" ("I love you ... me neither"). Gainsbourg originally wrote the song for Brigitte Bardot. But Bardot famously declined to sing the track because she found it "too erotic" and she was married at the time.

Although Birkin started out in films, she preferred to focus more on singing than acting. This was primarily because of Serg Gainsbourg who saw Birkin as his muse and wrote songs for her. She released an album in 1975 entitled Lolita Go Home and in 1978 called Ex Fan des Sixties, with the help of Gainsbourg's songwriting. Her music was successful in France, but not in her home country of England. She has made more than a dozen albums, nearly all in French and perhaps one or two in her native English.

One cannot escape the nagging feeling when I listen to some of her albums - really the later ones - that if she had attempted a career as an English recording artist, she would have stayed a minor singer. If fished out of her small pond and dropped into the music ocean, then Birkin would surely in the words of one music critic, “be engulfed by the plankton of mediocrity”.

And so the troubling truth that must be faced is that because she has been granted access to the ranks of the iconic, it is more because of our interest in the intriguing liaison she had with the maverick Gainsbourg more than anything else.

There is no doubt that her marshmallow accent, reedy voice and modern look made Jane Birkin a singing idol. She has a sense of discretion that is inversely proportional to her dazzling repertoire, which is studded with such astounding masterpieces as ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’, ‘Swimming Pool’, ‘The Pirate’ and ‘Les dessous chics’. But her later recordings such as Le Symphonique, in which she is accompanied by a 90-piece orchestra - are mostly re-worked recordings of her songs with Gainsbourg who had died in 1991. Or take her 1996 album Arabesque which featured re-workings of Gainsbourg’s music, along with instrumentals backed by five Arabic musicians. Nearly all her later albums are quite mediocre.

This isn’t her fault so much as it is the musical artistry of Gainsbourg. He was the puppeteer behind the promulgation of this 'veule aesthetic', this aesthetic of weak plaintive croaking. But he was perhaps the first French singer who knew that manipulating the media would lead to manipulating record sales. Gainsbourg once had a job punching holes into métro tickets on Paris' underground before this ‘poinçonneur de lilas’ went on to almost single-handedly drag France's chanson tradition into the postmodern age. He sat in the opposite corner to the great chanson Musketeers: Leo Ferré, Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel. Gainsbourg is known in France for having cast himself in twin roles: Gainsbourg the musician and Gainsbarre the provocateur.

But there is also a definite divide in his musical production with a pre-1971 period that has a foot in chanson with driving melodies and Boris Vian narratives and the other foot in the fledgling pop tradition, and a post-1971 period that was driven more and more by dodgy electronic drumbeats, tiresome perpetual punning, and repetitive allusions to la femme enfant and Lolita-esque love (his last partner, Bambou, was 30 years his junior).

It remains difficult, therefore, to see how anyone with an ear for melody could think that much of Gainbourg's non-chanson output is melodiously pleasing. Much of his production seems so excruciatingly the work of an ageing pervert with personal hygiene issues.

My French friends, including one of my apartment neighbours in particular - of an older generation with whom I’ve grown close to - will put me through the wringer for saying anything bad about Gainsbourg and Birkin as singers. I just feel no one should be above a critical appraisal. Worse, it becomes very difficult to say anything critical for fear of being told that you just have not understood Gainsbourg's genius (surely Jarvis Cocker and Portishead can't be wrong!) But in reality there is very little to understand. He gave up trying to sing early on - the songs I really do like and find interesting - and quickly became the one-trick pony until his unfortunate death in May 1991 at 62 years old: a suggestive lyric about a questionable relationship here, a pun on every other word as an excuse for poetics there, slurred together with the voice of a sneering old man. The man stood out, broke away from troubadour-like folklore, but ultimately a tad mediocre.

The truth is Birkin without Gainsbourg was never much of a truly great singer. Combined with their public spats, Birkin reportedly grew tired of Gainsbourg's drinking and melancholy habits, so much so it became impossible to live with. They separated in 1980 despite never being married, despite reports of the contrary. Birkin later said that their friendship and his songwriting improved after they split. “You could talk back to him for once,” she said. “You were not just his creation any more.” As much as she was his muse, she was Pygmalion to his Prof. Henry Higgins. But the sad and prosaic truth is that without his unique style of songs to carry her limited singing range she was dreadfully exposed outside of Gainsbourg’s repertoire.

This was brought home to me when I listened to her cover version of Cohen’s iconic song, ‘Hallelujah’. Cohen's lyrics tell of David composing a song in praise of God, he describes the euphony that 'hallelujah' forms in his prayer, "the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift." Birkin on the other hand warbled her way through. As she said once of her singing, she went through more keys than a locksmith.

Does Jane Birkin fare better as a style icon? Yes, she does. Absolutely.

To understand the Birkin bag one has to understand how Jane Birkin a Parisienne fashion style icon without her necessarily wanting to be one.

The quintessential trope of Parisienne woman is a conflation we likely owe to the framing of the 1950s and ’60s mavens of French popular culture like Françoise Hardy, Catherine Deneuve, and Brigitte Bardot as French icons, but who remain eminently tied to Parisian mythology - their reverence to a billion-dollar fashion archetype (thank you LVMH) is as reductive to the real women of Paris as it is to the women aspiring to be them. Of course this kind of Parisienne chic exists - a walk down the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the 8th arrondissement of Paris should satisfy the many star struck ‘American Emily’s’ coming to Paris (what a God awful Netflix drama it is).

But like London or New York or even Rome and Milan, there is no such thing as one Parisian style. There’s a plurality of Parisian styles and personalities - that’s obvious from walking the different arrondissements of Paris.

Jane Birkin in her day brought her own style to fit her British personality that was a far cry from the elegantly and expensively dressed mavens. From her laissez-faire fringe, to her layered necklaces, vintage denim, peasant blouses and white t-shirts, she wowed Parisienne women.

Today if you ever wander around Paris looking at the younger girls - or look at French young girls sporting their Paris street chic style on instagram or other social media - they call it Paris street chic. It’s not fashion, it’s a street style.

It’s really bunch of every day clothing items and accessories stylishly thrown together. So it’s not surprising to learn that the original source of French street chic started with Jane Birkin. It was Birkin who ‘pioneered’ the kind of off-duty dressing you now see all over the streets of Paris. I say pioneered but the truth is she dressed for herself without even wanting or trying to become a French style icon.

Still as fashionistas will tell you, Birkin was always several decades ahead of the style curve (easy for them to say). It was stylish but above all it was timeless. It amuses me no end that when one sees doe eyed American girls who are so enamoured by French girl fashion but don’t realise they owe their thanks to an English girl.

I’m sure it amuses Birkin too because she always thought her Haute-hippie style and free spirit was her way to insulate her personal insecurities about how well dressed and stylish haute bourgeois Parisian women were in their Chanel and YSL clothing. Her style is her own, as she said to Vogue, “I buy things often, but I sleep in them for two weeks, and then they really look quite rough.”

If there is common ground between the elegantly dressed mavens of high end brand fashion houses and the ultra casual minimalist street wear it is around the very simple Parisian quality of simplicity. Simplicity - not necessarily in colour or print but in the total look. Simple but important enough for a younger generation of Parisienne women should be free to express themselves free from the grips of a generations-old myth.

In a nutshell if Birkin’s style and influence endures it’s because her style is about simplicity.

Nevertheless her place as a style icon rests upon a simple straw basket (or wicker basket). However, in 1981 a chance encounter on a plane would result in the straw basket’s replacement by the world’s most desired leather bag - the Hermès Birkin bag.

In the 70s she was mainly known for her use of a straw/wicker basket which she used instead of a regular handbag. She was famous for her straw basket as she went everywhere with it, even dancing at the most exclusive of clubs or eating at the finest dining places. She carried all kinds of bits and bobs, including baby milk bottles, diapers, and baby change wear as well as collecting trinkets on her journeys around Paris. It was seen as a stylish English eccentricity by the Parisians.

There is famous story about Jane Birkin and her straw basket that has entered into legend. The straw basket bag’s anonymous shape and generous size lent it to concealment, so when, during a lavish Christmas evening spent at the famous Parisian Bistro Maxim’s with Gainsbourg, the young English actress slipped a few pieces of the institution’s fine monogrammed crockery into it, nobody batted an eyelid. It was only later, when the basket slipped from her wrist while signing an autograph and sent her stash of china flying across the floor, that she was found out. In a perfect act of Parisian discretion a kindly waiter collected it up for her and replaced it in the basket. “A gift from Maxim’s,” he is reported to have whispered to her. “If you require more, you only have to ask.”

In 1981, Birkin was on a short flight from Paris to London. Carrying her famous straw basket, she placed it in the overhead compartment of her seat. However, the lid of the basket opened, and the contents spilled all over the floor and on the seats around her. Sitting next to her and assisting her in retrieving the contents of her basket was the late executive of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas. Birkin complained to Dumas that she was unable to find a suitable leather weekend bag that she liked. According to folklore, the remainder of the flight consisted of the pair designing a bag together and sketching ideas on an air sickness bag.

Fast forward three years and a prototype handbag was developed and presented to Jane Birkin – the Hermès Birkin bag. The bag, crafted from supple leather and handmade in France by a single, highly trained artisan, and takes up to 24 hours to complete. Designed specifically to provide ample room for jet-setting women, the bag quickly became a fashion icon and status symbol for women worldwide. The Birkin bag comes in a range of sizes, leathers, exotic skins, and hardware, with new colours introduced each season and limited edition versions of the bag crafted occasionally.

Since the creation of the very first Birkin bag, Jane Birkin had always carried one. However, true to her unique style and fashion, she continually customised her bags with beads, trinkets, protest stickers, and other titbits to create a unique look. Birkin even defaced her namesake’s bag on Japanese TV in 2008. The fashion icon repeatedly stamped on a tan-coloured Birkin bag to make it look “unique.”

Not surprisingly, the customisation of the Birkin bag caught on quickly and “defacing” Birkin bags is now a modern and trendy pastime practiced by D list celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Tamara Ecclestone, and many of today’s so-called fashion icons and social media style influencers.

Commendably Birkin auctions off her complimentary Birkin bags from Hermès for charitable causes. She often works with Amnesty International on humanitarian issues and donates her yearly royalties for the Birkin bag (approximately $50,000 per year) to a charity of her choice. Jane Birkin has said she now rarely uses the famous handbag that bears her name. In an interview with the BBC she told the BBC that if, like her, she used to fill the bag with "junk... and half the furniture from your house, it's a very, very heavy bag. Now I fill my pockets like a man, because then you don't actually have to carry anything."

In typical Jane Birkin style, she doesn't own one.

Jane Birkin will always be France’s favourite “petite Anglaise” as she was often known. And therein lies the clue why she remains beloved French icon despite her being English for two main reasons that come to mind.

Firstly, I suspect it’s because of her remarkable quality to be down to earth and cheerfully optimistic in public. Above all she displays a wonderful talent for mocking herself and not taking herself seriously. When for instance she was invited to take a role in a theatre production of a play by the 17th-century French writer Marivaux, she thought she was in a play by Marie Vau! The French have always been beguiled by her because of the stardust of the Sixties.

Despite Birkin being diagnosed with leukaemia in 2002, she said she conducted her life and love affairs with “an absolutely unfounded optimism”. That is not in doubt. With the recent publication of her diaries (Munkey Diaries 1957-1982 - a fantastic read) a more fuller picture has emerged that have further endeared her to the French.

Birkin was always riddled with insecurities, “I think I’m nothing, I’m persecuted by women who I love more than myself... Oh for the face of Nastassja Kinski, of Fanny Ardant, oh, the talent, the courage, the qualities. I have nothing interesting to say...” Above all she was convinced she was “suffering from mediocrity and no personality”, and wanted above all was to be loved. England never gave her that love, France did so happily. Even today France openly loves her.

Secondly, the French, especially the Parisians, love her because she embraces the French way of life with gusto and gaeity. Birkin speaks French fine but she stumbles in her heavily accented French. But she doesn’t mind and neither do the French. She was schooled in England into a culture where it’s okay to stumble, to try and fail, to be less than perfect. However, the old, rote, didactic, shame-based French schooling system dies hard. French people are often afraid to speak English unless they can feel assured it is impeccable at the same time - alomost in contradiction - they feel put out by foreigners who simply speak English to them without even having the courtesy to speak a little French, they think it rude and respond accordingly. But Birkin is so transparent and open to falling flat on her face that I think the Parisians find it strangely endearing.

Birkin is that living truism that you don’t have to be French to be a Parisian icon of style and especially when beauty pertains to age.

Outside of native born French women, Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy, Catherine Deneueve, Jeanne Moreau, Fanny Ardant, Juliette Binoche, Inés de la Fressange and one or two others (Isabelle Huppert is an outlier of arthouse chic style), there have been other non-French women besides Jane Birkin who have personified Parisian chic and style: Sylvia Vartan, Charlotte Rampling, Nastassja Kinski, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Carla Bruni, to name but a few. Each has come to embody ‘Parisian style’ without ever being raised here but now very much live and breathe the Parisienne spirit.

Just as importantly Paris, like French culture as a whole, values beauty especially as it ages. There are many seasons to women as there are to make fine wine. This is one reason why Jane Birkin endures even at the age of 73 years old. Style icons like Jane Birkin and others like Inés de la Fressange (who was the face of Chanel for so long and is now going strong at 63 years old) have given a well deserved middle finger to the notion that there is a codified set of rules for fashion and beauty for women over 50 years old.

Indeed this is one of the secrets of living in Paris, it knows how to renew and refresh itself without losing its unique identity e.g. the model and actress Jeanne Damas, is arguably this current generation’s Jane Birkin and all power to her.

The stylish contributions of all these iconic women, and especially Jane Birkin, is a testament of why the allure of Paris as a cultural centre will continue to endure seamlessly because it values the aesthetic truth that true style is beauty that timelessly matures.

Birkin said once she was in no doubt she would always be best known for her erotic record Je t'aime, moi non plus. Of course she under sells herself as she has always done because she is so much more.

Compare her to modern style icons. Kim Kardashian would be the nearest but her fame as a style icon rests on one cynically contrived (and boring) sex tape, a narcissistic family TV reality show, and being married to a grossly deluded rap singer. I don’t think the modern day airheads are true style icons but fashion victims because as Yves Saint Laurent once memorably put it, “Fashions fade, style endures”.

Jane Birkin will endure. Her contribution to French cultural life has been immense. The gap-tooth smile that looks irrepressibly cool, the messy fringe, the long string bean legs, the ability to elegantly wear denim for any and every situation, the reason she made a lowly wicker basket her bag of choice all year long. We may never know why, but honestly it’s not worth questioning at this point because it was so seriously chic - is one even allowed to say the word chic again? When it comes to Birkin, it’s a word that bears repeating.

Birkin might cheerfully be accepting of the fact that for an older generation much of her fame still rests on one scandalous song but for the contemporary generation it will be the Hermès Birkin bag.

"It's a rather extraordinary record," Birkin said once. "Perhaps more interesting than the bag." I daresay Serg Gainsbourg would agree about the song and the bag.

Ah yes that bag. The Birkin bag. To me it’s not a fashion item but a life saver.

From mothers juggling diapers and milk bottles whilst chasing after their toddlers in stores to busy career women hurriedly scooping up and stuffing in reams of files, phone and lap top while rushing off their feet to their next meeting all can thank ‘la petite Anglaise’ for her Birkin bag.

I know I do. I use mine for a work lap top, mobile phone, work files and folders, pens, chewing gum, girls stuff (make up kit and tampons), a spare pair of knickers, sun glasses, gloves, an apple, a bottle of water, playing cards, a cigar case (and cutter and lighter), and a few books to read when I fly on a business trip.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #jane birkin #serg gainsbourg #icon #birkin bag #paris #parisienne #style #music #fashion #paris street chic #culture #society #england #1960s #personal #france #film #femme #beauty

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asianhappinesss · 3 years

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Cute Programmer (2021)

Summary

After falling in love with genius programmer Jiang Yi Cheng, Lu Li enrols into the school he once studied at, and also took up the same major - calculus. Setting Jiang Yi Cheng as her role model in her heart, she achieves good grades in school. However after graduation, she did not expect that Jiang Yi Cheng's company does not recruit female employees. Lu Li decides to disguise as a man and enter the company. However, she met difficulty both in dealing with Jiang Yi Cheng's demands, as well as hiding her identity. Finally with her perseverance, she grabbed hold of an opportunity and managed to come to an agreement with Jiang Yi Cheng. The two would become a "contract couple" and stay together for one year. Slowly, Jiang Yi Cheng finds himself falling for Lu Li.

Review

This review may contain spoilers

Not Worth The Time

After watching all the 30 episodes of Cute Programmer, I can only conclude that there is nothing cute about this drama at all. I will try not to rant and be fair in my assessment but I really cannot recommend a watch for this one. There are a few reasons why which I will elaborate below. Anyway, this is not a cross-dressing romance drama like My Unicorn Girl even though it might look like one in the initial episode. Lu Li’s gender is already fully exposed by Episode 5 and the cross-dressing plot stops there. Therefore, if you like the female pretending to be male trope in your romance dramas, Cute Programmer will not be a good choice at all. Neither does it focus much on the programming aspect or the business side of things unlike My Bargain Queen. It is pure romance with the relationship between the leads being central to the whole drama. There is nothing wrong with a romance-driven drama except that everything just turns out to be mediocre in Cute Programmer. Recycled Plot The plot itself is a rehashed of common themes in the romance genre. So, you will find cross-dressing in the first few episodes, then a contract marriage and co-habitation followed by a jealous ex returning. If you have watched enough of Chinese rom-coms and romance dramas, I think you can pretty much get an idea of what Cute Programmer entails. While it is okay to have recycled plots, they must be done in a way that is sensible to viewers. For this drama, a lot of things don’t exactly appear as sensible or logical. Hence, you will have a cross-dresser masquerading as a male being able to get a job in a tech company without anyone questioning her gender. You will also have the female lead agreeing to marry the male lead when he obviously doesn’t even like her. Basically, it is the type of drama that you have to overlook the details if you want to enjoy it. I’m not too fussy about details at times but when other factors also start to weigh down the overall enjoyment of the story, that is when it goes downhill for me. Badly Written Characters I think the way the characters are written is the main turn off that kills this drama. Yi Cheng is someone who is childish and easily irritated. He is not evil or cruel. Conversely, he is a kind man behind all the harsh words and actions. However, he is also an insensitive fellow and lacks communication skills. So, some of his actions towards Lu Li border on petty bullying as he shows his irritation. Viewers’ patience with him will be further tested when his ex-girlfriend shows up as this will then shows his stupidity. Lu Li’s character is not much better. I wouldn’t say she is like a doormat but simply nonsensical. She has a long-term crush on Yi Cheng but to cross-dress as a man to join his company is simply silly. There is nothing in Yi Cheng that is worth hanging on to for 5 years as he doesn’t even know who she is before she joins the company. But Lu Li is made out to be a girl who is hopelessly in love who doesn’t mind marrying someone who doesn’t like her. She even tolerates his bad attitude towards her most of the time. I guess the redeeming quality in these 2 characters is that they do eventually grow to be more matured. But you will have to sit through more than 20 episodes to see that happen. Some of the supporting characters are no better. Gu Mo is a guy who would use his brother status to secretly scare away all of Xiao Qi’s suitors. And he has been doing that since her high school days without her knowledge to chase away his love rivals. I don’t know how this kind of controlling behavior could sound romantic but that is how it is in the drama. Leads Lack Chemistry Personally, I cannot detect enough chemistry between Xing Zhao Lin and Bambi Zhu for this romance drama to flourish. Sometimes, even with a simple plot, a sizzling chemistry can make a huge difference in a romance drama as can be seen in You Are My Glory and My Little Happiness. But the couple in my Cute Programmer simply fails to inspire. It is as if they are just going through the motions to deliver their lines without really

getting into the feeling of being lovers. I don’t know if it is the problem with the script, the badly written characters or the acting. Perhaps it is a combination of all 3. If the plot and characters are top notch, the average chemistry displayed could probably still pass muster. But when the other factors are equally mediocre, then the lack of chemistry becomes amplified here. My Verdict – Watch Something Else Instead Cuteness is certainly not the hallmark of this drama especially when you have a jealous ex lurking around for about 10 episodes. That is more annoyance than cuteness. There is not much of sugar and fluff either as the love is very much one-sided for three-quarters of the story. So, if you want to see cuteness and sweetness, you are much better off watching Forever And Ever or even a typical rom-com like Sweet Teeth. Having said that, I understand there are plenty of Xing Zhao Lin’s fans out there who might still give this a go. Well, if you reduce your expectations, this might still be watchable without too much complaints. As long as you can shy away from dissecting the characters’ antics and behaviors, this could work for you. Furthermore, if you see bickering, harmless jealousy, and childishness as romantic, then you would probably be able to enjoy it to a certain extent . For this Cute Programmer review, I would give it a score of 5.5/10. I’m not going to recommend a watch for this one unless you are a diehard fan of the leads. There are just too many weaknesses to drag the drama down that it is difficult to say that it is worth the time especially when it is 30 episodes long. The whole story is predictable and I don’t think it will resonate with the more matured viewers. If you are going to watch it, just think of it as pure entertainment and switch off your brain for better enjoyment!

#cdrama

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zot3-flopped · 3 years

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#she's probably unfollowing her dash bc a lot of larries are radifying and bitching about the rat's lack of opportunities compared to harry

My Top Posts in 2021

11 notes • Posted 2021-02-15 19:52:28 GMT

I don't know, I honestly don't think Starfox would have to be a major character for Harry to sign on. I feel like he might prefer it that way, maybe it is just a fun cameo, maybe his future role will be a character that pops up here and there, this might work better for his music and other commitments. I just don't get the vibe it has to be a major role in future for him

Harry never attended the Met Gala as a guest, only as host. He refused to appear in US Vogue unless it was as the first male ever to grace the cover. His first solo cover was Rolling Stone. His first ever acting role was a substantial part in a Christopher Nolan movie. He debuted his first solo single on SNL's first ever simultaneous east/west coast broadcast.

If you think he's signed with Marvel to play a cute now-you-see-him-now-you-don't cameo, you don't know him.

13 notes • Posted 2021-10-20 01:07:37 GMT

Look at Harry’s defined abs! 😍

This was his sexiest performance ever! He was so relaxed too, looking to the side and laughing. I loved the fitted leather suit and the way he tossed the boa to the side and started grooving. His vocals were superb too. Harry has a unique depth and texture to his voice that is hard to define - it really pulls on your heart strings and is kind of a turn on too. Nobody else sounds like that. Zayn in comparison is just a generic high wailing singer.

14 notes • Posted 2021-03-15 00:38:39 GMT

I’m sorry but I get it. It clicked. We got Harry’s Italy pics today and I finally understood all the Harry Styles hate blogs. How can they NOT hate him? Look at those pics! You either LOVE HIM and support him and are SO FUCKING HAPPY to be his fan, or you loathe him. He gives us EVERYTHING. He looks like a model, is intelligent and articulate, cultured, into all forms of art, works hard as fuck, quality music. Incredible content, nothing half assed. But he also doesn’t take himself seriously, is funny, witty, lovable, and kind to a fault. And he does it all without being in your face or annoying. OF COURSE they hate him 😭 they either surrender and worship him or go to the opposite spectrum and hate him. They can’t just ignore (almost) perfection.

Love this ask! So true. What would you rather have? A greedy bastard pushing NFTs at you, a grimy clown making a fish finger sandwich, or Harry Styles on a boat in Venice, arriving to film his arthouse movie?

15 notes • Posted 2021-06-14 18:18:23 GMT

A lot of fandoms love to call Harry a "mediocre white men" when that’s very far from the truth, when he’s doing things very differently to any other white/male artists right now with similar level of success. I think people do that because they’re really threatened by him, not because he is/can be more successful than they're faves (male or female), but because he's successful playing the game industry very different than most artist of his generation are doing right now. P1/7

I'm mainly talking about how much control he gives to fans over his career. Harry is doing amazing without feeling the need to be on social media, selling access to his personal life or his creative processes, or putting content all the time to keep his fans interested and engaged.

He doesn’t feel the need to trick his fans into thinking they have some real access to him. He just puts his projects out (music, movies, photoshoots, etc.) when they’re ready, lets his fans and gp know, and then lets is decide if we want to support him or not.

Also, he doesn’t legitimate any discourse (negative, or rarely positive) on twitter or other social media, with replies/statements. Which make his fans and haters crazy lol .

Social media is the only place where fans feel they have some power over celebrities. Harry knows it, so he keeps away from it, keeps doing whatever he wants when he wants, no matter how much fans cries about it or haters try to drag him for it.

That’s basically it, that’s his general approach. As an artist he basically says “My art is the only thing I’m willing to give to you, take it or leave it” and I think it’s very smart and pretty fair (and may people have mostly took it!).

So, if he can do that, why other artist can’t do the same if they play their cards just right? That’s why I think he’s so threatening to other fandoms, and why so many people still are bitter about him not being on social media more.

He’s extremely successful without giving the control and the say to his fans about his career, level of access and his decisions/opinions, which other fandoms are very used to have in some grade, and they definitely don’t want to lose that. Hell, many of his fans still are trying to shame him to get that control back over him. They’re still failing tho.

So, people don’t want an artist like Harry being successful, because even tho he benefited a lot of 1D and its sm strategy, right now he’s sustaining his solo career without being a slave of it. He’s basically managing his career like previous generations of artists, where your music, art and charisma basically were the only way you could get famous and successful.

Actual stan culture cannot survive without artists all the time looking desperately for clout or earning woke points. Actual stan culture can't survive with artists like Harry, that’s why many fandoms try to drag him down

....

Fully agree! 👏👏👏👏If only more artists were like Harry, we'd probably see the end of toxic stan twitter.

16 notes • Posted 2021-03-12 23:34:27 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #tumblr year in review #lol at the longest tag #blog post

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uncloseted · 3 years

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https://youtu.be/kJcpTSNWXdQ

https://youtu.be/yIZ8zUOXh2g

Can you watch these when you have the time? Im curious about your opinion on this because I think youre really smart and these are some topics rhats been on my mind lately! Thnk you so much ❤️❤️

Okay, so there’s a lot here. I feel like I should admit upfront that I dislike Joe Rogan. I won’t really dig into why because you didn’t ask for that, but I will say that if you want to listen to someone wax philosophical, I feel like it should be someone who was actually a philosopher (like Contrapoints or PhilosophyTube) instead of UFC commentator and former host of Fear Factor, Joe Rogan. Anyway, let’s dig into these videos….

The first one is called “Unattainable Beauty Standard Outrage” and it’s with stand-up comedian Bill Burr. Frankly, I find it to be frustrating because they’re both average looking white men complaining about an issue that they’re really not subject to in any meaningful way. Throughout this video, they conflate a lot of different issues- the beauty standards average men and women are held to, the (edited) beauty standards present in advertisements, and the physical requirements actors and actresses are held to are all the same in this conversation. They make them seem like it’s all the same when in reality that’s just…. three different conversations completely. I think that’s a result of the fact that they’re just kind of talking, not making an argument or even really trying to get to a point.

Let’s start out with what they’re saying about the beauty standards that average people are held to. Basically, their point is that if you cared about how you looked, you can compensate for it in other ways. The point here boils down to “ugly people won’t take the time to develop a personality like the rest of us, and they’re mad that they get treated differently.” But the reality is that you can have a great personality, but discrimination based on physical appearance will still exist. Similar to how discrimination based on sexuality isn’t cancelled out by white privilege or discrimination based on race isn’t cancelled out by being male, discrimination based on appearance isn’t cancelled out by having a winning personality. Ugly people earn less than their attractive counterparts, on average have fewer friends, worse social skills, and less active sex lives, and are seen as less moral, trustworthy, and competent. Women have it even worse; while men are able to compensate for their looks somewhat (and there are more “acceptable” looks that a man can have) through factors like wealth, social capital, and personality, women are taught from a young age that being attractive is the most important thing that they can be. Because of that, women suffer more from looks-based discrimination than men do and are more impacted every time the standard for female beauty gets raised.

Moving on, they start complaining that the UK is banning advertisements that feature impossible standards of beauty. To my knowledge, it’s actually only the London underground that did this, and I believe it specifically concerned advertisements that are digitally altered but selling a beauty product (correct me if I’m wrong here). Specifically in this episode, they’re talking about products that promise you a “summer body” with a digitally altered image of a bikini model. It’s false advertising when you show an edited model who supposedly got their body by using your product- and that should be illegal. False advertising is illegal in lots of other realms. You’re not allowed to claim that your dietary supplement will cure cancer, and you shouldn’t be able to claim that your “summer body” product will make you look like a digitally altered model. Joe and Bill comment that people are being overly sensitive, and that these advertisements just make them “want to go to the gym”, but that misses the point completely. Even if you went to the gym, there’s still tens of thousands of dollars of cosmetic surgeries and digital alterations that went into making that model look like that. It’s not about work. Those bodies aren’t achievable with work- the models themselves, who work out for hours a day and follow very strict diets, don’t look like that in real life either. Pretending that those images are achievable through “hard work” is actually really damaging. It can lead to people engaging in dangerous diets and exercise regimens, taking untested supplements, and feeling that their lack of results is a moral failing because they’re not “working hard enough” (which decreases self esteem).

Then they start talking about actors and actresses who are asked to lose weight for movies, and one actress in particular who publicly complained that she was asked to lose 15 pounds for a role. Their takeaway is that the actress who complained is being lazy, that she was hired to be hot, and that she’s being ungrateful for the opportunity. A quick fact check suggests that the person they’re talking about is Jennifer Lawrence, who said she “was told by producers of a film to lose 15 pounds in two weeks." That’s a very different story to the one that they’re telling. To lose 15 pounds in two weeks, 5′9, 140 pound Jennifer Lawrence would have had to burn 52,500 calories. Even if she ate absolutely nothing and worked out at the level of an Olympic athlete 7 days a week, she would still have only burned 39,354 calories in two weeks. That’s still 3.75 pounds short of 15 pounds of weight loss. It was literally an impossible ask. Upon telling the producer that she thought the weight loss demands were not appropriate, “he said he didn’t know why everyone thought I was so fat, he thought I was ‘perfectly fuckable.'” And so to paint it as Jennifer Lawrence being lazy is a bit disingenuous. But I’m willing to accept that maybe they just didn’t have that context, because it seems like their goal wasn’t actually to have a discussion based in research or argumentation- it’s to make the point that people are overly sensitive now and asking the world to cater to them.

Closing this conversation out, I don’t think it’s wrong for studios to ask actors to change their appearance for a role. A big part of why people get cast for particular roles is their appearance, and as an actor, you have to be willing to adapt your appearance for the role. Just like you may be asked to dye your hair or wear colored contacts, I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to ask an actor to gain or lose weight for a role (especially since both men and women are asked to do that, and the studio provides them with the support to be able to do that safely). Those bodies are achievable with work, and I don’t think it’s wrong to show those. But I think there’s a larger conversation to be had about who’s being asked to change their weight and why. Christian Bale lost 62 pounds for The Machinist because his character was supposed to be emaciated from his insomnia. The studio didn’t ask Bale to do that. He made the decision to do it on his own, even though it made sense for his character to be that thin. By contrast, Jennifer Lawrence was asked by the studio to lose 15 pounds to... what? Look hotter in the movie? Almost every female actress is expected to look a certain way in order to even be considered for a role, whereas men can be fat, mediocre looking, older, balding, and still be cast. Even when a woman is playing a role where being hot isn’t part of the narrative at all, she’s still expected to be hot. Even when you’re playing a character that’s “let themself go” or has “hit rock bottom”, the actress needs to look hot. For men, there’s not that same requirement. Having hot girls in your movie absolutely do get more people to see it, sure, but the cost is that you’re reinforcing the idea that women must be, above else, hot all the time.

So that’s that. Let’s move on to the second video, “No, It's Not "All Men"”, featuring comedian Iliza Shlesinger. I should say that I like Iliza quite a bit and I’ve seen her perform, so I’m curious to see where this goes. It’s also important to note they’ve been smoking weed, which... provides some context to this episode, I think.

So again, they start by bitching about this “beach body ready” ad that got “pulled in the UK” (actually just from the London underground) that Joe is so up in arms about. This time he shows the ad, and it turns out that it was pulled due to “concerns about a range of health and weight loss claims made in the ad”. The concern is false advertising. So again, to paint it as, “ugly women are too sensitive because some women are actually beautiful” is disingenuous, and serving the narrative that “people these days are too sensitive”. They’re also making the assumption that this ad hasn’t been digitally altered, which I find difficult to believe.

Iliza goes on to talk about how her boobs are real and some people ask her if they’re fake, and she doesn’t like that, and how women shouldn’t judge other women to their faces about how fake they perceive them to be. I think that’s a fine claim to make on an interpersonal level, but I also think that if we don’t start acknowledging all of the manipulation and work that goes into appearing “effortlessly beautiful”, we’re going to fall deeper into this beauty standard arms race. Iliza kind of gets a pass on this because she openly admits to having a “fake nose”. Then she makes a good point about how women will be hated no matter what they do, and so it’s important to remember that when someone doesn’t like you, it typically has more to do with them than it does with you. She also says that when you don’t like someone, it’s important to do some introspection to figure out where that’s coming from, which is also great advice. Then they wander into talking about how feminism doesn’t mean that you like women more than men or that you’re asking for special treatment, just that you support the idea of equality, and that’s fine. Joe rogan praises Iliza for being “a feminist, but not annoying”, which is gross.

Iliza then says that feminists who say, “all men” are part of the problem, and I think she’s just missing the point. When feminists say, “yes, all men”, what they mean is that all men are benefiting from male privilege, regardless of the actions that they’re taking (or not) to better that situation. People in positions of privilege have to acknowledge that privilege in order to be able to better the situation, and by separating yourself out as “not one of those men”, you’re saying “it’s not my problem because I’m one of the good ones, so I don’t have to think about myself critically or alter my behavior in any way.” That said, I think Iliza is right that that stance can be taken too far and serve to alienate the men who are allies in the feminist fight for equality.

Then, Iliza equates the phrases “all men are bad” and “all women are sluts”. I think this is a bad take; “all men are bad” is a generalization made by a marginalized group about a powerful group that they’ve been victimized by. Every woman I know has had some type of intimidating, frightening, dangerous, humiliating, or dehumanizing experience with a man during their lifetime. “All women are sluts” is a powerful group insulting a group that they marginalize, with the intention of controlling that group’s actions (by making them feel ashamed of being “slutty” they’ll stop being “sluts). “Slut” is also particularly charged in this scenario, because it centers maleness. What is a slut? A slut is (usually) a woman who sleeps with men but who won’t sleep with the man calling her a slut. Which, coming full circle, is why some women say “all men are bad”.

I get their larger point that generalizations are rarely helpful, but again, they’re making this false equivalency between a political slogan (”all men”), a gendered insult (“all women are sluts”), and random, unhelpful advice, (”women want you to slow down in the bedroom”). In the first case, the generalization serves a purpose- it’s to let men know that they’re not exempt because they’re a “good guy”. In the second case, it’s an insult that contributes to a gendered power structure. In the third case, it’s just shorthand for “the majority of women that we’ve surveyed” because repeating that phrase over and over again will take away from the point they’re trying to make (that maybe you could be better in bed by listening to the sluts, Joe).

All in all, I like this one better than the first one, but Joe Rogan hasn’t grown on me over the course of watching these videos.

#Anonymous #effys-closet #effys closet

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Kevin Can F**K Himself Shows Why The Laugh Track Needs to Die

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The title card for the new AMC series Kevin Can F**K Himself isn’t accompanied by a jaunty tune or a wild sound effect. When the title appears on the screen, it’s soundtracked by a smattering of aggressive laughter. Creeping up below the laughter is a distressing screeching noise, meant to indicate the rapidly fraying sanity of our heroine.

So it’s quite fitting that Kevin Can F**K Himself makes a compelling case for why laugh tracks (or canned laughter) need to die a quick death. The series centers on Allison McRoberts (Annie Murphy), a woman trapped in a marriage to the titular Kevin. Kevin is an infuriating man-child. He throws keg parties on his wedding anniversary, spends obscene amounts of money on sports memorabilia, and treats Allison like an accessory. He is emotionally abusive, often making Allison feel worthless by telling her things like she’s a bad driver or that she never finishes things so that he can keep her all to himself.

Approximately a third of the series takes place in lala sitcom land in which the lighting is abundant, the set is clearly facing an audience, and Kevin is always there, chewing up the scenery like Pac Man chowing down on glowing dots. However, whenever Kevin exits, Allison finds herself in a more contemplative and complex (aka: single-camera) existence. The trouble is she doesn’t have much of an identity anymore because her entire life has hinged on being Kevin’s long-suffering wife. The juxtaposition of the sitcom world against a more realistic setting serves to illustrate just how jarring and unnecessary canned laughter is to a TV show. When we watch dramas, we don’t hear people bawling over the sad parts or gasping during the shocking moments. Nope. So why do laugh tracks persist?

As an early millennial, I grew up in a world in which laugh tracks were the norm. From “Must See TV” on NBC in the ‘90s to the vintage sitcoms on Nick at Nite, comedy was always served up with a heaping side of giggles and guffaws. Historically, the sitcom cadence did rely on a call-and response reaction as they actually were often filmed in front of a live studio audience, but it was rare that the responses that made it to the final episode were genuine and uncut.

To be clear, when I’m referring to canned laughter here, I’m not just referring to the prerecorded kind. Sure, that might be the official definition, but even the laughter we hear from live studio audiences is goosed in some way prior to airtime. The practice of “sweetening” the laugh track, or adding in favorable reactions to amplify certain jokes has been in practice for decades, and it’s still in use today. While the creators of a show might be able to proudly say that the reactions came from an actual audience, the reactions are almost always tweaked in post-production in order to punch up the jokes that the creators or network want to land. Therefore, the laugh track on all of your favorite sitcoms is a lie.

An argument could potentially be made that the practice of adding in a laugh track might make people feel a sense of camaraderie or community with others watching. And this is somewhat true. In a 2011 article on laugh tracks, NBC News noted a 1974 psychological study in which it was found that people laughed more frequently if they heard canned laughter following a joke. These types of social cues can make individuals feel comfortable, but they can also promote conformity. Looking back on the history of sitcoms, it sure seems as if laugh tracks have been complicit in keeping misogynistic and racist messaging at the forefront of comedy.

Kevin Can F**K Himself plays with this idea in every frame of its sitcom world. Nothing is actually very funny within the brightly lit walls of the McRoberts’s house. As previously established, Kevin is simply awful. He’s a huge loser. Yours truly wanted to throttle him, Homer Simpson style, during every scene he was in. Yet, since the sitcom land dictates that Kevin is a damn delight, the audience plays along.

(It’s worth noting here that Kevin Can F**K Himself was filmed in front of a studio audience. However AMC tells us that, due to COVID restrictions, the audience was small and far away, so the laughs were not picked up on the audio. Therefore, much of the laughter you hear on the show was added in post-production.)

The dynamic between Kevin, Allison, and the viewers in the studio is an exaggerated version of a tableau that has been unfolding on our TV screens for decades. We see a harried, hot wife play a straight man to a dumpy doofus husband, and we’re all supposed to think it’s simply hilarious. It’s worth noting that Kevin Can F**K HImself cribs its title from the Kevin James’ sitcom Kevin Can Wait, in which the series unceremoniously killed off James’s first super hot wife on the show (Erinn Hayes), only to replace her with his prior super hot sitcom wife, Leah Remini. Because women are oh so very interchangeable in the sitcom world, the laugh track on that show never skipped a beat.

Canned laughter has historically enabled the entertainment world to lift up mediocre men such as Doug Heffernan (Kevin James), Raymond Barone (Ray Romano), and Kevin Gable (Kevin James, again) at the women’s expense. For ages, only a very small handful of white males were allowed to create content as showrunners, directors, and writers at networks. As they had control over the laugh track, they became the arbiters of what was funny and what was not funny. They got to shape reactions according to their worldview, painting the schlumpy dudes as heroes and the women as eager sidekicks.

While there are oodles of examples of the long-suffering wife throughout sitcom history, we rarely think of these women as victims. All in the Family is considered a classic, but Archie Bunker was viciously verbally abusive to his wife Edith in almost every episode. Sure, it was a different era (and Archie surely isn’t intended to be a role model), but take away the laughs, and what’s left is a depressing portrait of a red-faced husband straight up screaming at his beleaguered wife. And don’t even get me started on The Honeymooners classic line, “to the moon, Alice!” Ahahahaha, yes, spousal abuse. Hilarious. Well, the laugh track thought so, anyway.

In more recent years, verbal abuse on sitcoms focusing on husband-wife dyads has given way to a more subtle form of emotional abuse. Often, this appears in the form of financial abuse in which a spouse spends or hides money from the other in order to keep them in their place. In Kevin Can F**K Himself, Kevin consistently spends money without consulting Allison first. In one episode, he even proudly states that a recent purchase cost “more than our wedding, but less than our car.”

This type of abuse has played out in sitcoms forever. Doug Heffernan often hid his spending from Carrie, Raymond Barone invested in a go-cart venture without telling Deborah, and even Fred Flintstone stole money from Wilma’s hidden stash (yep, The Flintstones was a cartoon, but it inexplicably also had a laugh track). These transgressions are generally perceived to be harmless on screen, leading to those canned laffs and a resolution in 30 minutes or less, but in real life, this type of clandestine behavior in relation to finances can be catastrophic, trapping an unhappy wife in a relationship with no means to escape.

Even TV series that didn’t utilize the wife/husband premise – notably Frasier and Friends – often used audience laughter to support misogynistic punchlines. Friends notoriously used the laugh track to support harmful jokes about fat shaming and transphobia while Frasier’s archaic attitudes towards women were often played for comedy. Personally, I will never ever get over how Frasier Crane treated Roz Doyle, slut shaming her at every turn for over a decade when, in fact, Frasier was sleeping with half of Seattle with nary an eyebrow raise in his snooty direction. (Sorry, rant over. But, seriously, Peri Gilpin rules. #JusticeForRoz)

Laugh tracks help normalize these behaviors. If you’re not laughing at the joke when everyone else is, something must be wrong with you. Women have faced this exact dilemma since the beginning of time. Laugh along or be judged as cold and unfeeling. Be in on the joke or be tossed to the side. This truism is even noted in the recent HBO Max series Hacks in which aging comic Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) confesses to a newbie comedienne why she makes fun of herself in her own act. With a wan smile, Deborah says, “I realized they would rather laugh at me than believe me.”

These are the same exact challenges that Allison finds herself facing in Kevin Can F**K Himself. When Kevin is around, Allison tries her best to play the role she’s been given so that he won’t make her life even more miserable. No one believes or cares that Kevin is awful because they think Allison is lucky to even have landed a man at all. The series overtly illustrates that these types of stories have always just shrugged at viewers, telling us, oh well, boys will be boys, while women’s suffering is shoehorned into punchlines instead of taken seriously. Rather than confronting the thorny reality of disentangling the institutions that lift the Kevins up and keep the Allisons down, the sitcom world treats women’s pain like a joke.

After years and years under Kevin’s oppressive thumb, Allison isn’t laughing anymore. She’s full of rage and ready to break free. When we see her in her life without Kevin, there are no prescriptive beats dictating what’s funny and what’s not. And it’s so refreshing. Life can be funny! Sometimes Allison is funny in her real life too! Annie Murphy is also very very funny! And yet, even in the absence of a laugh track, viewers can pick up on the funny. Because in this modern age of entertainment, viewers are savvy enough to know what they feel.

As canned laughter has slowly disappeared, TV has opened up to more nuanced emotion, allowing viewers to discover and explore the highs and lows for themselves. It’s probably not surprising to learn that the few existing series that do still use laugh tracks, such as United States of Al and Bob Hearts Abishola – both airing on CBS and both created by Chuck Lorre – have been critiqued for leaning on racist and sexist stereotypes. Oddly enough, an urban myth has been circulating the internet for years, claiming that everyone on laugh tracks is actually dead because the recordings were made so long ago. As modern audio engineers now update their recordings regularly, this is not true, but the truth is that the laugh track itself is soon headed to an unmarked grave in the entertainment cemetery alongside tube televisions, Smell-O-Vision, and home video rentals.

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With critically acclaimed comedies such as Schitt’s Creek (also starring Annie Murphy!), Fleabag, and The Good Place getting laughs without any pre-recorded assistance, home audiences are getting more savvy as to what’s actually funny and what’s just a cheap shot. In addition, social media and the ubiquitous sharing of memes have effectively displaced the laugh track, as people can now actually be part of an interactive community with others, watching and reacting to the same show at the same time.

In Kevin Can F**K Himself, canned laughter has finally taken its rightful place as a relic of the past. The chuckles and chortles that pepper the series are a knowing nod to a bygone era in which TV series tried to force the funny on viewers instead of letting them find their own way. Finally, laugh tracks aren’t in on the joke; they are the joke.

Kevin Can F**k Himself airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.

The post Kevin Can F**K Himself Shows Why The Laugh Track Needs to Die appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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shesey · 4 years

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Excerpts from Rachel Cusk’s “Kudos”

“A degree of self-deception, she said, was an essential part of the talent for living.” “What is history other than memory without pain?” “...for the world seemed full of people living evilly without reprisal and living virtuously without reward, the temptation to abandon personal morality might arise in exactly the moment when personal morality is most significant.” “I have met people who have freed themselves from their family relationships. Yet there often seems to be a kind of emptiness in that freedom, as though in order to dispense with their relatives they have had to dispense with a part of themselves.” “You asked me earlier... whether I believed that justice was merely a personal illusion. I don’t have the answer to that... but I know that it is to be feared, feared in every part of you, even as it fells your enemies and crowns you the winner.” “We invent these systems with the aim of ensuring fairness, she said, and yet the human situation is so complex that it always evades our attempts to encompass it.” “They forgive so easily, it is almost as if nothing matters.” “And I wonder, she said, whether we haven’t done them a great disservice in sparing them this pain, which might somehow have brought them to life, at the same time as knowing that this couldn’t possible by true, and that it is only my own belief in the value of suffering that makes me think it. I am one of those who believes that without suffering there can be no art.” “It may be the case, she said, that it is only when it is too late to escape that we see we were free all along.” “Why should I trust your view of the world if you can’t even take care of yourself? If you were a pilot, I wouldn’t get on board - I wouldn’t trust you to take me the distance.” “You earn just enough to get by but at the end of the day there’s nothing left mentally, and so you cling to the job even harder.” “That tribe was one to which nearly all the men in this country belonged and it defined itself through a fear of women combined with an utter dependence on them.” “We live with an almost superstitious belief in our own differences, she said, and Luis has shown that those differences are not the result of some divine mystery but are merely the consequence of our lack of empathy, which if we had it would enable us to see that in face we are all the same. It is for his empathy, she said, that Luis has received such acclaim, and so I believe he should congratulate himself, rather than feeling ashamed for being praised.” “... and it is impossible not to feel that we have broken him, not out of malice but out of our own carelessness and selfishness.” “Behind every man is his mother who has made so much fuss of him he will never recover from it and will never understand why the rest of the world doesn’t make the same fuss of him, particularly the woman who has replaced his mother and who he can neither trust nor forgive for replacing her.” “... because it reminds them of the possibility that it is patience and endurance and loyalty - rather than ambition and desire - that bring the ultimate rewards.” “In this country, for a woman to survive the numerous attempts to crush her, he said, she has to live like a hero, always getting up again and always, ultimately, alone.” “I replied that this was something all of us had felt in our turn, as we passed into adulthood and recognized the role of outside events in shaping history and their capacity to interfere in and change our lives, which until now had remained in the hermetic state of childhood.” “Great art was very often brought to the service of this self-immolation, as great intelligence and sensitivity often characterized those who found the world an impossible place to live in.” “Could a spiritual value be attached to the mirror itself, so that by passing dispassionately though evil it proved its own virtue, its own incorruptibility?” “And that was without mentioning the moral duty of the critic to correct the tendency of culture likewise to err towards safety and mediocrity, a responsibility you couldn’t measure in dinner invitations.” “What he couldn’t tolerate above else, he went on, was the triumph of the second-rate, the dishonest, the ignorant: the fact that this triumph occurred with monotonous regularity was one of life’s mysteries.” “Yet if one looked at the work of Louise Bourgeois, one saw that it concerned the private history of the female body, its suppression and exploitation and transmogrifications, its terrible malleability as a form and its capacity to create other forms.” “It is hard to think, she said, of a better example of female invisibility than these drawings, in which the artist herself has disappeared and exists only as the benign monster of her child’s perception.” “Plenty of female practitioners of the arts, she said, have more or less ignored their femininity, and it might be argued that these women have found recognition easier to come by, perhaps because they draw a veil over subjects that male intellectuals find distasteful.” “It is understandable, she said, that a woman of talent might resent being fated to the feminine subject and might seek freedom by engaging with the world on other terms.” “I remember, she continued, as a young girl, the realization dawning on me that certain things had been decided for me before I had even begun to live, and that I had already been dealt the losing hand while my brother had been given the winning cards. It would be a mistake, I saw, to treat this injustice as thought it were normal, as all my friends seemed prepared to do.” “These boys, she said, had the most ridiculous attitudes towards women, which they were busy learning from the examples their parents had given them, and I saw the way that my female friends defended themselves against those attitudes, by making themselves as perfect and as inoffensive as they could. Yet the ones who didn’t defend themselves were just as bad, because by refusing to conform to these standards of perfection they were in a sense disqualifying themselves and distancing themselves from the whole subject. But i quickly came to see, she said, that in fact there was nothing worse to be an average white male of average talents and intelligence: even the most oppressed housewife, she said, is closer to the drama and poetry of life than he is, because as Louise Bourgeois shows us she is capable at least of holding more than one perspective. And it was true, she said, that a number of girls were achieving academic success and cultivating professional ambitions, to the extent that people had begun to feel sorry for these average boys and to worry that their feelings were being hurt. Yet if you looked only a little way ahead, she said, you could see that the girls’ ambitions led nowhere, like the roads you often find yourself on in this country, that start off new and wide and smooth and then simply stop in the middle of nowhere, because the government ran out of money to finish building them.” “I also enjoyed the attentions of men, she said, while making sure never to commit myself to any one man or to ask for commitment in return, because I understood that this was a trap and that I could still enjoy all the benefits of a relationship without falling into it.” “It did not seem like enough, she said, simply to pass the baton to the next runner, in hope that she would win the race for me.” “I have a male counterpart on the show, she said, and he is not required to look attractive, but I am not in the slightest bit interested in that example of inequality. What I am interested in is power, she said, and the power of beauty is a useful weapon that too often women disparage or misuse.” “For a while, at university, I sat as a life model for the art students, she said, partly to make money and partly to get this subject of the female body out into the open, because it almost seemed to me that even by clothing myself I was inviting the mystery to take root there under my clothes, and to weave the web of subjection in which later I might become trapped.” “In my own case, she said, I have fought to occupy a position where I can perhaps right some of these wrongs and can adjust the terms of the debate to an extent by promoting the work of women I find interesting.” “I said I wasn’t sure it mattered where people lived or how, since their individual nature would create its own circumstances: it was a risky kind of presumptions, I said, to rewrite your own fate by changing its setting; when it happened to people against their will, the loss of the known world - whatever its features - was catastrophic.” “... That family was big and noisy and easy-going, and there was always room for him at the table, where huge comforting meals were served and where everything was discussed by nothing examined, so that there was no danger of passing through the mirror, as he had put it, into the state of painful self-awareness where human fictions lose their credibility.” “The truth was that he no longer wanted to go there, beacuse the same things that a year or two earlier he had found warm and consoling he know found oppressive and annoying: those mealtimes were a yoke, he now saw, by which the parents sought to bind their children to them and to perpetuate, as he saw it, the family myth...” “He recognized that in taking their comfort he had created a responsibility towards them; and this realization, I said, had caused him to consider the true nature of freedom. He understood that he had given some of his freedom away, through a desire to avoid or alleviate his own suffering, and while it didn’t seem exactly an unfair exchange, I believed he wouldn’t do it again quite so easily.” “There was a word in his language, I said, that was hard to translate but that could be summed up as a feeling of homesickness even when you are at home, in other words as a sorrow that has no cause. This feeling was perhaps what had once driven his people to roam the world, seeking the home that would cure them of it. It may be the case that to find home is to end one’s quest, I said, but it is with the feeling of displacement itself that the true intimacy develops and that constitutes, as it were, the story. Whatever kind of affliction it is, I said, its nature is that of the compass, and the owner of such a compass puts all his faith in it and goes where it tells him to go, despite appearances telling him the opposite.” “But you, he said to me, don’t belong anywhere, and so you are free to go wherever you choose.” “... these experiences do not fully belong to reality and the evidence for them is a matter of one person’s word against another’s.” “Our bodies outlive their use of them, and that is what annoys them most of all. These bodies continue to exist, getting older and uglier and telling them the truth they don’t want to hear.” “I feel so lonely, he said, and yet I have no privacy.” “You can’t tell your story to everybody, I said. Maybe you can only tell it to one person.”

#rachel cusk #kudos #feminism

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formulatrash · 4 years

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It’s so cool you can paint pictures of drivers on a human level!! Who is the coolest female driver you’ve met? And have you ever spent time with the queen that is Susie Wolff?

I know Susie quite well cus she’s a Formula E team boss (and has been for two seasons pretty much, now)

She’s really cool. Clever, sharp, able to ignore the sniping (and it is constant) that any failings in the team’s delivery are because of her gender. Not from other people in Formula E, but the media (not particularly English language media but that’s by no means universal) and the usual armchair commentators from Twitter to YouTube to the third circle of hell that is Facebook group comments of course spout sewage constantly.

Oh, she got the job because of her husband (she didn’t), she isn’t serious about motorsport, she had no proven record as a team boss previously.... I mean, neither did Allan McNish but that curiously doesn’t come up as to why he’s in charge of Audi, despite absolute shitting the bed in Season 4.

(I love Allan but: it would be disingenuous to call the start of S4 anything other than a clown show at Audi, albeit mostly related to finding their feet as a factory outfit - and it was fair not to put that on him; imagine if he’d been Alanis, though...)

Susie has led Venturi to the most success they’ve ever had as a team but still gets called mediocre by geniuses from the comfort of their couches. She wants more, of course - she’s an ambitious and fiercely driven person. She’s also super friendly and funny and I really like her; she has huge amounts of time for people and particularly young people and women starting out in their careers. I’ve done a few bits with her and D2BD and like, you don’t start a thing like that because you don't give a shit, you know?

Here’s something I don’t think I’ve ever published? It’s an interview I did with Susie in Riyadh back at a showcase before the start of Season 5. We were nervous. It was weird.

Diriyah, Riyadh, 2018 There are sometimes moments around interviews where technically your recorder is running but it’s not per se the start of formal questions yet. In a side room of a Riyadh conference centre, sitting down with Venturi Formula E team principal Susie Wolff, I had one of those this week.

It would be fair to describe the Riyadh Eprix as ‘controversial’ - putting a Formula E race in a country known for being the home of oil is one, admirably punk thing. But Saudi Arabia is - or has been - a very closed kingdom, with extremely strict rules and social systems that seem obviously out-of-joint with the western twenty-first century.

Beyond that, I have an international relations degree and used to work for human rights organisations. You can use google to pick out the contexts in which I was previously aware of Saudi Arabia. I am fearless to the point of total disregard for my personal safety but my heart fluttered as I went to Heathrow, as I boarded the plane, as we landed. Everything I knew said I shouldn’t do it.

But you know how it is when someone tells you that, even if it’s you.

I don’t know much about Saudi Arabia and I can’t pretend that 24 hours there has illuminated the country to me more than watching the chasing, blinking lights of Riyadh’s enormous, luminescent sprawl did while I was sitting at my hotel window typing notes.

Launch events are launch events. The fact I was wearing an abaya and hijab (although it’s not obligatory for non-Muslim women my hair is a bit avante-garde to risk it) didn’t really change the fact that they’re just awkward promotional chat, albeit with Arabic-to-English headset.

And then it was straight on to interviewing Saudi princes - who are just politicians, the sports ministry fairly far removed from anything that isn’t, uh, sports. But nonetheless “interviewing Saudi princes” rates quite highly on my *record scratch* *freeze frame* ‘Yep, you’re probably wondering how I got here?’ scale. How the hell did I get here?

Anyway, after that I spoke to Susie Wolff, the new head of Venturi Formula E team. It was a strange, semi-breathless moment; interviewing one of my heroes in motorsport, in the absolute least likely circumstances. A female ex-race driver being interviewed by a female journalist, in a country that women were banned from attending let alone participating in motorsport.

As she sat down, Susie looked me dead in the eye and said “Look, you of all people can’t have a go at me about this.”

I knew exactly what she meant. Should we be there? I don’t know, maybe not. If we weren’t, what dead-behind-the-eyes man would be and where would we be getting new jobs?

I didn’t notice it at the time but when I heard the audio back, we both sound nervous - breathy, almost on the verge of panic. I didn’t become a motorsport journalist to interview Saudi princes or worry about this shit - except maybe I did, really because Formula E has to be an obnoxious upstart, it has to be confrontational even and especially with the scariest potential opponents.

It was before last season, then and so the first thing I had to ask Susie was what she could expect from the season, coming in as Venturi team principle. It’s the most nervous we both sound on the whole recording.

“I absolutely don't underestimate the challenge ahead of me. I've been a great believer, my whole life, that you've got to push yourself out of your comfort zone.

“You've got to do things that do slightly scare you because that's when you develop as a person and when I took on this challenge I absolutely realised the work that lay ahead of me.”

It would be fair to say that, a few years ago when I decided to do this. I did not. I myself cannot claim to have any bold vision in the way I stumbled my way into Formula E and really hoped it was going to come up with something to save my life because I’d run out of my own options.

Susie clearly had a different approach, a full long-game more than a messy explosion of want/need/hope. But sitting there in this weird exhibition centre in a city I’d never been to before, she put it very well.

I had to ask her about the “women’s test” - the option for teams to run a second car at an in-season test in Riyadh, provided it was driven by a woman of sufficiently high driving standard:

“I started Dare To Be Different because everybody talks about the fact that there's not enough diversity in motorsport. But very few people do something about it and I think it's about being proactive - if you want to see change, be part of that change, don't sit and talk about it but actually try and help make it happen.

“And what I appreciate so much since joining Formula E - and I can very much say joining the Formula E family - is that they're very, very supportive, more than any other championship we approached. Because they realise that it's a problem. And it's something that they want to be proactive on.”

Everyone said it was a stunt. And yes, of course it was a stunt. So are rookie tests that get Mick Schumacher into a Ferrari, so is anything where there’s a constraint that conducts the order of the event. So is sport. But it wasn’t a badly-thought-through one and with my brain already trying to stop bending back on itself with the news I actually might quite like??? Saudi Arabia??? I didn’t quite notice how much.

Susie obviously had more detail on it -

“I think the concept that they came up with regarding the test day, within the first race weekend, is really good. I was quite vocal in how the concept should be transported and run properly because for me, rather than just creating an opportunity which creates a lot of attention but actually doesn't have any fundamental credibility or any long-lasting impact is not going to be positive change for the long run.

“So we had quite some discussions at our team principals meeting that actually teams will run a female driver if they find one that they want to run, that's of the right level. There will be no different sessions for different levels, there will be no women just put in the car out of completely out of the depth.

“I lost a very good friend of mine who should never have been in the situation that she was and I think when this happens it has to be done the right way and those inputs were all taken on board and I'm very confident that we have now created an opportunity that is going to a) have an very positive impact and b) show not just the Saudi community but the wider world what's possible. I think you can't underestimate the impact of seeing women on track, that's something visible that women can identify with and that's role models to which they can aspire.

“I will be announcing in November a full-time test driver within my team who is a female, I've taken her because of her abilities not just because she's a female [it was Simona de Silvestro, who tested for Venturi that December and is now part of Porsche] but I absolutely believe in in - and I think, you also because you're one of very few within what you do, you're a fantastic role model and that can inspire so many people - and that's why it's up to us to have a positive impact and have a positive change but it has to be done in a credible way.

“Because I'm not just flying a flag saying 'let's do something for the sake of it,' I very much think we have to do something but in the right way, in a credible way that's going to create long-lasting impact because I'm pretty sure you'd also love to see, in ten years, more young women doing what you do and to be able to turn around and say 'wow, I helped people to understand there was a possibility within this sport.' And the sport does have so many possibilities it's just that what people see is a male dominated world but there's no reason why it has to be. Not just focussing on the on-track activities, I very much believe that we have to look at the whole sport, from your industry in journalism to the engineering, the whole sport just needs to be more accessible to women and they have to come in at grass-roots level and be able to rise to the top of the pack.

“If they're of the right level. And I think that is one of the problems right now, internationally and I think that's where the Women in Motorsport commission was great that they did this assessment because people were able to see it. In one of our first meetings in New York when this idea had just come up many people were saying 'oh where will we get anyone from' and I was like 'well wait a second, in Audi there's Ashley Freiburg, at BMW there's Beitske Visser and obviously Jaguar there's Katherine Legge there are enough available, it's not ok to say you don't have the numbers when there are enough good women right now it's just a case of being open to that change. Certainly, it's one thing that I very much appreciate about Formula E - they're supporting us massively and we've got some exciting news coming out toward the end of October with regards to Dare to be Different and more events around Formula E and that's something that I'm very grateful for the opportunity to work on.”

(I apparently gave up properly writing the article at this point, I guess no one commissioned it - but hey, lil Tumblr exclusive)

#fe asks

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timeless-hollywood-classics · 4 years

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Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress, a child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl; she became a major star of Paramount Pictures in the 1940s. Her most notable films were her first major role, as Charlie Chaplin's leading lady in Modern Times, and Chaplin's subsequent film The Great Dictator. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Her husbands included Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque.

Goddard was the daughter of Joseph Russell Levy (1881–1954), the son of a prosperous cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City, and Alta Mae Goddard (1887–1983). Her father was Jewish, her mother Episcopalian of English ancestry. They married in 1908 and separated while their daughter was very young, although the divorce did not become final until 1926. According to Goddard, her father left them, but according to J. R. Levy, Alta absconded with the child.[11] Goddard was raised by her mother, and did not meet her father again until the late 1930s, after she had become famous.

In a 1938 interview published in Collier's, Goddard claimed Levy was not her biological father.[13] In response, Levy filed a suit against his daughter, claiming that the interview had ruined his reputation and cost him his job, and demanded financial support from her. In a December 17, 1945 article written by Oliver Jensen in Life, Goddard admitted to having lost the case and being forced to pay her father $35 a week.

To avoid a custody battle, she and her mother moved often during her childhood, even relocating to Canada at one point. Goddard began modeling at an early age to support her mother and herself, working for Saks Fifth Avenue, Hattie Carnegie, and others. An important figure in her childhood was her great uncle, Charles Goddard, the owner of the American Druggists Syndicate. He played a central role in Goddard's career, introducing her to Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld.

In 1926, she made her stage debut as a dancer in Ziegfeld's summer revue, No Foolin', which was also the first time that she used the stage name Paulette Goddard. Ziegfeld hired her for another musical, Rio Rita, which opened in February 1927, but she left the show after only three weeks to appear in the play The Unconquerable Male, produced by Archie Selwyn. It was, however, a flop and closed after only three days following its premiere in Atlantic City.

Soon after the play closed, Goddard was introduced to Edgar James, president of the Southern Lumber Company, located in Asheville, North Carolina, by Charles Goddard. Aged 17, considerably younger than James, she married him on June 28, 1927 in Rye, New York. It was a short marriage, and Goddard was granted a divorce in Reno, Nevada, in 1929, receiving a divorce settlement of $375,000.

Goddard first visited Hollywood in 1929, when she appeared as an uncredited extra in two films, the Laurel and Hardy short film Berth Marks (1929), and George Fitzmaurice's drama The Locked Door (1929).

Following her divorce, she briefly visited Europe before returning to Hollywood in late 1930 with her mother. Her second attempt at acting was no more successful than the first, as she landed work only as an extra.

In 1930, she signed her first film contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn to appear as a Goldwyn Girl in Whoopee! (1930). She also appeared in City Streets (1931) Ladies of the Big House (1931) and The Girl Habit (1931) for Paramount, Palmy Days (1931) for Goldwyn, and The Mouthpiece (1932) for Warners.

Goldwyn and she did not get along, and she began working for Hal Roach Studios, appearing in a string of uncredited supporting roles for the next four years, including Show Business (1932), Young Ironsides (1932), Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) (with Laurel and Hardy), and Girl Grief with Charley Chase.

Goldwyn used Goddard in The Kid from Spain (1932), The Bowery (1933), Roman Scandals (1933), and Kid Millions (1934).

The year she signed with Goldwyn, Goddard began dating Charlie Chaplin, a relationship that received substantial attention from the press. It marked a turning point in Goddard's career when Chaplin cast her as his leading lady in his next box office hit, Modern Times, in 1936. Her role as "The Gamin", an orphan girl who runs away from the authorities and becomes The Tramp's companion, was her first credited film appearance and garnered her mainly positive reviews, Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times describing her as "the fitting recipient of the great Charlot's championship".

Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star, but he worked slowly, and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances. She signed a contract with David O. Selznick and appeared with Janet Gaynor in the comedy The Young in Heart (1938) before Selznick lent her to MGM to appear in two films.

The first of these, Dramatic School (1938), co-starred Luise Rainer, but the film received mediocre reviews and failed to attract an audience.

Her next film, The Women (1939), was a success. With an all-female cast headed by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell, the film's supporting role of Miriam Aarons was played by Goddard. Pauline Kael later wrote of Goddard, "she is a stand-out. fun."

Selznick was pleased with Goddard's performances, particularly her work in The Young in Heart, and considered her for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Initial screen tests convinced Selznick and director George Cukor that Goddard would require coaching to be effective in the role, but that she showed promise, and she was the first actress given a Technicolor screen test.

Russell Birdwell, the head of Selznick's publicity department, had strong misgivings about Goddard. He warned Selznick of the "tremendous avalanche of criticism that will befall us and the picture should Paulette be given this part...I have never known a woman, intent on a career dependent upon her popularity with the masses, to hold and live such an insane and absurd attitude towards the press and her fellow man as does Paulette Goddard...Briefly, I think she is dynamite that will explode in our very faces if she is given the part."

Selznick remained interested in Goddard for the role of Scarlett. After he was introduced to Vivien Leigh, he wrote to his wife that Leigh was a "dark horse" and that his choice had "narrowed down to Paulette, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivien Leigh".

After a series of tests with Leigh that pleased both Selznick and Cukor, Selznick cancelled the further tests that had been scheduled for Goddard, and the part was given to Leigh. It has been suggested that Goddard lost the part because Selznick feared that questions surrounding her marital status with Charlie Chaplin would result in scandal. However, Selznick was aware that Leigh and Laurence Olivier lived together, as their respective spouses had refused to divorce them, and in addition to offering Leigh a contract, he engaged Olivier as the leading man in his next production Rebecca (1940). Chaplin's biographer Joyce Milton wrote that Selznick was worried about legal issues by signing her to a contract that might conflict with her pre-existing contracts with the Chaplin studio.

Goddard signed a contract with Paramount Pictures and her next film, The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, was a turning point in the careers of both actors. They promptly were re-teamed in The Ghost Breakers (1940).

Goddard starred with Chaplin again in his 1940 film The Great Dictator. The couple split amicably soon afterward, and Goddard allegedly obtained a divorce in Mexico in 1942, with Chaplin agreeing to a generous settlement.

At Paramount, Goddard was used by Cecil B. De Mille in the action epic North West Mounted Police (1940), playing the second female lead.

She was Fred Astaire's leading lady in Second Chorus (1940), where she met actor Burgess Meredith, her third husband,.

Goddard made Pot o' Gold (1941), a comedy with James Stewart, then supported Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), from a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, directed by Mitchell Leisen.

Goddard was teamed with Hope for a third time in Nothing But the Truth (1942), then made The Lady Has Plans (1942), a comedy with Ray Milland.

She did Reap the Wild Wind (1942), playing the lead, a Scarlett O'Hara type character. Co-starring Milland and John Wayne, it was a huge hit.

Goddard did The Forest Rangers (1942). One of her better-remembered film appearances was in the variety musical Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), in which she sang "A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peekaboo Bang" with Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake. She and Milland did The Crystal Ball (1943).

Goddard received one Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the 1943 film So Proudly We Hail!.

Goddard was teamed with MacMurray in Standing Room Only (1944) and Sonny Tufts in I Love a Soldier (1944). She was one of many Paramount stars in Duffy's Tavern (1945).

Goddard's most successful film was Kitty (1945), in which she played the title role.

In The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), Goddard starred with Burgess Meredith, to whom she was married at the time, under the direction of Jean Renoir. It was made for United Artists.

At Paramount she did Suddenly It's Spring (1947) and De Mille's Unconquered (1947). During the Hollywood Blacklist, when she and blacklisted husband Meredith were mobbed by a baying crowd screaming "Communists!" on their way to a premiere, Goddard is said to have turned to her husband and said, "Shall I roll down the window and hit them with my diamonds, Bugsy?"

In 1947, she made An Ideal Husband in Britain for Alexander Korda, and was accompanied on a publicity trip to Brussels by Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, niece of Sir Winston Churchill and future wife of future Prime Minister Anthony Eden.

Goddard and her husband were among several stars in On Our Merry Way (1948).

At Paramount, she did two movies with MacDonald Carey: Hazard (1948) and Bride of Vengeance (1949). She then left the studio.

In 1949, she formed Monterey Pictures with John Steinbeck. Goddard starred in Anna Lucasta (1949), then went to Mexico for The Torch (1950). In England, she was in Babes in Bagdad (1952); then she went to Hollywood for Vice Squad (1953), Sins of Jezebel (1953), Paris Model (1953), and Charge of the Lancers (1954). Her last starring role was in the English production A Stranger Came Home (known as The Unholy Four in the United States).

Goddard began appearing in summer stock and on television, guest starring on episodes of Sherlock Holmes, an adaptation of The Women, this time playing the role of Sylvia Fowler, The Errol Flynn Theatre, The Joseph Cotten Show, and The Ford Television Theatre.

She was in an episode of Adventures in Paradise and a TV version of The Phantom.

After her marriage to Erich Maria Remarque, Goddard largely retired from acting and moved to Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland.

In 1964, she attempted a comeback in films with a supporting role in the Italian film Time of Indifference, which was her last feature film.

After Remarque's death in 1970, she made one last attempt at acting, when she accepted a small role in an episode of The Snoop Sisters (1972) for television.

Upon Remarque's death, Goddard inherited much of his money and several important properties across Europe, including a wealth of contemporary art, which augmented her own long-standing collection. During this period, her talent at accumulating wealth became a byword among the old Hollywood élite. During the 1980s, she became a fairly well known (and highly visible) socialite in New York City, appearing covered with jewels at many high-profile cultural functions with several well-known men, including Andy Warhol, with whom she sustained a friendship for many years until his death in 1987.

Goddard married the much older lumber tycoon Edgar James on June 28, 1927, when she was 17 years old; the couple moved to North Carolina. They separated two years later and divorced in 1932.

In 1932, Goddard began a relationship with Charlie Chaplin. She later moved into his home in Beverly Hills. They were reportedly married in secret in Canton, China, in June 1936. Years later Chaplin privately told relatives that they were married only in common law. Aside from referring to Goddard as "my wife" at the October 1940 premiere of The Great Dictator, neither Goddard nor Chaplin publicly commented on their marital status. On June 4, 1942, Goddard was granted a Mexican divorce from Chaplin.

In May 1944, she married Burgess Meredith at David O. Selznick's home in Beverly Hills. They divorced in June 1949.

In 1958, Goddard married author Erich Maria Remarque. They remained married until Remarque's death in 1970.

Goddard had no children. In October 1944, she suffered the miscarriage of a son with Burgess Meredith.

Goddard underwent invasive treatment for breast cancer in 1975, successfully by all accounts. On April 23, 1990, aged 79, she died at her home in Switzerland from heart failure while under respiratory support due to emphysema. She is buried in Ronco Village Cemetery, next to Remarque and her mother.

#paulette goddard #classic movie stars #classic hollywood #golden age of hollywood

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laserpinksteam · 2 years

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On second viewing: Miami Rhapsody (dir. David Frankel, 1995)

It's a trademark 1990s rom-com, with many cliches, a lot of talking and little fun. Didn't appreciate it much when it was out, since it then seemed to me drab and unfunny. What I notice now is the predictably sexist and ageist gender politics that this film taps into by painting its male characters as inevitably drawn to sexy models because they "need sex" (Kevin Pollak, in an icky role) and women feeling bad about having extramarital affairs. Also, this film really wants to be a 90s-Woody-Allen film, just take a look at the opening credits and listen to the bland jazzy score. Why would Farrow want to be in a faux-Allen film? Pre-Entourage Piven, with less hair (as he himself says) than he has now, appears as another indispensable trope of the era: a straight cis-male actor and a soon-to-be-disclosed sexual offender cast in a meaningless, marginal, and mediocre role of a homonormative guy.

#filmafterfilm #the 1990s #mia farrow #sarah jessica parker #antonio banderas #kevin pollak #carla gugino #david frankel #gil bellows #paul mazursky #on second viewing

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legendofeliselozau · 3 years

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LoZ Next Gen AU Legend of Elise: Sunny Bio

Name: Sunny

Age: 6

Birthday: October 20 (Libra)

Height: 4’8”

Weight: 78.3 lbs.

Sex/Gender: Cis Female (She/her)

Race: (Exotic) Zora

Social Class: High Class

Character Alignment: Lawful Good

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual

Current Residence (Hometown): Zora’s Doman

Occupation: Second-in-line to the throne of Zora’s Doman

Hobbies: Seashell collecting, jewelry making, and playing ocean drum

Powers & Abilities: Like all Zoras Sunny is a fantastic swimmer. She can use her fins to help lunge herself through the ocean to increase her speed. Sunny can also use her fins to block attacks or slash her opponent. However, due to her size, she needs to get close to her opponent for her slash to be effective. As a result, Sunny mostly uses her fins to block rather than attack.

Weakness: Sunny is a child with very little fighting experience and is very frail. Zora’s in general thou are weak to fire and electric attacks.

Fighting Stats: (10: Godlike, 8-9: Excellent, 6-7: Good, 4-5: Mediocre, 1-3: Terrible)

Power:4/10

Speed:7/10

Endurance:3/10

Technique:4/10

Cooperativeness:8/10

Enemies: Afya, Shadow Link, and Shadow Elise

Friends: Remi and Taffy

Allies: Elise, Mark, Robin, Diana, Link, and Zelda

Family: Ruto, (Mother) Kai, (Father) Orca, (Half Older-Brother) and De Bon XVI (Grandfather)

Personality: As her name wound implied Sunny is a very happy, cheery, and friendly gal. Sunny practically radiates positivity, blighting up the day of everyone around her. She has a strong moral ideology and séance of justice. Sunny strongly believes in helping others in need and stopping malicious people. As a result, She is often the moral center out of her friend group. Sunny is very naïve, innocent, and easily trusting making her an easy target to be taken advantage of.

Likes: Swimming, seashells, and cool breezes

Dislikes: Violence, thunder, and injustice

Backstory: Sunny is the second-born child to Queen Ruto of Zoras. After Ruto’s first divorce she quickly got into another relationship with a Zora names Kai, an exotic Zora with a koi fish pattern to his scales. At the time Ruto had very low confidence in herself and thought she need validation from a romantic partner. Kai didn’t get along with Ruto’s first child, Orca frequently getting into with him. Kia would also neglect his royal duties to go swimming and relax. Kai wanted all the perks of a king; the authority over others, and beautiful wife, and none of the uninteresting work. After Sunny was born, he did the same to her, wanting all the perks of being a parent and none of the downsides. As a result, Kai neglected Sunny, leaving Orca to take care of her when Ruto couldn’t. Kai and Ruto eventually divorced when Kai almost hit Orca. After the divorce Kai left Zora’s Doman and never went back to visit Sunny. They divorced when Sunny was still an infant so, she has no memories of her father.

Unlike Kai Orca’s dad, Orin would frequently visit. When Orin came to visit his son he often wound pay with Sunny and give her presents, acting more like a father to Sunny than her biological father. Because of this Sunny thought for a short time that Orin was her biological father, she was disappointed to find that wasn’t true. Despite her father’s absence, Sunny has many male role models in her life like Orin, Orca, and her grandpa. Orca and Sunny have a very strong sibling bond, with Orca always looking out for Sunny and Sunny trying to brighten up his mood. After stepping down from the throne, De Bon XVI retired to the Zora’s Fountain. Sunny frequently visits her grandpa, the two of them hunt for seashells and pearls and make jewelry together.

Sunny meet Taffy and Remi during an annual ball, Zelda held. All the young children were put in a separate room to play. It was there that Sunny met Taffy, who was charmed by Sunny’s friendly personality. Taffy quickly introduced Sunny to her brother Remi. Despite Remi coming across as rather aloof Sunny’s cheery personality caused him to warm up to her.

Extra Trivia:

. Sunny is a little bit chubby; she maintains this chub thru her teenage and adulthood.

#Bio #Sunny #Zora #Zora OC #Ruto #Ruto fan kid #loz next gen #loz next gen au #loz au #legend of elise #legend of elise au #loe au #loe #Orca #tw.domestic abuse #tw.neglect

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deconstructionofworkforpayot · 3 years

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My positionality: Why should my child unlearn the same things I did?

Is it ignorant or fear of change that every generation has to fall trap into the same oppressing system? from our great grandmothers, who we identify as heroes of the society, our mothers, the cornerstones? Are we really going to be that generation that carries the silence of oppression passing it on to our children? Fortunately, I became a mum at what I call an ‘awakening age’ and aspired to be a different mum since then. I’m not saying other mums out there are not enough or that my mum is bad, but I have seen so many unlearned practices from her life.

Growing up in a ‘broken family’ without a father and having uncles play the father figure role had me yearning to covet the rights women have neglected for years and derange the patriarchal system. I mean, I identified my mother as mum and dad, although I hate calling her dad. Yes, she took on both roles, trying so much to not have me feel the gap of his absence. Trust me, I don’t hate my dad and never did, even when he was still alive. I hate the choices he made of neglecting me, not that I want to pin his actions with unjust things happening in my life, but somehow his behavioural choices were distorted. Growing up with my mum had me realize that I had to do better than the woman dad left in my mum who could not fully be my role model. I identify myself not as a strong woman but as resilient. One who has been down several times and still woke up.

I’ve seen how my male cousins were treated better than anyone else, how they would be part of family gatherings and have a say while we were only involved for refreshments. I don’t hate my upbringing, maybe had I had a different one, I wouldn’t have learnt. But who am I kidding? This patriarchal system doesn’t only affect us within our families; it’s a societal norm. Crazy right? But we can’t shy from the reality that this social system is used by males to control females (Yifei, 2011). I grew up angry at how I had no voice, how everything was dictated to me, how the behavioural choices imposed on me by society were to their benefits and not what I want but, in the name of teaching and grooming me to become a submissive wife.

It’s sad how I have witnessed this in my community, where these ‘happily’ married women were victims of gender-based violence and had no one to run to. It's frustrating how some of these women in marriages taught submission raised children who were victims of domestic violence and how everybody else knew, but none took a step to intervene. This has led me to not give childish advice to my clients in terms of marriage and relationships. It has redefined how I relate to people regarding their religion, gender identity, spirituality, etc.

Funny how as we grow, we’re encouraged to not think of anything else besides marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I respect such a communion, especially when it's consensual. But what angers me is how we cannot choose who we want to marry, how, and when. We actually not even asked if we want to get married. But does it matter? We’re merely a land that should be fertile to these undeserving males we call men in our societies. What kind of men would do such to a woman? What kind of mothers would allow this to their daughters?

The yoke we carry of thinking about your family names whenever we have to do something, I’m not saying drag your family on the mud. But why must it always be women who should take that responsibility? When I fell pregnant, I was such an outcast. Mind you this is my body. Funny how I had no feelings, their main concern was how what I’ve ‘done’ ruined the family’s reputation. I felt like such a possession. Or am I? you know when everyone can say something about you?

I had gone against religious ethics, and dogma. I had become such a sinner that deserved to be in hell, well no one saw me as a woman, not even as a person. I remember how I was oppressed for actions I could not undo. For a child I could not abort. For a child I loved at the very moment I realized I have conceived.

Google (2021) this image shows how accepting to say nothing is actually a choice favoring the opposition.

Hence, I learned how much I could not have my child go through the same treatment. I fought to break the silence and to take a stand for myself and wellbeing. I had to find my identity, in a place that seemed like a war zone I was tired of being deprived of my thinking, and entitlement to my behavioural choices and decisions.

Social constructs that made other women so proud of being numb, satisfied with mediocre, revoked feelings of strength and preparedness for war in me. I had to fight for the many women coming after me, before me, my mother, my daughter but mostly myself. I had to fight and still fighting the logic of being okay with not questioning, being okay with acceptance in the name of ethnicity, language, geographical location, family status, religion, race, gender and even culture. I’m still fighting the idea of how in a romantic heterosexual relationship the man has to be taller than the girl, darker than the female, be more educated and earn more money than the female. I’m still fighting the “okayness” with polygamy but stereotypes with polyandry. The okayness with men having many sexual partners and the labelling over women who do the same. The okayness of men using the services of sex workers and how sex workers are immoral. I’m fighting the okayness of a brother sleeping for 10+ hours and sisters waking up at dawn, preparing food for the entire family menders.

Positionality is a term used to explain how a person sees life, sees the world and position themselves in a situation, political and or social context (Darwin Holmes, 2020). Although ones understanding of life is everchanging, it is also important to recognize and understand how the change affects people around us.

Google (2021) the emphasis is on acknowledging that as people we learn and change, hence ones positionality is dynamic.

My positionality has been impacted upon by personal experiences with regards to gender, from the idea of what gender is, and how as soon as a child is born there is confinement of who and how they should behave and think. Such experiences have taught me to see a person as a person without labels, so what if treat a transgender? So, what if I treat a sex worker? Why should my ideas control my therapy? Its of very importance that I look at the person holistically and consider their positionality’s in everything. At the end of the day, I should be concerned with how the client’s occupations have been affected and what can be done to assist not analysing the persons preferences, gender identity, and behaviour. Assuming a person’s positionality is so important because it allows me as a therapist to get the clients holistic overview of self and life.

Google (2021) these are the factors affecting ones positionality.

Hence at Kenville community, we look beyond the client’s family status and treat everyone as equals. Be it a doctor, one of our own OTs and a child from a disadvantaged family. We understand that quality of life is impacted by health, environment, race, gender, and social status. We have also looked at programmes we can use to educate our community through the maternal health programme. Which has included individuals who are from South Africa with an attempt to alert our communities that outside of skin colour lives people. Its actually not important which gender you assign with, which race you identify yourself as. We are people. We are women.

I have this great urge to have my daughter, sisters not having to unlearn social injustices. how about you?

Reference

References

1. Darwin Holmes, A. (2020). Researcher Positionality - A Consideration of Its Influence and Place in Qualitative Research - A New Researcher Guide. Shanlax International Journal Of Education, 8(4), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v8i4.3232

2. https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/positionality-300x156.jpg

3. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmiro.medium.com%2Fmax%2F794%2F1*prT891D9WB1Nm3xyG3r7OA.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Fscholar-activism%2Fblog-8-when-are-we-positioned-out-of-bounds-3df6c7ee8dad&tbnid=_GtBNmlokchE_M&vet=12ahUKEwimt7yMrNvvAhUU4RoKHQhbAxYQMygFegQIARAj..i&docid=b-ownNp2UorWiM&w=794&h=505&q=positionality%20quotes&ved=2ahUKEwimt7yMrNvvAhUU4RoKHQhbAxYQMygFegQIARAj

4. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.slideshare.net%2Fmattmaycock%2Fethnography-group-15th-july-2015&psig=AOvVaw3LL8lzR2rGXMI_zXSF2ZaK&ust=1617476909120000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCKCq55eh4O8CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAK

5. Yifei, S. (2011). China in the "Post-Patriarchal Era". Chinese Sociology & Anthropology, 43(4), 5-23. https://doi.org/10.2753/csa0009-4625430401

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