Internet Writers Who Make Us Leap for Joy

In honor of Leap Day, Girls Like Giants is taking a cue from xoJane’s internet positivity initiative and celebrating a few of the internet writers and bloggers we admire. Which writers make your browser windows shine a bit brighter? Let us know in the comments. - Sarah T.

Chelsea H: One of my favorite internet writers right now is Deb from Smitten Kitchen.  As has surely become clear from my (infrequent) posts here on GLG, and is crystalline if you’ve ever read my other blog at shornrapunzel.wordpress.com, I’m kind of interested in food.  Deb is an incredible cook and a great photographer (and she has an adorable child whose photo she links to in every one of her posts).  But that’s not the only reason I like her.  I like her because she is a great storyteller.  She talks about the mechanics and the pleasures of food, yes, using measurements and specifics but also words like nutty and rich and complex – those words that alternate between sounding snobby and perfectly apropos – but she also tells us where her inspirations came from.  She shares her trials and her successes, and she shares collapses and almost-failures.  She talks about being a mom, being a cookbook author, being a woman, all under the multi-colored, multi-faceted umbrella of food writing.

This is the kind of food writer I would like to be.  In addition to admiring her recipe developer skills (I’m really good at following a recipe, but I haven’t dipped into the mysterious, wonderful-and-frightening world of making them up myself), I love her ability to share just enough about herself.  Through her words I feel I know her, though I suspect the person I know is her internet persona.  But that’s okay, because that persona she has created is so genuine and so human–complete with kindness, with snark, with gluttony, with desperation–that she feels round and whole and someone I want in my kitchen cooking with me.  And that, for me, is a big deal.

Sarah T: I look forward to each Thursday because of Dear Sugar, a Rumpus advice column written by author Cheryl Strayed. It’s unlike any advice column I’ve ever read. Strayed practices what the Rumpus calls “radical empathy,” responding to letter-writers with limitless compassion, humor, and honesty. She’s shocked by nothing, judges no one, and writes with a combination of polish and emotional rawness that’s physically shake-inducing. Strayed is also a deeply personal writer, often drawing from her own experience in order to illuminate the situation the letter-writer describes. Dramatic as it may sound, I think I’m a better person for reading her work. Here are a few of my favorite Sugar columns. Warning: you may want to have a box of tissues handy.

“We Are All Savages Inside”: On jealousy

“The Dark Cocoon”: On love, marriage, and change

“The Obliterated Place”: On loss and grief

“The Future Has An Ancient Heart”: Sugar’s graduation speech

“Write Like a Motherf—–”: On the power and pain of writing

Pretty Little Liars Recap, “Father Knows Best” (Season 2, Episode 22)

This week our prettiest little liars got one step (read: episode) closer to finding out the true identity of A; got the moms involved; had awkward father-daughter dances and even stranger sibling moments; Aria wore a very red coat; and Maya is still missing. Read on for more on the PLL’s adventures.

This week featured a lot of awkward daughter-dad moments between all the girls (save for perhaps Emily and her dad). What are your thoughts on these dad developments?

Sarah: Spencer wins the prize for worst dad. Peter Hastings is Captain Von Suspicious. I think I believe him about hiring the PI to investigate Melissa, though. I also heavily dislike Byron (Aria’s dad), who did seem to be putting a lot of gross pressure on Aria to be his “little girl” (matching his tie to her dress). I was glad she told him off, because part of the subtext to his whole thing about Ezra is about controlling her sexuality, which is definitely not okay. Emily’s dad was sweet and helpful in the search for Maya, though. I’m nervous about his going back on duty–I hope he’ll be okay!

Phoebe: Spencer totally wins the prize for worst dad and I love the reference to Captain Von Trapp (particularly given Christopher Plummer’s recent win!). I too believe him about hiring a PI as that actually makes sense. Also, I am worried that Spencer’s mother might be involved in all this. And I second your thoughts on Aria–he is being a bit of a jerk. But also, Emily’s dad was so sweet and awesome and I really hope he’ll be okay to come back to Rosewood but I am glad that Emily’s mom will be back on the show. I have really enjoyed watching their relationship develop. Lastly, it is awesome that is episode is named for (I think) the 1960s domestic sitcom Father Knows Best, in which father always does know best. But, for PLL clearly this is not the case! Yay for TV references!

Do What You Love: Bill Cunningham New York

Sarah Todd

My graduate school advisor had a lot of very good advice, true to her title. Most of it boiled down to a quote from philosopher and civil rights activist Howard Thurman that she’d hung on her office door:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

That quote–and my advisor–kept running through my mind as I watched Bill Cunningham New York, a 2010 documentary on the 80-year-old New York Times on-the-street fashion photographer.

Style, and the people who have it, make Cunningham come alive. During a Paris awards ceremony at which he is slated to receive a prize, Cunningham wanders around snapping pictures. ”I just think it’s so funny that you’re working at your own party,” a guest remarks. “My darling,” Cunningham says, “it’s not work, it’s pleasure.”

What fascinates the gentle, stubborn journalist is fashion alchemy: how the right combination of shoes and hats and scarves and coats can produce a look that’s at once unique and expressive of a larger cultural moment. As his fondness for Anna Piaggi of Italian Vogue makes clear, Cunningham is particularly delighted by people who aren’t afraid to stand out in a crowd. It’s telling that he calls Piaggi a “poet of clothes” and that he frequently describes the fashions he sees on the streets in terms of classical paintings and symphonies. In clothing, Cunningham sees beauty, art, democracy, history, travel, community, and self-expression. His gift is to show everyone else how to see those things too.

Watching the film, I kept taking mental notes on how Cunningham has located, and preserved, real joy in his work. Two of the key elements, I think, are his egalitarianism and humility. Not only does he protect those qualities in himself, he infuses them into his corners of realms famed for their elitism–New York society, the Times, and fashion.

Healthy Blindness: The Voice and Body Image

Chelsea H.

This is only the second time I’ve watched “The Voice,” and it intrigues me. I’ve never seen anything outside of the initial blind auditions. I don’t know what comes after that, I don’t know how the mentoring goes, I don’t know how eliminations work. But I have to admit, I love the idea of the blind audition part of the show: four music quasi-moguls choose contestants to nurture and mentor based only on their vocal performances. This eliminates a lot of what I hate about American Idol. There are no silly costumes, there is no jumping up and down and showboating and begging for second chances. There is only, until the moment one of the coaches decides to pursue a vocal training relationship with this person, a voice.

That means this is based on talent, not on appearance. There are times when it is clear a coach was expecting something totally different when s/he turns around. But the beautiful thing about this show is it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether the voice belongs to a tiny skinny petite girl or a muscular athletic guy or a full-figured diva. Once that person is chosen, it’s done. It’s based on the voice.

Obviously this means clear, appearance-free assessment for men as well as women. And I think that’s great, and it’s important. This is Girls Like Giants, but male body image is becoming a bigger issue than we think it is, as this disturbing article about rising male adolescent anorexia proves.  I’ve been considering body image a lot lately, and trying to step outside what I usually think. In a world – or at least a country – that is really anti-fat, with instant and vitriolic troll-hate on anything plus-size, a world where Rush Limbaugh can critique Michele Obama for eating ribs and yet telling America to try to be healthier even though she’s not the size of a Sports Illustrated cover model, we need to be forgiving of bodies that are bigger than model-skinny.  And yet we also live in a world where the weight demands on professional models are so extreme that models have actually died on the runway. And there is a lot of thin-hate out there too: sniping and poking and accusing visible ribs or vertebrae or knobbly boney knees of not being as beautiful as full-figured breasts and hips and thighs. And I find myself – an average size 8 who fits neither into the plus-size nor the “sample size” category – often committing the latter of these two forms of hate. Where are the “normal-sized” women, I find myself asking, forgetting that people with naturally skinny frames are also “normal-sized.” And that’s something I need to work on. And so does the rest of the world.

GLG Reflects on the Oscars

This year’s Oscars were, as many on Twitter noted, fairly boring and quite frustrating: the show felt like Hollywood was congratulating itself over and over again. Billy Crystal made a series of uncomfortable racist jokes; then the Oscars poked ungracious fun at the beautiful and talented Melissa McCarthy. Every movie montage we were forced to sit through was filled with a plethora of white actors reflecting on how important the movies were for them, and The Artist swept the awards. Then there was the Cirque du Soleil bit, which was just plain confusing. Read on for GLG’s thoughts on the Oscars, or check out our Twitter feed from the night @GirlsLikeGiants …

Angelica Huston Rises Above Smash

Phoebe B.

Grand moments in NBC’s new show Smash have been few and far between. After seeing many previews for it, I felt assured that the show would be full of big dance numbers, great songs (including some Marilyn favorites), and flashy costumes. The premiere had its moments like anytime Angelica Huston was onscreen, but not including Katherine McPhee’s (Karen) version of “Beautiful,” which was anti-climactic and quite frankly seemed an odd choice. But since then, there has been very little grand about Smash. Indeed, NY Mag’s TV recapper takes the show to task in the most hilarious way possible, while this reviewer wishes for something more like A Chorus Line—which was definitely what I was expecting and hoping for. However, there is one thing that is seriously grand and awesome about Smash, and that is Angelica Huston on network television. In fact, I think they really should have put her on top of the pyramid in the publicity shot (and not Katherine McPhee).

Aside from Angelica Huston, there is another relatedly redeeming thing about Smash: the show, as NY Mag’s recapper Rachel Shukert remarked, truly takes women’s ambition seriously. We see this in Ivy and Karen’s desire to be on Broadway; in Julia’s (Debra Messing) career taking precedence over her husband’s; and in Eileen’s (Huston) desire to go out on her own in the theater production world. In fact, in Julia’s marriage, she is the career-oriented one in the relationship and seemingly the major breadwinner. What makes these women lovable and remarkable is that they have ambition and work hard, rather than just the usual things like body, sex appeal, etc. Although, we also see how other men and women see them: an early shot of Ivy stays on and revels in her tush as do the series of people at the casting table. But, as Shukert says in her NY Mag recap,

“One of the things I genuinely like about this show is that so far, it has generally treated the career ambitions of its female characters seriously, as opposed to something of which they have to be disabused in order to be “lovable.” Smash, for all its flaws, shows us women who are lovable because of their talent, not in spite of it, and that’s why it’s so disappointing to see Karen be such a pushover about this.”

But the show’s push towards valuing smart and amazing women appears oddly conflicted. For example, when Karen travels back to Iowa for her best friend’s baby shower, another friend casually remarks, “Feminism is dead.” It appears that in Iowa everyone over 21 is married and/or with child, per Karen’s friend’s remarks. Because of this, Karen’s friend argues, Karen should let her boyfriend, Dev, take up the slack while she does this Marilyn, the Musical workshop. Granted this logic is fairly terrible, but it is seemingly the logic of the show in this particularly moment. And Dev’s proposal, which comes earlier in the episode, mind you, is something he suggests after he interrupts Karen’s drink with the director via an obnoxious performance of his manhood. At that moment too, he seemingly marks her as his territory through a uncomfortable performance of PDA. No wonder Karen is not too thrilled about accepting his offer. At once, the show celebrates Karen’s drive but undermines it by strange and anti-feminist moments like these. Smash does something similar with Ivy in showcasing her drive, but also figuring her as desperate for attention and thus falling prey to the dangers of the casting couch (she sleeps with the director).

And, this conflicted sense of women in Smash is mirrored in the ways in which Marilyn is imagined and produced for the musical. She is the powerhouse that inspires the show, but the musical they write within the show figures Marilyn somewhat meekly, and always in terms of the men she married. Smash’s Marilyn is far less complicated than–and has got nothing on–Michelle Williams’ version of the icon in My Week With Marilyn. That said, I do like Ivy, and am pleased she got the part.

Marilyn (Ivy) vs. Marilyn (Karen)

It is amidst this landscape of conflicted and waffling representations of women that Angelica Huston emerges as the magnificent Eileen. And she is divine. We encounter Eileen mid-divorce with her seriously slimy and cheating ex-husband, Jerry, with whom she is trying to negotiate a reasonable settlement. Rather than settle on an unfair compromise, she puts all their holdings in escrow, including but not limited to their co-production of My Fair Lady. But as My Fair Lady goes into escrow, so too does Marilyn, the character, emerge somewhat oddly as Eileen’s new American Eliza Doolittle. Just as both Marilyn and Eliza Doolittle make themselves over, so too it seems is that Eileen’s plan. But unlike, these characters, Eileen intends to do it on her own instead of relying on a man.

Oscar Bowl Sunday

Sarah S.

Is anyone else feeling a bit underwhelmed by this year’s Oscars nominees? At first, I thought that a lackluster movie year accounted for the malaise. 2011 presented lots of good movies, but not many great ones. But in listening to the ether it seems 2011 did not lack for great movies; they just weren’t nominated.

Take the best actress categories. The noms for Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) and Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) just feel rote, as if they were a given. And they resulted in snubs for Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia) and Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) who were, by all accounts, incredible. I can’t help wondering if Kristin Wiig (Bridesmaids) also deserved a place on that list.

In supporting actress, Jessica Chastain rides the wave of love for The Help but should probably be up for The Tree of Life. I’d also like to see Rose Byrne (Bridesmaids) who quite handily rivaled Melissa McCarthy in awesomeness. And having just seen The Descendents, Shailene Woodley was seriously robbed of a seat at the table.

I have less trouble with the actor categories and am looking forward to Christopher Plummer winning for the lovely, pitch perfect Beginners. Should Ryan Gosling be on there, however, if not for Best Actor in Drive than at least for Supporting Actor in Crazy, Stupid, Love?

Best Picture, however, epitomizes particularly well this problem of good films instead of great one. The Artist is overrated. I’m troubled by the love for The Help. Midnight in Paris is both overrated and troublingly beloved. And Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close symbolizes an Academy more interested in one-note schmaltz and surface-level political correctness than truly great cinema.

Looking over my complaints, however, the problem reveals a plethora of great and good roles for women and films about women. This list includes women with varied lives (although I wish the diversity went deeper than The Help and France). How often do we have such a problem? It’s a problem that’s nice to have for a change.

And even if the Academy has lost the ability to even recognize the true best in their own industry, at least we can look forward to the gowns.

The Anti-Stereotype Squad of “Happy Endings”

Sarah Todd

When the ABC sitcom Happy Endings first premiered last year, many critics compared it to Friends. Both comedies feature six friends–three guys and three girls–in their mid-to-late twenties who live in a major urban city (Chicago and New York). Both pilot episodes feature a runaway bride whose actions shake up the group dynamic and set the show in motion.

But beyond these superficial similarities, Happy Endings is funnier, smarter, and far more complex. Its often absurd plots center around competitions to determine who’d be the final survivor in a zombie apocalypse and solemn interventions to break a friend of his debilitating addiction to V-necks.

Happy Endings also differs from Friends in its diversity. It’s a show that recognizes the reality that people of various racial backgrounds and sexual orientations might well find themselves living in a major city and hanging out together.

Happy Endings acknowledges difference without falling into the trap of making a minority racial background or sexual orientation a character’s sole defining trait. Brad (Damon Wayons Jr.) is black and Max (Adam Pally) is gay. These identities are a part of their characters, and the show’s dialogue and plots frequently explore what it’s like for Brad and Max to be black and gay, respectively, within their group of friends and in the broader world. But the show also makes them well-developed characters who are many things in addition to these identities. Brad is a delightfully enthusiastic investment banker with a penchant for men’s fashion, romantic comedies, and making out with his wife Jane (Eliza Coupe). Max is a sarcastic and cynical layabout who spent all of last week’s episode transforming into a bear, in a kind of extreme advertisement for the dangers of seasonal affective disorder. (He hibernates in a pile of blankets and gets his head stuck in a honey jar. It Could Happen to You, winter-friends.)

Max evolves into a literal bear-Zach Galifianakis hybrid.

Happy Endings seems interested in creating characters who go beyond defying stereotypes and enter the realm of the anti-stereotype. For example, Penny (Casey Wilson) calls Max “a straight dude who likes dudes” because his messy, gruff, video game- and sandwich-loving personality goes against her idea of what gay men are (or should be) like. He’s so far from the stereotype that his personality actually seems oppositional to it. A first-season episode highlights this point. When Penny tells Max he’s “the worst gay husband ever” because he’d rather watch football than go shopping and brunching, Max finds her a gay best friend who’s more in line with her conceit. Derek is a fun-loving, official Sassy Gay Friend, right down to calling Penny “a stupid clumsy bitch.” (He gets introduced to Penny in this scene at the 30-second mark.)

Dance Moms: Labor, Power, and Girlhood

Chelsea B.

Dance Moms premiered on Lifetime in the summer of 2011 and is currently in the midst of its second season. The premise of the show is based around Abby Lee Miller (center, in the gray velour above) who owns and runs a dance studio in Pittsburgh. Part of that studio is the Abby Lee Dance Company, which is a competition team comprised of the dancers Abby deems talented enough to earn an invitation to join. The show follows that team of dancers and their moms as they deal with Abby on what appears to be a daily basis about topics ranging from the age-appropriateness of the girls’ costumes to the girls’ often-tearful reactions to Abby’s harsh teaching techniques.

I don’t yet have a cohesive argument to make about the show as a whole, so instead I am going to list some of the qualities that I find compelling. Hopefully this will start a conversation that will enable a more sophisticated, collaborative analysis than I am currently able to create independently.

The Moms

Holly (Nia’s mom) is the only mom who has a paying job (some Googling suggests that she’s a principal at a private school). She is also the only mom of color on the show and the only one with a post-college education (she has a doctorate of education). There is frequent tension between Holly and Abby, as well as Holly and the other moms, in which Holly’s education and busy work schedule are used as barbs and reasons for her daughter Nia’s inability to “feel loved and supported” or dance as well as the other girls.

GLG Weekly Round-up: Jeremy Lin & “Linsanity”

This week GLG’s Weekly Round-up shall be devoted to the topic of “Linsanity” and all talk of Jeremy Lin around the web.

From Colorlines:
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/02/japanese_american_basketball_leagues.html

From Racialicious (and SNL):
http://www.racialicious.com/2012/02/20/weekend-at-jeremys-the-lin-media-bandwagon-veers-off-track/

and http://www.racialicious.com/2012/02/10/the-god-squad-tim-tebow-jeremy-lin-and-religiosity-of-sports/

From Grantland:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7601157/the-headline-tweet-unfair-significance-jeremy-lin

And in other pop culture news:

Melissa Chadburn has a great essay on the Rumpus about race, sexuality, identity, Obama, Prop 8, and the power of words:
http://therumpus.net/2012/02/the-dress-doesnt-make-the-priest/

The hilarious Julieanne Smolinski discusses the ins and outs of commenting and disagreeing on the internet, and also why she’d like to have seven minutes in heaven with Paul Krugman: http://www.xojane.com/issues/quick-note-internet-niceness