In the wake of the Katie Couric “sputum slap” incident, we’re instituting a banned word list for the PEN15 Club. These are terms that really have no place on this site. They’re cutesy and inane and generally unpleasant, and they seem to have pervaded all corners of the media. They make our skin crawl, and if we ever hire an intern, we won’t be afraid to deliver a vicious face-slapping in the event he or she slips one into a post.
1. Baby bump: We don’t like kids in real life, so we really don’t get all that excited when, say, Naomi Watts is about to have one. And if we were, we’d refer to her distended midsection as just that.
2. Canoodle: This insipid term almost always refers to straight couples who can’t keep their hands off each other and, in the words of Aunt Sassy, we don’t need to see that.
3. Claire Danes: “Dishwater” contains fewer characters, and you only have to press the return key once.
4. Bling: Or any other formerly-ghetto slang that Ryan Seacrest can deliver with a straight face.
5. Belly fat or “unwanted belly fat”: See “baby bump.”
6. Any gay-related compound noun beginning with “tea:” We’re under 60.
Mag: Couric ’slapped’ staffer [Drudge Report]
Well this is the worst Nonoriginal Female-Focused Ensemble Comedy film development news I’ve heard since the Women remake: Apparently HBO’s long-threatened Sex and the City movie is now a go, with deals in place for the lead actresses and a fall start date.
What, on earth, is left to say about these characters? Remember how shrill and one-note they had grown by the (completely idiotic) series finale? Remember how much you wanted to ring Carrie by the cameltoe and send her flying off that building after Kristen Johnston?
Sex and the City did a lot of damage to the straight-woman generation that came of age in the late nineties and early oughts. It’s the adult equivalent of Disney Princess birthday parties for seven-year-olds. Often playing as a propaganda tool for the Guilianification of New York, its reign of terror could be tied to the rise of the muffin top, celebutantes, faghaggery-as-status-symbol, the designer cupcake craze and various other crimes against humanity.
So unless Carrie’s brain rots from syphilis, Samantha struggles with bone loss, and Charlotte and Miranda start screwing each other (maybe the film’s release could be serendipitously tied in with Kristin Davis’ coming out of the closet), I’ll be seeing this movie sometime after I catch License to Wed 2.
Sex and the City heads to theaters [Variety]
I just discovered that my television had channels other than Bravo the other day. And I didn’t care. Do you remember how shitty Bravo was just five years ago? Using the word “comeback” would only be more appropriate describing a morning-after with Lance Bass.
And now there’s Hey Paula, what will perhaps be the newest hit for the little network that could. My TiVo is more set than Kelly Clarkson’s In-and-Out schedule.
What I think is great about Hey Paula is that you can totally tell from the promos that Ms. Abdul actually believes this show will prove she’s not crazy. They keep dropping in soundbites that are like, “Open your mind and judge for yourself,” as if the entire fucking world is going to call friends over, order pizza and sit around thinking, “Oh! How silly of me to think that she was fucked out of her mind. I didn’t see her take a single Closopine the entire 23 minute episode! She’s actually quite motivated.”
Meanwhile, the producers are making sure they don’t leave out the part where she, say, takes a piss in the salad bar at Whole Foods (because “what’s more organic than that?”) assuring that millions of gays will shake their heads, click their tongues, and think, “girl gonna make Anna Nicole blush. Pour me another sangria.”
Speaking of Anna Nicole, perhaps Bravo is already getting cold feet at the thought of documenting the unraveling of another female celebrity, because the show has yet to appear on Bravo’s website. However, a lovely YouTuber has collected all the promos.
I thought it would take a lot to feel the gaping void left in me when John Krasinski pulled out [of Thursday night television until next season] on me, but it seems like a little Abdul might do the trick.
Hey, Paula [Variety]
It’s been 13 years since they first threatened to remake The Women, George Cukor’s classic 1939 ensemble bitchfest, and finally, after eight million cast changes, cameras will roll August 6.
And listen to this sad, washed-up ensemble: Smegma Ryan (do you think she’ll play the spurned divorcee?), Annette Bening, Deb Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Eva Mendes, Candice Bergen. Not exactly the 2007 equivalent of Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard and Joan Fontaine. Worse, the film is to be written and directed by Murphy Brown (remember that?) mastermind Diane English. And it’s going to be set in the present day. And it’s partially funded by Dove (so expect tons of soap-related product placement).
These are all unforgivable sins, but the news actually gets worse: According to Variety, “the gals aren’t as relentlessly catty this time around.”
Jigga-whut? The whole reason the original is remembered at all - and the Clare Booth Luce play on which it was based is still produced - is the relentless cattiness. If English waters this down into a story of female empowerment via friendship I’ll vomit up tubes of jungle red lipstick.
‘Women’ finally ready for makeover [Variety]
Fat/sexy Gossip lead singer Beth Ditto, whose milky rolls are splayed on the cover of June’s NME, blames the gays (and the Beckhams!) for causing America’s eating disorder epidemic:
If there’s anyone to blame for size zero, it’s not women. Blame gay men who work in the fashion industry and want these women as dolls. Men don’t know what it feels like to be a woman and be expected to look a particular way. The Beckhams are part of the machine, Paris Hilton is part of the machine.
Beth’s gotten some backlash from the Towleroad commenters, who believe that straight women are to blame for their own postfeminist, cooter-waxing, nip-slipping body dysmorphia crisis. But I think she’s right, in part. I blame gay men, straight women and straight men, if not necessarily in that order.
I do, however, feel that the lesbians’ hands are pretty much clean on this issue.
Funny how when I first started listening to The Gossip, it didn’t really occur to me that Beth was as big as she is. But now that they’re getting more mainstream attention, they’re The Band With the Fat Lead Singer (remember when Keira Knightley tried to deny her own starvation issues by saying she thinks Beth’s body is hot?). I don’t recall this being an issue with any other bands with obese frontwomen like, uh, Heart. Anyone?
The Gossip’s Beth Ditto: Gay men to blame for skinny women [Towleroad]
You know you want this! [Dlisted]
Full disclosure: It’s Memorial Day weekend, and I’ve barely left the couch for two days. Everyone I know is out of town, it’s really hot, and I have a lot of DVDs to catch up on. I never do this. It’s been bliss.
But now that I’m hearing about the twin Memorial Day weekend adventures of Blow-han and Mischa Barton, both of which ended in drug-induced hospitalization, I’m ever more okay with my own laziness.
By the way, I love how the Mischa “antibiotics and a few cocktails” story was immediately linked to a Perez Hilton not-so-blind item that said she washed down a bunch of shrooms with blow.
Finally, since it’s Memorial Day, let’s loosen our cravats in recognition of the passing of Charles Nelson Reilly, who was out before anybody really understood what that meant. Somewhere, Brett Somers is crying into a gin rickey.
Mischa Barton hospitalized [TMZ]
Coke found in Lohan DUI investigation [TMZ]
Actor Charles Nelson Reilly dies at 76 [Los Angeles Times]
Just when I thought last night’s Desperate Housewives season finale was going to end on a snoozy note - 1) Lynette has “good Hodgkins,” check; 2) Susan and Mike finally marry, check; 3) Gaby’s marriage is a bad idea, check; 4) Bree is passing off Danielle’s pregnancy as her own, check - they shock us by having poor, slutty Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) hang herself! Over CARLOS, of all people!
People give Housewives a hard time, but I much prefer its cheerful self-parody to the unintentional silliness of other ABC soaps like Grey’s Anatomy and Brothers & Sisters. I am, however, struggling with conflicting opinions over the Edie suicide: Is it a cleverly bitter curveball or an unearned attempt at sour shock value borne of lazy writing? As usual for this show, I think the answer lies somewhere in between. And is it really suggesting, in this day and age, that this is what happens to single women over 40?
Also, what on earth will Nicollette do next? Housewives was a one-in-a-million career third-act for the washed-up Knot’s Landing star. She brought an intriguing neediness to the now-familiar “aging slut with an unexpectedly gooey center” archetype, and when Marcia Cross’ maternity leave freed up some screen time, she really came into her own.
I’m glad that somebody bothered to give us a good, old-fashioned season finale shocker. But Edie/Nicollette, we hardly knew ye…
We’ve been awaiting the inevitable for years, and it seems as if it’s finally happened: The return of Anne Heche’s Ecstasy-popping, highway-wandering, “May I please use your shower”-asking alter ego, Celestia. What fun!
Heche’s ex, the tragically named Coley Laffoon, is slinging all kinds of mud in the custody battle over the couple’s son Homer (yep, they’re sane all right). Apparently Anne/Celestia, while traveling with wee Homer, made a babbling, disoriented phone call to Coley, and then denied all memory of the incident the next day.
Usually, when a celebrity’s ex-spouse dishes public dirt, it reads as an obvious ploy for hush money in the form of exorbitant alimony. In this case, though, considering Anne’s well-documented achievements in Batshit Crazy (which she even documented in an autobiography), it’s hard to not at least hear Coley out.
Maybe all this drama will drive Anne out of the arms of her Men in Trees co-star James Tupper and back into the warm, enabling embrace of pussy.
Anne Heche’s hubby: Custody for me, psych eval for her [E! Online]
Veronica Mars had probably its best episode of the season last night, and Andy Towle caps what was arguably the best part. [Towleroad]
Fireplug-like Christian woman becomes pregnant with her 17th (!) blessing from the Lord. Datalounge explodes. [Datalounge]
On the other side of the political spectrum, if not the scale, Michael Moore becomes the surprise late entry in the summer movie spurt contest. [Variety]
Ensuring that Jessica Simpson’s enormous jugs don’t steal the spotlight at the Costume Institute Gala, Julianne Moore dresses for the title role in Here’s to the Ladies Who Drink Their Lunch: The Elaine Stritch Story. [Go Fug Yourself]
Rosie, dear. For my birthday, I asked for you to make Elizabeth Hasselbeck cry. But now I realize I should have been more specific. Because I didn’t mean tears of joy. And I didn’t mean by leaving the show. Way to ruin the first quarter-century of my LIFE Rosie! Gosh!
In all seriousness, it’s kind of sad to see televisions most fantastically drama-laden show lose the one thing that didn’t suck about it. In her year-long tenure, Rosie was able to drive ratings through the roof and crack walnuts in Hasselbeck’s tightly clenched ass cheeks. She caused Trumpgate, Chingchongate, Murdochgate, and Generalmeanlesbiangate. She gave us something more interesting to search for on YouTube than “teen boy in boxer briefs flexing muscles.” Oh, Rosie!
The only thing happier than Hasselbitch and Rosie’s seat cushion has got to be Babs herself, who will no longer be called out on her WASPy two-facedness on the air. Because everyone the only thing more important than ratings is making sure you can still call in a threesome with Trump and Murdoch.
Au revoir, Rosie. I expect you to spend your newfound free time launching more gay family cruises to countries that, uh, hate gay families. Meanwhile, I’m going to bury my sorrow in… cake.
O’Donnell leaving ‘The View’ [CNN]
