Tag Archives: Girls

Sarahphina’s Finds (3-1-13) Trashy Divas, Hat Girls and Oscar Ladies Edition

1 Mar

First, kids, a confession.  While today is March 1 and therefore the end of my Shopping Embargo (henceforth known as my Worst Idea Ever), I have to admit that the experiment was NOT a soaring success.

I cheated.  I cheated so hard, and it felt so good.

It started on Wednesday.  I was a-trollin’ Trashy Diva, LIKE YOU DO, lusting after the pretty vintage-style dresses that I can’t afford, when a Mysterious Force led me to click on the Sale page.  It might have been God.  It might have been habit, because I always click on the Sale page, but whatever.  In past experience, this has been a futile effort.  Because while the prices are (sometimes) right when the dresses are on sale, the sizes rarely are.  I’m a size 8 or 10 (depending on cut, material, style and brand) which apparently are REALLY COMMON SIZES because they are almost never available on sale anywhere ever.

And then I saw this.

Rosalind Dress in "Mardi Gras" from Trashy Diva

Rosalind Dress in “Mardi Gras” from Trashy Diva

My size.  My style.  Sixty-Six bucks.  More than I like to spend on a single item, but a killer deal for a Trashy Diva Dress.  AND LOOK AT HOW PRETTY!  I feared I’d never again find it in my size.  So I ponied up and bought it.  AND I’M NOT EVEN SORRY.

But that opened the floodgates.  Because then I ducked into Ray’s Ragtime “just to look” and came out with a new 70s-era dress, braided belt and floppy hat.  I tried to be sorry, but all I could think about was how Foxy and Jessa-from-GIRLS-chic I was going to look at my boyfriend’s show Thursday night (and I did).  But the dress needed a statement necklace, so I stopped by the Goodwill Boutique on 10th (a KILLER place for big necklaces and bangles, beeteedubs) on my way home.  Because in for a penny in for a pound, amirite? (No really–am I right?  I’m not sure I know exactly what “in for a penny, in for a pound” means).

Jessa-chic, hat and all.

Jessa-chic, hat and all.

Swim Atlantic @ Buffalo Gap

Here is a superfluous shot of my boyfriend’s band, Swim Atlantic. Because this is MY blog, and I post whatever the hell I want, with nary a thought for relevance! Find them on Facebook, yo.

But even with my Last-Minute Shopping Binge, I still saved money this month.  So while  Shopping Embargo Worst Idea Ever was not a soaring success due to my horrible, cheating ways, it was still a success.  Arguably.

I spent a lot of time talking about that.

ON TO TODAY’S FINDS!

  • But, as you may have heard, there was some serious sexist bullshit that went down.  I didn’t watch the Oscars this year, but there are articles GALORE on the sexism (from casual to overt) at the Academy Awards.  My favorite Lindy West does a killer breakdown on Oscar sexism.   Best of all, she links to a bunch of other awesome articles, so please follow the trail.
  • Time Magazine published an extremely powerful piece on photojournalism and domestic violence, in which a photographer is present and able to document an instance of abuse.  As someone who has never (thankfully) experience domestic abuse, seeing these photos brought the experience millions of women (and some men) face into my mind and heart in a very real way.  Please note that the story and images might be triggers for survivors of abuse.
  • I am very excited for Oz the Great and Powerful.  I never go to the movies anymore (because I am poor and broke), but this one I want to see.  What can I say?  My Mom and I read The Wizard of Oz together when I was a wee one, Wicked is my favorite book as a grown up, AND I WANNA SEE THIS MOVIE.  There’s also a place inside me that fears it’s going to suck.  I mean, there’s a whole lot of “please Man, come save us!” in the trailer.
  • I’ve been reading up a storm in 2013.  One of the books I stumbled across was the remarkable We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.  This book will not be for everyone, but if you are a fan of the macabre and the strange world of realism-but-also-not (I just made that up, but I like the sound of it), this might be a book for you.  Merricat Blackwood is the best unreliable narrator I’ve come across in a long time, and this story of prejudice, guilt, love, routine, magic and otherness is utterly gripping.
  • Last but not least, February will be remembered as the month where I finally learned how to wear false eyelashes!  The guide to my mastery was the divine Gabi of xojane.  You can find her how-to here, and it’s the best ever.  The biggest tip I took to heart was cutting my falsies in half–twice the lashes, half the trouble of applying!  But where she uses tweezers to gently press them in place, I use a Q-tip, dampened in the sink so it doesn’t stick.  It works great and takes away the “Fear Factor” part of the process.
It's remarkably hard to take selfies that feature your eyelashes.

It’s surprisingly hard to take selfies that feature your eyelashes.

I feel like I’ve been writing for a really long time.

  • But before I go, I bring to you the delightful Garfunkel & Oates singing a song about hand jobs.  Yes, really.  Thanks to Allan Mott for leading me to this video AND for being one of my favorite people on the whole internet.  Follow him @HouseOfGlib.

Alright, Internet!  I hope your whole Friday feels like Happy Hour!

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The Feedback I Get: Thoughts on Patrick Wilson & Lena Dunham from a Chick who Dates Up.

13 Feb
WARNING: sometimes not-skinny people get naked.

WARNING: sometimes not-skinny people get naked.

It was the fling heard ’round the world.

Destined to have a place in the stars besides Liz & Dick, Bogie & Bacall and the beast known as Bennifer are Lena and Patrick.  Star-crossed lovers (on TV).  She’s normal.  He’s pretty.  OH MY GOD!!!! WHAT!!!??? HOW CAN SUCH A THING BE!?!?  Wait.  Shhhh.  No, seriously.  Do you hear that?  It must be the Four Horsemen putting saddles on their apocolypic steeds.

Give me a fucking break.

In case you missed the most recent Girls (WARNING: beaucoup spoilers!) here’s the sitch: Conspicuously absent were Jessa, Shoshanna and Marnie.  Instead, the episode revolved around Hannah (Lena Dunham, obvi) and her sexual interlude (i.e. three day bangfest) with foxy-as-hell doctor Joshua (Patrick Wilson).  Joshua appears at the Grumpy Cafe to speak with the manager about cafe trash winding up in his trashcan.  And, because the manager is Ray, it quickly spirals into a shouting match between the two men–after which, Hannah ducks next door to confess that it was actually her who’d been dumping the garbage.  He’s charmed by her.  She’s charmed by him.  Next thing, they’re doing it.  And they KEEP doing it for an idyllic three-day vacation from their jobs, problems and lives.  For three days they eat steak, bone, play naked ping-pong and just hang out.  But eventually the spell is broken, and Hannah leaves his perfect brownstone, garbage in tow.

Cue internet freakstorm.

See, in case you missed it, Hannah is fat.  FAT!  OH MY GOD!  And Joshua is not fat.  And therefore, it’s COMPLETELY unbelievable–nay, downright OFFENSIVE–that Joshua would ever be sexually interested in Hannah.  AND HOW DARE LENA DUNHAM WRITE AN EPISODE IN WHICH IT’S EVEN SUGGESTED THAT SUCH A THING COULD HAPPEN!  I MEAN, SHE MUST BE DELUSIONAL!!!!  Unless the episode is MEANT to be a fantasy!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!

“Oh please, there is no way that he would get with her!”

Hollywood.com

“Why are these people having sex, when they are so clearly mismatched—in style, in looks, in manners, in age, in everything? Why is he kissing her and begging her to stay over? Seriously, Dave—why?”

Slate “Guys on Girls”

Remember the episode of The Cosby Show in which Cliff, Theo, Elvin, and Martin were all pregnant? Martin fathered a sailboat, Theo a sports car, Cliff a hoagie and soda, and Elvin, well, nobody ever cared that much about Elvin. He probably had another rattail. At the end, Cliff woke up from his dream.

This week’s Girls was a lot like that Cosby Show, except Hannah never woke up from the fantastical, implausible story she found herself in.

Esquire

So, do you think Hannah and Joshua’s tryst was real?

Of course nothing in the series thus far would support the “fantasy” reading of the episode — everything we’ve seen has always been rooted in reality.

Entertainment Weekly

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the episode was meant to be an oh-my-god-it-was-all-in-her-head-fantasy.  Because, frankly, the circumstances just aren’t that bizarre.  Two people in very different places in their lives come together for a brief time because they need something the other provides.  A time to try on a grown-up life.  A rest.  A reminder of what it was to have your whole life ahead of you.  A million reasons.  Such encounters may or may not involve boning.  This one did.

Because here’s the thing.  For all the well-reasoned, intelligent discussion on why this episode had to be a fantasy, we would not be having this conversation had the three day bangfest with a sexy, rich doctor involved Marnie (Allison Williams) or Jessa (Jemima Kirke).  In fact, JESSA MARRIED A RICH INVESTMENT BANKER WHO SHE BARELY KNEW AND NO ONE FREAKED OUT!  It’s Hannah’s body that makes her sexual relationship with a foxy rich dude so improbable to people.

Fatty.

Fatty.

But they’re wrong.  Hot guys get with average looking chicks all the time.  I know. I’m an average looking chick.  It’s cool.  I’m fine with how I look. I think I’m pretty.  But I know that to the outside world I’m a pretty unremarkable looking lady.  And we won’t even TALK about how I’d match up to Hollywood’s bullshit body standards.  I’m 5’6” and I weigh between 155 and 160 pounds.  More than I’d like, but I don’t really freak out about it.  I’m a size 10.  My stomach is not flat, and my butt jiggles (adorably) when I walk.

And yet, despite my utter unremarkable-ness and (gasp!) audacity to subject innocent passers-by to my Unskinny Body, I get hit on all the time.  Waiters have written their phone numbers on my check.  I’ve been called out on Craigslist’s “missed connections.”  One time, sitting on a park bench after a post-breakup cry, a dude came up to me and asked me out.  I got asked out on a date with salty rage-tears still wet on my face!

And some of these guys have been really hot.  Now that I think about it, many of them have been.  What can I say?  I tend to date up.  And while my body issues and insecurites have had their role to play in these interludes and relationships, my body itself has never been a problem.  I’ve been with sexy musician types, athletes, and rich dudes.  Many of whom were being actively pursued by skinnier, prettier women.  But they picked me, for whatever reason, just as I picked them.

This one time, a guy saw me naked and DIDN'T THROW UP FROM DISGUST! It was awesome.

This one time, a guy saw me naked and DIDN’T THROW UP FROM DISGUST! It was awesome.

Sexy doesn’t mean pretty, although it can.  Sexy doesn’t mean skinny, although it can.  Sexy doesn’t even mean confident, although it can.  The fucking fact is, sexy means different things to different people at different times.  I can absolutely see what Wilson’s Joshua saw in Dunham’s Hannah.  She’s smart.  She’s quirky.  She’s funny and unexpected.  She’s CUTE, sloppy backside and all.  And when the illusion finally is broken, it’s not because he all of a sudden woke up and saw that he’d spent the last several days boning a “blobbie” (thanks again, NY Post!).  No.  It’s because she broke the solemnity of their “vacation” by being honest–and by giving him a good look at her special Hannah-brand of narcissism.

And I’m not even going to START on the tubby guy/hot girl trope being played out everywhere you look.

So for all the critics going off about the “fantasy” that an Adonis-y Patrick Wilson could ever be sexually interested in a “blobby” Lena Dunham–stop.  Just stop.  The only fantasy here is the one pretending that all men–hell, that all PEOPLE–are attracted to one thing and that one thing must look a certain way or else it’s not “believable.”  Men are attracted to Lena.  Men are attracted to me.  Deal with it.  Pull your heads out of your asses and shut up about fantasy.  Because you are insulting me and embarrassing yourselves.

Joshua: You’re beautiful.

Hannah: You really think so?

Joshua: You don’t?

Hannah: I do. It’s just not always the feedback that I’ve been given.

Tits up, Lena.  Come over and I’ll make you some steak.

No peeking

For further reading, please check out the excellent responses to the hubub from Emily McCombs on xojane.com and Tracie Egan Morissey on Jezebel.    UPDATE (2/13/2013 9:57am):  Also, this excellent piece on HuffPo from Maureen Ryan!

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GIRLS. All I really want is GIRLS.

28 Jan

So the other night my friend and  I power-watched the entire first season of Girls in a single viewing.

GIRLS

It’s a show I’ve been dying to watch for a long time.  It’s been such a media focal point that I feel like I knew so much about the show without ever having seen it.  It did not disappoint.  So here are 5 reasons why you should stop what you are doing and go watch Girls right now.

1).  This show is funny as hell.  Watch it because you’ll laugh until you pee yourself.

2.) The 4 main characters are really well-rounded.  They are not always likeable.  They are not always smart.  They’re flawed and clueless and sometimes really mean and selfish.  They are also vulnerable and strong and rebellious and honest and amazing and hearbreaking.  You know, like people.

3.)  It is shocking to see Lena Dunham’s body on screen.  And it feels really good.  First off, I think she is cute as a freaking button when she is naked.  But she does not look like most actresses on TV.  Or, really, any actresses on TV.  She is not fat.  But she is “actress-fat.”  As someone who is also “actress-fat,” it feels really good to see her body represented as totally normal.  Usually, the only time a young female character gets to be fat is if her character is just “fat girl.”  The chances for fat people–especially fat women–to be portrayed in film and TV as anything other than the “fat friend” or “funny fat girl” or “gross fat person” are few and far between.  This is bullshit. Hannah’s weight is not played for laughs or played for shame–it just is.  She’s just a chick and this is how she looks and sometimes she’s naked and it’s amazing.  Girl does not give a fuck. It is shocking to see Lena Dunham just up there on screen Existing While Not Skinny.  It is shocking and it shouldn’t be.  More Not Skinny women on screen, please!

4.)  The men are secondary characters.  On this show, men get to inhabit the roles typically filled by women–that of love interest,  sex partner, or quirky friend.  In most shows, the female characters are defined by their relationship to the men–who are the real center of the show.  With Girls that has been turned ass-over-teakettle.  The ladies and their relationships with each other are the crux around which everything else revolves.  And it doesn’t bother me to see men pushed to the outside for once.

5.)  Unlike Sex and the City (which I also love–or I did until the terrible movies), this show offers a much more reasonable portrayal of city life.  The apartments are small!  People have ROOMMATES!  The wardrobes make sense!  Yay!

Now.  Lest you think I’ve forgotten the criticism Girls has received around its lack of diversity, let me say for the record that I agree–it is a really white show.  This is a problem not just for Girls but for much of TV.  We need more honest diversity on television way that is realistic and believable and doesn’t fall into tokenism.  YES, people of of color need to be better represented on TV.  From what I understand, Lena has taken this criticism to heart and I hope to see changes made.  And I hope the criticism around the whiteness of Girls encourages other shows on other Networks to LISTEN UP and start hiring actors and directors and writers of color to share their stories and their voices.  Like, yesterday.  Because it’s long past time.

What I loved most of all about Girls was how easily I could see myself and my friends in there.  Not as I wished we were.  Not as flawlessly beautiful paragons of glamour.  Not as accessories to “real” (male) protagonists.  Just us.  Taking chances and fucking up and laughing hard and sometimes being assholes and sometimes being clueless and sometimes being just a little bit fat.

Plus, it’s really fucking funny.

Watch This: Shit Shoshanna Says

 

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