Rich Text

Turns out that Taylor Frankie Paul's cursed, likely-forever-buried, season of "The Bachelorette" is the content gift that keeps on giving.
Earlier this week, Paul's final guy, ocean lifeguard / model / aspiring musician Doug Mason joined Charity Lawson and Rachel Recchia on Bachelor Happy Hour for a two-part interview. And oh boy... was it a rich text. (Pun intended.) We listened to both parts of the podcast so that you don't have to, and we hopped on the mic to discuss the (somewhat lukewarm) revelations about Doug's time filming "The Bachelorette," the swift disintegration -- or as he puts it, "searing" -- of his engagement to Taylor, his feelings on children and dogs (you can't lie to either), and his feelings about the Dakota comparisons (he's not a fan).
We also dissected what Doug's AI-generated youth pastor vibe makes us feel. On the one hand, he's unquestionably a victim in this situation. The man went on a reality TV show, caught feelings, got engaged, got cheated on, got dumped, got mocked on a different reality show, and then footage of his own journey never even aired. He hasn't done anything wrong as far as we can see! And yet... there's something distinctly off about his affect. He says so many sentences in this interview that truly convey nothing at all. There is something unsettling about listening to a person speak for 90 minutes and coming away understanding so little about them other than the fact that they have a close relationship with the Lord and believe themselves to be deeply empathetic.
But perhaps we should just take a page out of Doug's book and enjoy the ride. As he says: “Hello! Life is fun! Why is it so heavy? Let’s have a good time.”
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Perhaps the most controversial scene in "The Swan: Behind the Mirror," documentarian Erin Lee Carr's new 100-minute exposé on the 2004 extreme makeover reality show "The Swan," is the last one. (For those who aren't familiar, the show promised to transform each of its contestants from "ugly ducklings" into "swans" through extensive plastic surgery, dieting and life coaching.) The ex-contestants who participated in the documentary are gathered for an on-camera reunion, full of champagne toasts and mutual affirmations. It culminates with a rousing group singalong to P!nk's "Fuckin' Perfect," which seems to have been nudged forward by production. It reads as a slightly forced attempt to put a neat bow on the women's often painful experiences with the show: They survived, thanks to their sisterhood, and now they know they're "fuckin' perfect."
For some critics, the feel-good ending stuck out like a sore thumb. Was Carr selling her own audience-pleasing redemption narrative, just like the producers of "The Swan" did? Was she subtly promoting the idea of perfection as an ideal still worth striving for? Why a P!nk song that came out six years after the show aired??
It's an uneasy conclusion that reflects the uneasiness of the documentary as a whole, which chooses to center the voices and experiences of the ex-contestants rather than advancing a full-throated feminist critique of the show's reenforcement of the punishing beauty standard and promotion of invasive cosmetic procedures as a form of self-care. Though some contestants (and critic Scaachi Koul, in a couple of talking heads) deplore the show's promotion of an unattainable physical ideal, what becomes clear is that most of the women who went on the show are relatively unbothered by the plastic surgery of it all. That was, of course, the whole reason most of them went on the show to begin with. Instead, they are rankled by the psychological control and manipulation that they were subjected to by production. The contestants from season one are still furious that they were made to compete in a beauty pageant at the end of the show, pitted against their new best friends and told that, even after all those surgeries and hours in the gym, they still weren't hot enough for a tiara.
In this episode, we discuss how the documentary attempts to balance the competing imperatives to critique the sexist beauty culture exemplified by "The Swan" and to share the real perspectives of women who appeared on the show. We discuss the franchise's backstory (and Mike Darnell's sleazy influence), what the documentary reveals about the behind-the-scenes of the show, the plastic surgeon who compares women to toilets, and the dangerous physical extremes to which the contestants were pushed. We also dig into how the show played on expectations of female compliance and submission, the cultural contempt for women who weren't considered hot (especially if they dared to try to become hot), and how the show anticipated not only beauty culture today but the framing of exploitative reality TV shows as self-optimization pursuits. Hope you enjoy! xo
References:
"'The Swan' Gets a Superficial Reckoning," by Naomi Fry, The New Yorker
"America’s Public-Humiliation Addiction," by MJ Corey, The Cut
"The Most Disturbing 2000s Reality Show Doesn’t Seem So Crazy Anymore," by Maya Salam, NYT
"'I Almost Died for Reality Television': Inside ‘The Swan,’ the Most Sadistic Reality Show Ever," by Marlow Stern, Variety
"The Swan contestants on the ‘sadistic’ pageant reality show: ‘Ultimately, we were just a job’," by Adrian Horton, The Guardian
"Television on the Cutting Edge: Cosmetic Surgery Goes Prime-Time," by Leigh Turner, AMA Journal of Ethics
"Plastic surgery, as seen on TV," by Melissa Healy, LA Times
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Last month marked the 30th anniversary of the iconic comedy "The First Wives Club." And as two ladies who are now at a stage of life that Elise Eliot might term "district attorney," we jumped at the opportunity to discuss the film's zany plot, stacked cast, and hilarious but poignant exploration of divorce, ageism, male entitlement, and women's empowerment.
When the movie opens, three college friends, played by Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton, are reunited following the public divorce and suicide of the fourth pal in their old clique. Elise (Hawn) has had a storied Hollywood career; Annie (Keaton) lives a comfortable upper-middle-class life and has a loving daughter; Brenda (Midler) helped her husband Morty build a discount electronics store empire and is planning her son's long-awaited bar mitzvah. But they quickly learn that all of their lives have gone wrong in the same humiliating way: their husbands have left them for much younger women. Now in their mid-forties, the women have been left with floundering or nonexistent careers, perceived as disposable by their industries and their selfish spouses. They decide to band together and seek revenge – no, justice. What follows is a madcap romp that, for all its storytelling flaws, is so viciously funny and so masterfully acted that it became an immediate box office hit and remains a beloved classic.
The film's popularity also reflects how deeply it spoke to its (predominantly female) audience in its depiction of ageism, the stigma of divorce, and the financially devastating consequences of women sacrificing their careers for their husbands. Sure, it's not a gritty examination of what divorce really looks like for the average woman. Like Belle Burden's recent memoir, "Strangers" – but much, much funnier – "The First Wives Club" mingles aspirational lifestyle porn with a dark warning: if even these affluent, well-heeled women aren't safe from the financial and personal embarrassment that comes with divorce, what woman is? Thankfully, we can all find some hope in sisterhood, as these three iconic characters do.
In this episode, we discuss the film's background and reception, recap the entire movie (and perhaps quote a little too liberally from it – how could we resist?), and discuss the film's multifaceted depiction of divorce and ageism, fatphobia, queerness, witches, the Trumps, the financial exploitation of housewives, and the sexualization and desexualization of women in midlife. Hope you enjoy!
Reading list:
"Hollywood's Best Revenge," by Kim Masters, Time
"‘Club’ Draws Strength From Its Members," by Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times 
"The Ladies Who Lunge," by Richard Corliss, Time
"Taking Action Is Best Revenge for First Wives," by Lynn Smith, Los Angeles Times
"Make Way for 40-Plus ‘Club’" by Claudia Puig, Los Angeles Times
"The First Wives Club," by Roger Ebert
"Love's Revenge, Or, Spite Is A Many-Splendored Thing," by Janet Maslin, New York Times
"The Story Behind the Iconic Casting of ‘The First Wives Club’," by Mitchell Sunderland, Vice
"Goldie Hawn says she was ‘irate’ over initial ‘First Wives Club’ script: ‘It was very male bashing’," by Eric Todisco, New York Post
"Heather Locklear says James Naughton not at fault for ‘gross’ moment," by Leah Bitsky, Page Six
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A new Rachel Cusk novel is an international event. Her Outline trilogy became the kind of breakthrough hit that few novelists (especially writers of austere autofiction) can ever hope to attain. But what could make the latest novel from such a literary rockstar even more buzzy? Well, a little celebrity scandal couldn't hurt!
Over the summer, reports began to circulate that Cusk's new novel, "Life of M," would be about A-list movie star Natalie Portman – and that the novel, based on their personal friendship, was so unflattering that Portman felt personally betrayed by it. The scandal blossomed before the book even hit bookstore shelves. Was Cusk a monster for stabbing her friend in the back for book sales? Was Portman an idiot for agreeing to the project to begin with?
When the book did come out, one month ago, it complicated this narrative of the cunning, vicious writer and the beautiful fool. "Life of M" does attempt to imagine the inner life of a movie star, M, who is inarguably, identifiably Natalie Portman. But it is, perhaps even to its detriment, quite clear that M is merely a vessel for the narrator's own identity crisis. The two character barely even know each other (much like, presumably, Cusk and Portman). Instead of faithfully exploring M's inner life as gleaned from a real intimate knowledge, the novel uses M as a representation of pure, distilled celebrity, as the narrator meditates on how fame, and the violence of being perceived, drive us toward alienation and living death.
In this episode, we look back on the original scandal and how it took shape, consider the critical reaction to the novel, and discuss our own thoughts on the novel and its flaws, strengths, and overarching themes. We dig into Cusk's fraught relationships with gender, cruelty, motherhood and fame, and her apparent desire to move past narrative to the relative permanence of objects. (Richly embroidered curtains, it's time for your close-up!)
Hope you enjoy! xo
Reading List:
"Life of M," by Rachel Cusk
"A novelist’s dark portrait of Natalie Portman" by Valerie Stivers, UnHerd
"Natalie Portman, her novelist friend and a literary assassination" by Leaf Arbuthnot, The Telegraph
"How a Highbrow Novel Became Celebrity Gossip" by Alexandra Alter, New York Times
“Rachel Cusk Tried to Caricature Natalie Portman. She Only Caricatured Herself” by Parul Sehgal, New York Times Magazine
“Can Celebrities Be People, Too? In a New Novel, Rachel Cusk Isn’t Sure” by Alexandra Jacobs, New York Times
“Proust Is in the Room” by Emily Witt, London Review of Books
“Rachel Cusk’s Protest Against Personhood” by Becca Rothfeld, The New Yorker
“Is Rachel Cusk’s Life of M Actually About Natalie Portman?” by Laura Miller, Slate
“Why genre matters” by Colton Valentine, The Drift
"Against ‘Women’s Writing’" by Andrea Long Chu, Vulture
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This week on the podcast, we were ready to let loose and have a little fun. After a few relatively heavy topics, it was time to get back to the important business of frivolous television.
In this episode, we chat about three TV shows we've binged in the past month: The Alix Earle reality series "Earle Meets World," a fascinatingly vacuous reality show about making brand content; the mediocre but serviceable YA romance "Crew Girl"; and the luminous, irresistible romantic drama "Sterling Point."
All three shows are, in some spiritual sense, the offspring of millennial pop culture that shaped our generation. "Earle Meets World" is a rather limp attempt at recapturing the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" magic, while "Crew Girl" and "Sterling Point" both reflect a renewed demand for WB-style romantic teen soaps. But are they worth watching?
First, we discuss "Earle Meets World," starting with Alix Earle as a cultural figure – a relatable hot-girl influencer who has now become a reality TV protagonist – and our general reaction to the show. (Overwhelmingly, boredom.) We discuss how the familial drama of the show, which stars not just Earle but her entire immediate family, is sublimated into professional grievances and assertions of workplace hierarchy, and we also look at how the entire show functions as brand management for Earle – at the expense of any real vulnerability or narrative excitement.
Then, we discuss the current state of the teen soap renaissance. With "Crew Girl" and "Sterling Point" added to the growing pile of WB-esque YA romance series coming out on streaming platforms (especially Prime), we wanted to dig into why these shows dwindled in number, why they're having a resurgence, and what need they fill for audiences today. We chat about the class, race, and sexuality politics of these shows, as well as how they portray coming-of-age experience through those all-important love triangles. We also have a little fun breaking down the more absurd details of "Crew Girl," before turning our attention to the best show we cover in this episode: "Sterling Point." We talk about what made this show so winning to us, and dig into its melodramatic but resonant exploration of daughterhood, sisterhood, and what it means to be a family.
Hope you enjoy! xo
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