Pop Culture Mondays/11. 16.20
The “I WILL GO TO ALL THE FESTIVALS” Edition
Happy Monday my darling pop culture junkies! I am not going to lie…I have absolutely NO idea what I am going to write about at the moment. I am sitting here on my 2nd cup of coffee and I cannot complain about the cold in LA because it is now back to being hot and I am confused like am I going to be hot or cold so I am wearing shorts and Uggs and I have become a cliche and the virus is spreading like crazy and we are all living confused half lives and while we are adapting we are all getting to a breaking point it seems and now that the election is over…it is OVER can someone tell that crazy old uncle it is over, but it is and NOW WHAT DO WE DO???
I don’t know, I do NOT have answers but I saw videos from Taiwan this weekend — a place that has seemingly stopped the virus — where it held ULTRA, an electronic music festival that before now I could tell you with absolute certainty I would not ever go to because festivals scare me in my old age…but you know what?? I will go to every music festival I can as soon as this is over. Crowded? BRING IT. Hot? I am in. Porta potties…sure, I can handle. NO VIP access? Um…OK well I DO have my limits but OMG I MISS LIVE MUSIC MORE THAN ANYTHING and I swear the minute I can, I am going to be a festival/rock show/any live music junkie and go back to my old school Penny Lane days and I will cover myself in glitter and grab my laminates and I mean LOOK at this:
SO….this is my 2021 Goal and I DO NOT CARE HOW OLD I AM NOW THIS IS MY 2021:
IN the meantime, I will watch all the content and all the TikToks and listen to all the podcasts and play all the records and write this newsletter. And for those new subscribers….THANK YOU…so many of you this week. This is a sugar-free/carb-free/guilt-free pop culture fix talking about the things other people are talking about but you can’t figure out with a little of this and that in between….but we are Trump-free despite all the amaze ridiculousness he gives us.
Enjoy my darlings…
HARRY STYLES IS A COVER GIRL:
This is my lead story as it is the story I got the most questions about this past week.
- Is Harry on the cover of Vogue just because he looks good in a dress?
- Is Harry gender fluid?
- Would they have put Harry on the cover if he wasn’t wearing a dress?
- WHY DOES HARRY LOOK BETTER IN A DRESS THAN ME?
Ok, that last one is maybe my own but here is the deal. Let me break it down for you as maybe some of you don’t even known the story of who Harry Styles is and how he came to be. So way back in 2010 when we were all innocent, Harry Styles along with 4 other young men (I cannot call them boys because if you know, you know) Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson all auditioned as SOLO artists for the “X Factor”. Another Simon Cowell show like “America’s Got Talent”…but better.
SO…They were not good enough apparently to proceed to the individual solo category BUT star-maker and king of the VENEERS, Simon Cowell, put these 5 together so they could move forward as a GROUP. Yes that is correct. ONE DIRECTION was BORN because of a TV show and voila…POP CULTURE magic was made. These YOUNG MEN (I will take that to the grave) were beautiful, and talented and all brought their own “thing”. And they could sing. And Harry was like this young Mick Jagger like ultra adorable but you know a naughty one (they all were, let’s just say that…) and their fan bases grew and they became the biggest thing in the world. I could write about all of them…but alas, this is about Harry.
Harry found himself either with a very good team around him, a very good instinct, or maybe a little of both. But he realized the life of a pop star boy bander needed to evolve in order to stay alive so he began branching out. He took a small role in a very big movie and was AMAZING:
You can see him here at the 46 second mark in the “Dunkirk” trailer and if you haven’t seen this movie that’s what you are doing this week:
So, he didn’t go the “I am a boy band star and therefore I need to STAR in my first movie that’s going to be some teen love story sensation and I get to sing SING I say!!” route. And then he started experimenting a bit more. With his look and his style. We have covered his MARGE SIMPSON look here before when he pulled off an INCREDIBLE Peter Gabriel…and “Watermelon Sugar” is forgivable because he is adorable…and he stops at fans houses and leaves notes because he OF COURSE does that. BUT now…Harry is the first man to grace the cover of Vogue SOLO. And he did so (and in the subsequent pages) wearing couture dresses and looking great. He is not the first rock star to bend gender norms by any means…but the first one I think to be embraced by mainstream media and culture in such a way that it doesn’t seemingly even seem all that edgy anymore.
While I will say, I personally love it. BUT DAMN that boy has some amazing GUCCI and looks amaze IN the Gucci and I am beyond envious. And while trolls like the ridiculous Candace Owens seemingly cannot handle this, I am HERE for it. As are many who came to defend him against this ridiculous lady.
THE CROWN IS BACK:
OK, so I know I am an Anglophile. You know I am an Anglophile. All my British friends know I am an Anglophile. All the British men I have dated know I am an Anglophile. Everyone who knows me and my liberal use of the word “LITERALLY” but I pronounce it “LIT-RULLY” knows I am an Anglophile. THAT SAID, I am clearly not alone. And initially I thought, man I cannot disclose my love for this show because all my British friends will roll their eyes at me…but then I see on my Insta that ALL of my British friends are having fun premiere watching parties (virtual parties) for the show which started DAYS before in the UK than in the US. DAMN YOU NETFLIX.
EVERYONE was watching this new season…the season that really starts in my generation, the ’70s (or as the kids call it, the 1900s) and shows us Lady Diana who the actress seemingly LITRULLY becomes, dancing to obscure Duran Duran and I am HERE FOR IT. I mean, I remember begging my nanny the night before Princess Diana’s wedding…begging begging to please wake up at the crack of dawn so we could watch it live and not tell my parents who disapproved of TV in general but certainly at the crack of dawn. And I sat in front of the TV as close as I could taking it all in as a 7 year old girl who thought there was nothing better than becoming a princess and all you needed to bring happiness and joy was a prince. YEAH so….MOVING ON…
This season is great. All the characters are great…also, I am wildly obsessed with the actor playing Prince Philip and also I just want all my friends from this point on to be called Dickie…I just love it all so much.
BUT…and I mean BUT…
We need to talk about Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher. I mean it is transcendent and I am not sure how much of it is true or how much is creative license but I DO NOT CARE AT ALL. Her real life partner is Peter Morgan, the writer/creator of the show so it almost is like this was ALL done for this moment…so she could be Prime Minister Thatcher. I once sat across from Gillian at a small dinner and it wasn’t until dessert that I realized this ravishing beauty across from me was Scully from “The X-Files” who I worshipped in the ’90s and who’s hair I tried desperately to emulate…I am not a red head let’s just say it was a dark period in my life and I wore purple lipstick.
ANWAY, this woman across the table from me was just a different persona and also had an incredibly proper English accent (I say this not really knowing but it sounded very elegant and austere tbh) and I had no idea she was British and then I later learned she is not but SHE IS an incredible actress and I guess adapts to her surroundings. I don’t meant this in a Madonna way…I promise you. It was just all so captivating and I had to forcibly make myself not stare as she sat across from me. And look, Queen Meryl did an incredible job too in “The Iron Lady”…but this role is different. It’s haunting. And tragic. And man, does it paint Mrs. Thatcher as NOT a girl’s girl…I mean even if ONE PERCENT of this is true, it’s pretty easy to see the disconnect she had with so many. Also, I cannot discuss the shoes…too soon. TOO soon. But just watch this scene:
I mean SOME might need subtitles on for it as it can be tricky at times to understand her but it is pretty haunting I will say. FOR reference, feel free to watch a bit of this interview of the real Thatcher…I mean after 30 seconds you might be ready for a nap BUT it shows the uncanny similarity they have:
EVEN THE EARRINGS!! Seriously, the casting, the wardrobe, the set design…it is all so incredible I just want to live in this show and do nothing more. Though to think that Margaret Thatcher was 53 when she first became PM and she and the Queen were just 6 months apart and like NOT much older than me as I sit here eating sour patch kids and talking about boy bands…BUT ALAS, I digress. I mean regardless of the creative license, I have gone deep into my Internet sleuthing and now feel so much smarter than I did before this…I mean I am pretty sure I can have a FAIRLY expert conversation now about:
- War in the Falklands…hell I now know where the Falklands ARE.
- Hunting a stag…WHAT A STAG is and why it was used a metaphor for Diana (beautiful and HUNTED)
- Geopolitical matters of ALL kinds related to the UK
- Dysfunctional families…OH never mind, I was already an expert on that one…BUT I digress.
The show is a triumph….it is our DALLAS but sort of real and I am trying not to binge it all too soon but it is very very tricky to resist.
Full Trailer here:
LETA POWELL DRAKE, EXPLAINED:
Like a bat out of HELL, came all at once this deluge of tweets and retweets of these unearthed celebrity interviews that most of us had never seen from the 1900s (I adapt see?) ok let’s say the 1970s and ’80s when Thatcher and Gorbachev and Reagan were all playing Gin Rummy and we were just trying to stay alive man. ANYWAY, these interviews went viral because of her style…she was brash, out there, she said it like it was…and this was all for LOCAL TV in Lincoln, Nebraska where seemingly every Hollywood star at the time would have to sit thru on their press junkets — these interviews are OUT of this world and it is almost like SHE MIGHT BE THE WORST interviewer ever but because of that SHE IS THE BEST. If they happened today, most people would just walk away aka STORM OUT (and we have the Internet so theywould be briefed whereas like HOW did you research back then???)…we are sensitive creatures you know. But some people gave it back to her, some had fun with it, some were just too stunned by the crazy to really react and I will tell you what…it is GOLD. WE NEED THIS NOW. She is having fun, she is seemingly fearless and flirty and maybe totally NUTS and it’s all so weird and I want to be her in every which way.
So in case you missed this viral sensation initially tweeted by https://twitter.com/JFrankensteiner:
I MEAN SHE IS EVERYTHING. Back when celebs had to sit thru these endless press junkets which I know expertly about due to “Notting Hill” one of the GREATEST movies of all time for which I have seen maybe 875 times…come on, you remember when floppy haired Hugh Grant pretended to be a writer from “Horse and Hound” magazine (a real magazine btw) and gets thrown into a press junket…just to find THE GIRL…
I mean asking an actor if his dad is still alive like Leta did is up there with asking about why there are no horses in a space movie IN MY OPINION. IN any event, Leta is still alive and someone (KARA SWISHER) should interview her for a podcast ASAP PLEASE.
AND THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS….
We cover the UK from all decades and definitely a THROW BACK PCM to the time when parents threw us in the back of station wagons with no seat belts and moms hot boxed us in cars as they smoked their Benson & Hedges and there was seemingly NO parenting except I was not allowed to watch TV and MTV was the devil…ahh…simpler times. A few other things rose up this week…
- Well, this was a tear jerker I have now watched more times than I can count. IF YOU HAVE SEEN “The Notebook” (and if you haven’t, then please stop reading and get your shit sorted and watch this damn movie) then you know how music can bring some Alzheimers patients back to their memories. It’s a real thing and incredible and shows so poignantly thru this ballerina when she hears SWAN LAKE and this will change you:
- AND another throwback…marking the 50th anniversary of this gem from Oregon I mean this went thru my socials like wildfire and I WAS SHOOK…I mean my GOD, TV was so good back then!!!
- And history was made AGAIN this past week and that is the MLB (Major League Baseball) has its FIRST FEMALE General Manager! Go Marlins…Florida, you surprise me. And I am delighted.
- MIKAYLA MIKAYLA MIKAYLA. OK, I am way too old for TikTok but some of it totally captivates me and one of those creators is this young woman named Mikayla who has the most incredible Boston accent ever and I just was captivated by her storytelling and transparency. Initially, I thought I was just consumed by her make-up tutorials which are incredible. She was worked at a make-up store and did these incredible make-up videos and reviews. But then you start to see a story come out from her…she is becoming financially independent because of TikTok. She quits her job (she loved her job and spoke highly about it) to focus on content creation. She makes enough money to move out of what I assume is a family member’s home and into her own home which we are there for her journey for and I don’t know man, I just am IN IT and millions of the youngs are too:
Ok my darlings, that’s it for me. PLEASE stay safe out there…stay home, watch a lot of content, read, listen to music, make friendship bracelets for dogs ( I MAY be doing this), cook, eat, don’t go to parties or have parties…we will get thru this.
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