Good job, Culture Vulture.

I’d say your Lacanian analysis of the newest episode of Mad Men was pretty strong. You did miss out on an interesting aberration in the psychoanalytic schema, that being Bettie Draper. 

This woman has no mirror, no ‘Ideal-I’, as Lacan puts it in his impossibly dense treatise on “The Mirror Stage”. She represents aesthetic perfection. For this reason, she has no ideal to strive towards or to imitate.

Lacan cites that a baby’s physical coordination comes from the mimicry of her reflection. This is both necessary and problematic; the ego is formed from the mirror but is therefore based on a tenuous, superficial inversion. As human beings mature, they use other human beings as both mirrors and as ego-Ideals – something to imitate. Bettie seems never to have matured past the preliminary mirror-stage, and has perhaps never gone through it at all.

She fondly remembers her days as a fashion model, wishing to return. She still sees herself as the model, the “Ideal”. In fact, Bettie sees the model on the Playtex campaign as an ersatz version of herself, not the other way around. The creators of the show exemplify this with the bikini scene. Even to viewers, Bettie is prettier and slimmer than the women modeling the suits at the Country Club. Because she has no suitable mirror, she has no way to establish her ego (false or not) in her reality. She is clumsy and uncoordinated, like a baby pre mirror-stage. 

This reminds me of a story by Henry James called “The Real Thing”. A middle aged couple representing the ideal of English Gentry come to an artist to work as models. Past their prime, Ascot-going years, they cannot get employment anywhere because they are woefully unqualified. The artist is at first thrilled to have such perfect models for his illustrations on English nobility, but discovers that these models are too perfect for the job. The drawings come out awkward and monstrous. On the other hand, the drawings he produces from his short, non-descript, even ugly, models come out marvelously. 

The artist cannot imitate perfection from an ‘Ideal’ form. The canvas – another sort of mirror – is a poor duplication for the ‘Real-Thing’. Yet, the ‘Real Thing’ or the ‘Ideal’ has little use in real life. The couple is reduced to making tea for the artist and his models. Likewise, Bettie Draper is reduced to making breakfast for her husband and children.

UGH!

I just had a ridiculous, 30+ min convo with my Papi about the Bristol Palin scandal burning up the wires. It’s ridiculous! Needless to say, the veep candidate was NOT vetted. (Where is K. Rove when you need him?!) Talk about skeletons in the closet, or, um, the womb… 

No one can deny that the GOP is on serious CYA (cover your ass) detail. And do I think that John McCain and Co. knew the extent of Sarah Palin’s daughter’s extra curricular activities? Hell no. Chalk it up to the abstinence only platform.

But let’s be honest, Dad. The reason Bristol decided to have the child was not due to the fact that her mother was a Republican Veep candidate running on staunch anti-abortion campaign. Your mother’s career is one of the last things you think of when you’ve missed your 3rd period in a row (eek).

 Let’s talk about her peers for a minute. She and Jamie Lynn Spears could have been BFF. Both in the spotlight, famous for one reason or another, and both preggers before legal. But more importantly, both from a background that condones teenage pregnancy – not the rarefied, upper middle class prep-school set, where 17 year old girls have abortions and don’t tell their mothers, regardless of occupation.  

The spin machine that is contemporary news warps the important factors in this matter, which are A. family values, B. peer values and C. personal responsibility. Did she have a choice whether to have the baby or not?

She had a choice to have sex, protected or unprotected; she had a choice to tell her mother she was pregnant; she had a choice to have an abortion before/after her mother found out. Regardless of the key factors in her decision-making process, she did have her own mind. 

This is what I find most inane about the media coverage. They treat this 17 year old person as if she had no autonomy. It may be true that she may not have much life experience or perspective, but that does not negate her mind or will. Women are more than just a vessel. They are more than a symbol of maternity, hysterical and incapable of independent, rational thought. 

That said, open the parachute before you jump!

Check out the newest “On the Street” in the Style Section of the NYT.

Then take a look at our “A Two-Wheeled Accessory Spins into Boston” post.  

I’m just sayin’…

Get off your knees Joe Scarborough. Barack Obama straight up stole the line – “This election isn’t about me, it’s about YOU” – in his keynote DNC speech from Hillary Clinton’s rhetorical arsenal. This is what she has been saying all freaking year, people! Verbatim. I just may vote for John McCain, especially if his running mate is the Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin.

OMG Larry David was on Hannah Montana.

Ya, ya, that was, like, ages ago, but let’s get serious. Barack has two little girls who must be OBSESSED with Mylie and her alter ego. SO?! He needs to get on the show. ASAP. Get those interns on it. It’s the best of both worlds.

I just witnessed a sad feat while gorging on pasta and bread after a long day of work (yes! I got a job managing a juice bar!) According to MSNBC tv, Hillary Clinton just elected to give her delegates to Obams as announced by Nancy Pelosi (in a very chic suit)…

I have my own theory about this whole thing tho. I think when HRC lost the primary to Obams she should have just taken the money and run, formed her own party a la Thomas Jefferson, see wikipedia article. That would have been a much more epic turn than these DNC shenannigans.

On a completely seperate note, I think the orange suit was a big fuck you.

]]> http://acchicklit.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/hillary-at-the-dnc/feed/ 1 Russian Dollz http://acchicklit.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/the-two-wheeled-accessory-in-boston/ http://acchicklit.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/the-two-wheeled-accessory-in-boston/#comments Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:46:29 +0000 gossip girl http://acchicklit.wordpress.com/?p=334 ]]>

Strolling down Newbury Street yesterday I snapped some pix of mad peeps on bikes. Good-looking suited types, Camelbak clad athletes, a coveted Vespa. Turning a little green in the Bean these days, maybe. Watch out Amsterdam, we’re gaining on you…

A tandem note: I saw countless gingers on my outing. Men, women, adorable tots toting bobs the color of pumpkins. Must be the autumn air. Gotta ask our resident ginger princess.

It looks like black is the new black for Fall and Sephora is pimping its “best-selling” mascaras once again. But let’s be honest, BADgal by Benefit is really the only mascara one need own. Glossy, black as hell, and it doesn’t clump – the little black dress of makeup. What’s not to love?

I luvz The Black Keys right now. Too bad we couldn’t make it to NYC when they played McCarren Park Pool, but it’s being turned back into a REAL pool so why worry anyway. Cannonball!!!

In what turned out to be my last precious hours before a traumatic flying experience (wait, that’s redundant) I happened to catch most of Ben Stiller’s newest raunch fest “Tropic Thunder”. Besides a rather disturbing opening sequence that I was hopelessly unprepared for, the scatological humor and endless political incorrectness made me laugh in spite of myself.

What concerns/interests me the most is not the movie itself but the overwhelmingly male driven, acted, and produced films coming out of Hollywood in recent months. I know Manohla Dargis for the New York Times has recently written about this in her piece “Is There a Real Woman In the Multiplex”, and to her point one doesn’t have to look past this summer’s box office listings to witness the industry trend: “Tropic Thunder”, “Pineapple Express”, “Dark Knight”, “The Mummy 8″ (or whatever), “Iron Man”, that ridiculous super hero movie with Will Smith, I mean the list is endless. To be fair, “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2″ and “Mamma Mia!” buck the trend, but it seems like these days even Meryl Streep has to compromise her integrity as an actress to get work.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Sci-Fi action flick as much any costumed Trekkie and buddy comedies are OK, sometimes – check out Billy Wilder’s hilarious, transvestite romp “Some Like It Hot” if you want to see Judd Apatow’s predecessor – but where have all the good female roles gone? Is it that people don’t want to watch women in powerful, funny leading roles or that the parts just aren’t being written? Maybe it goes back to the old boys’ books/girls’ books thing.

As superhero flicks replete with flawed, ineffectual, and/or dark-sided protagonists and thinly veiled political allegories continue to dominate the local AMC 16, Pepper Pots will have to suffice for talented actresses like Gweneth Paltrow.