SKINS S2E3: Party On, Pain

I don’t know what kind of audience expectations Skins had when it first aired. It comes with this first-sentence Wikipedia vibe of like “the crazy party show with lots of kids fucking” which is weird because the kids almost never party and almost never fuck. Mostly, they undergo serious trauma. WOOOOO! YEAHHHH!

But that must have been the reputation Skins had, given the way it seems to so aggressively fight against it, week after week. This episode, for instance, traps us in Sid’s house for an extended period of time, following only the members of Sid's extended family, and when we finally do return to our old gang we’re seeing them dully, through the lens of Sid’s grief. (This show does a wonderful job of CONSTANTLY recalibrating your expectations and is a master class in tone.) And a party scene, featuring a cameo from a real band (Crystal Castles), which should be exactly the kind of scene you’d want were Skins the kind of show it is perceived to be, is not fun at all but actually where Sid finally breaks down, weeping hysterically in Tony’s arms while the incongruous music blares.

So yeah, this is a wonderful episode, the first one that I’ve found truly moving. We’re at Chez Sid for the first 30 minutes, without a break. His father’s father is visiting, and so Sid’s dad (Mark, played by Peter Capaldi) has convinced his estranged mother to return and pretend to be his wife for the sake of, well, not for the sake of pleasing his father; I guess for the sake of keeping the dude’s displeasure at a minimum. Because when you see what Sid’s family is like, you can really tell what an intergenerational victory Mark has scored by raising his son into a reasonably decent guy. There’s a bunch of animals—or, to paraphrase Mark: fucking Scottish cunts.

This is Capaldi’s show, and the actor weathers Mark’s victories and humiliations with a certain kind of gruff charm. The Sid/Mark relationship is one of the better son/father relationships I’ve seen, and it’s all the better for being articulated subtly. No Cat Stevens on the soundtrack here, in other words.

Sid is mostly a passive bystander to the drama between his elders, but also is fuming over the mistaken impression that Cassie’s cheating on him while away in Scotland. But all of that gets pushed aside when, the night after briefly reuniting with his wife and finally telling off his father, Mark dies.

Sid, alone in the house with his father's body, goes numb. He goes to class, doesn't talk to anyone, and barely notices that 1. someone has declared a fatwa on their college for their 9/11 play (ha ha ha) and 2. Angie has left the school, and Chris, for good. (More on all that later, maybe?) Tony finds Sid still sitting silently in the darkened classroom hours later, and takes him to a concert. Tony’s still in pretty bad shape physically and verbally (later there’s a wonderfully tension-breaking joke where Tony reacts to Mark’s dead body by saying “Ficking hell!” and Sid gently corrects him) but he seems to sense that everything is not all right with his friend. Sid wanders off in a daze, Tony finds him in the crowd, and Sid finally manages to tell someone what happened. And that’s where I totally lost it, you guys. It was an embarrassing show of human emotion and I am glad none of you were there to see it.


The coda to the episode is a goofy little O’Henry thing, where Sid and Cassie turn out to both be on trains going to see each other. I like that it pushes us even further afield from the dark, dusty house where we spent most of the episode—we’re there, we’re there, we’re there and then we slingshot away—but other than that it’s kind of silly. Unless we’re headed for a few episodes of “Sid’s adventures in Scotland!” That’d be OK. I <3 U, Sid.

So yeah, we're back to talking about Skins, okay? Did you guys watch this episode? What did you think?

OPEN THREAD: What We Talk About When We Talk About Things We Used To Talk About

Dear god. THE BRA IS A GHOST! 

But srsly: Is that a boob or a second elbow? What is even happening there?

EDIT: STUFF YOU'LL ONLY HEAR ABOUT IF YOU READ THE COMMENTS: Avenger's boycott's! Miley Cyrus's sex life! Kristen Stewart naked and sweaty! The fact that Jennifer Lawrence is too normal a human to warrant examination!


EDIT AGAIN: Just wanted to put this up top: Vulture writes about Kristen Stewart's nude scenes in On The Road and asks "When did we stop allowing movie stars to be sexy?" We can get behind a question like that, can we not? Oh, and I love that the url of the article is "kristen-stewart-nude-sex-scenes." SEO, baby!


EDIT THRICE: I have just reserved the very important Tumblr URL KristenStewartJerks2GuysOff. So you can't have it, if you were thinking about it.

Hi everyone! How are you? How are your lives going? Mine is going OK, thank you for asking. I have been making videos and posting half-thought-out political observations on Tumblr but mostly I have been working, and chipping away at some longer-term writing projects (which is a new and exciting and, I suspect, very helpful way for me to write). I haven't been watching Skins, but I do plan on going back soon. So look for that, and maybe another TV show? Maybe Game of Thrones? But until then, here's an open thread in which we (you, me, whoever) can discuss pretty much anything pertaining to the people and properties we often discuss on this blog. LIKE:

• Remember Pan Am? It won some kind of huge award in Europe. They love surprise lesbians over there! Anyway, that very well may bring it back from the dead in some form, which is good-ish for Ashley Greene, because her pilot, Americana, was D.O.A. at upfronts. (AG doppelganger Janet Montgomery's pilot DID survive, albeit without the title Baby Big Shot, which is for the best. That shit sounds like a Tumblr meme, right? Baby with sunglasses, etc? You see it.)
• Speaking of AG, rumor has it we'll be seeing a trailer for The Apparition soon. Sure! Let's wait for the other shoe to drop on this one. Like, the trailer will be premiering...on TV screens at Journey's. (PSA: Skateland and Summer's Moon are both on Netflix Instant.)
• EDIT 5/23: IT'S HERRRRE: "Draco Malfoy Is Ashley Greene's Scientist Best Friend" OR "We Promise At Least Five Panty Shots" OR "Paranormal Ashletivity" OR "The Apparition" trailer is a go. 
• Kristen Stewart recently expressed a desire to be "fucked over." Half the readership of this blog volunteered before they realized she was speaking metaphorically. 
• Speaking of K. Stew, Snow White And The Huntsman is coming out soon! Are you going to see it? I am. I will probably see The Avengers again first, but then I will get to it! Here are some photos from the premiere. Kristen Stewart's dress is a little weird. She's got this cokey ballerina look with her makeup, and underwear-wise, I think maybe it was laundry day?
• Speaking of cokey ballerinas (I am KILLING IT with the segues today), VICE profiled this blog's spirit animal, Cat Marnell. Hi, Cat!
• There's a low internet rumble, which may soon be more like a roar, about EDDI FRONT, a mysterious new musician that a lot of people are calling the "next" Lana Del Rey (they mean this in both good and bad "authenticity question" ways). I've read four or five blog posts now that wonder aloud who this Eddi could be, where she could have come from. GUESS! Just kidding, you probably already know. But don't tell the bloggers! This is fun!
• Taylor Lautner has signed on for a movie about parkour bike messengers. When I first read it I thought they were saying it was a parkour remake of The Messenger, that movie about the emotional toll of informing families that their loved ones have been killed in wars. That'd be AMAZING, right? "Ma'am, your son was K.I.A. in Baghdad." *runs up wall* *does backflip*
• Speaking of parkour (SPEAKING OF PARKOUR!) it sounds like Ashley Greene's gender-bent, character-combining remake of Oliver Twist is no longer going forward. BUT LEST YOU WORRY that you won't get your fill of Dickens in 2013 (ladies), know that RED BULL is producing a parkour-infused remake of Oliver Twist, about art thieves, in 3D. Red Bull, parkour, 3D, Oliver Twist.
• It's possible that AG's version is still happening, too, I guess. We just haven't heard anything about it in a long time. But what if you and Red Bull make movies on the same topic and the Red Bull movie outperforms yours? What do you do, then? Do you just DIE?
• WHAT ELSE? I don't know. I will post more stuff in the comments as I find it. And you should too! Watch this space, dear readers! And again, how have you been? Let's chat.

Snack Mix For All Occasions

The fundamentals of snack mix are strong. I'm confident about that. It may not be a kind of snack you hold in high regard, generally, but the truth is you eat some every time it is available, and you probably return to it more than the other snack bowls on the table at the party. Deep down, you know this. It probably has something to do with the appealing texture variation, which likely triggers some forgotten ancient hunter-gatherer instinct inside of us--an evolutionarily acquired tendency toward a balanced diet, perhaps. Or maybe there's nicotine in the rye chips. Whatever! The point is, snack mix is an ideal template for more adventurous snacking. And it's cheap, so it's recession proof. Also--wait, I don't know why I am working so hard to convince you that snack mix is wonderful. You already know! YOU ALREADY KNOW.

EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU WILL NEED

1. Butter (like half a stick, melted)
2. Worchestire Sauce (a good couple of shakes of the bottle)
3. Chex-like cereal of some kind (store brand is just as good, hell, better! NO LOGO!!)
4. A mixing bowl and a cookie sheet
5. An oven capable of reaching 250 degrees Fahrenheit

RECIPE #1: GAME DAY SNACK MIX

1. Preheat oven to 250F.
2. Toss Chex or Chex-like cereal (corn variety), peanuts, finely shredded cheddar cheese, and those weird pretzel chunk things in a large bowl with the butter, worchestire, and a few tablespoons of barbecue sauce. Spread evenly on a cookie sheet.
3. While it bakes, sauté half an onion, with a decent-sized hamsteak.
4. After fifteen minutes in the oven, add salt, pepper, and more barbecue sauce to the snack mix if deemed necessary.
5. After 20 minutes, add the diced ham and onions to the cookie sheet.
6. OPTIONAL: Also add cooked ground beef, Italian sausage, and pulled chicken.
7. After fifteen more minutes in the oven, remove pan to cool.
8. Serve in an ice-filled metal bucket, surrounded by bottles of your favorite beer. Top both the mix and the beer with crumbled bacon.

RECIPE #2: CLASSY PARTY SNACK MIX (Full Sequence)

1. Preheat oven to 245F.
2. Toss wheat chex, cashews, pretzel Goldfish, cheese-flavored crackers (Itz or Nips or Ums or what have you) and shredded (not powdered, asshole!) parmesan cheese in butter and worchestire. Put in a glass cake pan and top with a thin layer of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
3. Pour a glass of wine and get dressed for the party.
4. Smoke a cigarette.
5. Stir mixture again, adding salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and garlic powder. OPTIONAL SIXTH SPICE: tobacco leaves.
6. Leave it in the oven until the coolest guests arrive. Let that be your reminder that it is time for the mix to cool.
7. Coat the mix with fish oil, for health.
8. Fill a funnel with the snack mix and pour everyone's wine through it. DO NOT ACTUALLY EAT this snack mix. It is poisonous.

RECIPE #3: FUNERAL SNACK MIX

1. Preheat oven to Year-Of-Death Fahrenheit.
2. Toss corn chex, marshmallow ghosts and pretzels skeletons with melted butter and a healthy portion of grenadine. Pour into a muffin pan.
3. Top with pancake batter.
4. Bake for 30 minutes, without stirring at all. Do not even THINK about stirring or the mix will be ruined.
5. Pour into a tasteful vase along with decorative stones and tightly-packed flowers

You can see, I'm sure, that the possibilities are limitless. You probably have everything you need for a killer snack mix in your cabinet right now! What else are you going to use that mustard powder for? That bottle of rosé? Do you see where I am going with this? GET TO IT!

Kim Reviews 50 Shades Of Grey

Friend of the blog and all-around YA mensch Kim took one for the team and read inexplicable Twilight fanfic turned inexplicable publishing sensation 50 Shades Of Grey. God help her. Kim's blog is here, check it out some time! Take it away, Kim! -Z

We open with 21-year-old college student Anastasia Steele preparing to meet with 27-year-old gazillionaire mogul Christian Grey.  Ana is self-described as scruffy, plain, and more interested in books than people.  She’s an awkward virgin who’s never held a guy’s hand. I’m not sure she even knows what a vagina is.  She’s also the type of girl who says things like crapola and oh my (Which she says all. the. time.  Sometimes multiple times in one paragraph.) Despite being in college, she doesn’t know how to use Google, she’s never had an email address before, and she doesn’t own a phone or computer until Christian buys her one.  So, you know, she’s totally realistic.  Christian is super rich (though we never really learn how aside from “business”) and so smokin’ hot that only lesbians can form coherent sentences in his presence.  He’s also an asshole with emotional problems;  at one point he tells Ana he’s “fifty shades of fucked up” (title alert!). Oh, and the two of them are super British, despite living in Seattle.  There are a lot of “shalls” and “diverting evenings” and constant mentions of Twinings tea.  

The two first meet when Ana literally falls into his office and then proceeds to conduct the most awkward interview ever.  Obviously, since being clumsy and socially inept is hot, rich dude kryptonite, Christian immediately becomes smitten with her and spends the next week working his way through Stalking for Dummies. He pulls the usual – showing up at her work, acting insanely jealous of anyone who owns a penis and happens to be in her vicinity, tracing her cell phone, and otherwise boring the shit out of me and reminding me why I only read smutty novels where the sex happens in the first 50 pages.  Then she drunk dials him from a club and he traces her phone to come “rescue” her.  She vomits and passes out on him, which impresses him so much he asks her out.  

At the start of their date, Christian makes her sign a non-disclosure agreement, which she doesn’t even question.  I mean, I know that’s how all my dates start  He then gives her a sex contract to sign.  Seriously, a sex contract.  What could possibly be more sexy than a sex contract you might ask?  Well the answer to that is absolutely anything, ever.  It outlines things like what she is allowed to eat and wear, how many hours a night she can sleep, and that she must act “modest and respectable” in public.  It's 10 pages long!  By the time I finished reading it, I was ready to join a convent.  Of course, in the middle of all this sex contract talk, he finds out she’s a virgin. He then decides to “rectify the situation” so they can continue their negotiations.  So romantic.  

They start fucking a lot, and begin to try out the whole dom/sub thing. He ties her up a few times and uses a riding crop on her once, but mostly they just have normal sex. And then she rhapsodizes about how it’s OMG the best thing ever.  (It was seriously disappointing, you guys.  If I’m going to read something this bad, I at least want to be scandalized a little.)  He does spank her once and she totally freaks out and goes home and cries a lot.  Which, as you can imagine, is pretty much the opposite of sexy.  Actually, she spends a pretty big portion of the novel crying or scared.  

You’re supposed to be into the romance of their developing relationship and him sexing her up all the time, but I was too busy being worried about her to get into it.  It’s actually kind of uncomfortable to read.  Ana spends half her time with him terrified she’s going to do something to upset him and he’ll hurt her. She’s constantly trying to manage his moods in order to protect herself.  He scolds her and threatens to “punish” her every time she rolls her eyes or doesn’t do what he tells her.  This is our big romantic lead, kids.  A guy who will hit her for rolling her eyes.  We’re supposed to find him appealing?  It would be one thing if she was into it, but she’s not.  She doesn’t like being hurt, she doesn’t want the BDSM part, she just wants to be his girlfriend.  The way James writes it, it’s not two adults enjoying themselves, it’s abuse.  He threatens her and she’s scared.  Shit like this:

“Are you going to hit me?”
“Yes, but it won’t be to hurt you. I don’t want to punish you right now. If you’d caught me yesterday evening, well, that would have been a different story.”
Holy cow. He wants to hurt me… how do I deal with this? I can’t hide the horror on
my face.

Or this:

‘I think you need to learn to manage my expectations. I am not a patient man. If you say you are going to contact me when you finish work, then you should have the decency to do so. Otherwise, I worry, and it’s not an emotion I’m familiar with, and I don’t tolerate it very well. Call me.’

Double crap. Will he ever give me a break? I scowl at the phone. He is suffocating me. With a deep dread uncurling in my stomach, I scroll down to his number and press dial. My heart is in my mouth as I wait for him to answer. He’d probably like to beat seven shades of shit out of me. The thought is depressing.

Then we learn more about Christian.  It turns out he had a rough early childhood that he mostly won’t talk about, but he was introduced to BDSM when he was 15 by a friend of his mom as an outlet for his issues.  Of course.  Aside from their abusive relationship, this is what I find most problematic about the book.  Christian doesn’t like BDSM because it’s a perfectly legitimate sexual choice that many people enjoy. He likes it because he has severe emotional problems and was sexually abused.  Then James sets it up that Ana is going to save him from his evil ways with her love and her magic vagina.  It becomes even more problematic as we learn about his Mrs. Robinson and some of his past submissives, all of whom at least have some emotional problems and one of whom has a total psychotic break.  In no way do I believe that all people who enjoy BDSM are all fucked up abusers (or victims) in need of someone’s love to save them, but that’s the way they’re portrayed here.  It’s not even really my thing and I’m still insulted.

Anyway, back to the story.  Ana finally comes to her senses a little and decides she needs time apart from him to think, so she visits her mom several states away.  And, because he’s totally psycho, he follows her.  While he’s there, this happens:

“Are you bleeding?” He continues to kiss me.

Holy Fuck. Does nothing slip by him?
“Yes,” I whisper, embarrassed.

“Do you have cramps?”

“No.” I flush. Jeez…

He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string… what! And… a gently pulls
my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. Holy fuck. Sweet mother of all… Jeez.

And then he’s inside me… ah!

I know I’m supposed to be all modern woman about the period sex, but I don’t really want to encounter that in my smutty novels.  Like, ow and ew.  It just made me cringe, which is probably not the reaction she was hoping for when she wrote it.

After they get back to Seattle, Ana – because she’s a fucking idiot – decides that she’s ready for him to show her how much he wants to hurt her.  So he whips her with a belt until she’s sobbing and afraid to let him come near her again and then yells at her for being upset.  In the one smart move she’s made the entire book, she leaves him the next day. Unfortunately 2 more books follow, so we know that won’t last.

I tried to keep track of all of the ridiculous passages I came across, but then I found that I was marking almost every one and this is getting long enough.  So, I narrowed down to few choice ones.  If you want more, check out this hilarious tumblr.

Before they have sex first the first time:

“Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christian?” Holy shit. Did I just say that? His mouth drops open slightly, but he recovers quickly.
“No, Anastasia it doesn’t. Firstly, I don’t make love. I fuck… hard. Secondly, there’s a lot more paperwork to do, and thirdly, you don’t yet know what you’re in for. You could still run for the hills. Come, I want to show you my playroom.”

After he spanks her the first time:

“Anastasia,” he warns, and I want to roll my eyes but quickly stop myself. I stand facing the bed. Sitting beside me, he gently pulls my sweatpants down again. Up and down like whores’ drawers my subconscious remarks bitterly. In my head, I tell her where to go. Christian squirts baby oil into his hand and then rubs my behind with careful tenderness – from makeup remover to smoothing balm for a spanked ass, who would have thought it was such a versatile liquid.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention her subconscious and inner goddess.  They’re pretty big characters.  She’s constantly referencing them in really stupid ways.

• Perhaps if he was more normal he wouldn’t want you, my subconscious contributes snidely to my musings.
• My subconscious purses her lips and mouths the word ‘ho.’ I ignore her.
• My subconscious gives me an unhelpful I told you so expression.

• My inner goddess sits in the lotus position looking serene except for the sly, self-congratulatory smile on her face.  
• My inner goddess is jumping up and down, clapping her hands like a five-year-old.
• My inner goddess jumps up and down with cheerleading pom-poms shouting yes at me.
• I examine the list, and my inner god dess bounces up and down like a small child waiting for ice cream.

Her inner goddess is exhausting and her subconscious is kind of a bitch.

She decides to go meet his parents without wearing any underwear under her dress.  Oh, the scandal!

I shall go meet his parents sans culottes. Anastasia Steele! My subconscious chides me, but I don’t want to listen to her – I almost hug myself with glee because I know this will drive him crazy.

Taylor draws up in the large Audi. Christian opens the rear door for me, and I climb inside as elegantly as I can, considering my state of wanton undress.

Sucking his thumb is almost too much for her:

“Suck me, baby.” His thumb presses on my tongue, and my mouth closes round him, sucking wildly. I taste the saltiness on his thumb and the faint metallic tang of blood. Holy fuck. This is wrong, but holy hell is it erotic.

God, I want to copy the whole contract here, but it’s so long.  It has shit like this in it:

5 Adherence to the above warranties, agreements and undertakings (and any addition al limits and safety procedures agreed under clause 3 above) are fundamental to this contract. Any breach shall render it void with immediate effect and each party agrees to be fully responsible to the other for the consequence of any breach.

9 Subject to that proviso and to clauses 2-5 above the Submissive is to serve and obey the Dominant in all things. Subject to the agreed terms, limitations and safety pro cedures set out in this contract or agreed additionally under clause 3 above she shall without query or hesitation offer the Dominant such pleasure as he may require and she shall accept without query or hesitation his training, guidance and discipline in whatever form it may take.

13 The Dominant reserves the right to dismiss the Submissive from his service at any time and for any reason. The Submissive may request her release at any time, such request to be granted at the discretion of the Dominant subject only to the Submissive’s rights under clauses 2-5 and 8 above.

15.10 The Dominant shall not loan his Submissive to another Dominant.

The Submissive will conduct herself in a respectful and modest manner at all times. She must recognize that her behavior is a direct reflection on the Dominant. She shall be held accountable for any misdeeds, wrongdoings and misbehavior committed when not in the presence of the Dominant.

Failure to comply with any of the above will result

Nothing is sexier than domineering legalese.  

Haters To The Left

HERE AND NOW is the point at which hate for Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson becomes outdated. A relic of the early-aughts. An opinion held by the olds, the squares, and certainly not by us, even a little. GOT IT? GOOD.

Because the first story out of the Cannes* film festival, which hasn't even started yet, is that films starring Stewart and Pattinson have been among the very first films sold to distributors. On The Road and Cosmopolis have been leaders of the early buzz pack, if that is a thing, and based on what we've seen in the trailers, this all makes a lot of sense. These movies look weird and great, and I'm psyched that we're going to get a chance to see them on the big screen. And I'm psyched that Pattinson and Stewart are making such rad choices!

(*Which still seems like a mostly honorable thing, Madagascar 3 notwithstanding.)

On big movie blogs across the internet, writers have dropped their usual sneering asides about Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Have you noticed? They used to come mid-sentence. like: "The film also stars Kristen Stewart--who hopefully won't just mumble and bite her lip like a dumb stupid bitch--and Garret Hedlund." After that, they came as fifth paragraph disclaimers. Like: "I'm not sure Pattinson will be able to handle the role--the books calls for serious range, but maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt." Now that shit has dropped all the way to the comment section. And the more we hear about Cosmopolis, On The Road, and to a lesser extent Snow White & The Huntsman, the further down it goes.

(The above photo comes from Premiere France by way of Slashfilm. To hear them tell it, Pattinson essentially directed his own photoshoot for the mag, drawing inspiration from the other films of David Cronenberg. See the rest here, and call me when he and K Stew re-enact the stairway fuck from History of Violence.)

Of course, not everybody is transitioning successful. Our old pal Ashley Greene had another movie implode on her this weekend: in the hysteria over the big Avengers haul I totally forgot to check in on LOL, which Lionsgate shoved out a backdoor on Friday. Get this: its total take was less than what The Avengers made PER SCREEN. Holy shit.

Esquire's Profile Of Mireille Enos Is Some Next-Level Shit

Longtime readers of this blog are certainly aware that I hatelove Esquire Magazine's profiles of female celebrities. They're bizarre, pretentious, condescending, obsessive, and often go to such great lengths to avoid souding creepy that they become far creepier than one could have previously anticipated. Last summer I outlined the general formula for an Esquire Profile Of A Female, and when I did I conducted no research whatsoever, did not even go back and read a single old article, because I've read enough of these fucking things that I can create a reasonable facsimile in my sleep. And apparently, I am not alone in this skill. Last month Esquire's Tom Chiarella profiled The Killing's Mireille Enos, who basically wrote the (ridiculous) article herself. Let's start with the opening paragraph:

Her hair is loosely clipped in a chignon, that most delicate and mutable twist, so when she leans forward, when she lounges, when she reaches for an olive or fingers a pit from between her lips, placing the dead soldier on a paper napkin on the table between us, each time, Mireille Enos offers up a slightly different aspect of self.

So far, so Esquire-y. I swear to god those sentences are real and were really in a magazine. But hang on:

She purses her lips, then nods. "You've got to figure it out. I'm not saying anything about mystery, either. I'm just saying a woman should have to be considered from many angles."

So the author basically plaigarized the lede from his own subject--it isn't his observation, it's hers. About herself (This article doesn't cast a positive light on the writing at Esquire, but it doesn't exactly reflect well on Enos, either). From there, it hits all of the Esquire marks. Weird, incorrect but bold declarations about society ("Everyone's a Mormon these days"), references to her body veiled in descriptions of personality ("She's warming up out here on the patio, and it becomes clear that Mireille is a shin-bumping, knee-patting, olive-popping enthusiast"), pseudo-masculine biographical detail ("I'm a black belt in tae kwon do"). Then, as every celebrity profile draws to a close, there's the appraisal of career-state:

She is without complaint about her career, past, present, and future. But why would she protest? She locked up roles in major movies like World War Z  with Brad Pitt and The Gangster Squad* with Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, and Emma Stone, both out in the next year.


[*Photographic memory types will remember, and those keeping track of the way everything on this blog connects Kevin-Bacon-like back to everything else will like to know, that Ashley Greene auditioned for The Gangster Squad last year.]

She looks straight at you when she's talking about movie projects. You can't see the bun, though the cheekbones and the slender neck are a separate pleasure. This look she gives must be to convey calm, the sense that she's willing to live with the vagaries of fame and to work in the movie business without falling to pieces, or blaming someone else.

I think they just put this paste this paragraph into every female profile, just subbing in the bun for whatever other non-tit body part they decide to obsess over. Earlobe, pinkie toe. At the end Enos mentions helping her father fix cars, mostly by handing him wrenches. That's another Esquire trademark--ALWAYS MENTION HER FATHER--the Freudian implications of which I do not care to unpack. But in this case it is also Enos assuming control over the article again. Her bun falls apart--how symbolic!--and she confidently begins to put it back together.

She turns her head then, and it is clear that the hair has all gone to hell and the chignon is wilting. "This I can fix for sure," she says, nodding at a bobby pin on the table. "Just keep handing me the wrenches, will you?"

With actresses like these, who needs writers? Chiarella tries to take control again, closing out with this line: "Pin in hand, she reaches back and starts to assemble a new angle." Nice try, buddy, but she wrote that one too! I don't feel like Esquire should be allowed to go on after this. The students have become the teacher.

Chloe's Cat Marnell Problem Re: Cassie

Friend of the blog Chloe had this to say regarding Skins S1E2:

I'm on episode 6 right now and so far [the Cassie ep] is BY FAR the best one. I actually feel bad because I feel like the writers may have peaked a little too soon here. My only problem is that I can't decide whether Cassie kind of ... glamourizes eating disorders. I mean, it's the old Cat Marnell argument: Just because a person is good looking doesn't mean they're romanticizing any issue they have, they just happen to be gorgeous. Still, I can't help but feel like a lot of young girls would kill to look like the big eyed, wavy blonde haired waif that is Cassie, even if it meant skipping meals. Thoughts?


My feeling is that Skins really doesn't glamorize much of anything. Even sex and drugs come with plenty of consequences, despite being sought feverishly on the show. And I think the handling of Cassie's issues has been fairly deft. Then again--I have never been a young girl nor have I ever had an eating disorder, so I can't necessarily speak to this. But plenty of you have been young girls, so what do you think?

P.S. I think that Cat Marnell thing is very apt I'd always wondered why people don't extend her the same line of credit they did Hunter Thompson, especially since she's generally more cautionary and apologetic about her chemical habits. But just as Skins unintentionally glamorizes stuff simply by putting it on TV--I mean, that is enough, that is plenty, for plenty of (especially young) people--Cat Marnell accidentally but still unavoidably glamorizes her behavior by virtue of being glamorous. Right? Or no?