There is probably nothing that depresses me more than walking into a bookstore – to me, a sacred institution – and coming face to face with the most recent attempt of a starlet to write a book (because apparently literacy is now the only requirement for authorship). First there was Nicole Richie with The Truth About Diamonds, who, even though she wrote a “novel,” couldn’t help but put her own image on the cover. Then Lauren Conrad (who I still don’t get. Like…as a person) wrote L.A. Candy. After those two made their way to shelves across America, my eyes would always travel in bookstores from Twilight to these winners and a sob would inevitably rise in my chest. I considered wearing black and prostrating myself on the ground in the “YA” section…
I would like to preface this entire post by mentioning that most actors who play high school students in our favorite dramas are really, really old. Though they have not yet succumbed to the allure of Life Alert and Jello three times a day, they are a shockingly false portrayal of what teenagers actually look like. I’m going to postulate that shows such as 90210 and Gossip Girl have female dominated audiences, so I suppose having really old male actors serves to sexualize high school beyond its sordid reality?
In any case, Trevor Donovan, the 90210 regular whose character is slated to come out of the closet this season, is 32 years old. Though this is largely a case-in point statement, I’m going…
Music Video Girls: Exploitive or an Industry of Independence
"what happened to the dreams of a girl president? / She's dancing in the video next to 50 cent"
UK TV Channel BBC3 once in a while produces something worth taking a look at, and the minute I saw an advert for their latest one-off documentary endeavour – “Music, Money and Hip-Hop Honeys” – exploring the job that is ‘The Music Video Girl’ – I was intrigued.
Music videos are a subject that I often bring attention to. It is impossible to turn on the latest music channel without being bombarded with a series of greased up women jiggling their bits around in front of the camera. Of course, we can’t forget the men parading around them with the,‘Yes, these are my bitches,’ attitude. Unfortunately, apart from pop starlets like Katy Perry…
The other day I was sitting at the table talking with my younger sister (age 14) and my little cousin (age 11). After recently aiding in the start of a feminist group at my high school I am often subject to random interrogations from my family about how my group remains active. When I began to explain my groups cause, both of my younger relatives turned to me, with the same disgruntled look on their face and asked a question that was surprisingly difficult to answer. “What is a feminist?”
I sat there, shocked, angry, and finally incredibly depressed. I have had the tenacity to call myself an active teenage feminist, yet two of the young women closest to me are completely unaware of our campaign. This…
Shingai Elizabeth Maria Shoniwa (born on 1 September 1981) is an English singer of Zimbabwean descent and best known as the vocalist and bassist for the UK indie rock band Noisettes. Her first name, Shingai, means ‘persevere’ in the Shona language.
Shoniwa grew up in a South London public-housing estate; her father died when she was 11, leaving her to a single mother who had emigrated from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The experience, Shoniwa says, absolutely informs her music. “Wanting to escape from reality can inspire the greatest and most trivial creative natures in people,” and “I think escapism is something that connects all of us. Everybody has their own little soundtrack, and I guess I’m trying to make my own soundtrack to my escape plan. I want people to realize…
I walk down the hall, books held so tightly against my chest that my knuckles are white. I don’t know three-quarters of the people I pass but I feel they’re all looking me, that they can just see what I did with Hailey last night, that they’ll shun me like they did to Christopher, and Jason, and Liana…
“Hey, Gwen,” I hear Hailey’s lovely singsong voice say from behind me, and my knees begin to buckle. The memory of her hand on my cheek, my fingers in her hair, my lips on hers…
“Hi, Hailey,” I say weakly. Hailey catches up to me and walks next to me, as if things were totally normal, as if we hadn’t kissed and touched passionately, for well over an hour until my parents came home,…
I hit him out of frustration, or maybe out of love. I hit him because I was scared and confused and hurting, but none of that mattered. The part that mattered is that I hit him. I found out that jail was exactly what I thought it would be. It was the stale cold from a poorly heated building in a Colorado winter and the pinching of the handcuffs on my outer wrists and heels. It was the pit in my stomach as I held back the tears in my mug shot and the hard cringe as I stripped my clothes off for the female officer. Mostly it was the rush of disappointment and confusion as I removed the pink bow from my hair. It reminded me that good girls…
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