MamaPop™

Demi Moore's December 2009 W Magazine Cover

I'll have what she's having. Including Ashton Kutcher. OH YOU WERE THINKING IT TOO.

Rihanna Speaking Out About Assault

 Rihanna is finally speaking out about her assault by Chris Brown.  She is on the cover of this month's Glamour magazine as Glamour's 2009 Woman of the Year and will also be on Good Morning America and 20/20 this week.  I'm so glad she is not letting Chris Brown have the final word.

An Open Letter To Ralph Lauren: Women Are Not Bratz Dolls

Dear Ralph Lauren:

There has been a great deal of press surrounding your ex-employee Fillipa Hamilton, the model who was photoshopped to a ridiculous degree and then summarily fired for being too fat. I have to wonder aloud why someone who is 5'10 and 120 pounds can ever be considered overweight, as a BMI of 17, which Ms. Hamilton has, is actually considered underweight. By a lot. But that's not the world of modeling, right? Of course not. I should just go about my business and let you fire women who dare to have even a modicum of realism to their figures. 

Bullshit.

Gourmet Folds But Curiously Miniature Donkey Talk Magazine Survives

Gourmet magazine announced earlier this week that it would cease publication after nearly 70 years in print. I wasn't a regular reader of the magazine since I could never understand why fifteen steps were required to make a scrambled egg, but I would pick it up occasionally if I wanted to get more adventurous and cook up something that required exotic ingredients and fancy gadgets. I think I remember a recipe that called for the use of a food mill, a nutmeg grater, a stapler and a pound of butterflies and it was delicious.

Not surprisingly, Gourmet's publisher Condé Nast blamed the magazine's demise on the tough economic climate. But how to explain the survival of some other more obscure publications that seem to be weathering our economic downturn? Yes, rest easy - you'll still be receiving your issues of Miniature Donkey Talk in the mail and your Girls and Corpses magazine subscription won't be running out anytime soon either.

Here's a rundown of some choice titles that have managed to outlive Gourmet at the newsstand:

Me and Posh: Separated at Birth?

Okay, I have to admit - at first glance Victoria Beckham and I would appear to have nothing in common. She's glamorous, rich and famous with three beautiful children and well - I only have two beautiful kids. But then I read some excerpts from her new interview in Elle magazine and I'm starting to feel like it was me laying out on that diving board posing uncomfortably in a zebra-striped romper.

This Week in Nekkid "Celebrities"

Celebrities are funny creatures. They have fine designer clothing worth tens of thousands of dollars that people are constantly asking about with cries of, "who are you wearing?" Yet so many seem to have trouble actually wearing those clothes when there's a camera around. This week brought us never-before-seen nude photos of Twilight's Ashley Greene and High School Musical's Vanessa Hudgens, with both actresses crying foul and "thief." 

Have Vampires Lost Their Bite?

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly is dedicated to vampires. Basically, it looks like the gothic horror version of Tiger Beat, complete with a spread of the "20 Greatest Vampires of All Time." However, with the popularity of the sparkly vegetarian vampires of the Twilight series and the Tru Blood suckers of Bon Temps, is the blood and gore of the vampire genre getting a tad watered down? 

Comic "Female Force" Set to Feature Stephenie Meyer

I think it's a brilliant idea.

Meyer will be inked into legend for the second time (including her own Twilight series) in the Female Force comic series, an exclusive honor whose past inductees include Princess Diana and Oprah. 

The comic series tells the biographical journey of its subjects and uses this particular series to give its readers "a broad examination of strong and influential women who are shaping modern history and culture. Stephenie Meyer's comic book treatment will tell her story in a very fun, respectful, and unique way," says the publisher's president, Darren G. Davis. 

But Meyer on the same level as Oprah? Oprah "YOU GET A CAR! YOU GET A CAR! YOU GET A CAR!" Winfrey? 

Gisele Bundchen's Baby Bump Retouched for London Fog Ads; In Other News, Photoshop Lessons Now Available Online!

Pregnant Gisele Bundchen, who is expecting her first child with husband Tom Brady, appears almost nekkid in a sexy new London Fog ad campaign but her baby bump is nowhere to be found. According to a press release from the company, "...Most of the shots have been retouched to respect her privacy during this wonderful and personal time in her life.” Although, curiously, the statement then goes on to read, “Nobody is sexier or more beautiful than Gisele Bundchen in nothing but a London Fog trench coat, even with her visible baby bump."

Which leaves me with two questions:

1) If nobody is sexier than a pregnant Gisele Bundchen, why Photoshop her pregnant belly?

And

2) What kind of lame ass airbrushing job is that?

I Am Drinking the Infinite Summer Kool-Aid

Move over Oprah's Book Club. Make way for Infinite Summer.

Okay, so I have posted before about my love for the works of the late David Foster Wallace before. If you don't feel like reading my sappy and likely written-while-drunk tribute, let's just say he's pretty much the wind beneath my wings and all that stuff, only we never met under a pier in Atlantic City or, like, at all, and he didn't die of cancer, but rather hung himself last summer and shattered my heart into a million pieces. Despite bearing no relation to Barbara Hershey's character from Beaches, Dave Wallace's work did compel me to want to be a writer, so you can either thank him or curse him for that.

Aaaanyway. While I have already read his magnum opus Infinite Jest three times, some people on Twitter have given me a reason to go four #4. The impetus is a phenomenon called Infinite Summer, and it's getting to be kind of a big deal. Wanna play? Well, then here's what you do.

My Teen Witch Problem

I had hoped to keep this post under my pointy hat until Halloween, when it would be more appropriate, but I feel the need to share this particular facet of my insanity with the internet as soon as possible.

Amazon Removes Books From Search As "Adult Content," Book Lovers Are Not Amused

Authors were surprised and shocked this weekend to find that their work had been removed from Amazon.com's popularity ranking of books. The ranking, which shows where an author's book fits in the vast collection of tomes that Amazon offers, is a great indication as to the demand the public has for a particular book, and many authors were left without that popularity index due to a new guideline for "adult content."

Their books were TOO DIRTY.

Photoshop Fail: Epic Derriere Edition

So, Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian is famous for... um... precisely nothing, other than being famous for nothing. (Which, when you think about it? Is really kind of old school. Nowadays, you have to give birth to at least eight children - preferably all at once - before the reality TV producers will even look at you. Kim Kardashian got her start in a simpler time.)

She is also, apparently, famous for her ass, which is - according to ass enthusiasts - pretty epic. Which makes this particular story somewhat confusing: Kim Kardashian was photographed for the cover of Complex Magazine, and - gasp - an unPhotoshopped version of one of the photos was posted at Complex's website! But! They caught the error! And the proper - Photoshopped! - version of the photo was put in its place!

Phew!

Except...

OK Magazine Prints Jade Goody's "Memorial" Issue Even Though She's Not Dead Yet

Whether or not you ever heard of Jade Goody before, you've probably seen her on Entertainment Tonight and its ilk, or gossip magazines and websites. She's a British reality "star" who is in the end stages of cervical cancer. She also has been documenting her battle in the press, most recently getting married to her boyfriend and father of her children in a very public way. It's all very sad and very weird, the way she's been documenting her decline in health, but if that's the way she wanted to do it, then so be it.

Now, that bastion of good taste, OK Magazine, has come out with a memorial issue of their tabloid dedicated to Goody's life and tragic death. There's just one problem.

She's not dead yet.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" Story Conference Transcript

Yes, I am so totally this geeky.

A downloadable 125-page transcript of the original 1978 story conference between Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" has surfaced on the interwebs. It's likely to disappear under threat of legal action and the like soon, so you best head over and get it while the gettin's good.

The transcript reveals, among other things, that George Lucas created an actual numeric, mathematical formula for storytelling on film. So awesome. (And nutty. But awesome!)

We here are MamaPop are definitely foodies. At our dinner in Las Vegas, Schmutzie and Palinode shared a piece of cheese with a thick layer of ash running through it, eyes rolling back into their heads in ecstasy. KDiddy dined on trout, unfazed by the head that was still attached. Miss Banshee savored duck paté and duck breast to match. I raved over escargot served with puff pastry.

We watch Top Chef like some people watch porn. WE LIKEY FOOD.

But are some foods just...not okay? As despicable as PETA can often be, they have in the past produced compelling video evidence that some foods are just beyond cruel. Veal penning was a big hot topic a decade ago, and now, perhaps the trendiest of trendy foods, foie gras, is the focus. But is foie gras cruel?

Nothing forces a bored and over-educated pop culture addict into more of an over-analytical death-spin than images in fashion and entertainment magazines. Especially images that reference or exploit the sexualized human form. Especially images that reference or exploit  the sexualized female form.

But then you go and throw Paul Rudd into the mix - Paul Rudd referencing a hyper-sexual Tom Ford into the mix - and it all kind of unravels, because who can hold a consistent thread of critical feminist commentary concerning the exploitation of women (or mockery of the exploitation of women) (blah blah blah) when Paul Rudd is right there, daring you to exploit him and despoil that copy of Vanity Fair that you're holding in your sweaty hands?

I still think - alongside writers at Salon and Jezebel and elsewhere - that the Vanity Fair image I discussed the other day is problematic. I also think that Paul Rudd looks awesome in that picture, and wish that he were naked. It's complicated.

So why not take this opportunity to review Vanity Fair's history of complicated and sometimes uncomfortably Eye-Candylicious magazine covers?

The Ethics of Foie Gras

We here are MamaPop are definitely foodies. At our dinner in Las Vegas, Schmutzie and Palinode shared a piece of cheese with a thick layer of ash running through it, eyes rolling back into their heads in ecstasy. KDiddy dined on trout, unfazed by the head that was still attached. Miss Banshee savored duck paté and duck breast to match. I raved over escargot served with puff pastry.

We watch Top Chef like some people watch porn. WE LIKEY FOOD.

But are some foods just...not okay? As despicable as PETA can often be, they have in the past produced compelling video evidence that some foods are just beyond cruel. Veal penning was a big hot topic a decade ago, and now, perhaps the trendiest of trendy foods, foie gras, is the focus. But is foie gras cruel?

Friday Eye Candy: Humorless Feminist Confronts Vanity Fair Edition

Nothing forces a bored and over-educated pop culture addict into more of an over-analytical death-spin than images in fashion and entertainment magazines. Especially images that reference or exploit the sexualized human form. Especially images that reference or exploit  the sexualized female form.

But then you go and throw Paul Rudd into the mix - Paul Rudd referencing a hyper-sexual Tom Ford into the mix - and it all kind of unravels, because who can hold a consistent thread of critical feminist commentary concerning the exploitation of women (or mockery of the exploitation of women) (blah blah blah) when Paul Rudd is right there, daring you to exploit him and despoil that copy of Vanity Fair that you're holding in your sweaty hands?

I still think - alongside writers at Salon and Jezebel and elsewhere - that the Vanity Fair image I discussed the other day is problematic. I also think that Paul Rudd looks awesome in that picture, and wish that he were naked. It's complicated.

So why not take this opportunity to review Vanity Fair's history of complicated and sometimes uncomfortably Eye-Candylicious magazine covers?