http://cache.jezebel.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png http://jezebel.com/tag/a.o. scott http://jezebel.com/tag/a.o. scott

I'm of Generation X, a term that has never come with positive connotations. And now New York Times columnist A.O. Scott reports that Gen X is having a midlife crisis. Great. More »
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• Sunday in Venice, Angelina Jolie went out with Brad Pitt, their six kids, and her father, Jon Voight.

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It's hard out there for a living, breathing American girl. It's a morass of mixed messages, A.O. Scott points out in a Times think piece about Kit Kittredge, the Abigail Breslin-helmed American Girl doll-based movie coming out this week. "Who are you supposed to be, or to avoid becoming? A nerd? A ditz? A flirt? A tomboy?" Scott wonders. "What kind of role models are those make-believe princesses, those Bratz and Barbies, to say nothing of the real-life Britneys, Lindsays and Mileys? Mean Girls, Gossip Girls, Girls Gone Wild, Girl Power, You go, girl! What's a girl to do?" And considering the pervasive skankiness of Bratz and their ilk, the American Girls franchise seems like a bastion of true childhood in an increasingly sexualized marketplace. But, as Scott painstakingly notes, it's still part of the marketplace. Jeannette Catsoulis, reviewing Kit for the IHT perfectly summarizes the intrinsic hypocrisy in this Depression-era film. "When you consider that a Kit doll, complete with book and accessories, will currently run you $105, the movie's insistence on the nobility of the indigent might be a tad more difficult to stomach." More »
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