Jezebel: bloody hell

What If True Blood Were A Sitcom?

Dodai — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:20:00 EDT

If you ever wondered, you'll never have to wonder again. [NY Mag, Unclejubalon's YouTube]

Twilight's Stephenie Meyer Admits Her Writing Sorta Sucks

Dodai — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:30:00 EST

Twilight's Stephenie Meyer is profiled in the March issue of Vogue, and she reveals something very interesting:

Well, most of the things Meyer reveals are about as exciting as non-blood-sucking vamps: She likes to drive, she likes Greek salad. She is a self-described "hermit" who doesn't even go to the movies: "We bought The Dark Knight when it came out, and I know we will watch it someday," she says.

Meyer is not even really that into vampires, which is maybe why Edward Cullen never bites anything and doesn't even seem to have fangs. She tells Vogue she's a Batman girl: "I like that he's not so clean-cut, that he has a dark side, that he's doing things that are not clearly legal or illegal."

But! Meyer does seem to know her limitations. She studied literature in college but avoided creative writing, out of fear of criticism. (Of Breaking Dawn, our own Anna North said, "Basically these mythical creatures live in a very safe, heteronormative world - and a boring one. If I had an eternity to read, I still might never pick up this book again.") And Meyer seems to know that her writing is not all it could be: "I'm not a professional yet," she says. "I'm still just an amateur." An amateur who has sold 28 million copies of her sparkly vampire story.

Dreamcatcher [Vogue.com]
Earlier: Breaking Dawn: What To Expect When You're Expecting... A Vampire
Twilight At Midnight: Smells Like Teen Spirit
7 Vampires Better Than Twilight's Edward Cullen

The Creepiest Craft Ever Crafted

Feminine Hygiene Commercials Are Rarely Genius

Dodai — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Over on AdAge, there's a commercial for a company called Libra. In the spot, a woman on a rooftop rocks out on guitar as video game shapes fall from the sky. The licks are hot, the chick is cool, and the tagline is: "Play with patterns." The product? Tampons. Because having your period rocks! Actually, the ad's not bad — at least there's not blue mystery liquid being squeezed from an eyedropper or a beaver involved. As AdAge's Charlie Moran points out: "We like rock 'n roll as a source of female empowerment, but doesn't such a contrived packaging gimmick like this play into stereotypes about the frivolity of those same young girls?" Ugh. Why is "feminine hygiene" such a tough product to sell? Women menstruate. They need tampons. So how come tampon commercials rarely hit the mark?

As Tracie wrote in her post about period dramas, blood makes people uncomfortable. TV commercials are gleaming, clean shiny things where no one bleeds or poops (ever see the All-Bran commercial where bricks stand in for crap?) Especially not women. The new Tampax commercials feature "Mother Nature" giving a woman her "monthly gift," which is a red present. Not bloody jelly blobs coming from her uterus, but a neatly wrapped box that might as well have a cashmere sweater inside. I'm not saying that I want to see blood in tampon commercials. I don't know what I want to see. And it seems like the ad execs don't know either. When it comes to period ads, what would you like to see? Have there ever been any ads that you thought were well done?

The Libra commercial:

A Touch of Feminine Hygenius [AdAge]
Earlier: The Importance Of Being Able To Change Your Period Products In "Public"
Leave It To Beaver

What Should Be In A First Period Kit?

dodai — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:00:00 EST

The first time they get their periods, many girls are simply unprepared. Which is why Kathy Pickus and Terri Goodwin, sisters from Seattle, created Dot Girl's First Period Kit. Kathy's period debuted during a family vacation, and even though their mother was a nurse, Kathy hadn't yet been given "the talk." "I honestly thought, 'OK, I'm dying,' " Kathy says. "It took a full day to tell my mom." Terri didn't have a dialogue either — their brother died in a car accident the week before she started menstruating and her mother was too grief-srticken to communicate. Now Kathy has a daughter of her own, and the sisters launched Dot Girl last December. The $18 kit is a zippered bag with an information booklet, a menstrual calendar, a gel-filled heat pack to ease cramps, hand wipes and three sanitary pads in two sizes. It comes in two colors: Sky blue and (the more popular) peppermint pink.

Dot Girl isn't the only first-period kit out there, but it is the most mainstream and affordable: The $80 New Moon Kit comes with organic cotton washable pads and Divine Goddess Naturals Moon Tea; the $145 Deluxe Birth With Sol kit includes a Menstrual Goddess candle; a $49 "Coming Of Age" kit from Woman Wisdom includes a DVD.

A "my first period" kit is a great start, but why stop there? Wouldn't it be nice if there was less weirdness, embarrassment and trauma around the first period — but more celebrating and chocolate? We went to school with someone who got a tiara and a "Girl, You're A Woman Now!" cake when she first got her period. Personally, we would have liked a period kit that came with Advil, a Snickers and a "Please Don't Talk To Me Today" button, which we would've pinned to our bookbag. What else do young women need?

First-Period Kits Like Dot Girl Help Tweens Come Of Age With Confidence [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]