May 6 Week In Review
Latest10 Things You May Have Missed On TV This Week
In this week’s assortment of pop culture crap, Rachael Ray shares sine first-date advice, GMA picks on the new guy, Lost’s Josh Holloway returns to TV, and Teresa Giudice gives the world’s worst interview. More »
How To Remember Which Is Left, And 9 Other Things My Mom Taught Me
From sex and fiber to golden rules, it’s time to give credit where it’s due. Herewith, ten random lessons that I’ll always take with me. More »
The Best (And Strangest) Looks From The Met Ball Red Carpet
Last night’s Met Ball — aka the Oscars of the East Coast, aka Anna Wintour’s baby, aka the fanciest red carpet in all of New York — brought out the models, the editors, and the actors to celebrate the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new Alexander McQueen show.More »
What Makes A Perfect Female Action Hero?
Action heroines are rare creatures. The earliest were female versions of pre-existing male heros, like Wonder Woman, BatGirl and SuperGirl. Some more recent heroines have their roots in fantasy or sci-fi, like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Selene from Underworld, or Alice from Resident Evil. But while there are plenty of realistic male heroes who run, jump and fight without being cartoony or existing in a vampire realm – think Jason Bourne, James Bond or Ethan Hunt – there are very female counterparts. More »
22 Families Affected By The Reality TV Divorce Curse
There have been seven divorces that have occurred on The Real Housewives franchise in the five years since its premiere. The most recent casualty of this “divorce curse,” Vicki Gunvalson, blames reality TV for her marital troubles telling CNN recently, “We didn’t have 90 percent of the problems that we have now and I truly believe it is the show.” But can a television show really be at fault, or does it merely shine a spotlight on the cracks that were already present in the foundation of a marriage? Whatever the case, divorce and reality TV have gone hand-in-hand since the very first show in the genre in 1973, when PBS’ An American Family, which featured the breakup of the Loud family. More »
The Tale Of Osama Bin Laden’s Youngest Wife
She was not used as a human shield, but according to the most recent account, Osama bin Laden’s youngest wife rushed the Navy SEALs as they arrived to kill her husband. More »
The Willis Test Is The New Bechdel Test
Loving pop music means, for a certain type of person, a certain type of compromise, whether you love hip hop or Weezer or both. In the early days of talking about loving music while not giving it a pass for misogyny, the late critic Ellen Willis showed us how it was done. More »
This Week In Tabloids: Jennifer Aniston’s Former Lover Says He Was “Too Pure” For Her
Welcome back to Midweek Madness! Every Wednesday, we play with In Touch, Star, Life & Style, Ok! and Us. This week: Jennifer Aniston’s ex-fling says she’s into bad boys; Osama Bin Laden finally makes the cover of Ok!; and Angelina Jolie is having hot, steamy, girl-on-girl and girl-on-Brad sex day in and day out. More »
Want Bigger Boobs? Of Course There’s An App For That
This morning, we got word of an app that performs visual breast augmentation. So naturally I decided to try it out. More »
Right Wing Co-opts Steven Tyler’s “Post-Abortion Trauma”
Do you know why Steven Tyler’s life went awry in the 70s and 80s? It wasn’t because he was a drug addict or a narcissistic rock star surrounded by adoration. It’s because his teenage girlfriend had an abortion in the mid-70s. More »
Creepy New Commemorative Crap Spawned By The Royal Wedding
The Royal Wedding is over, but the weird commemorative crap keeps on coming! Since there’s a chance you might forget the epic televised event so relentlessly covered by the media, you’d better get yourself a souvenir. Luckily, you have options. More »
Violence As Romance, And The Latest Gossip Girl Backlash
In this week’s episode of Gossip Girl, Chuck Bass throws a punch in former girlfriend Blair Waldorf’s general direction. He winds up smashing a window behind her, and her face is cut by a shard of glass. Yet this isn’t a story about relationship abuse – the writers say it shows how much he loves her. Indeed, love is fragile, like glass, and apparently both can leave a woman’s face bloodied. More »
How To Fight Fair
Some of us avoid conflict with our loved ones because we don’t want to piss them off or rock the boat. But having healthy arguments can be an important part of a relationship. Here’s how to do it. More »
The Unsettling Story Of A Lesbian Blogger In Syria
One brave blogger has been telling her story of life as an openly gay woman in Damascus, Syria. But now she’s gone underground. More »
For $42M, Jennifer Aniston’s Insanely Gorgeous Bachelorette Pad Could Be Yours
Famous single gal Jennifer Aniston used to be married to this guy who was into architecture. Then they got divorced. Years later, she set upon the task of building her own damn dream house. The Bali-inspired surroundings took 2½ years to perfect, and involve reflecting pools, wood harvested from fallen trees, city-to-ocean views, five bedrooms, 8.5 baths, a pool with a cabana, a game room, a Japanese spa, a powder room, and an office. But Ms. Aniston is giving up this California oasis…to move to the mecca of overpriced real estate, New York. More »
What It’s Like For Female Reporters On The Front Lines
Wars and revolutions – long-simmering and newly erupted alike – need storytellers, and foreign correspondents remain crucial participants in the process of conveying, interpreting, and contextualizing these cataclysms. More and more, those storytellers are women. Their work carries risks (including the patronizing concern of armchair outsiders) as well as benefits like occasional access to ignored stories. But their experiences also have limits. As Tracy Wood, who covered the Vietnam War told The Washington Post not long ago, “No matter what female reporters do, we can always leave.” Here, stories from some of those reporters about living and working in global chaos. More »
The Race To Make The Linda Lovelace Biopic
Hollywood is so enthralled by the story of Deep Throat actress Linda Lovelace that not one, but two biopics are in the works, with both projects optimistically aiming to begin shooting this summer and get to the box office first. One small problem: Neither film has secured financing. More »
Jezebel Design Updates Will Make Life A Little Easier
This morning Jezebel pushed live a little (but very hard-won) update to our code that most folks probably won’t even notice. But for more dedicated readers and those with older web browsers, these changes should help to soothe at least some of the wounds inflicted by the redesign. More »