regardless of what you think of her, i think it’s kind of hard to deny that the way men talk about sylvia plath is kind of gross
“The Oxford professor Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf’s biographer, has written, “Women writers whose lives involved abuse, mental-illness, self-harm, suicide, have often been treated, biographically, as victims or psychological case-histories first and as professional writers second.” This is especially true of Sylvia Plath, who has become cultural shorthand for female hysteria … As the critic Maggie Nelson reminds us, “to be called the Sylvia Plath of anything is a bad thing.”…In the 1980s, a prominent reviewer noted that a Plath “backlash” had resulted in some “grisly” jokes in college newspapers. “ ‘Why did SP cross the road?’ ‘To be struck by an oncoming vehicle.’ ” Male writers who kill themselves are rarely subject to such black humor: there are no dinner-party jokes about David Foster Wallace. In a 2017 article that went viral, Claire Dederer argued that Plath had become the culture’s ultimate “female monster” for committing suicide and “abandoning” her children.
Since her suicide in 1963, Sylvia Plath has become a paradoxical symbol of female power and helplessness whose life has been subsumed by her afterlife. Caught in the limbo between icon and cliché, she has been mythologized and pathologized in movies, television, and biographies as a high priestess of poetry, obsessed with death. These distortions gained momentum in the 1960s when Ariel was published. … The Washington Post dubbed Plath a “snake lady of misery” in an article entitled “The Cult of Plath.” Robert Lowell, in his introduction to Ariel, characterized Plath as Medea, hurtling toward her own destruction. Even Plath’s closest reader, her husband Ted Hughes, often portrayed her as a passive vessel through which a dangerous muse spoke.”
— HEATHER CLARK, from Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath.
claudia’s costume references to golden age child stars
-judy garland: after touring with her family in vaudeville, garland was signed to MGM at age 13. due to her short stature (4'11) and cute looks, she often felt insecure being compared to MGM’s other young starlets she attended the studio’s school with who represented a more “mature” beauty. the abuses she suffered at the hand’s of the studio and her troubled adult life are well-documented.
-shirley temple: beginning her film career at just 3(!) years old, shirley temple was one of the biggest stars of the 1930s. her signature ringlet curls, blue dress and musical dance numbers won her millions of fans and a miniature juvenile oscar in 1935.
-jane withers: a contemporary of temple, withers was often cast as temple’s opposite, playing tomboy-ish troublemakers vs temple’s angelic characters. she was extremely prolific in the 1930s. she also had a collection of 3,500 dolls!!!
like claudia, child stars of the golden age often struggled to transition to adulthood/adult roles as the audience had difficulty seeing them as anything other than children. they were picked out as children for their cuteness but that often meant they didn’t adhere to the adult beauty standards of the time. garland managed to have a very successful career as an adult but her small stature and childlike looks posed a major obstacle for the types of roles she would be offered in comparison to her more voluptuous contemporaries like lana turner and elizabeth taylor. temple retired in her 20s and went on to have a career in politics/diplomacy. withers also retired at age 20 before making a comeback in middle age as a character actress.
“Reporting and posting about what’s happening in Gaza, Palestine feels pointless,” Plestia writes on day 37, having regained access to her account after two days without it. “It feels like I’m posting movie scenes for people to watch, and whenever they get bored they watch something else.” It’s a good point, one that instills shame. At what stage do we become voyeurs? Are people just watching and not witnessing? To watch is to consume; to witness is to acknowledge, to bestow some degree of legitimacy. But what does it do to see it? Is empathy ever enough? “Compassion is an unstable emotion,” Susan Sontag wrote. “It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.” Earlier, I went to share a post and stopped myself. I thought of Motaz’s apology, his shame at filming Gazans in their worst moments. Will a picture of a girl who has lost 60 family members and the use of her legs inspire only empathy? Will it change anything, or will the bombing just continue, the number of orphans and murdered doctors keep rising?
American Psycho is really funny because we’re told Patrick Bateman is an investment banker and yet, despite almost the entire movie taking place at his work and/or with his coworkers, we do not see a single scrap of Investment nor Banking done. Patrick shows up to the office every day goes insane for 14 hours and then goes home.
men be like “i would never succumb to homosexuality” and then hold a mans face tenderly as he lights his cigarette with his own. okayy pansy we see you
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💄 thewhoringtwenties Follow
art deco more like art dicko! aaaand post
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🎥 claras-bowtie Follow
attended a petting party last saturday and there were no animals not even at all :(
#WHY WOULD THEY CALL IT THAT
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🕯 tuberculosiswarrior Follow
i lov my mother and father so nuch forever i cannot wait to attend my new job at the dubious factory where there have never been any machinery incidents evr before
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🎩 Rate-my-setup Follow
Submitted by anonymous.
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thebeesknees Follow reblogged 🔁 jazzcat Follow
🎺 jazzcat Follow
The cocaine in coca-cola just doesnt hit the same anymore….
The eroticism of the machinery incidents at the dubious factory
🥃 moonshiningitup Follow
Easy website
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🥂 cake-eater Follow
There is a gang war in Chicago. The first gang to get to 100 kills, gets to take over that part of the city. You NEED to be careful, Babe Ruth. You could be at high risk because of your high status. PLEASE be safe, everyone in or around Chicago, and please reblog this to get it to the celebrities in Chicago
i had a lot of caffeine late in the day here are my thoughts:
in high school i was trying to channel cat stratford riot grrl lite feminism but i was in the deep south and nobody thought it was cute and im currently wondering if that was why that tacoma kept throwing trash at me on my dog walking job
does anybody remember patricia clarkson in that one episode of broad city (“let me tell you im a Veery good mother but sometimes….you get a DUD!”) and does anyone know if it predated her role in sharp objects
one of my old professors taught a class that focused on a theory of ableism structured around the idea of “delinquent bodies” and i emailed her after i finished the giant obrien trying to cobble together what i remember from her class with my thoughts on the book and she emailed me back months and months ago and i still haven’t responded even though i would like to
i have a headache
if the rest of the world wasn’t so weird about it i would probably want a neck tattoo
Only 32% of Americans agree that “the U.S. should support Israel,” down from 41% last month. They are now fewer than those saying “the U.S. should be a neutral mediator,” which rose from 27% to 39%.
Americans oppose sending weapons to Israel, 43%-31%.
68% agree that “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate,” including ¾ths of Democrats and half of Republicans.
Above is the link to an audio file with Palestinian music, read-aloud poetry, storytelling, and excerpts from speeches on history and liberation. It was gathered by Radio Al Hara, an internet radio station broadcast from Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Amman in Jordan, founded during the pandemic as a way to connect during isolation. “Al Hara” means “the neighbourhood” in Arabic. From the river to the sea! 🇵🇸
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