Church of Chelsea Lately

For someone who has spent 17+ weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, Chelsea Handler is doing an amazing job of flying under the broader pop cultural radar.  Sure there is a segment of the population who can’t get enough of her, but from a purely feminist perspective, she should be way more famous than she is.  Because it’s not that Chelsea Handler is just a NYT Bestselling author, but she’s also the host of a late night talk show.  For those that don’t understand the significance, there has only been one woman that has ever attempted such a feat (that is, hosting a late night talk show) and she failed pretty miserably (that would be Joan Rivers).  Chelsea Lately, Handler’s show, has ever growing ratings and a core demographic of 18-34 year old women…that would be people who buy things, and are thus a very sought after demo.  

As a female who falls directly in the middle of the core demographic, and is a big fan of Chelsea Handler (though I must admit I’ve never read any of her books), I must say that the allure of her is the fact that she’s hilarious and smart.  Smart above all.  Though her subject matter is of the pop culture variety, she often talks about the reality stars of E! (her home network), Bravo and all the others, her sharp, witty comedy should not be overlooked.  

Where she truly won me over was during the countdown to the election.  She’s liberal and makes no excuses or apologies for it, and she constantly rallied for Barack Obama on her show, not to mention she urged people to vote no on prop. 8 over and over in a very Chelsea Handler way; she basically bluntly said, you’re an asshole if you vote yes on this proposition, and really, isn’t that the truth.

Chelsea’s MO is calling it like it is.  She’s zero bullshit, and completely self-deprecating in the most fabulous way possible.  She knows her show is somewhat ridiculous and often says so.  She also knows that the people she talks about are even more ridiculous and thus has no problem reigning in an audience of people like me, who are constantly inundated with the images of celebrities who are only famous for being dumb and rich and would like nothing more than to put them in their place (being dumb and rich and not on every fucking magazine cover in the world).  Sure, you could argue that Chelsea Lately is part of the problem, she does still talk about all the annoying faux-celebrities out there, but she walks a fine line.  Is it better to voice the opinion of so many, that Paris Hilton and all that came after her are completely obnoxious and ridiculous, or is it better to ignore it and hold out a futile hope that it will all just fade away?

The true gem of Chelsea’s show is the interview portion of the half-hour.  Like any other talk show, Chelsea has special guests on that she interviews, but unlike the other talk shows, Chelsea often has on the very people she spends the other twenty minutes mocking.  Interviews are where Chelsea’s wit shines.  Her guests are often so stupid, so oblivious to their ridiculousness that they completely miss the fact that they are being made fun of by Chelsea.  When she smiles devilishly at the camera and winks at the audience knowingly, the daft reality stars that most often appear on her show, think they’ve done something right, something that has thrown the audience into a tizzy.  The best thing about Chelsea Handler is that we’re all in on the secret: she’s the queen bee, the mean girl everyone wants to be and everyone wants to be friends with.  Only now, the stakes are higher and she’s providing the social commentary that will survive this celebrity saturated culture and come out victorious.  

Peace, Love, and Chelsea Handler,

Julia 

Lions and Lambs

I wrote about the book Twilight a few weeks ago and briefly mentioned that it was going to be a movie soon before talking about my views on premarital sex.  Yeah, sometimes I don’t even know how I get from point a to point b, but whatever, it works.  The book Twilight is a phenomenon among teenage girls (and some of their mothers who refer to themselves as Twilight Moms) and a few teenage boys (most of whose sexuality leans more towards my team than say Ron Jeremy’s), but the movie Twilight could change the face of the motion picture industry as we know it.  First off, it’s getting awesome reviews.  More importantly, however, it is completely independently funded.  

So here’s how it works.  An actual independent film, I’ll use Juno as an example, is funded by smaller production companies or by the independent sector of larger companies (Fox Searchlight is 20th Century Fox’s Indie sector, Paramount Vantage is Paramount’s, Warner Independent is Warner Bros., etc.).  Juno was funded by smaller companies and then sent to different festivals (this is why Sundance is so important) at which major motion picture studios bid on the already made movie.  They are bidding for distribution rights and when the film is distributed widely, they get a huge percentage of the revenue.  They do, however, foot the marketing bill, which can sometimes cost more than the movie itself.  Unless we’re talking about little arthouse movies, and sometimes even those are funded by studios, every single movie that comes out is at some point funded by a major motion picture studio.  Just watch the opening: you will always see a studio logo come up before the movie starts.  ALWAYS.  

Now, Twilight is the first movie in a long time, if not the first movie ever, to challenge this method.  It was funded entirely by Summit Entertainment (which is not a major motion picture studio), and filmed for no more than $35 Million, though I’ve heard it was closer to $25 Million, which isn’t a lot for a movie nowadays.  The thing is, Twilight is bigger than they ever expected.  Compared to Harry Potter, which has at least $100+ Million budget per film, Twilight is ridiculously cheap, especially for a movie that was filmed almost entirely on location around Portland, Oregon, and has extended action sequences to try to lure in the boys.  But the real clincher is, it’s going to make an assload of money.  

The question is, how much?  Summit is trying to aim low so they are pleasantly surprised, but I know that the midnight showings for the night before are sold out in L.A.  (Don’t worry, I’ve already got my ticket).  The reason that this is interesting, and the reason you should all go pay $12 (it’s about $14 now in L.A.) to see this movie is that it will change movie making.  If/when Twilight completely explodes, it will no longer be necessary to go through the major studios for funding.  It will no longer be necessary to throw $100+ million dollars at a project that is ‘guaranteed’ to be a hit.  If the little movie that could, Twilight, can make a good watchable romance with action movie that rakes in money, we might actually see a change in the way film is made.  Instead of ‘independent’ films like There Will Be Blood (whose status as Indie rests solely on the fact that it was produced by Paramount Vantage and it’s not a piece of shit like big studio movies are now), we will have mainstream films like Twilight, that have mass appeal, good story, good plot, good acting, good writing, and didn’t cost as much as Titanic to make.  

At a time when the face of television is changing rapidly, when the way we view media in general is coming into question, isn’t it time we, the consumer, put our money toward something good?  I’ll write my review on Friday the 21st, its technical release date, so we can know if it’s really good or not, and then I expect you to do your part to change the biz.  

Peace, Love, and Consumer Driven Power,

Julia

Yes We Did!

I wasn’t originally planning to write about the election. I know some people who receive this are not on my boat politically speaking and I’m not one to rub in victories, nor do I like to absorb the pain of defeat, but today is such an historic day that I can’t go without mentioning it’s effect on me as a young political voter in this country.

I was one month behind being able to vote in the ill-fated election of 2000 as my birthday is in December, and remember the paralyzing disappointment that accompanied that rather tenuous anti-victory of the Republican party. Two years and one world-changing event later, I was off to London to learn some of the most poignant lessons I will experience in my lifetime. First and foremost, for a girl who claimed to hate America, I learned how deep my love of my country went. Not only did I realize that I was an American and a Patriot, but that I was an ambassador of sorts. I fought against the hate and frustration that I found was exacted against America, assuring the Britons that were willing to hear me, that Bush was not a representation of all America, but a stolen election that would be remedied in the 2004 election. I realized that I loved what America stood for, but not what it had become. That I loved the foundations of this country as one of hope and opportunity, that my ancestors came to as they escaped the iron hand of European Fascism (Mussolini to be exact). I realized that I, as a stranger in a strange land, had to show people that all Americans weren’t the gun-toting, cowboy diplomacy supporting yee-haws that were populating the White House and recruiting their young men and women to fight a war whose very premise was being questioned. I spent a year fighting to show that half of America wasn’t in support of George W. Bush and his policies of non-diplomacy.

On my last day in London, after my friends spent the better part of an evening feeding me tequila shots, one of my dear friends said the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. He said that I had changed his opinion of Americans and I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Even now, as I write this, I am tearing up thinking of how much that little remark meant and continues to mean to me.

I came back from London in an election year. A year that I, as a first time voter and an idealistic 20 year old, maintained hope for this country. A country I had a new love for, one that I had not felt in my whole lifetime. I came back invigorated, ready to get behind a candidate who was promising a change from the cowboy diplomacy that had reigned for the past four years. And then George W. Bush won again. It was contested again, yes, but he was back in the White House for another four years, and I lost all hope, all youthful exuberance toward the dream of what America was supposed to be.

I found myself in my last year at UCSC, being the skeptic in classes full of idealism. In classes where kids were excited about protest and communism, I found myself being not just skeptical but in some cases downright hostile toward their exuberance. Were they not at the election? Did they not see that this country was going down fast? That the great experiment of America had been a complete and abject failure?

As much as I hate to admit this, the last four years of my life have been clouded by an excruciating disappointment in the state of this country. Even as the primary elections shaped up, even as Barack Obama gave his amazing speech at the DNC, even as numbers started coming in in preliminary polls, I doubted. I felt a piece of my heart, my hope that had slipped away in 2000 and felt like was gone for good in 2004, was restored. Tonight, I quickly gained what I thought was lost forever. I was fully prepared to move out of this country if I felt that my ideals and beliefs were disconnected with the majority of the people here. Not only did this country prove my doubt wrong and unfounded today, it restored the hope I never thought I’d see again.

I can’t say that I’ll never doubt again. I can’t say that my hopes will never be dashed. Nor do I think that President-Elect Obama will solve every problem we’ve created for ourselves. And as he asked of us earlier this evening, I’ll do my part to pull this country up by our collective bootstraps and back into the good graces of the rest of the world and of our own hearts as citizens of a country that stands for something more than the individual person, whether they live in Beverly Hills or Des Moines, Iowa. But after tonight, I’ll never forget the feeling of pure joy and sense of duty that I feel at this moment. I will never forget the lightness in my chest when I finally allowed myself to hope after years of despair. Maybe we’re in crisis and we have lots of work to do, but at least now we have a pillar of hope to cling to as we fight for what America is supposed to be.

So on this election night, which I will say might be the best night of my young life, let us not forget that we live in a country where power will change hands without bloodshed or civil war, where the dissenting party will stay involved in the political process and not be taken out back and executed. Let us remember that there are few countries in the world where that luxury is afforded. Let us remember that we, in America, are the exception and not the rule. And let us remember that we must work to keep that distinction.

YES WE CAN!

Peace, Love, and Hope,
Julia