Archive | Pop Culture RSS feed for this section

Her-ling (n., v.): Olympics-Level TV Reality Show Female Bashing

10 May

Self-esteem is just bad TV. In the industry that means “bad” for ratings, as in not entertaining.  Or so it seems by today’s prevailing littered landscape of cheap-to-produce reality shows. And our female role training is incomplete without some good ole culturally traditional women-on-women trash talkin’, table flippin’, hair pullin’ hataration. A Parents Television Council (PTC) study has shown that the channel targeting youth most, MTV, uses women to sell female humiliation. And oh yes it is! possible to become de-sensitized to insensitivity.

The only TV reality show contrary to this female-hating/-demeaning trend that pops to mind is ‘Bethenny Ever After’. But in its season two, even this show has become a therapy-lint-gazing, self-promoting, Skinny-marriage-on-the-rocks-Girl commercial. Great. The only one of us who is celebrated and represented by the media as “making it,” (edit, inconclusive to date :has to resort to bloating her financial worth, and by acting like a Showboaty, Inspiration-dispensing Blingy Oprah-bot to be deemed interesting enough for us to watch.

Ladies, work your ADD-trained media memory way back to two whole party Saturdays ago when the Rodney King/LA race riots had their 20th. The most famous, ungrammatical phrase of that event applies to the vast majority of women on reality TV: “Can we all just get along?” I don’t know. Can we, chicas?

To further put my challenge in reality TV show speak: “I am a growed ass wo-man who don’t know why other biotches can’t just stop their hating, and get each other’s back.” In other words, maturity and self-esteem (vs. ginormous ego) are ratings killers, so you will just have to go experience these things to practice and build them off-line, in the Real World and work on it for yourself. No script. No season storyline. No instant fame whoring gratification for being famous as a fame whore.

As unglam as that sounds, trust me, the rewards are high, sustainable and doesn’t produce belly fat, muffins.

Here are a few resources to help you and/or the young and impressionable females in your life understand and challenge how the media represents, packages and sells “acceptable female” images right back to us all:

Dove’s Self-Esteem workshop toolkit.

Miss Representation.

The Gena Davis Insitute.

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010-2012 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Happy Birthday, Ms. Steinem

25 Mar

On this day in the last week of Women’s History Month, a happy, happy birthday shout out to a feminine (oh yeah!, and a feminist one, too) beacon I once was lucky to meet briefly: Gloria Steinem. If I really knew you, this accessories girl would buy you some new tap shoes to spice up your dance through life.

In that gift giving spirit, keep this in mind:

                        “If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?”

                                                                          ~ Gloria Steinem 

Heehee, oh…but remember about three years ago when Christian Louboutin, famous French shoe designer, obviously thought so? When he designed a limited edition Barbie line, he redesigned her feet and ankles as well. Apparently, according to WWD, he “found Barbie’s ankles too fat.”

Keep up your brave dance lead for the rest of us, Gloria! So many more necessary moves in the shaping.

In sisterly love — PopSmartsZen

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010-2012 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.

Share

Tags: , , , ,

VICTIMS? The Inciteful Tale of Rush Said, Kirk Said

11 Mar

 

Ooh snap!, both Rush Limbaugh and Kirk Cameron can make a usually non-politicking but opinionated gal pop a sugarcoated Advil off-cycle. Now that the Twittersphere and beyond fervor surrounding their respective anti-women, anti-gay but unified anti-sex messages has subsided an iota, I was faced with a very angry friend’s Wrath of Kan You Believe That S**t?!@*#$%?! delayed reaction.

Since I’d just conveniently got my old Underdog U cheerleading outfit back from the cleaners, at first, I was all high kicks and hoots egging her (a woman with active gonads and a gay brother) on. But then—and I don’t know if it was just that her third Whatever-tini kicked in, or if her more deeply seeded anger than I blissfully ever knew lay in deadly silence waiting to angrily attack! from under her benign surface errupted—off she went…too far. She lumped the two Big Mouths together! She started overlapping and confusing their comments. Oh yes she did.

But there is a Rush-said, Kirk-said difference.

And the difference in their judgmental messages of intolerance is that Rush did it for pure promotion and to fan the flames of the innate fear of his audience’s lust for How Things Were—you know, a straight-up old fashioned, rally-the-troops-in-an-election-year PR stunt—and that Kirk Cameron is a true believer (sorry, no caps. The Editor). He walks his talk and actually raises his kids to believe his brand of Old Testy biblical-ity and its fire and brimstone No No-isms. And while I can’t agree one scintilla with his beliefs, we’re both American through and through, and so I have and want to defend his right to say it. 

Rush’s story on the other hand, post-snowballing of lemming sponsor-dropping, PCesque Growing Pains cast distancing (and two weeks later and I’m still quoting Bill Maher’s, “He’s been married four times and still no kids. Why? Because he’s the birth control.”) is now picked up as the Freedom of Speech flag. Wrong! And by whom, but no other than my buddy Bill Maher protecting Rush as the poster boy of victimhood. But Maher’s just wrong (about this; I totally agree that Limbaugh = birthcontrol).

An old complex issue, made more twisty, turny than a pretzel with the addition of immediate reaction time of social media, which amps up a brighter spotlight on sponsors and their associated politics of profit margin.

What do you think?

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010-2012 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Jon Hamm: Mo’ Betta Male Role Models

4 Oct

Here’s reason #109 to love gorgeous Jon Hamm. Turns out he only plays a 1960′s sexist, womanizing cad on TV (AMC’s ‘Mad Men’) because he clearly knows women—and what he knows is our society needs better male role models. He spoke out against rape and its life-ruining legacy, and called for a more respectful culture. Now THAT’S swagger!

Spread this beauty.

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010-2012 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Manolo Heel in a Chanel Lamb Leather Glove

1 Jun

Nice Girls Don’t Explode. Sef-respect is a lot of work. Besides, they know tire marks are slimming.

“I know. You’re right. And I want to tell him the truth. I’m sick of clients like this who want to suck all my energy. I’m gonna be strong….(voice cracking)…Buuuut, I don’t want to come off rude or, you know — bitchy.”

Then my friend said she was returning to the office immediately to write the business email I was coaching her on, and that she’d call me for edits before sending it. C’mon now, ladies. Girlfr’en is a perfectly good writer. When she says “edits” I know she’s not seeking spelling or punctuation acknowledgement from me, but that she’s keeping her “Bitchy” appropriately down. Acknowledgement that she knows her “ladylike” place. Telling a client off but, you know, not in any mean, self-serving way, or anything so not cute.

On my end, I hung up bemused and touched by this woman’s (despite how this conversation may sound to the uninitiated) real growth of late. Only recently, she wasn’t nearly as close to ready to hear me tell her to drop the disrespectful or deadbeat clients in order to make the space to start attracting the kind of clients she wants to work with. Today, not only is she ready (Step 1!) and able to hear that message, but she’s been acting on it, too. It’s not like the economy is so much improved, so — she’s ready for some truth telling in her life. Yess! It’s all a process.

In order to understand her perspective better, this non-people pleaser (me) did a quickie Google of “nice girl.” Once more in my non-sugarcoated life, I was naively shocked that the number one search result was an article by a young woman titled, “How to Be Nice to a Girl.” This said so much! It highlighted for me how much generations of girls and women (because I’m pretty doubtful it was scores of boys and men that catapulted that article to Number One) over the ages just want to be liked, admired and treated well . Among the sky blue-haired, lip-ringed author’s 10 Steps list were items like: Listen to her, be kind, care, and once more, “listen” only dressed in a different Hot Topic outfit. My biggest take away from her steps list and the Tips to her Steps List (finally,  this message did support what I was hoping to find for my friend) was, ‘…Only if you really mean it’. In other words: be genuine.

I couldn’t agree more with this teenage girl’s sage advice! As I learned at the school of hard knocks when I first started doing business, not all Big Boys are created equal nor “good clients” — so  you’ve got to say what you mean because you genuinely, sincerely mean it. This includes everything from respecting your legit profit margins, your time, to getting paid on time.  [A two-way street, incidentally but not coincidentally.] We show people how to treat us all the time. Every day. Respect yourself.

If you do, no more need to hide behind cutesy Go Girl! images or ironic  movies that double-talk or sublimate a woman’s power into satirical humor or metaphors — when you’re genuinely self-respecting, others’ treatment of you will follow suit. So when I get my friend’s email for “editing,” I know I will be on the look out for her genuineness, on how clearly she’s expressing how much she means her “thanks but no thanks” message. To tell the truth, you’ve got to know your truth. To know your truth(s), you’ve got to ask (and work all your life to answer for yourself) the right questions. Here’s one: how do you let your Outer Adult Woman roll without flaunting or alienating your good true friend, your Inner Bitch? Self-respect!  — PopSmartsZen

Image: The Cartoon Network, Inc.

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010-2015 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Rob Lowe Says No to: Do Drugs, Get a Career

2 May

I was never (ok, much) into pretty boys but the ’80s Brat Pack was All Attractive Vibes, All the Time (yeah and go, Demi, go!). So when the BP’s poster boy Rob Lowe was recently pimping his tell-all memoir on one of Oprah’s precious last weepi-sodes, I kinda half cared more. And it turned out Lowe did have some surprisingly thoughtful things to say (including sweetly and awkwardly side-stepping questions about old flames and sex tapes, his wife of 20+ years was front, center and all St. Elmo’s fired up) — like his take on his sobriety which demonstrated his maturity and gratitude for the rehab process and…the lucky, lucky life it helped him create.

He credits his sex tape scandal (what naive times!, today that’s a career-starter for the less-to-no talented) with shining a spotlight for him on his drinking, which in taking care of it, resulted in how he lives his life today. ”What it ends up doing is accelerating my alcohol stuff to where I finally get sober and I’ve been able to have the rest of my life that I’m so blessed with, which is now 20 years of sobriety. I don’t think any of it happens without that.”

And on the profundity of rehab: ”I was loving the ammunition I was getting to live my life and understanding things about myself that I never ever understood before. Rehab is a serious business for serious people. It’s not a place you go to get good publicity or escape the law or to rehabilitate your career, which unfortunately is what it’s become.”

Hope LiLo and company check in to their DVRs soon. — PopSmartsZen

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved. 

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Improve By Date: 2012

13 Apr

Shirley MacLaine tells it like it is again, and again…and in this lifetime (and on the Oprah show), too. The actress, considered “kooky” back in the day for her well known beliefs in reincarnation, said that we better get it together because life as we know it will change after the (in-)famous Mayan calendar date of December 21, 2012. Warren Beatty’s older sister feels that there will be a huge awakening (of human) consciousness due to the earth’s solar system becoming aligned with the center of the galaxy then. No doomsayer, MacLaine believes that the earth will end as we know it but in a good way, not the Will Smith or Ben Affleck needing to don black suits and space surfing their missiles  to save the earth way.

Irma LaDouce in her Can-Can(ny) way  told Oprah, “We’re coming into an alignment… and it’s the first time in 26,000 years that this has occurred… This solar system is on direct alignment with the center of the galaxy.

“That carries with it a very profound electro-magnetic frequency… and gravitational pull, hence the weather. What does that do to consciousness? What does that do to our sense of reality?

“I know everyone is feeling this sense of speed, speed, speed and they don’t know what to do about it. I have a feeling… that the karmic drama of the laws of cause and effect, at the end of the 26,000 years, it is possible that we could be on the threshold of a new beginning. I think what this pressure – this kinda psychic spiritual pressure we’re all feeling – is about, what your internal soul is telling you is, ‘Get your act together!’”

I always liked that salty sweet lady, and not just because she played a high-kickin’ girl also named Simone. Work it, peeps! — PopSmartsZen

Image: Two Sisters for Sister Sara, Universal Studios

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.


Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Clooney UnPoliticking “Truth”: I Drank the Bong Water

24 Feb

In my earlier bedhead, post-blog posting, Spam deleting, Aqua Aura-energized H20 drinking stupor, I was actually thinking about asking you this: How truthful are you? In our hyper-savvy age of over-stimulation and -information, strutting around like super models in, one can only hope, sustainable outer wear for Global Climate Change accessorized with evilly-designed planetary financial flip flops — do you really know who you are? And if you think you do, do you walk your talk? How can we expect today’s disaffected youth to have values that will sustain us in our old age (and assuming we leave them a planet to take up that hefty task on) with all the two-face smack talk we do individually, and in our media, our culture?

Hours later and still sans coffee, a full circle moment happened when I joy-read this lil diddy that George Clooney says no political career because of sex, drugs. It especially tickled PopSmarts’ pondering funny bone. Thank you, Dr. Doug Ross for that Rx of 2 Truths and the Morning After. Included among the reasons Clooney knows he wouldn’t make a good US political candidate are the facts that he — in his words to Newsweek magazine, “I didn’t live my life in the right way for politics, you know. I f– too many chicks and did too many drugs, and that’s the truth.”

Before today, truth be told, I always thought something — didn’t know what exactly — was wrong with that brilliant but rich aging player, yet do-gooder package. I wonder no more. He’s living his truths and that’s what is barely recognizable in our day and age. Oh. So we need to know ourselves, our truth in the two (at minimum) worlds we occupy in order to use our power for good. One of those paradoxes I tout so much, but in my own unnoticed growing jadedness, nearly couldn’t recognize. Oh.

Yes you of the political, actual human rights-affecting efforts. You slutty stoner you. You’re a funny truth teller I’d bring home to papa. — PopSmartsZen


SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

“Fat Girl” Outs Dumb Reporter In Front of HIS Back

24 Jan

UPDATE: Congrats to fair player Kim Clijsters, Australia Cup WINNER!

[Thank you to Reelgirl for reminding me (post long weekend) to put this shining example of a strong atheletic woman calling out a gossiper who slammed her body image.]

Australian Open tennis winner Kim Clijsters called out courtside interviewer and former tennis player Todd Woodbridge for texting that “she looks pregnant” and that “‘she looks really grumpy and her boobs are bigger.’” What pro reportage, Todd!

A girlfriend forwarded Clijsters the text (dispelling girl-on-girl cattiness) that Woodbridge sent her, and Kim took that aced serve and ran with it. SportsCenter and other sports media outlets have been looping that saucy video clip for a lipsmacking, satisfying good time now.

Chicas of the world, when a winning female athlete is basically called “fat” and “moody” by a so-called professional media person (and d’ya getta load of that the gossip aspect?, niiice!), this is just another example of the perfectionist body image lies perpetuated by us all, and blindly accepted by same. Open your eyes and mouth, see the truth and speak up for yourself.

Todd’s response, “Well that’s the end of my TV career. Thank you very much!” You’re welcome. — PopSmartsZen

SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.


Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saving Face: Funny Girl, Strange Mug, True Beauty

4 Jan

Sometimes even a road-tested, time-proven doyenne like Barbra Streisand can finally see her own beauty only in a rear view mirror. Despite whatever your may feel about Ms. Streisand’s visage, at age 68, the self-admitted insecure-about-her-looks star has finally come to see herself as “quite beautiful as a young woman.” The only critic’s voice that counts.

The star of “Funny Girl” warred with her own insecurities about her unconventional looks growing up (when blondes (and “blonde” obsession) not only ruled, but were The Rule, no matter how coloring mismatched and horrible it actually made them look) in a time when the standard of beauty was even narrower than today.

Babs told Britain’s OK! magazine, “Recently, doing DVDs, I’ve had to look at myself in old movies or on album covers… I thought, I really looked good there. Why didn’t I know that then?

“But I do have a strange face. It changes so much from angle to angle. Sometimes I think I really did look quite beautiful and a lot of times I looked really bad. It’s a shame. But I’m not going to cry over it. I’m trying to be in the moment, I’m enjoying my life.”

So if you feel like an outcast, too fat or flat, too short or tall, too 2-D or big nosed, wrong hair-textured, or…otherwise not neatly slipping inside the skinny bitch lines of today’s beauty standard, take heed in the wisdom of TIME and space exemplified by a successful, actually beau coup talented, real life Diva like Barbra Streisand. Don’t waste time!, realize now that you — in all your weird, gawky and terrible beauty — are today as beautiful as you ever were and were meant to be. Get over it to share it, flaunt it and take a saucy smelling bubble bath in it, darlin’. YOU ARE GORGEOUS. — PopSmartsZen

Thank you.

==


SITE IMAGE NOTICE: The images used on this website are believed to be public domain. If you feel any of these images or videos are violating your copyright, please contact (popsmartszen@gmail.com) and we will remove them as soon as possible.

© 2010 Simone da Rosa and PopSmartsZen™. All rights reserved.

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.