PopSmartsZen

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

PopSmartsZen.com — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:57:54 +0000

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 20^th. 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.

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Happy Birthday, Ms. Steinem

PopSmartsZen.com — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:56:29 +0000

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

VICTIMS? The Inciteful Tale of Rush Said, Kirk Said

PopSmartsZen.com — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:59:24 +0000

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?

Jon Hamm: Mo’ Betta Male Role Models

PopSmartsZen.com — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 22:49:03 +0000

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.

Manolo Heel in a Chanel Lamb Leather Glove

PopSmartsZen.com — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:26:23 +0000

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.

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

PopSmartsZen.com — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:27:35 +0000

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

Improve By Date: 2012

PopSmartsZen.com — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:30:40 +0000

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

Navigating Charity: Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami

PopSmartsZen.com — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:15:31 +0000

Give. Think. Pray.

It’s hard to watch, worse if you have loved ones in Japan. PopSmartsZen is urging you to donate money — not supplies (to date, no legit organization is set up to properly receive and distribute) — to a charity. Specify you want your donation earmarked for Japan.

It’s also hard to figure out how not to get scammed. I found a great site that vets charities, Charity Navigator. Check them out, read their research and give! Don’t forget the affected animals. Go Like ‘Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support’ (JEARS)’s Facebook page, see the Donate link. — PopSmartsZen

Clooney UnPoliticking “Truth”: I Drank the Bong Water

PopSmartsZen.com — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:26:43 +0000

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

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

PopSmartsZen.com — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:01:00 +0000

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