CSotD: Ladies First! Ladies First!
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It’s easy enough to aim chants of “Lock Her Up!” at Ivanka, and several cartoonists have, but Tom Toles wins for drilling down to the appalling level of blind, egocentric privilege in which this little girl has lived all her life.
The Trump loyalists are explaining about how it’s different if you have a server in your basement, which is basically parsing the difference between robbing a gas station at gunpoint and simply reaching across the counter and grabbing the money from the cash drawer.
There may be a difference, but it doesn’t make the lesser action legal.
And those of a certain age will have seen today’s headline and thought of the story in “Free To Be You And Me” of the “little lady” on safari who kept claiming privilege by squealing “Ladies first! Ladies first!” and how she ended up.
A major defense of Ivanka’s misuse of email is “She didn’t know,” which translates as a combination of “Ladies first!” and “Cute girls aren’t accountable,” and, as Toles points out, it strains all credibility that anyone could be so dumb, so stupid, so aloof, so … cute, so blonde, so rich, so entitled.
Even Trump’s sons are protected by nepotism and we expect that in oligarchies and especially in kleptocracies, but hands-off-the-princess is a depressing variation.
The good thing is that even Disney is permitting a little criticism of Princesses, and this Comic Riffs is mandatory reading for anyone who has kids and/or who cares what little girls are made of.
The even-better news is that this satiric critique of the Disney Princesses appears in “Ralph Wrecks the Internet,” which is aimed at a general audience of both boys and girls, much as “Free To Be You and Me” was.
It’s hard to break these conventions, as this 2003 Rhymes With Orange noted, and my take on heroic Disney Princesses and career-Barbies is that a lot of toymakers and film makers are trying to have it both ways, and doing pretty damn well.
And there is an attempt to reach boys, as well: Rosey Grier is more remembered for his post-football role as Bobby’s friend and Ethel Kennedy’s bodyguard the night RFK was shot, than for his singing of “It’s All Right To Cry” and his message to little boys that you don’t have to be a brute in your personal life to be a truly fearsome football player.
These things are getting through: Football players have not only missed games for the birth of a child and brought their kids onto the field (with protective ear coverings!) after Super Bowls, but are recognizing the importance of being role models in the community.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of little girls growing up with ambitions beyond proms and weddings and someday-my-prince-will-come, and, if the idea in movies is that girls can also beat up villians, what is happening in real life is more practical, positive and, well, real.
But still, today’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal got a laugh because it triggered something I have recently been noticing about eyelashes.
TV is improving in a couple of ways: One is much higher, sharper screen resolution, and the other is more women on panels in both news and sports programming.
So whether it’s the flock of analysts on Wolf Blitzer’s little semicircle or the mix of jocks and journalists on NFL Total Access, you will see a mix of bright, articulate men and women and you’ll be able to tell that they’re all wearing makeup.
And some of them are wearing false eyelashes, which would be fine if it were some of the women but it’s all of the women, and I don’t get it. I know the number of women who wear those things to the office is getting pretty small.
(Granted, I’m aware that women want you to know where their eyes are, and will volunteer the information.)
Well, maybe it has to do with the current mix of hi-res and lo-res TVs out there and having to still prepare your face for the worst level of TV reception.
Which might also explain the guys who are showing up unshaven. Not bearded and not even with that old Don Johnson/Yassar Arafat on-purpose demi-beard.
But in full suit and tie and a bit of scraggle that maybe means they think that, if the girl’s natural eyelashes, even with mascara, won’t show up on camera, their first-12-hours-towards-a-teenager-beard will be equally invisible.
It is a puzzlement, but one that mostly reminds me of country music in the 70s, when all the women singers had to be spangled and curled and shiny while the guys all looked like they’d just been out ridin’ the range, except that real cowboys shower, shave and put on their good clothes before going into town.
Anyway, the eyelashes thing makes me think we’re not there yet.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The Democrats have regained the House and are squabbling over who gets to be Speaker.
Here’s the CSPAN coverage of their discussions.
Wasserman evokes the fable of belling the cat, which is a very good idea but risky enough that you’d be a fool to volunteer for the job.
And to the extent that the Democrats need to reject the Same-Old-Same-Old that cost them the White House, there’s something to the idea of a fresh face.
Nobody has ever explained why Pelosi is so awfully flawed, beyond the XX-chromosomes and being progressive, neither of which should inflame the Democrats, however much it upsets Republicans.
Nor do I think that Beeler was suggesting that she should get the job because she’s such a lightning rod.
But I’ll suggest it.
I’ve heard a theory I like, which is that whoever becomes Speaker will suffer two years of lies and insults from Fox and Breibart and Infowars, and that Pelosi is (A) used to it, and (B) unlikely to aim for the White House in 2020 anyway.
So let her get covered in partisan shit so that some credible candidate can emerge in a year and a half, all nice and shiny and electable.
Now here’s your moment of first-wave zen:
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