Elizabeth Day 43/52

Let’s celebrate things going wrong.

Elizabeth Day might not be the voice of our generation (Hannah Horvath can keep that), but she’s certainly the voice of failure. And I mean that in the most complimentary way.

Beginning as a podcast, How To Fail, has expanded into the best selling novel that has launched Day into a household name. Never have success and failure been so fruitfully entwined.

Her podcast, which just reached the end of its fourth season, is a series of interviews with guests who are invited to talk about three self-proclaimed failures in their lives and the impact of those moments. Her first season had some pretty noteworthy guests: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Olivia Laing, Dolly Alderton, David Nicholls, etc. Perhaps the cynic would question what these very successful people had to contribute on the topic of failure. But of course, our perception of other people’s success can be misleading. There’s a chasm between what success looks like, and how it feels.

Day’s openness and frankness regarding her own ‘failures’ make her a captivating host. She offers up the details of her divorce and her ‘failure’ to have biological children. She speaks about her own misgivings with vulnerability, insight and ownership. She’s seasoned at self-reflection. Without these insights, it wouldn’t surprise me if people accused Day of ‘having it all’. Her podcast does a great job of exposing our myopic assumptions about achievements being an accurate measure of success.

For those of us who partake in social media, we’ve absorbed skills that allow us to self-brand: witty rehearsed remarks on Twitter, or filtered visual highlights on Instagram. We’re practised in marketing our identities. One of the desired key outcomes of this is to be perceived as successful. We’re seasoned architects of our public image. In a society that brazenly values success, the honesty that Day is breeding back into the conversation is rejuvenating. (Ironically, this, of course, has now become her brand, which is carefully crafted and marketed, and therefore perhaps is no longer authentic…And then my brain melts)

What made me want to write about Elizabeth Day is the novella that I just inhaled, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Set in Japan, the protagonist Keiko is 36 years old, has never had a boyfriend and has been working in the same convenience store for 18 years. From a young age, she is aware of her peculiarity and seeks behavioural guidance from her older sister. She mimics speech patterns and assimilates into normalcy for as long as she can. However, as she ages, she finds that the constant pestering about locking down marriage or seeking a more fulfilling career incessant. She attempts to fix the problem by partnering up with some absolute waster, and suddenly she experiences a barrage of relief from those close to her. Gladly, she finds the pull of the convenience store too strong, rejects the route others are projecting onto her and remains true to herself. A single, childless woman on minimal wage might be the success-seekers horror movie, but it’s a blissfully satisfying end.

The book made me think about who we allow to talk about failure. Had it been from any other character’s perspective, we’d view Keiko as having failed. Keiko feels like a failure for most of her life, and it’s only when she leans into being the person she wants to be, rather than what makes other people comfortable, does she feel any semblance of success. On an intimate, small scale human way, we can feel happy for Keiko.

Why is it so palatable for us to hear about failure from Elizabeth Day and her guests? She is an expert guide through the minefield of failure, but she sits comfortably within a group I would consider conventionally successful. The basic framework of the first season of How To Fail is a really successful person being asked about hardships they’ve faced on the way to becoming really successful. It’s a conversation about failure sandwiched between success. Would it be too devastating to hear about failure from someone whose failures were harder to compartmentalise into three distinct moments? What if failure was a larger player?

The really interesting thing about what Day’s podcast uncovers is that the deeper she digs, we realise that many of the interviewees haven’t necessarily overcome their failures. They co-habit with them and have grown to acknowledge the on-going role they play in their lives.

We all share that feeling of failure, regardless of how successful we are perceived as being (Except maybe Sebastion Faulks, who proves allergic to the idea of having failed at anything. ever.) The homogenous idea of success needs to be dismantled. We can’t ever know what success feels like to someone else. Certainly, for me, individual achievements might offer a temporary feeling of elation, but the important thing is the contribution to overall contentment. Striving hard for something, and that something paying off, feels good. But a string of successes isn’t enough to make you happy. And, sometimes it doesn’t feel quite as good as you thought it would, or it doesn’t really feel like anything at all.

If we’re unable to predict our own measure of success given how unpredictable our internal responses are, can we ever take an accurate read of someone else’s success?

Surely then, if we just do what we actually want to do, and what makes us feel good, we’d be a lot happier and therefore have genuine success. But we’ve made it quite hard for ourselves. We’ve spent all this energy self-branding, and thinking about who we want to be, and making assumptions about what would make us happy.  How do we know if any of that is real? We look for others for guidance, but surely they’ve been doing the same misguided dance we’ve been doing?

That being said, Elizabeth has positioned herself as an advocate for failure and believes that learning how to fail will make us succeed better. We might just need to revise what success means on an individual level.

 

 

Adrienne Shelly 42/52

Sugar. Butter. Flour.

This is the opening refrain from the first track of the Broadway musical Waitress and like the ingredients listed, I’m finding it utterly addictive.

If you google sugar, you’re likely to see the word ‘poison’ in the results, which is fitting given that there’s a little bit of poison in the story surrounding the creation of Waitress.

The musical is based on an ‘independent cooking-themed comedy-drama film‘ that had its premiere at Sundance in 2007. The film was a hit with audiences and critics but the focus was pulled away because of the tragic circumstances revolving the film’s writer/director Adrienne Shelly.

Shelly interests me for a couple of reasons, the first is that when watching Waitress I found her commentary on certain male and female relationships astute and, there are echoes with current happenings. Secondly, I found the details surrounding her death shocking. I was unaware that she’d died until my colleague, mid ‘I love you like a table’, told me. I googled it.

On November 1, 2006, Adrienne’s husband, Andy Ostroy, came home to find her body hanging in their bathroom. The New York Police department believed that she’d taken her own life. Ostroy, convinced that his wife would never have committed suicide, demanded that the case be re-examined. Subsequently, a trainer print was found in their bathroom which matched the shoes of a construction worker in the building. The 19-year-old confessed to following Shelly into her home, assaulting her and staging her suicide. The medical examiner determined that Adrienne Shelly was still alive when she was hung. The details of her death are so eerie that they sound like they belong on an episode of Law and Order, a show which she ironically made a guest appearance.

That her life ended before she saw the success of the film she wrote and directed, which features a cameo from her then two and a half-year-old daughter, is chilling.

Waitress tells the story of Jenna who is married to an awful and aggressive husband, works in a pie restaurant, and finds herself expecting a child. To alleviate the depths of despair, she begins to sleep with her doctor. A sweet but fairly gormless man who is also married.

I watched Waitress for the first time yesterday morning, Adrienne Shelly is undeniably comprised of the same magic ingredients that make up Nora Efron. There’s a particular likeness to Efron’s Heartburn, and not just because of the cooking. Each writer kneads in a certain amount of whimsy to their story, which on first taste may seem fluffy and light, but the central character in both is equipped with quick wit and pragmatic approach to shit men which adds a very welcome saltiness.

Waitress ends with the triumph of Jenna. Now, owner of the pie restaurant, she’s refurbished the joint into a technicolour haven, fallen in love with her daughter Lou Lou and dismissed both the men in her life.

I think my knowledge of Shelly’s murder altered my viewing of the film. Jenna’s husband is an oaf, openly disliked and mocked.  Shelly’s husband, on the other hand, appears to be decent and kind. Since Shelly’s death, he has set up a foundation in her name to help female artists with funding. Also, he was the one to insist on the New York police taking a second look.  Yet, given that Shelly was attacked and murdered in her own home, there’s something uneasy about the inclusion of a violent character of this kind. The film doesn’t depict physical domestic abuse, but he is certainly an abuser. He threatens Jenna both in private and public, blocks her financial independence and is emotionally manipulative. Jenna’s rejection of him after the birth of their child is seen as a fist in the air moment in the film, but I couldn’t help feel the shallowness of this victory given Shelly’s own demise. As well as taking her life has he also jeopardised the feminist triumph she’d sculpted?

Everyone knows Jenna’s husband is a total pathetic creep, but no one intervenes. At the end of the film, Jenna is still living in the same town, working at the same restaurant. She skips off down a country lane wearing a canary yellow dress that matches her daughter who is frantically waddling beside her. I couldn’t help but think, is her loser-ex lurking in the shadow waiting to attack?

I wanted to include Adrienne Shelly because she made a wonderful film that remains loved 11 years on, and has now evolved into a musical about to transfer to the west end.  Shelly intended Waitress to be a celebration of a woman’s right to independence. Shelly’s decision to have Jenna raise her child alone, reject the married doctor and rely on the support of her female friends is being shown to more and more audiences. It’s a wonderful legacy to leave behind.

But it comes with a little bit of poison. ‘If only life were as easy as pie’…

 

Paula Radcliffe 41/52

In seven weeks time, I will be running a half marathon. It’s slowly getting through to me just how much preparation goes into running a half marathon, let alone a marathon. It’s really given me a whole new level of respect for long distance runners, firstly for their training and dedication, and secondly for their resilience when it comes to pain.

Paula Radcliffe has held the Women’s Marathon World Record time of two hours, 15 minutes and 25 seconds since 2003, which no female runner has matched. In 2015, that was a full three minutes faster than the second place record holder. That’s a colossal victory and one that caused a little controversy. For a period of time her record was rescinded because the International Associated of Athletics Federations introduced a new clause that specified that women must run in women-only races. When Paula made her recorded-breaking run, two male pacers joined her on either side; pacers can aid runners by shielding some of the wind and also egging runners on. After deliberation, her title was returned, but the fear of losing something that she trained so fiercely for must have been awful.

Along with the physical and emotional strain of taking part in the races, there’s also the strain on a runners body to consider. The effects that long-distance running can have on the body are severe and Radcliffe is open about how her body has changed and her chronic ailments.

I’ve had a weird pain in my left foot for ages and I doubt all this pounding has helped things. According to my local GP who I got to see for seven minutes of sweet medical advice, it’s probably a bone deformity, or more commonly know ‘bunions’. I did not have a clue what a bunion was before that conversation. At a guess, maybe a button-shaped growth? Anyway, it turns out it’s when your big toe starts leaning inwards and your foot starts to change shape. They advised me to stop wearing high heels, which I don’t think I’ve owned since I went to clubs underage and danced like a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man to The Presets. But, it did make me wonder if the running was making it worse, then I read that Paula Radcliffe had bunions. She got surgery on hers, could barely walk for months and eventually went back to marathon running. I get that she’s an athlete who dedicates her whole life to training, but it also helped me put things into perspective a little bit. When things start to go a bit awol with your body, I’ve found it really easy to get worked up by them and enter into a google spree where I read about the worst possible outcomes. I’ve found it much more helpful to read about someone’s tactics, where possible, to move on.

With a little more digging, it’s clear that Paula has all sorts of ailments due to her running, some of which are pretty unglamorous. There’s a blog in the Guardian on Paula by Ed Caesar that illuminates many strengths in her character, most notably her legendary pain threshold:

“Gerard Hartmann, Radcliffe’s long-time physiotherapist, who lived with her for weeks at a time during training, told The Guardian in 2013: “I’ve worked with 63 Olympic medallists and there was nobody, from Haile Gebrselassie to Kelly Holmes, who on the treatment table could ever take that level of pain. She would hurt me rather than me hurt her. She would actually break me down because I’d have to go so deep into the sinews, I would have to ice my thumbs afterwards I was in such pain.”

As a direct result of marathon running, Radcliffe’s feet now have titanium screws in them and during a 2002 run she tore her colon (long before her public poo). It might be enough to put off any would be marathoners, but nevertheless you’ve got to be a little bit impressed by the dedication. I’ve noticed how quickly I can become deterred by things if they cause me a little bit of physical pain, or if I have to give up something to achieve my goal. Paula Radcliffe’s grit may be enough inspiration to push through some of that noise. Her pursuits have given her a lot of success and recognition but they’ve also given her a mangled foot and famous poo incident. You have to take the good with the shit.

I’ll be running the Royal Parks Half Marathon on Sunday 14 October for Action for Children.

If you’re able to donate please follow this link:  https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/beckylathamrpfhm201810635

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hannah Gadsby 40 / 52

Hannah Gadsby is having a moment right now.

Odds are that the Tasmanian has made a guest appearance on your timeline over the past few weeks thanks to the roaring success of her seventy-minute ‘comedy’ special Nanette on Netflix.

I was first introduced to Gadsby in season two of Josh Thomas’ Please Like Me, an Australian comedy series that pierces your heart and begs to be rewatched, over and over. Gadsby plays a character with her own name who one can imagine is not all that far removed from the real Hannah: dry wit, a certain aloofness and a frankness about her mental health.

The next time I saw Gadsby was Nanette. Yes, she is witty and yes, she is frank, but this time all shades of aloofness had dissipated. Nanette manages to articulate sentiments that are at the centre of multiple movements over the past few years, most notably #MeToo. For me, Hannah Gadsby’s story has been one of the most visible LGBT contributions within this particular spike. She reveals the physical and sexual abuse she suffered. To survive, she adopted a method of self-ridicule and put herself on stage. She speaks about growing up as a gay woman in a state where homosexuality was illegal until 1997. There is no question that Nannette is moving and powerful and important. It’s vital that shows like this exist and that they are broadcast widely.

Comedy is a strange word to ascribe to Nanette, more than anything it’s a powerful takedown of a society that insists on being shepherded by toxic males. It’s a thunderbolt straight between the eyes to people who bully, or belittle, of those who confuse difference with weakness. It is also a show that was meant to bomb, allowing Gadsby to exit the comedy scene altogether. It’s broken and she doesn’t want to fix it. It can never be good enough. The show feeds into current desire to burn it down and make something from the ashes. To fuck shit up. Tear it down. Build new structures. Make space for everyone.

Except, it now transpires that Hannah Gadsby is not quitting comedy; her show has become a surprise success, one that has now made it hard for her to turn her back on the industry.

She has put the match down.

Yes, she made ripples. She punctured the noise and said something clear that resonated with the masses. She articulated the impact of shame, of ridicule, of not feeling good enough, of not being able to claim space. She made herself vulnerable and by doing so made herself stronger.

But it still stands. She did not burn it down. She remains in it.

This very predicament makes up much of Ella Hickson’s The Writer which was performed at the Almeida Theatre earlier this year and perhaps remains theatre’s best response to the #MeToo phenomenon (purely due to the audience response, I think it’s clear that it was never Ella’s intention to be a mouthpiece for the movement). There’s a brilliant podcast hosted by Chris Thompson in which he speaks with Ella about the response to the show. She opens up about it didn’t necessarily reflect her own intentions and feelings when writing the piece, but the play has taken on that meaning by being produced in the #MeToo era. The central character in The Writer proposes that we tear down existing structures and try again. There’s a fleeting moment where we glimpse a world that has overturned the patriarchy and dismantled capitalism, but ultimately the show is pessimistic about that prospect.

In The Writer, the dismantling is urgent for a white woman living in a world that assigns power to white men. In Nannette, the need is more specific, Gadsby articulates her experience as a homosexual white woman, where sexuality is another factor that thwarts success as well as her gender. In a live interview for The Atlantic at South by Southwest, Ta-Nehisi Coates is interviewed by The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffery Goldberg. Coates is a national correspondent for the magazine and author of the book Between the World and Me which is written directly to his son about the way the world engages with black men.

In the interview, Goldberg asks him, ‘What would incentivise the privileged to understand and actively work to reverse the injustices that not only built America but still plague America today?’

Although he doesn’t consider himself an activist, Coates’ response comes easily: ‘the belief that it was so central to their interest that it just had to get done.’

Goldberg: ‘What is the price that white America has to pay?’

Coates: ‘ A complete loss of whiteness and its suite of privileges.’

As things stand, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ella Hickson and Hannah Gadsby will never profit as handsomely as their white male counterparts (neither will the majority of people who do not fit in that bracket). Their experiences are varied and they are not spokespeople for their gender, or race or sexuality but they have elected to comment on those issues in public domains. In their own way, they have each supported the notion that for things to truly change, systems have to be taken apart. We cannot contribute to the current one and truly hope to change things.

It is my greatest hope that Hannah Gadsby remains one of the most visible and active speakers during this time. I want to hear her voice and I do not expect one person to be able to dismantle a long existing and resilient structure but I do wonder what the long-term effect of this dissent will be.

Will anyone actually burn it down? Is that really what we want?

 

 

Hedy Lamarr 39.52.52

There’s a wealth of advice out there telling us how to live our best lives and fulfil whatever potential is nestled within our being. From a young age, we’re schooled on the great leaders and thinkers dotted throughout history (albeit through a very particular white male framework), and we are inspired to seek out our own path to glory.

Bam. Then you hit your twenties and the mediocrity that now shimmers from your pores is not only blinding to yourself but also to every friend, colleague, boy on public transport and passerby you encounter. That image of greatness is becoming increasingly abstract and blurry. You perspire heavily under the weight of expectation: soggy with failure and perpetually exhausted.

Then comes the realisation that, actually, great people often have really tricky, sad lives and being happy is the thing you should strive for and suddenly it’s all meditation and going for walks and ensuring you get nine hours of sleep each night and only buying cotton underwear.

Remaining curious and open about the world becomes harder and harder in the endless pursuit of nine-hour sleep. How is it then that Hedy Lemarr was able to live two whole lives?.. or so it seems.

A documentary was released early this year about Lamarr. Directed by Alexandra Dean, Bombshell, exposes the uneasy duality of Hedy Lamarr’s persona as a screen vixen and inventor. Raised in Vienna, Lamar rose to fame by starring in the controversial film, Ecstasy, which saw her running around naked and feigning orgasm (apparently the first female orgasm on screen).

Lamarr’s life was fraught but never dull. Her first marriage was to the Austrian Munitions manufacture Fritz Mandl, who did business with Mussolini. She fled from him in the middle of the night with her jewels sewn into her coat, adopting her maid’s uniform as a disguise.

Her on-screen career perked up and she enjoyed success as a studio actress, mingling with the Hollywood elite. It is through her friendship and occasional romance with Howard Hughes that she found the resources to fully explore her muscles as an inventor. She is said to have led him towards thinking of aerodynamics in a whole new way, challenging him to look to nature’s best work, mimicking the shape of a birds’ wing and the fin of a fish.

She had quite a knack for inventing and alongside her friend, the composer Goerge Antheil, Lamarr created a secret communication system which hopped frequencies, allowing torpedo missiles to move underwater without being detected by the enemy. The patent was granted in 1942. In Bombshell, it’s revealed that the navy took her idea and eventually used it, but Lamarr was encouraged to contribute to the war effort as a movie star pinup rather than an inventor. Her inventions were never taken seriously within her lifetime. Her film career enjoyed a few notable successes but she did not enjoy the longevity of some of her peers. Her star power began to lose its shine.

By all accounts, she had a pretty incredible life, one that seems split in two halves. Her life seems marked by the tragedy of never being able to exist truthfully. She’s known to have repressed her Jewish identity, adopted a son and who she enrolled in boarding school and didn’t see for over forty years,  and she became fixated on her youth and endured countless surgeries on her face.

Sadly, it seems she died a recluse with minimal recognition for her achievements, however, since the 90s there has been growing acknowledgement of her inventive talent, which Bombshell lends a hand in.

It’s hard to relate to the girl who was so pretty that no one took her seriously (Reader, maybe this is not the case for you, if so, bon chance), but there is something very impressive about the woman who finished work on set and raced back to her trailer to invent. Dissatisfied with her screen siren status alone, she worked in solitude to create and flex her inventive spirit.

Greatness is different for everyone. For some, the greatest thing in the world may be a cup of Yorkshire tea in a mug larger than your face, and for others, well who knows. But Hedy Lamarr’s story is great fuel for a big, inventive dream that will see you through your nine hours of zzz.

 

 

Five Forgotten Female Directors 34 – 38.52.52

The Golden Globes are happening tonight and there’s been a lot of speculation about how the #TimesUp campaign is going to manifest itself. We know that actors are sticking to a black dress code as a sign of solidarity and we can expect impassioned speeches about the abuse and imbalance of power in Hollywood and beyond. The silver lining of this is that women have come together to take action and have already raised significant funds (I think the latest count is $15 million) for legal support for women who want to take action against their abusers. The Times Up Movement reflects the desire for change, the refusal to let #MeToo die down and, thanks to the legal fund, a meaningful way to progress.

Focusing back on the actual awards ceremony itself, what remains painfully clear by looking at the nominations is that we still haven’t come far enough in terms of distributing accolades fairly and making the industry more inclusive, enabling it to represent a broader swathe of people. Change isn’t happening fast enough. If you look at the headshots of the nominees you may anticipate that the #SoWhite slogan will burst back into the social media hemisphere. The Academy Award Nominations are yet to be announced, but the Globes normally give a good indication of what’s to come. What has particularly struck a nerve is the lack of nominations for female directors, both currently and historically. This year’s ‘Best Director for a Motion Picture’ will be chosen from this pool…

Not a single female director has been picked (Jordan Peele is also left out which is more dumbfounding than the plot of Lost). It is not good enough in a year that featured the following films:

Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird

Patty Jenkins – Wonder Woman

Kathryn Bigelow – Detroit

Sophia Coppola – The Beguiled

Dee Rees – Mudbound

In the past 20 years, only three women have been nominated for best director at the Globes and only one female has won an Oscar for Best Director (Katheryn Bigalow for The Hurt Locker).

It is the Hollywood Foreign Press Association members who vote, they currently have about 90 members. To become a member you have to (amongst other requirements) have a primary residence in Southern California and be sponsored by two active members of the Hollywood Foreign Press. In their defence, the HFP does a lot of good: they’ve given 29 million dollars to education funds that support young people trying to break into the industry, including 1,500 scholarships. There’s an article on their website featuring Wonder Woman actor Gal Gadot speaking to Meher Tatna, President of the HFP, the headline of which features the word ’empowerment.’ It may be empowering to watch Wonder Woman on the big screen, observing a powerful superhero rivalling the strength of male superheroes that have populated cinema for the past decade, and it may be empowering to have financial support to help realise your dreams of breaking into the film or television industry, but the good intentions of the HFP are thwarted by their inability to conflate those intentions with their most high profile event where they seem adamant that white men should still remain the key holders. You could argue that awards are swiftly forgotten by anyone who doesn’t directly work in the industry but the impact they make on peoples’ careers is undeniable and it strikes me as being particularly backward, ignorant and misguided to leave women out of the mix.

It should be the case that an award is allocated to whoever is most worthy, that choice should be blind to race, gender and sexuality. I embrace that sentiment fully. It is horseshit that not one of the women above were recognised for their talent in directing, so this piece is for them.

Greta Gerwig

Lady Bird is an irresistible, small budget, coming of age story that explores the sometimes painful relationship between mother and daughter. Saoirse Ronan is brilliant in a role written and directed by Greta Gerwig, who has stepped away from her creative partnership with Noah Baumbach for this project. Given that Lady Bird was nominated for Best Picture her absence in this instance feels particularly resonant.

Dee Rees

Mudbound was swooped up by Netflix after its warm reception at Sundance and has received a wide audience because of that platform. As award givers aren’t yet comfortable with giving prizes away to films that don’t make it to the cinema, Mudbound was also released on the big screen for a limited run to ensure it would be eligible.

Mudbound is an American period drama that follows two World War II veterans who return to Mississippi in a period of heightened racial tension. Dee Rees handles the brutality of the subject matter with compassion and clarity and has compiled an incredible cast, including the brilliant Mary J Blige.

Patty Jenkins

The first female superhero movie in this era, Wonder Woman absolutely smashed it at the box office opening worldwide at $821.9 million against a production budget of $149 million, it is the highest grossing superhero origin film.  One of the most enduring arguments pitted against female-led movies is their supposed inability to appeal to a wide audience, Patty Jenkins has absolutely broken that myth.

Katheryn Bigalow 

Bigalow has had two Golden Globe nominations for Best Director and no win (she did bag an Oscar though).

I was talking with a friend about Detroit recently, who had a completely different take on it than I did. I’d been impressed with the slow, purposeful beginning and then the long, drawn-out scene in the Algiers Motel which held the audience captive in a horrific scenario. We watch a young, racist and sadistic police officer (Will Poulter) abuse, humiliate and ultimately murder the guests of the motel against the backdrop of the 1967 race riots. He’d seen it as inaccurate torture porn which conveyed the events in skewed and loaded manner. I hadn’t thought the same whilst watching, but I didn’t disagree with his comments. I think it’s a highly uncomfortable film and I didn’t know enough about the historical events to properly argue it’s case, but I don’t think the power of the film can be denied. Bigalow has a way of creating tension, in the same way, Michael Haneke does. The camera often feels like a voyeuristic intruder that has gained access to something we shouldn’t be seeing but needs to be exposed. Her work is always urgent.

Sofia Coppola 

I’ve written about my love for Coppola on here before so you’ll have to excuse the double entry. Of everyone on this list, her films have remained a staple in my film watching diet for over a decade. At Cannes in 2017, she became the second woman ever to win the Best Director prize. It’s a shame to see that the Globes failed to acknowledge her in the same way.

It’s the first time I’ve written about more than one woman in a single blog post and you may judge that I’m trying to cheat my way through the 52 posts I promised myself to write about women, but that’s not the case. I’ve been inspired recently by the coming together of women that has occurred in the wake of the #MeToo campaign, both publically and within my own social circles. Achieving as a group rather than as an individual is an empowering notion and honestly, had one of these women been nominated (let alone won) it would have been a win for everyone.

 

Nigella Lawson 33.52.52

There are so many things about watching Nigella Lawson’s cooking show that I love, but equally, I also feel a bit dirty afterwards, particularly at this time of year.

I hadn’t imagined that as a part of this 52 Women series I would call upon the sumptuously decadent Lawson, but here I am. It’s Christmas Eve and the only thing I want to watch is Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Special for its comfortingly traditional ingredients, frivolous spirit and Lawson’s mind bafflingly camp vocabulary.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever even eaten lamb, but here I am at 9am on the 24^th December watching her make a lamb tagine. I went vegan in May and did pretty well for a while (bar the few midnight M&Ms and the fact I never check the labels on bottles of wine and have bought a couple of pairs of leather shoes). December has been particularly trying; for the past few days I’ve buckled and just eaten straight brie, it’s been fucking delightful. Lamb Tagine is a whole new, off-limits level that I am not yet ready to tackle, and genuinely think I never will. It’s almost like window-shopping; I have zero interest in actually cooking any of these goose fat massaged potatoes or plucked carcasses, but I am watching. I have no idea why I find her show so soothing. As a persona, I’m quite at odds with who Nigella Lawson seems to be. She advocates wearing fur (which makes my skin crawl), is well known for her prolific cocaine use, and has endured several high profile icky moments in the press, not limited to the fall of her marriage to Charles Saatchi who physically threatened her and her assistants committing fraud against her. It’s not that I aspire to be like Nigella in any way but I do think I’m in awe of her. She’s feminine in the most typically understood version of the word, a great literary mind (having read English at Oxford and been Deputy Literary Editor of The Sunday Times), and a powerful business woman, who for better or worse, makes her audience feel really good.

She was born into a world of immense privilege, growing up in Chelsea within an affluent family. In an interview with Nigella featured in the Financial Times, Simon Schama manages to demonstrate that complexity of flavours that make up this woman. From neglectful parents and a childhood painted with shyness, to her overtly sexual image as understood by the mainstream press to the tragedy that befell her by having three of her closest die from cancer. She’s an endearing, multi-faceted and much loved British figure.

I think we need people like Nigella at this time of year, which can prove tough for a lot of people. She’s not leading the way for societal betterment and I wouldn’t be surprised if many saw her as irrelevant, but she does do something to soothe the soul.

This time of year can be tough. Taking time away from work and retreating back to the family cave can offer a rare moment to pause and reflect. Of course for some, it just rams you into a more chaotic state where your exhausting job is replaced by your overly energetic family and you find yourself wrapping tiny cocktail sausages with bacon whilst wearing a shiny frock gifted to you by your near blind nan, who you keep needing to reassure that, “yes, I really do like this shiny, shiny dress.” The day may end with too much booze, exhausted from small talk and smelling like sugar, whisky and meat juice. Rather than a retreat, the festive period can just feel like a culmination of all the shitty days that came before it in one spectacular firework of shit. But if being kind to your family and wearing some shiny fabric is your biggest obstacle, you’re pretty lucky.

Sometimes I wonder if watching Nigella makes me feel like a bad person. Writing about her now, a worse one. Shouldn’t I take this time to acknowledge someone who’s done meaningful good for society at large?

Christmas is great for those doing well, for others it must just exacerbate the shit elements. I think one of the difficulties I have with Nigella is that her show is aggressively lovely, it’s scene after scene of perfection. It makes me feel a bit giddy. How would someone who was really struggling feel to watch her show? Maybe they’d find her soothing too? Maybe they’d be appalled by the excess. One of the things that we should be doing during this time of year is being kind to ourselves. I guess the thinking behind this one, is that it’s ok to indulge and to celebrate people like Nigella. I genuinely think she does some good.

Han Kang 32.52.52

Many of us have a complicated relationship with food, which is odd given that it’s such a basic component of staying alive. I think about food a lot. I think about eating porridge as soon as I wake up. And about how some people don’t have enough food. I think about how quinoa became popular and fucked over Bolivians. And about how stupid the term ‘superfood’ is. And about the moronic simplicity of Deliciously Ella. And about how nice it is to watch episodes of Nigella Lawson’s cooking show. I think about how eating cows is bad for the environment. And how dairy is just as bad. I think about apples in my South London supermarket that are from South America. And how our food is packaged. And wonky vegetables. And best before dates.  And about the chicken in the KFC advert. I think about how nice it smells when my Nan cooks roast beef. And about how she eats every morsel of food that she puts on her plate because she can’t comprehend waste. I think about the bins in chain food stores at the end of the day and where the waste goes. And about the fiendish mind of the freakshake inventor. And about how 70s dinner parties are the stuff of nightmares. I think about eating ramen in Tokyo. And mole sauce in Mexico. I think about eating food I’ve never tried before. I think about how I used to put tomato sauce on roast dinners. And about keyrings I used to make out of crisp packets. I think about eating Pop Tarts and Lucky Charms. And mangos in hot weather. I think about the Instagram account that was made to shame women who ate on the underground. And making dinner with friends. And about being in year three and being asked to draw my favourite dinner and drawing chips and cheese with tomato sauce and my mum being embarrassed. I think about how eating burnt toast gives you cancer. I think about how good tahini tastes on falafel.

I think about food a lot but reading Han Kang’s Man Booker Prize-winning novella, The Vegetarian, was one of the most concentrated periods of time when I’ve thought about food. The book is extreme and bizarre and brilliant and got me thinking about food in a different way. If you want to learn about the effects that eating meat has on the environment and our treatment of animals this is not the book you should be reading, instead try Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Han Kang’s book is more of a physiological experience. It tells the story of Yeong-hye who stops eating meat, and then eventually all food.  The novel begins with her husband’s perspective:

“Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank the first time I met her I wasn’t even attracted to her.”

The blunt cruelty that opens the book is typical of the pages that follow. Yeong-hye’s husband marries her because of her supposed passive personality. Once she starts rebelling in a domain where she believes only she has control – her body – then huge efforts are taken to eradicate this power. Eventually, she is institutionalised and force-fed. The violence of this is horrific to read and is depicted in a dream-like manner with surreal imagery painted by Kang. Reading it, I was reminded of Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) volunteering to be force fed for the Guardian to demonstrate the brutality of the treatment of inmates Guantanamo Bay. Yeong-hye challenges the patriarchal abuse of power by enacting rebelling through her body.

In her first novel, Human Acts, Han Kang writes about the Gwangju Uprising, which occurred in her birthplace and hometown until she was nine. Her family moved to Seoul four months before the massacre. In an interview with The White Review, she talks about the sense of survivor’s guilt at having departed her hometown on the cusp of such horrific violence. It’s no surprise then that her work is injected with an intense curiosity about how humans can complete such horrific acts of violence upon one another. Rather than a being an anti-meat manifesto, The Vegetarian is more a protest against violence in a broader sense. Korean literature is not readily translated for English readers and therefore there is a danger in making broad assumptions that Han Kang’s work is representative of Korean identity. In an interview with the Guardian Han Kang professes her hope that her novel is universal, not just a critique of Korean culture but more of an exploration of what it means to be pure.

As a writer, she is wildly imaginative and beautifully poised. Her sparse prose coupled with a curiosity about humans trying to better themselves makes for an intense reading experience. Much like the French film Raw, we see an individual act of vegetarianism effecting a collective who take it upon themselves take ‘corrective’ action leading to brutal, horrific violence.

Han Kang’s novel is about much more than the title suggests and food is far more complicated than just fuel. As vegetarianism and veganism become increasingly popular, Han Kang’s narrative in an interesting ingredient to add to the ‘woke’ recipe. One of violence and brutality and how individual agency can cause anxiety to the collective powers.

 

 

 

 

Solange Knowles 31.52.52

There’s a production currently playing in London called, Barber Shop Chronicles, penned by Inua Ellams. It charts the story of barber shops across the globe and the men that inhabit them, from Peckham to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra. We see how these barbers’ function with a multitude of purposes and offer African men a place to discuss the world.

Which brings me to another piece of art, Solange’s third album; A Seat at the Table was one of the most critically acclaimed and most listened to albums of last year. In an interview with her sister, she explains how she was involved in every decision and creative process of the album, from writing to singing to producing to the cover art. Beyonce asked her about the tone of voice Solange used:

“It was very intentional that I sang as a woman who was very in control, a woman who could have this conversation without yelling and screaming, because I still often feel that when black women try to have these conversations, we are not portrayed as in control, emotionally intact women, capable of having the hard conversations without losing that control. “

Her self-branding is remarkably poised, from her music to her image there is an undeniable power and elegance. A high profile spat in an elevator threatened to derail that poise, but really all it did was win Solange some new fans and underscore the fact that poise is something you work on. You get the sense that Solange thinks a great deal about her offering and what that means, there is a thoughtfulness to her output that imbues great artistry.

Don’t touch my hair is a restrained, powerful track that typifies the overall tone of the album; it is a deeply political, personal and a purposefully pretty record. Solange has come in the spotlight recently because of her hair. In the Evening Standard, she featured on the cover of ES magazine with a full interview inside. In the cover image, her hair has been manipulated so that the full design of her braid is missing. In the interview she speaks about the importance of braiding:

Braiding is important to Knowles. It is an ‘act of beauty, an act of convenience and an act of tradition’ — it is ‘its own art form,’ she adds. Every black woman has a personal journey with her own hair, and for Knowles it began in her mother’s salon which was a refuge — ‘a spare bedroom so to speak’ — for her as a young girl. Growing up there was pivotal. ‘I got to experience women arriving in one state of mind and leaving in a completely transformed way. It wasn’t just about the hair. It was about the sisterhood and the storytelling. Being a young girl who was really active in dance, theatre and on the swim team, the salon was a kind of safe haven.’

Reading this reminded me of Barber Shop Chronicles, the sense of brotherhood and space for storytelling in Ellam’s show speaks to what Solange references here about sisterhood.  The removal of her braids from the cover then suggests a complete lack of awareness of this, which is fairly striking giving that within the interview Solange is explicit in their meaning.  Another incident has happened in close succession, on Grazia’s front page Lupita Nyong’o’s hair was altered from its original form. Her response: ‘There is a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women’s complexion, hair style and texture.” We constantly have to teach ourselves how to be better at understanding one another.

Listening to A Seat at the Table, you’re invited to listen to a woman who is utterly composed in her approach to discussing her experience as a black woman. Like Ellams, she’s carved out safe space to create and perform her own stories.  Allowing those stories room to breathe is something Western society needs to get better at. Her mother speaks on the album about the beauty of being black, and that being a proud black woman does not make you anti-white. It’s a beautiful moment that distils many of the elements spoken about in this article. There have been two excellent posts this week from black artists that have added to these conversations further. One is from Roy Alexander Weise speaking about the inefficiency and laziness of the term BAME. And the other is an American writer Zinzi Clemmons who has stepped down as a writer for  Lenny Letter refusing to write for Lena Dunham (my own thoughts on Lena are complicated, though her words are often clumsy, they don’t appear to come from a malicious place. In saying that, I completely applaud Zinzi’s statement.)

 

Cultural appropriation has been at the fore of heated debates in recent years; many are guilty of superficial inhaling of stories different to their own without spending time truly digesting what they mean. Living in a cooking pot of all types of ethnicities and backgrounds, London provides ample opportunity to familiarise yourself with people that don’t reflect what you see in the mirror. It’s true for my generation and the one that came before that many have harboured great respect and admiration for all sorts of variations of music, fashion and art from a multitude of backgrounds. But where the admiration stops and the mask-wearing begins is a crucial component that we must work at getting better at understanding. During her conversation with Tavi Gevinson, Solange talks about loving punk music:

All that we can ever ask is that we as humans be sensitive to the oppression that we all play a role in. That’s been the tough thing to navigate because we all have to have that uncomfortable moment with ourselves where we are honest with ourselves and realize what we have to do systemically change this place that we live on. It’s funny, I can relate to loving punk music as a young black woman.

I don’t find it hard to find stories or personas in popular culture that I can easily identify with and the amount of privilege that comes along with that statement is unreal. Solange speaking out against the Evening Standard for airbrushing her braids is something I can understand but not necessarily empathise with – and I shouldn’t be able to. I don’t know what that feels like. I can appreciate A Seat at the Table for a multitude of reasons, it’s a magnificent piece of art but it’s not my story and it’s not my experience but I’m interested and I want to engage. The popularity of her album confirms that many of us do but the really brilliant thing would be if her work was properly ruminated on instead of airbrushing it to fit into tired moulds. In Solange’s final comment to Tavi, she speaks about her son’s place in the world:

But I will say that there was something very interesting about that era of my life. Going to a System of a Down concert, and being one of the only black people there, and how that felt. I just had an incident happen that was really insane at a concert not long ago, and the direct connection that you have to feeling like an outsider in any place. How so much of that response was, ‘Well, you’re pointing out that you’re one of the few black people, which means that you are actually being racist by counting that.’ And I’m like, you could never understand how it feels to even be brave enough to enter that space, or to want to teach your son that society isn’t going to tell you that this is for you, but it’s all for you, whatever you’re interested in can be for you. I too have so much to learn, and so much to evolve from, but I think the first step, and all that so many people ask, is the acknowledgement. That it’s there, and that it’s problematic, and what can I do to stop this?

 

Margaret Sanger 31.52.52

Born almost 140 years ago, it’s striking to think that Margaret Sanger’s views on bodily autonomy are more progressive than many of our peers today.

The leader of the birth control movement in America (in fact she coined the term), Sanger has done immeasurable good for the liberation and empowerment of women; She has made one of the most valuable contributions to human progress. She founded Planned Parenthood in the US, an organisation that still comes under huge scrutiny from religious groups, is still a topic that is debated in every election and receives wave after wave of petty criticism on the internet.

Sanger was born in New York, the sixth of eleven children. Her father was an active supporter of radical social causes, but he’s painted as being rather unreliable. At 47, his wife and Margaret’s mother died, something which she attributed to the fact that her mother had endured eighteen pregnancies and eleven births. Instead of staying to run her father’s household, she enrolled in nursing school.

She married young and suffered a difficult pregnancy which doctors feared would leave her permanently crippled. She left the sanitarium where she was meant to remain confined, had two more children and lead a fairly usual life in that regard despite the doctors’ prognosis. She picked up work again eight years into the marriage, working as a midwife on the Lower East Side. There, she witnessed the reality of a life lead by those who had unprotected, frequent sex: venereal diseases and countless pregnancies. She began writing articles on female sexuality and contraception for a socialist weekly paper The Call. At this point in the US, doctors were not even allowed to give out information to their patients about birth control.

It got me thinking about sex education.Titanic came out in 1997 and I remember watching it on DVD near after, I was eight.  I couldn’t have been the only one whose curiousty about sex got jumpstarted by that hand slapping against the steamed up window. In year six we had to watch a video of two naked people roaming around their house in their natural glory and then see a woman giving birth. The camera positioned snuggly between her legs so that you could see the baby’s head pop out and then the entire child escape from that once neat little warm space.

I thought I’d have a sex education class at school where I had to put a condom on a banana but that never happened.  I remember watching a one-off Channel 4 show when I was 13 called Pleasureland about a dowdy 14 year old desperate to lose her virginity and to be honest it made it seem pretty grimy.  When I moved to Australia, we lived in Cronulla for 6 months and I didn’t go to school and I didn’t know anyone so I spent a lot of my time going to a secondhand bookshop. I wish I could say I spent my early teens reading Salinger, Plath and Atwood but I didn’t. I used to pick up cheap softbacks with vibrant covers from part-time novelists who would write about men and sex and being a woman and I devoured them.

When I was 15, a friend of mine at school told me that when you give birth, you can’t control your bowel movements and often your vagina tears and I distinctly remembered that this is not what happened in the video I watched when I was 10 and it made the whole thing seem like an Alien film.

What I’m getting at, is that I had innumerable methods in finding out about sex and my body. Should I have a daughter I would not use any of these tools to educate her on the subject but I have no doubt that every child and teen has their own methods to finding out about sexuality and their bodies in a world of plentiful resources.

My mum took me to the doctor at 15 to go on the pill. I had a very frank conversation in front of her and the doc where I had to admit that yes I was having sex and yes I would like contraception, please. I had my saucy novel in my bag and I felt I knew much more than they presumed I did. The doctor told me that in the law’s eye I was having sex illegally. My mum took great joy in telling the doctor that actually, I would be turning 16 before my boyfriend so it was me who better watch out where the law’s concerned.

But I fought the law and I won because I walked away pill in hand and head held high.

In 1916, Sanger opened the first U.S birth control clinic. After only ten days of operation, the clinic was visited by five hundred women and was closed down by the police with Sanger being put on trial. The judge who presided over her case pitched his judgment in a way that benefited the movement, doctors were now able to give out birth control advice under the guise of stopping venereal disease.

It wasn’t until 1937 that the American Medical Association finally recognised contraception as a subject that should be taught in medical school. Sanger’s efforts led to the development of the first birth control pill in 1960.

It’s important to note that there has been some controversy surrounding Sanger’s views on eugenics and she has come under criticism for allegedly having racist views, though numerous Historians and scholars’ who have examined her correspondence have challenged this. She did publish a few troubling articles in support of eugenics, though in the 20’s and 30’s she was not alone in these views. In a 1998 essay for TIME, Gloria Steinem ponders Sanger’s stance and considers that it may have just been a political ploy.

At the end of the day, female reproductive rights are still being challenged across the globe. This year, Trump has targetted federal funding to Planned Parenthood. It’s easy to take our reproductive autonomy for granted, but we would be foolish to do so.

“Enforced motherhood is the most complete denials of a woman’s right to life and liberty.”