Archive | Feminist Matters

The Purple Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Screen Shot 2016-07-15 at 11.17.13 AMIf ever there were a book that wouldn’t be adapted today, it’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. About a 1930s Scottish teacher who pimped out her students to a colleague and favored fascism, it hardly jibes with today’s helicopter parenting and political orthodox–not to mention any ethical compass. Yet it’s arguably Muriel Spark’s best novel and certainly her most touted. As slim as it is crisp – technically, it could be described as a novella – it began its long life as a 1961 segment in The New Yorker before being published as a separate book. In 1968, it was adapted into an eponymous and much-celebrated play by Jay Presson Allen, who went on to write the screenplay for the iconic 1969 film starring Dame Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie. Said Allen: “All the women who played Brodie got whatever prize was going around at that time.” In fact, Zoe Caldwell nabbed a Tony for her portrayal in the theater production, and Smith won a subsequent Oscar. Continue Reading →

The Magic of My Pits

pitsIt’s Tuesday, the day I tape my NY1 show, which means I am facing my weekly dilemma: To shave or not to shave. In all candor, I’ve always hated shaving my armpits though I enjoy smooth legs. And while some are repulsed by underarm hair, I find it beautiful and powerful and the source of some of my best magic (like antennae to other worlds, maybe). I also super-hate that all earmarks of adult femininity–adult female bodies, period–are so scorned and feared. I never, ever shaved when I was younger, in fact. It was only when I served as bridesmaid in a traditional Southern wedding and began working for a mean-girl tabloid that I buckled to pressure. These days I only prune in preparation for TV–which is also when I iron my clothes and hair and apply a whole layer of makeup rather than just lipstick. (I only mind the shaving.) I know there are bigger things going on in our world–like way bigger–but more and more I feel like a sell-out for shearing my precious fur. This does not mean I think other women are bad feminists when they do so; it means I am failing my personal feminism because I am modifying my body out of social compulsion rather than desire. Bottom line: Looks like I’m going to start wearing long sleeves once a week this summer.

Venus Approaches

The_Birth_of_Venus_by_William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1879)

July approaches, and peonies still preside on my bedside table though their season used to end in May. I chalk it up to the unseasonably mild weather, and complain not.

The baby doves on my fire escape are not babies anymore but also are still hanging out, peep-peep-peeping while their mother fusses over them like all the other Brooklyn mommies. Every morning as I drink my coffee I watch her nag them into flying a little further while their father observes from on high. Grace watches too, ears flattened, a burr forming low in her throat. Twice I’ve had to snatch her mid-air lest she hurl at them through the screen window; she seems to have located her predatory instincts quite nicely, thank you very much. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy