Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelys (Twice in a Week!): “I Vow” Commercials April 1, 2009
Posted by Onely in "Against Love"...?, As If!, Dating, Heteronormativity, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, Singled Out.Tags: "i vow", chemistry.com, Laura Kipnis, rhetoric of work, what's wrong with flannel nightgowns?!, zyrtec, zyrtec commercial
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OK. So I understand that Chemistry.com’s whole business revolves around assuming and promoting couple-dom as the most desirable relationship status. In order to do this, it’s no surprise that the company (and others like it) tends to promote stereotypes about and simultaneously degrade single people (see, for example, this offensive commercial).
But — as if that’s not enough — the newest series of Chemistry.com commercials, dubbed on YouTube as “Chemistry.com Vows,” presents two people mimicking wedding-ceremony protocol and normalizes the matrimaniacal tendencies of American culture. (more…)
Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelies: Desperado March 30, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Heteronormativity, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys.Tags: Antonio Banderas, Desperado, heteronormative, Johnny Cash, pop culture, the eagles, villeart.com
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“Desperado” has a pretty, rolling tune. It’s been sung by Johnny Cash and by Antonio Banderas (in Spanish) since it was originally produced (per Wikipedia) by the Eagles in 1973. I like the song–or I did, until I finally listened to the actual lyrics the other day (what can I say, I’ve been distracted by other things for 34 years):
You better let somebody love you,
You better let somebody love you,
You better let somebody love you,
Before it’s too late.
Gulp. Does anyone else feel just a teensy tone of intimidation here? As if you’d been strongarmed into a dark alley by the heteronormafia? (“Hey, listen, I’m just saying you’d better get with a committed romantic significant other, and soon. Hate to see you go swim with the single fishes, but that’s the game, capice? Nothing personal, just business, eh.”)
Or is it just me being strung out on dark chocolate?
–CC
Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelies: The Bachelor (or Matrimania Gone Terribly, Painfully Wrong) March 4, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Heteronormativity, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys.Tags: abc, cruel and inhumane, matrimania, please stop getting engaged, the bachelor
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To protect my dignity, I must say this right up front: I have not watched The Bachelor in a very long time. I recall seeing parts of the first season, and it took almost no time before it lost its appeal even as a guilty pleasure. Today, even the idea of the show makes me squeamish (Seriously. Just think on that picture you see to your left ). So, I did not watch the now-unfortunately-infamous finale of the most recent season, which aired on ABC Monday night. But apparently millions of Americans did, and I have since watched clips and read this detailed recap, so that I could post about it here: Not only was the finale a true “shocker,” it also underlined our culture’s deep misogynistic and matrimaniacal impulses in horribly unsettling ways.
Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelies (cross-listed as Guilty Pleasure no. 72x.5): Millionaire Matchmaker February 20, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Dating, Heteronormativity, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys.Tags: bravo tv, compulsory heterosexuality, guilty pleasures, heteronormativeholes, match THIS!, millionaire matchmaker, nature/culture, nostalgia, we love being single
5 comments
On Wednesday, Christina wrote a confessional post — and now it’s my turn: Ladies and Gentlemen, I must confess that sometimes, after a long Thursday, when I just want to kick back, have a beer, and relax in front of the TV, I watch Bravo’s The Millionaire Matchmaker.
OH I KNOW — you can stop throwing tomatoes at your computer screens (seriously, STOP – your computer will crash and I want you to read the rest of this post!)… I admit it, I’m horrible!! But it’s like … looking at the sun: The show just oozes with so many god-awful heteronormative-hole assumptions, I can’t muster up the strength to look away!
Sexist Slumdog Millionaire: Tell Celador Films They Botched It February 11, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, film review, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys.Tags: book into movie, Celador films, danny boyle, dev patel, feminism, freida pinto, loveleen tandan, movie sexism, simon beaufoy, slum dog millionaire, vikas swarup, weak female character
7 comments
(Greg Hernandez, Wikicommons)
Did anyone on the Oscar committee, or anyone voting for the Oscars, actually read the book on which the movie Slum Dog Millionaire was based? I sincerely hope not. Because if they did read the book, and they are still generating Oscar buzz after having read it, then gratuitous sexism is more frighteningly ensconced in our pop culture than I realized.
In the movie, Jamal’s love interest Latika is shuffled around at the behest of first one evil man, and then another, battered and sexually assaulted and used for her looks. Finally, her ultimate rescue is facilitated first by Jamal’s brother Salim, and then by Jamal.
But in the excellent book, Q&A by Vikas Swarup, although Latika is abused by the men in her life and suffers all sorts of injustices, in the end–guess what? She shows up at the end of the movie as a high-powered lawyer who swoops in and saves Jamal when the game show producers are beating him and accusing him of cheating.
Was that ending not exciting enough for the SDM producers? (more…)
“No Fun Being One!”: Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelys, Part 37.423x January 7, 2009
Posted by Onely in "Against Love"...?, As If!, Heteronormativity, Just Saying., Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, Singled Out.Tags: 123greetings.com, hallmark, industry, matrimony, thank god i'm single, wedding cards, weddings
3 comments
Hi everyone,
I’m back after two long weeks being busy with friends and family. During my many travels, I made a stop in St. Louis to participate in a good friend’s wedding. Every time I go to a wedding, I find myself enumerating the many reasons why I don’t want one of my own. I’ll post more about this later this week, but I first want to describe my experience looking for a wedding card to include with my gift for the wedding. 
It was late Friday night, after the rehearsal dinner and a couple glasses of wine, and I stopped in at a Walgreen’s to find a card in a hurry. But as I looked through them, I found I couldn’t make a decision quite as fast as I’d hoped, because nearly every card contained a decidedly anti-Onely message, some version of either 1) Good riddance to the single life!, or 2) Cheers to the beginning of a “new” life!
We could teach Brad Pitt a thing or two December 27, 2008
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, We like. . ..Tags: Brad Pitt, Make it Right, new orleans, people magazine, single
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I wanted a Brad Pitt link to put in my Christmas post, so I googled around looking at lists of his film credits, best actor awards, sexyist awards, humanitarian efforts, and fifty-bedroom chateaus.
Just when I was beginning to feel a little bit like an underachiever, I found this bio. Check out the right sidebar, “Heart Monitor”. My man Brad has not been Onely since 1987! WtF? (more…)
UnOnely Pleasures: Country Music December 3, 2008
Posted by Onely in As If!, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, We like. . ..Tags: alan jackson, country music, lonestar, progressive, richochet, sexist, single, toby keith
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It’s ok to like something even if it’s unOnely! Some of my best friends are unOnely. And some of my favorite music is country. I have three country music stations programmed into my car radio. Although independent-minded female singers with progressive attitudes are edging aside the good ol’ boys, the genre is still steeped in old-school heteronormative rhetoric. And I find myself rocking out to even the worst of it. Ignoring for a moment the philosophical issue of whether one can actually “rock out” to country music, here are some catchy tunes with lyrics you don’t want to listen to too closely: (more…)
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