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The thought came to me this morning, when I wrote here yesterday, I might have made it sound like the woman whose children I baby-sat for a summer said to me, that my hair was -- "not a style, just hair hanging down."
(Telling a teenage girl her hair isn't "good enough" -- horrible trauma! lol)
But no, that wasn't it: starting after eighth grade, I didn't have the long-straight-hair-parted-in-the-middle anymore -- after that, the trend and my own inclination was toward shorter styles that were supposed to "flatter the face"... Blow-dryers were invented -- hand-held, and hot rollers: each morning I was washing, drying, curling, brushing-out to avoid being too curly, heating, cooling, wearing warm hard plastic rollers in my hair for fifteen minutes or something... bending the hair to arrange it into something, around the face.
When she said the long style was "just hair hanging down" she wasn't commenting on my style; we were both commenting on the style which had been dominant for several years....
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Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short...
~~ Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical
---------------------- I was thinking about women's hairstyles, lately, because I'm sort of amazed at how Long Hair has made a stormin' comeback after decades of being not that strongly in style.
When I was little -- pre-kindergarten age -- there was this concept of being taken to the "beauty shop" to have your hair "cut." The style my mother requested for me was the "pixie cut." I remember having the belief that at the beauty shop, the lady could either cut your hair "short," or "cut it long," whatever you wanted. (Making up my own "facts" ... maybe am related to Pres. Trump...)
I also can remember the little re-thinking process on that...realizing that short hair could be accomplished quickly, but long hair would take a "long" time to grow....
There used to be a "rule" -- or axiom, or something -- that a woman over forty should not have long hair because "it pulls you down"...
But look at Melania Trump -- her next "zero-birthday" is going to be fifty, and she is rocking long hair....
Jacqueline Kennedy also did not obey the "no long hair after the age of 40" rule -- though she had the "pixie" cut in the 1950s,
once she grew her hair longer at the age of about 34, in 1963, she never had it short again.
Prince William's wife and Prince Harry's fiancée appear very much alike, with their long brunette styles
-- counterbalances to Princess Diana's short, blonde, curly coiffures of the 1980s and 90s.
Long hair now dominates among actresses and television news announcers, as well -- it's a bit ubiquitous!
When I was in grade school and junior high, I had "long" hair -- varying lengths, and it was straight so of course I kind of wished it were curly.... But then long-and-straight-and-parted-in-the-middle became the most popular style by far, and although I admired the hairstyles I saw on my favorite TV shows, I understood that I was watching reruns, and that those styles were --
a) for grown-up women, not kids, and
b) several years out of date (only a few years, and yet the early and mid-60s seemed like a different planet -- "light years" -- from Late-60s to Early-70s.)
Hair to look at on TV:
How to actually wear your hair:
----------------------- In the summer of 1976 I worked as a summer girl (baby-sitter and household helper) -- the children's mom had the Dorothy Hamill "wedge" haircut.
By that time long-and-straight-and-parted-in-the-middle had been the dominant hairstyle for a while, and some people were beginning to rebel. I remember Patti commenting on the long flat hair, saying firmly, "That's not a hairstyle, that's just hair hanging down."
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"What's K-Mart?" asked one British Internet commenter, after it was mentioned.
Oxford, United Kingdom answered: "Just wondered the same thing so I Googled it. It's an American department store chain."
U.K. press is full of royalty, lately: Prince Harry going to marry Meghan Markle -- cascades of disapproval from Commenters in one paper, but vociferous as the criticism is, the impression is left that these people are in the minority. (And probably a lot of them are up in arms about something --
every.
day.)
They don't like Ms. Markle because --
She's an American
She's an actress
She is divorced
She is -- one of her parents is black and one of her parents is white.
Those are the four reasons I can perceive -- glean -- but maybe I don't understand it all. One Comment said Ms. Markle is "not regal."
A headline in The Guardian-UK asked the question, will Meghan Markle be sleeping beauty or the first 'woke' princess? In that newspaper, the term "woke" garnered much more hyperventilating criticism than Prince Harry's fiancée -- lol.
Comments
~~ I'm not a royalist. But I think I'd even rather talk about the royals than with someone who talks about people being 'woke'. Aaargh.
~~ FGS, use the words most of your readers understand. The modern use of 'woke' is pretty meaningless to anyone over 30, perhaps even 20.
~~ Have you noticed that this word is largely written, not spoken? Clearly it is howlingly embarrassing to say in public.
~~ Agreed. At 42, my teeth clench whenever I read that 'woke' word in this context. Grammar is going out of fashion fast.
~~ I suspect if any of us asked a random selection of 1,000 people outside our nearest Tesco, what "woke" means, maybe 10 would know. At best.
But then we aren't Americans.
~~ It is pathetic we are holding onto the Monarchy, and crowing about its renewal. The House of Windsor needs the old political judo chop and sent on its way. I am sure Meghan Markle is a breath of fresh air, but we don't need her.
~~ You may be right, but in a republic we could well have President Farage.
~~ Meghan must feel right at home with this lot, she's just gone from one form of showbiz to another.
~~ Check your privilege.
~~ And once I have ascertained that it is where I left it, then what?
~~ Thought the Royal Family were meant to be neutral on political issues. Looks like thousands of years of protocol are being destroyed before my eyes.
~~ Errrr... No, dear. Only recently, have the royals been politically neutral.
Before that, just a few hundred years ago, they were the rulers.
Know nothing about British history.
You should be ashamed.
Of course, if you're a foreigner, you can be forgiven for this stupid mistake.
If you count yourself a Brit, then that's just disgraceful.
You should have your citizenship revoked.
~~ Thousands of years? Not even one.
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White House Library 1963
U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
-------------- [excerpt from CNBC interview with Anthony Scaramucci] ------------
On backstabbing in Washington
"These are terrible people. By and large, they are vicious people ... Let me tell you how it works in Silicon Valley and Wall Street, this is my observation:
You build your business and you build your career off of relationships, so you're trying to create a big karma bank: 'I'm gonna do one for you, you're gonna do one for me, we build a relationship. We may be competitors once in a while, but we're both on the green team: We're transacting over money.'
In Washington, they actually get off on hurting each other.
They earn badges or stripes on their lapel if they hurt somebody else: 'I crushed Swisher. I went after her with opposition research, I had 10 reporters write nasty things about her and she fell from grace! Look at me, look how cool I am! Look how important I am.' They do that to each other and they admire it from each other."
--------------------------------- [end, excerpt]
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They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swingin' hot spot --
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Til it's gone --
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees,
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees --
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
I said, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise,
Put up a parking lot
They paved paradise,
And put up a parking lot...
------------------- Joni Mitchell
---------------------------------------
Siquomb Pub. Co.
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speaking truth to power
I don't know which way the California Court will ultimately decide in the lawsuit brought by Dame Olivia de Havilland, and I'm not even sure if it should be decided in her favor. Both sides will have good points to make, and I am not an expert -- (if I had to hear the case, I would be like Reb Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof -- "You are right. And you, also, are right....")
However, the component which I think makes this 101-year-old Dignified Lady a heroine for two centuries is, that she felt she should stand up for herself and stand up for the truth (and -- her perceived right to not be lied-about) and she did.
At an advanced age. With, surely, plenty of money and living in some lovely space in Paris, France -- what is to be gained? With her career behind her, she's taking her stand on behalf of today's generation, and future generations. At her age, who in the hell would need the aggravation? You know?
This is what I'm saying. She is making the effort, going to the trouble, of doing what she believes is right. Braving "considerable forces" which "have amassed against her" in The Business, and a ravenous, hammering modern media, she is -- going to the trouble of doing what she believes is right, not for herself alone, but for everyone.
(I feel like proclaiming, in amazement, the enthusiastic vulgarity, "Fuckin-A!" but she surely would not like that. ...Or maybe she would say it's OK, it's freedom of speech, as long as no one makes a movie where she says it...)
_________________________
------------------------ [excerpt] ------------------ The last time
de Havilland had a case before the California Court of Appeals was in 1944. Risking her career, she sued Warner Brothers to get out of her contract, which she had signed in 1936. She had been suspended for refusing parts assigned to her, a common ploy among studio bosses to keep their stars in line, with the missed time tacked on to the length of her deal.
...She won then, tipping the scales of studio autocracy and strengthening a California labour statute. The so-named
De Havilland Law prohibits the enforcement of a personal services contract beyond seven years.
_____________________________
So the Court decided, in a manner of speaking, that a seven-year contract is for seven years.
__________________________________
----------------------- [excerpt] ---------------- Feud, she claims, is a work of historically convincing fiction... [which violates] de Havilland's hard-earned reputation for "honesty, integrity and good manners."
These are qualities that may seem quaint in the age of Twitter. But the legal action arrives during a content boom that has sent writers -- and big-league actors and producers -- raiding recent history sometimes before it has pickled, looking for figures and epochs to refashion as entertainment.
Courts have overwhelmingly supported First Amendment protections for movies and TV shows about figures and subjects in the public interest. But de Havilland is undaunted.
-------------------- [excerpt] ------------ De Havilland's character is used as a framing device for the Davis-Crawford cage match that unfolds in Feud. The opening lines of the series are hers: "For nearly half a century, they hated each other, and we loved them for it."
Zeta-Jones is posed on a love seat at the 1978 Oscars, giving an interview.
Feud meticulously copied the black dress and sheer kaftan the real de Havilland wore to the Oscars that night, as well as her glittering pendant and blonde coif. This physical copycatting is behind de Havilland's right-of-publicity claim. Her claims of false light relate to the interview itself, which she says she never gave.
To prevail, de Havilland will have to convince a jury not only that the interview was fabricated, but also that it includes sentiments that the writers of Feud either knew were false or proffered in reckless disregard for the truth, causing economic damage to her reputation and "emotional distress." Lawyers for de Havilland and FX are also engaged in a byzantine fact check over de Havilland's use of coarse language in other scenes, most notably in reference to her sister, Fontaine. --------------------
_________________________
failure to communicate
-------------------------- [excerpt] ---------------- [De Havilland's L.A. attorney, Suzelle] Smith maintains that her client, at a minimum, should have been consulted about the project ahead of time. "She would have considered, what was their proposal?" the lawyer said. "Are they proposing to compensate her?
They would have found out that certain things were not true.
Because they didn't even try, in their arrogance and hubris, they didn't take what we would argue are reasonable steps to find out what was true, and what wasn't true."
_____________________________________
legal observers were surprised
------------------ [excerpt] ------------------- The network says that de Havilland's consent was not needed, because Feud falls squarely under protected speech around fictional works in the public interest. Additionally, it contends that her portrayal is positive. ...
In August, the network filed a motion to dismiss the case under California's anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statute, which allows for the quick dismissal of lawsuits that want to chill free speech.
One month later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly Kendig issued her ruling: while Feud arose from protected speech,
de Havilland had adequately shown enough cause to deserve her day in court, with the suit fast-tracked because of the plaintiff's advanced age. [Oh, now look-a-there, her age worked for her, that time....]
Legal observers were surprised.
"It is unusual for this type of case to proceed past anti-SLAPP," said Jennifer Rothman, a professor at Loyola Law School.... If the de Havilland decision were allowed to stand, Rothman said, "then that upends the film industry, the TV industry, the video game industry. Anyone who is trying to make stories based on true events with real people are not going to be able to do so wtihout permission."
Though de Havilland has the backing of the Screen Actors Guild, considerable forces have amassed against her since the court victory....
_____________________________
{excerpts from
INDEPENDENT.co.uk
"Feud fight: Why a Hollywood legend is heading to court at the age of 101"
7 March 2018
Paul Brownfield}
_____________________________________
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