TGICryDay 10/27 - Taylor and Beyoncé, Glamorous Trash, and Killers of the Flower Moon (again)
Empowered tears, empathy tears, white woman tears, and tears that tbh, made me look hot
Hello and Happy Cry Day!
Welcome new Subscribers! I’m so glad you’re here.
For those of you who were already here, last Friday, the inimitable Lyz Lenz let me guest write another Dingus of the Week column over at her newsletter Men Yell at Me (which you should subscribe to!). I was honored and humbled and had a blast.
I’ve been a little MIA these past few weeks because I am BACK AT WORK doing the thing I love which is writing jokes for the TV. I have cried many times with gratitude for and in awe of the ferocity and solidarity and generosity that I have witnessed being part of the Writers Guild of America as we struck for a fair contract. Never ever will I take for granted what people have sacrificed for my privilege to have this be my livelihood.
SAG is still out there fighting. I stand with them today and always.
Here are a few other things that got me choked up over the past few weeks:
The Picture of Beyoncé and Taylor on the Eras Tour Movie Red Carpet
From the very beginning. Since the 2009 VMAs, these two women have said, firmly and unequivocally, “we’re not fuckin’ doing this.”
In an industry that seems perpetually determined to turn female coexistence into competition, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have consistently shown that there’s plenty of room at the top, both vertically and horizontally.
What really got me about this picture was Beyoncé’s outfit: Full Renaissance Aesthetic. The somehow revolutionary declaration that supporting and lifting up the work of another woman does not require muting or moderating her own identity and success.
The communities that these powerful women have built and nurtured with their art are breathtaking, affirming, and not rivals. That Beyoncé vs. Taylor Swift nonsense stays in Soul Cycle where it belongs. Whether they frame their work as Eras or the paradigm-shifting transition between them, these women are legends, together and apart - making Lemonade out of every Cruel Summer*.
*I will not apologize!!!
Glamorous Trash with Chelsea Devantez: Kerry Washington’s Thicker Than Water
Here’s the link.
I have been a fan of Chelsea Devantez for a long time. The summer I lived in Chicago taking classes at The Second City, she was the Mainstage performer that I couldn’t get enough of. Her podcast, Glamorous Trash (nee Celebrity Book Club), treats the stories of women and the curvature of women’s media with a care and sincerity that somehow doesn’t demand total seriousness. She holds female celebrities accountable for their lives and stories while also holding the systems that created those stories under the same scrutiny.
She’s also incredibly forthcoming with her own story (and has a memoir coming out next year) in a way that makes her feel like a combo of the coolest girl in the grade above you and your best friend from camp.
Which is why it made me cry to hear Chelsea cry about Kerry Washington’s memoir detailing the revelation that her biological father was actually a sperm donor. Chelsea is also a “donor kid,” to use her own parlance, and the wave of relief she felt learning that she shared a former-secret with one of television’s most famous badasses was palpable through my airpods. It’s not the first time I’ve cried holding a breakfast sandwich and it won’t be the last.
Killers of the Flower Moon - SPOILERS
Spoilers are coming - if you don’t want spoilers for the move, scroll until after the picture!
I wrote a month or so ago about my experience reading Killers of the Flower Moon and how upsetting it was, as a white person* who used the union of marriage to improve both my life (health insurance) and my partner’s (permanent residence), to see my ancestors exploit the same union for not only personal gain but for the explicit purpose of doing the most violence.
In these relationships, intimacy and trust were crowbars and silencers – ways to gain quiet and malicious access to other people’s resources at the expense of their lives. Our history as white Americans, and white people in general, feels full of brute force impositions and destruction. The, at times, sinister softness of these spousal homicides shocked and shook and shamed me in a way that lingers still.
I say all this because, in many ways, the movie Killers of the Flower Moon was made for me. For white Americans who don’t mind a little self-flagellation in the same of self-aggrandizement. Who dutifully condemn white savior narratives while praising the acting performances.
Martin Scorsese famously consulted heavily with Osage leaders and peoples about how to structure this story and how to do right by them in this film. The natural protagonist within the book is Jesse Plemmons’ character, Tom White, and the beats coalesce most comfortably around the story of white investigators “uncovering” the truth that Osage people had been crying out about for years prior.
In fact, it’s said that Leonardo DiCaprio originally signed on to play Tom White and the initial idea was to be kept much closer to the flow of the book. But Scorsese got more information, he asked, he listened, and he changed.
I loved the film. The actors give masterful performances, all of the things that make movies great are great, and there is no white savior - because no one is saved.
But again, this movie was created for me. I am the audience. Members of the Osage Nation like Christopher Cote are rightly pointing out that a white-told story that treats the Osage fairly is still a white-told story. And while acknowledging that the limits and shortcomings are there does not eliminate them, I do think it frees us as viewers to watch the movie we’re watching, knowing that it is not purporting to be anything more or less than exactly what it is.
Which is why I was particularly moved by Martin Scorsese’s cameo at the end reading Molly’s obituary: affirming as much as admitting that as much as he could question and examine and try and strive to tell her story accurately and fairly – there will always be a fundamental status and power imbalance. He is alive. She is dead.
Jia Tolentino’s Dog Died
Jia Tolentino is one of my favorite writers of all time and this piece she wrote about her beloved dog Luna made me sob in the bathroom at work.
I love you all.
I hope you cried cathartic and happy tears this week <3
TKP
Always a treat to read your work.