All the Ladies If You Feel Me, Help Me Sing It Out
March is Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day was March 8, so there’s lots of lady lovin’ in the air right now. There were numerous women’s marches around the world in support of equal rights and pay and other issues that benefit everyone. The New York Times published obituaries of some remarkable women in history who were previously overlooked by the newspaper. Wired profiled some women pioneers of the web.
Some celebrated by binging Jessica Jones, the Marvel series about a badass female private investigator with superhuman abilities. Its second season premiered on Netflix last week. Mattel launched a line of Barbies based on inspirational IRL women, including Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo and Katherine Johnson (a NASA mathematician portrayed in the film Hidden Figures). Across Cincinnati and the country, companies lit up their building with the female symbol — Kroger, Procter & Gamble and others participated locally.
Of course, brands love to take advantage of every holiday or any chance to appear woke, but these feeble attempts at appearing inclusive generally backfire. But in light of recent women-centered movements and issues — #MeToo, Time’s Up, the wage gap, paid family leave, I can go on — might companies want to shy away from cheap pandering? Of course not! The Freeform channel censored women making apologies onscreen and kept a tally of how many “sorrys” were bleeped.
A California McDonald’s flipped its golden arches sign upside down and the new “W” appeared on packaging and uniforms. Brawny replaced its lumberjack-ish paper towel man into a flannel-clad woman and invited folks to nominate a “shero” in their lives. (It’s like a hero, but with a vagina!) Kim Kardashian released a collection of “Women’s Empowerment” Kimojis with phrases like “My Body My Choice,” “Grab America Back,” “Nasty Woman,” and, despite claiming she isn’t one, “Feminist.” And because not a week can pass without Kentucky Fried Chicken making its herbed and spicy way into this news roundup, KFC Malaysia replaced Colonel Sanders’s image with that of with his (second) wife (and mistress), Claudia. Sure, OK!
An unfortunately fitting image of International Women’s Day came from Oxford University, where an onlooker snapped a photo of a cleaning woman scrubbing “Happy International Women’s Day” from some uni building steps as a group of men watched.
Alexas Are… Aliiive!
Some users of Amazon’s cloud-based voice service Alexa were given a fright this week when their devices began maniacally talking and laughing, unprovoked. Multiple people reported hearing a strange laugh coming from their Alexa-enabled products, either in response to a command or completely unprompted. The chuckle was described as “evil” and “witch-like.” Others claimed Alexa has started talking nonsense — one Twitter user says it began listing off cemeteries and funeral homes out of nowhere. Amazon says they’re “working on a fix.” Welp, R.I.P. humanity!
And Fuckboi of the Year Goes To…
The Bachelor is a ridiculous concept. Strangers must form relationships in a crazy, synthetic reality TV show environment and form lasting bonds over the course of mere weeks with the goal of getting engaged at the end. Like a lot of Bachelor/ettes, Arie Luyendyk Jr. set out to find a wife at the end of his run, reiterating throughout the season that he wanted to propose when he found his final match. So even though he was clearly torn after dropping the L-bomb to both of the final two ladies, he sent the bland Lauren home and popped the question to the marginally less bland Becca K. But as teased throughout the THREE-HOUR final episode last week, this was about to be the most controversial, historic, life-altering episode of any show ever. And sure enough, in the weeks that passed between when that final episode was taped and now, Arie realized he missed Lauren. So he called up his fiancée — and host Chris Harrison and a camera crew, natch — to dump Becca on television. It. Was. Rough. I mean, fuck that indecisive Irish wolfhound-looking dick. (Apologies to Irish wolfhounds.) And as if one night of torture wasn’t enough, the After the Final Rose special aired the next night — and Arie proposed to Lauren live on TV as Becca and THE WORLD watched on. She didn’t cry over spilled Dutch milk, though — Becca is our new Bachelorette, packaged complete with a broken heart and trust issues to carry an entire season’s worth of storylines!
The Most Shocking Outcome in Bachelor History was hilariously spoofed on Saturday Night Live later that week, with Cecily Strong playing Becca and Kate McKinnon as Robert Mueller, admitting he can’t commit…to nailing Trump for collusion.
Katy Perry Convent Drama Gets Dark
So this story had been going on for a while but it has recently taken a wicked turn, all in time for Katy’s debut as a judge on the revived American Idol. Since 2015, the Pop star has been trying to buy a Los Feliz, Calif. property that currently houses a convent. The nuns wanted to sell it to a restaurateur instead of that SINNER Katy, but the archdiocese said they didn’t have the right to block the sale. It was basically boring real estate news that happens to involve the Catholic church and a celebrity with whipped-cream-cannon boobs. But now the legal battle has made its way to court, and things got super dark this week. Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, one of two nuns suing Katy and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was in court Friday when she collapsed and died. She was 89. Now that’s pretty old, and it’s likely there were more complications than a broken heart trampled by a rich celebrity but maybe Katy should just let this shit go! Who wants to live in a creepy old church property, anyway? God knows (*thunder*) what kind of supernatural scariness would ensue (*lightening*) if she won the battle, bulldozed the place (*earth shaking*) and build her cotton candy castle in its wake.
Contact T.C. Britton: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Mar 7-14, 2018.