Kaganista

Back from a brief hiatus, Capitol Hillywood will now be focusing more on style and culture. And we're now 50 cents cheaper than Us Weekly. The thing that Capitol Hillywood lacks that the celebrity rags have in abundance is comparisons of starlets' outfits and fashion policing. Let's start with an analysis of Elena Kagan's Supreme Court confirmation hearing ensemble.

Kagan has been making efforts to portray herself as neutral, but it hasn't been easy with Senate Republicans trumping up her liberal credentials. But she's trying so hard to steer clear of labeling herself as progressive that she might have gone a bit too far in the opposite direction, and tried to align herself with a conservative icon.


So what do you think? Cast your vote for who you think wore it better.

Rihannamo Bay

Rihanna is without question one of the most boring and uninspired entertainers in recent memory. She is so bland in fact that she must resort to copying other musicians (did you see the "Rude Boy" video, starring M.I.A.?) and deflated attempts at shock value. Her newest thing is that she's really "tough," which translates to "wears a lot of military fashion, most of which is ripped off from Lady Gaga videos."

I have a few problems with Rihanna's style, beyond just the idiocy of the garments themselves.

1. She's in a vaguely Arab location. Iraq? Afghanistan? Doesn't really matter. In Rhiannaland, war is an abstract concept that doesn't exist in actuality. Maybe there are major combat operations, to use a phrase, happening somewhere in the Middle East. Perhaps several thousand men and women will be shipped there in the coming months. But why dwell on these details? Just tell the set dresser to make the environment look generally threatening and non-American.


2. She behaves like a take-charge female who can intimidate and order around soldiers, but only because she's not wearing pants/covered in mud. I'm all for women being sexy and in charge and kicking ass while barely dressed. Own your sexuality and all of that, that's great. But Rihanna playing Army Barbie looks so comical that it doesn't really project any positive messages. She looks a little too desperate and attention-starved to be role modeling strong, tough girl attitude. I'm also fairly certain that Rihanna and other military fashion offenders are the reason why women and gays are not taken seriously in the armed forces. America's top generals are horrified at the thought of glitter uniforms and Sex and the City-style conversations about feelings. (By the way, I love the phallic tank symbolism.)

3. She non-ironically compares her love life to a military prison or internment camp. This is where I stop getting annoyed and start getting offended. Who the hell is Rihanna's art director, and why have they not been fired yet? I'll admit, I can sometimes be a bit much for the political correctness, but it's difficult to not see this as insulting. We're living in a climate of political torture and war, and to make light of those issues is ignorant and degrading. This is a post-Holocaust, post-Abu Ghriab, post-Guantanamo era, and this is real. It's happening all the time, and it's not sexy. It's not theatrical. It's certainly not appropriate for a pop music video. Same goes for all the runway designers who choose "military" or "war prisoner" as the theme for their collections.

O'Reilled Up

It seems that Fox News is pissed off again. An episode of Sesame Street that aired 2 years ago and seemingly poked fun at the network was rebroadcast recently. Sesame Street has long featured Oscar the Grouch and assorted muppet news anchors on the "Grouch News Network," or GNN. In this particular episode, however, a muppet viewer calls in to complain that she will no longer watch GNN because it's not as trashy as the Pox News network. Naturally, a remark like this could shatter the ironclad reputation of Fox News, and send its' ratings as the number 1 watched news channel plummeting into oblivion. Plus Bill O'Reilly's feelings were hurt.

Bill O'Reilly saying that he has to "get involved" in a Sesame Street debate is one of the best things I've ever seen. He was basically defending the honor of his network, and claiming discrimination while completely ignoring the fact that CNN was also being mocked, and that he was talking to a muppet. Also entertaining is contrasting this with every other guest appearance, ever, on The O'Reilly Factor, and realize that he treated a puppet with more respect than any other guest he's had on his show.

And the Oscar goes to...

By some absurd twist of fate, or maybe just some really clever scheduling, the Iraqi elections and the Oscars perfectly coincided. Just imagine, two mind-blowingly important voting sprees in the same day! The only difference is that one was plagued by explosions that impacted voter turnout, while the only bombs on the red carpet were fashion related. Actually, there are a few more differences. The Oscars have come and gone, the winners have been chosen, and the water cooler talk has pretty much died down, though I imagine that Netflix will have a great weekend.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi election rages on and the Prime Minister has yet to be chosen. The results are still on lockdown, and officials are not calling the election in favor of either incumbent Nuri Kamal al-Maliki or former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Even today, the results of the parliamentary election are not fully conclusive.

Many American officials and Iraqi citizens are frustrated at the slow tallying. There have been accusations of fraud, and all in all tempers are flared. Which is pretty understandable when you live in a country that hasn't ever experienced fully realized free elections and voting carries the possibility of death. The fact that Iraqis were willing to go to the polls despite trading bullets for ballots is a testament to a dedication that can only be equaled by the viewers that increased the Oscars' ratings by 14% from last year.
Speaking of which, I'm sure you're tired of all the fashianalysis of Best and Worst Dressed from the Academy Awards, and besides, it's so rare for election coverage to focus on what the voters are wearing. With that, I present a "Who Wore It Better" moment for the Iraqi election. And the hot accessory that everyone's talking about? Why, a purple finger of course!

NY Times reader who submitted a photo

Incumbent al-Maliki

Dude in Fallujah

And as a side note, if I may take something that has absolutely no political significance and politicize it, I would like to discuss the place of the film The Blind Side at the Oscars. It's not customary for me to get all worked up about shit like that, but I can not abide Sandra Bullock winning an Oscar for a film (a film that was also nominated for Best Picture) that was arguably more racist and idiotic than her racist and idiotic character in Crash. It is insulting, firstly, that a ghetto-colonialist, patronizing white hero piece of fuck movie got so much return at the box office. It's disgusting that that sack of shit movie got nominated for anything other than an epic fail of displaying values, or perhaps Best Picture That Makes Ignorant White People Feel Great About Themselves. That's all.

Unbreak My Heart: Part II

CNN has created a series called "Broken Government", which documents dissatisfaction with the two party system, taxes, Congress and more by asking the question, "Is government broken?" This leads me to ask a few more questions. What the hell does broken mean? Is the news broken? Is CNN broken? Will my TV screen be broken when I inevitably shove my foot through it after watching this inane series?

The stupidest part of this question is that implies that government in the U.S. was once whole and has since fallen into disrepair. Now, I'm not disillusioned. I don't think that today's politics are so much better than they once were. But the issues being explored in this series are nothing new. CNN is playing into one of the main problems of this generation- the complete lack of hindsight or foresight. Are things bad now? Yes. But things have always sucked, and they will continue to suck, on and on and on in an endless cycle of suck. I can't imagine that American citizens in 1910 were much friendlier toward Congress then us schmucks in 2010.

Oh, and by the way Broken America...nice logo. Subtle.

Everything that is wrong with how the news is reported.

Right here.

Unbreak My Heart: Part I

Something happened to Dick Cheney.

OMG.

NO WAY.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY.

I don't really know how this is surprising to anyone. Everyone knows that Dick Cheney's heart has never been in the best of health (I'll spare everyone the typical 'I didn't know he even had a heart, har har har' spiel). And even if you had forgotten what the rushing thrill of hearing about Cheney's misfortunes feels like, every single news source was on the alert to remind us all of his detailed and storied health history. This could be mildly interesting or important if Dick Cheney was still in office and not chilling out in his homes in Maryland and Wyoming and calling former President Bush a wuss in his spare time.

Screen Shot of the Day

About time that the Dalai Lama finally realizes what's important: de-throned sports celebrities and social networking.

Anthrax: the other white powder

And now, for your reading pleasure, a somewhat delightful what the hell moment. Remember anthrax? From back in the day? It was that suspicious dangerous white powder that was sent through the postal system, killing 5 people and hospitalizing 17 others. This was shortly following 9/11, so it caused panic of a second wave of attacks, and both Afghanistan and Iraq were thought to be the culprit. The United States Postal Service heightened their biohazard detection systems, the US government began to take biological warfare in the wake of 9/11 more seriously, but in the public mind the whole scandal was largely forgotten. In June 2008, the FBI was investigating Bruce E. Ivins, an Army scientist who helped create an anthrax vaccine program. Ivins committed suicide before charges could be brought against him, but not before investigators determined that he created the whole scare to direct attention to his vaccine program, and the encoded messages in the letter were about his 2 female coworkers with whom he was obsessed. The case is officially closed, and bizarre.

I smell a movie. My pick to play Ivins is Gerard Butler, with Matt Damon as special FBI investigator Walter "Walt" Wallace.

Shaun Bless America

Ah, yes, we have our priorities straight. The past three days have held some of the most important developments in the entire eight years of the Afghan war. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's Number Two only to Mullah Mohammed Omar, was captured and is currently being detained and questioned by both American and Pakistani officials. (For the record, "mullah" is an Islamic term given to a man of education and respect, and does not necessarily have implications of the Taliban, terrorism, or extremism.) His capture may have led to information leading to the capture of two "shadow governors," important Taliban leaders who have helped northern Afghanistan remain an insurgency stronghold. This is a significant breakthrough in what has mostly been a frustrating and interminable war.

But the Olympics are on! Ruthless, terrorist mullahs say what? Shadow governors who now? I'm much more concerned with how Shaun White remains aerodynamic with those glorious, glorious locks of his. Besides, an American flag backdropped against the snow makes a much better above-the-fold visual than a Pakistani interrogation room.

Come to Your Census

I'll admit it, I'm one of those dumb bitches who watches the Super Bowl just for the ads. I usually put the game on mute and sit back and enjoy being expertly manipulated by media corporations. So when I heard, via an article in the Washington Post, that the Census Bureau was making a Super Bowl commercial, I was skeptical but optimistic. Super Bowl ads are always a bit hit or miss, but at $2.5 million a pop, how bad could it really be? I saw one of the commercials a few days before the Super Bowl, and then the part II of the series when it aired. I thought that maybe I missed something, or that all the promised additional online content would give me more, so I hopped on the Youtube channel to check out the other videos. But I was left with the same questions as before. Wait, like, what? We're spending $2oo million more than the 2000 census? People still don't know what the census is? John McCain has a Twitter?

According to a story in the NY Times, some of the additional costs are related to the census being distributed in 28 languages, as opposed to 17 in 2000, which can only be a good thing. Advertising is being more specifically targeted in multiple languages, which is also a good thing. But why is the census more important and worth more spending this year than previous years? Maybe the government is trying to go out with a bang before 2012 hits us.

So take a look at the ad that aired during the Super Bowl. The most annoying thing about it isn't that Christopher Guest shockingly agreed to direct this, or even the stereotypically cast sassy black woman saying, "Mmm-hmmmmm." It's that the commercial doesn't say much about the census, other than "it exists." The census is a "snapshot of America, 300 million people all at the same time"? Last I checked, the census was most basically a tool to determine the US population for the purposes of taxation and governmental representation. It also serves to show the various demographics of the population, both in the country as a whole, and by state, region, city, etc. (By the way, the census is officially broken down into the regions of Northeast, Midwest, South and West).

But the ad doesn't say any of that. The additional online content, including a Facebook fan page and "behind the scenes" footage is even more disappointing and irrelevant, not to mention not very funny for Christopher Guest's standards. There is just a complete lack of solid information being presented. The ad doesn't even contain an admonition to remember to return the damn thing on time. I understand where the Census Bureau is coming from with this campaign, and it is noble that they attempted to make the public more aware of the census. But really, shouldn't this be something that is remedied through public education? Basic US government classes in middle and high schools should be explaining the census, and that message should be sticking with kids into adulthood. If they still choose to not partake in the census, a cast of colorful characters in a mockumentary (and a mock one, at that) is not going to do much to change their minds.

Pop it like it's hot.

We are in living in a land that I like to call Capitol Hillywood. There's a fine line between US Weekly and USA Today, between Congress and Best Dressed, between the Bill of Rights and Billboard. Are elections the same as box office earnings? Is CNN not that far off from TMZ? How do politics and pop culture collide, and should they?

Pop culture and politics both have their place and value. However, the two are blended together in such a way that it can be hard to distinguish the two. And if the two have morphed to become interchangeable, it is at the detriment to both. Politics have become more trivial, while popular culture has become more urgent. This blog seeks to examine how the news is presented, and how to make that gray area a bit more black and white.