[lbo-talk] Jezebel + Alcohol + Stage = Prolonged Tweenage Wasteland

Dwayne Monroe dwayne.monroe at gmail.com
Thu Jul 10 11:20:57 PDT 2008


Like the multiple threads about Heidegger and his on again, off again fondness for the Horst Wessel song, what follows will only be of interest to a few. But I suspect that few includes the listmom so I'm burning bandwidth like it's 1999!

...

Shock! Dismay! Indignation! Sexy-Drunk New Feminists vs. Arthritic Clones of Steinem!

These, and other exclamation pointed reactions recently swept over the Internet's American zone like a Martian dust storm. The catalyst? Video of Tracie, "Slut Machine" Egan, and Maureen, "Moe" Tkacik -- two of Jezebel.com's most popular bloggers -- appearing on comedy writer Lizz Winstead's interview show, "Shoot the Messenger".

Damning excerpts:

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lizz-winstead/jezebelism_b_110903.html>

The full vid -

<http://www.shootthemessengernyc.com/index.php?/behindthescenes/jezebelism_my_interview_with_moe_and_tracie>

One reaction:

<http://jessandjoshtalk.blogspot.com/2008/06/gloria-steinem-is-dinosaur.html>

Another reaction:

<http://karion.tumblr.com/post/41547696>

In short, Tracie and Moe got drunk, said some embarrassingly disturbing things and generally behaved like mumbling jabrones (Lizz, our host, wasn't at her best either but at least she remained coherent, if exuberantly shout-tastic). From one point of view, all this is quite alright, being the sort of thing you do while young. Then again, these women are almost 30; maybe it's time to talk like grownups and wait till after the show to get shitfaced.

I have to admit that this performance reinforced my growing impression of the two as very smart, but half-assed. For me, the scales were tipped towards the weary side by what seemed like Moe's 10,000th post on sorta-politics and maybe-feminism -- distractedly touching on this and that (China = sweatshop, Middle East = Burka, 'Dudes' = bad, except when it doesn't, Phila = burning warehouse fires, except when it doesn't because of all the cool people I know there, etc) with a curious combination of youthful know-it-all-ism, self deprecating boasting, apology-free apologia and almost wholesale acceptance (though in a snarky, 'I'm not a sucker' way) of mainstream media relayed stories. (I know Chavez is a threat: MSNC told me).

There may be some larger point here, something to do with the Clash of Feminist Waves or ageism or the misuses of alcohol.

No, probably not.

.d.

-- "That child is a spinning murder top! Are you sure he's your son?"

Dr. Z

...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/



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