Middle School Role Models of 90's TV Countdown

3. Agent Dana Scully. I had been meaning to write about this for awhile, but this Feministing post galvanized me to finally finish it. God, I loved this show so much! It really brought out the sci-fi nerd in all of us. Agent Scully was a great character for several reasons- but what I loved most about her was her extreme dryness and skepticism. Even though she was usually wrong, and Mulder's outlandish theories about underground dwellers who came from the future and ate people organs to create a race of pod people were generally correct, Scully served as the much-needed straight man to Mulder's wacky ideas. Female TV and movie characters are pretty much always the hysterical and flighty ones, so her prediliction towards science-based logic was a true breath of fresh air.

Scully always seemed most at home when she was doing a tape-recorded autopsy, flatly (actually, both characters really mumbled their way through this show) discussing the stomach contents of some dead alien while nonchalantly peeling back its multiple brains. She rarely got scared or overly emotional, and her good looks were never exploited; Dana Scully could be found in a sensible pantsuit and bob combo. So often, women in sci fi/horror stuff are played as the sexualized victim, walking around weakly in a revealing tank top, the threat bearing down upon them both physical and sexual, but this cheap device was never (or rarely) used in Scully's place; she was smart, prepared and in control at all times, and always ready to refute whatever Mulder was saying with "There must be a more logical explanation for this."

PS: God I also had such a crush on David Duchovny but he is so one of those people that could never be in anything else/seems like a jerk in real life/the cover of the first season of the "Californication" where his old man head looks pasted on a younger body is totally revolting. Gillian Anderson, on the other hand, always seemed to be like a huge weirdo/nerd in real life. I remember reading this "Before They Were Stars" edition of People magazine and they had a picture of her in high school and she was all gothy and had a mohawk and stuff. I think she said she pierced her nose with a carrot. What's not to like?


2. Buffy. Gosh, considering all the non-girl positive crap crap I watched on TV, I'm glad Buffy was on when I was in middle school. Buffy was another show that everyone would watch and then religiously discuss the next day. The most notable, feminist feature of Buffy may have been simply that she was that rare phenomenon- a girl superhero. It's always frusturated me that the premise of the superhero is that an average person transforms- but that average person is nearly always male, and if not, then becoming a superhero also has something to do with becoming uber-sexy and bodysuited. It's like, this plot is totally fantastic, but the idea of a girl superhero is just, you know, too fantastic. Plus, it doesn't fit into the "nerd fantasy every boy can enjoy [because patriarchy has made us ALL felt like puny wimps]" theme of every superhero-related thing ever. Anyway, the point is, watching a small blond teenage girl kick ass regularly onscreen, without having to morph into a pleather-coated vixen beforehand, was totally empowering and exhilerating for my seventh-grade self.

What also was great about Buffy was how her superherohood translated into a high school environment, forcing a cheerleader who probably would have been quite popular (had she not burnt down her previous school, anyway) to instead make friends with the weirdos who hung out with the school librarian. Buffy's strange social circumstances obviously paralleled many people's experiences in middle/high school, as she and her friends conspicuously existed on the fringes of the social scene.

I think I related to Buffy because she wasn't a total nerd like Willow (whose character/general acting style I always found annoying) and was one of those rare characters who liked shopping and sticking up for herself. Often mistaken for a ditz or "slut" for her mysterious past and "hot" appearance, the levelheaded Buffy usually dealt with her hectic life in a mature and distinctly non-ditzy fashion, even when having sex with her boyfriend turned him evil and stuff on two memorable episodes titled "The Two-Night Event" on the WB.

1. Elaine Benes. Of all these characters, I must say I hold a special place in my heart for the rather unsung Elaine. I loved Seinfeld a lot, and Elaine's character was notable for being a a woman amongst a group of men who could hold her own without falling into all the various women-in-comedy cliches. Confident, sarcastic, sexual, and refreshingly unsentimental, Elaine could be found noting the ugliness of a baby she never wanted to visit in the first place, relocating to an apartment when an old lady died, recieving the lady's grandkid's phone calls, and pretending to be her and then eventually "dying" over the phone so the kid wouldn't call anymore, or forcing George's head through his straw hat in a fit of rage. She was even the first (I think?) to lose the masturbation contest after seeing JFK Jr. in workout clothes in her gym, even after Jerry and Co. insisted she not participate because women didn't feel that particular urge.

Though the show's men had an endless stream of unfunny and uninteresting girlfriends, Elaine could always be counted on to dream up crazy schemes with the best of them. I think her model was a confident single, professional, perhaps even feminist-coded (we can all remember the fight she got into about abortion rights with restraunteer Poppy) woman of New York, as she was always employed and dating someone, but she was also miles away from the men-obsessed ladies of Sex and the City and their ilk; Elaine could not be found moaning about marriage, babies, and hating men and their lack of willingness to commit. She also provided an excellent contrast to that other show about single New Yorkers, Friends, wherein all the women served some sort of feminine comedy cliche- the uptight nag, the ditzy dingbat, the spoiled rich girl, etc.

Elaine was attractive without being sexualized and trendy, and her oxfords and vintage-style dress combos of the first half of the show are still pretty sweet. But how she looked was always second to her role as a fabulous comedian, and I'm glad there was a woman on TV who (I can't think of anyone today who might take her place, unfortunately) was just plain funny without all the added crap that usually must accompany funny women. And she was funny in a powerful but sarcastic way that I related to when I was in middle school (and still do), providing a much needed alterna-role model to the various other daffy rom-com style female comedians so prevalent to this day. (I fucking hate you, Kate Hudson.)

Trend-O-Rama

Here's some stuff I am sick of, particularly worn all at once:
1. The ubiquity of Wayfarers, obvs.
2. Denim vests/any vests layered slouchily over
3. Early 90's esque babydoll dresses, topped off with
4. A pair of Keds with no socks. I really don't hate Keds or anything, but remember how everyone hated Keds like until really recently? But now everyone loves Keds because they see other people loving Keds?
Here are some other crazy options this outfit could have gone for:
1. A neck scarf tied so that it forms an upside-down vee.
2. Doc Martens, the hot! new! shoe! I can't believe these are back considering like all my friends angrily wore combat boots in high school because everyone had a touch of goth to them, but now they fit into this grunge 90's revival thing.

If you're wondering where I got this image, it's from the blog of this twelve year old fashionista who is into music that I had not heard of until i was like 17. But that is neither here nor there.
1. The pocohontas band. Look, I can see the allure of looking like an elf princess, but this is one of those things that only works if you made it up, not if you saw someone else with a band around her head first.
2. The random graphic t-shirt tucked into the
3. Floral 90's skirt (it doesn't match! on purpose!) which goes with the
4. Leather mom bag. Hey, remember when nobody wanted purses with long straps because those were 90's but then the 90's came back and they're okay again? Well, I hate them.

Anyway, the moral of this post is: don't wear ten trends at once. It's like the accessory rule about taking one thing off.

The Validity of the Skort

I'm sorry I have to do another post about the early 90's, but, like a train wreck, I cannot help but watch from the sidelines with fascinated horror. I recently tried looking for shorts on eBay (not recommended) because my fav pair of red sailor shorts from H&M perished in the fire, and I really need a solid pair of shorts for the summer, even though shorts are something I pretty much decided I could never wear for the years 1999-2005, having too many bad memories of bulky, riding-up denim, and horrible flashbacks of my grave enemy, the skort. But then I got back on the shorts train- not to be confused with the shorts train wreck I'm writing about here.

Anyway, what's important is that ten million pairs of early to mid 90's rompers, onesies, and general Blossom-wear popped up, all going for ridic prices from those special hipster eBay sellers who advertise their shit in trendy ways and somehow get people to pay exhorbitant prices for things that they OBVIOUSLY got at a thrift store for 1.99. This type of thing bugs me to no end because, basically, people cannot manage to go down to their local thrift store and find something themselves for that price (or find it on eBay for the same price, but in a less glam-looking auction) but are willing to pay $75 (literally some of this stuff went for that much, like the cotton-poly floral dress at top left) for something because someone else styled it for them. Once they see it advertised on some lank girl with oxford shoes they realize how trendy and COOL it is to wear something floral denim, and bid up a storm.

It is reflective of some horrible lack of creativity and eye for clothing and how to wear it in general, but I guess that's why there are boutique stores and stylists and fancy displays- because people need to be told what to wear, and how to wear it. And, that, my friends, is what trends are- they gently let people know that it's cute and new all over again to wear a flowy skort, and then everyone mindlessly pays $60 for a flowy skort because they've seen other people do it, and nobody ever questions the validity of the skort! Do you think anybody would have been caught dead in a rayon floral romper from 1994 two years ago? Or even high waisted anything?

It's just so weird to me how things get popular only when saturation has reached a certain level, and it becomes acceptable (but not too acceptable, because then it's, like, boring!!!! (Speaking of which, who else has noticed that the neon trend has already reached saturation point and no one on the Face Hunter would be caught dead in it anymore? (Here's a tip: beige is the word.)))

Photos of Inspiration

Loose on Top, Tight on the Bottom

So this dress went for $67.50 on eBay, and I could not help but ask myself "Why?" Is looking like a tawdry, clownish hippie so very appealing? What is going on here? I realize tie dye is "back" but I think that really means it now "acceptable", but not a full-on trend. Anyway, after some thought, I decided this flowy mess of a sack dress (which really, you could sew yourself for under $5) went so high because the skank du jour trend is loose on top, tight on the bottom. You know what I'm talking about- those "dresses" that billow to one's hips and then suddenly narrow, leaving a tight band around your thighs. Somehow, this has become the look of the summer- replacing the all-out sack of last year, which was just flowy throughout. I think this dress is popular because it allows all the freedom of a sack, with the added bonus of clinging to your ass, while ending somewhere around mid-crotch. (Ohmygod, when you are not living in San Francisco for the summer, the amount of crotch-grazing dresses you see is astounding. Truly astounding.) You can yank a dress like this up as high as you like, espeically now that the lines between "dress" and "top" have been so deeply, deeply blurred after the introduction of that fashion firecracker, the tunic.See? What a strange sillouhette. And the moral of the story is: People shall forever find new ways (and/or imitate old ways as I'm pretty sure this is imitative of an 80's imitating the 20's trend) to show off the goods.

Steampunks: Not as Cool as I Might Have Hoped, But Could be Worse, I Guess

So, perhaps a few months ago, I first heard the term "steampunk"- I think on a street style website, used by someone wearing striped tights, and then I started hearing it a lot, and then there was an article about it in The New York Times and Gaby and Simone got invited to a steampunk party even though obviously they were way too cool to go, so I guess it's officially a thing, or whatever. Steampunk seems to encompass an aesthetic sense of clothing, art, music, and, uh, video games and graphic novels all based on a time when steam engines were cutting-edge technology, and machines were made up of lots of winding gears. Clothes-wise, it seems to be some kind of mashup of Victoriana, cyperpunk, goth, and lots of buckles, gears, leather and brown.

At first I was interested in the idea, because I find industrial revolution-era London really fascinating, and have read a million books about cholera epidemics and Victorian prostitutes and Art Nouveau romanticism and whatnot. Also, I obviously have a great appreciation for clothing and aesthetics from that era, and my favorite movie is City of Lost Children, which I guess they take a lot from, style-wise. In fact, maybe I can finally publish my young adult fantasy novel under the guise that it is "steampunk," as it mostly takes place in an underground water city with lots of brass instruments and old machines and whatnot (ohmygod I am so steampunk and I didn't even know!)

But- part of what seems pretty crappy about steampunk is:

1) The computer factor. Seriously, it seems like a large amount of steampunkers are truly goth-leaning gamers who create online video animations of steampunk characters, or play them in those scary multi-player online role playing games/anime related things. Yet this is pretty much the antithesis of Victorian aesthetics, not to mention the antithesis of production in those times, which is supposed to be a large part of steampunk. I'm not saying everyone should start using waterwheels or something, but that, artisically, there is a marked difference between art created on a computer and art created with actual, traditional materials, and if you truly are devoted to this look, you should not be creating anything on a computer, because it automatically looks crappy and modern and digital, and ruins any sense of history, craft, or personal touch.

2) Shitty (and sexist!) graphic novels like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen/everything similar. God, I hate that crap.


3) Gluing gears and stuff to various crap. A large part of steampunk appears to be fake-aging and gluing brass knobs onto your iPhone or whatever to make it look like an antique diving helmut. I know collage and clustering was a large part of Victorian decor, but there's just something so sad about creating a little shell for a modern plastic gadget in order to turn it into an old-looking accessory, espeically when said gadget is just going to fall apart like every other piece of technological junk made in the past ten years. At least just buy real Victorian stuff (which is actully available, you know) and use that for display. Ditto buying a polyester waistcoat at Wet Seal. Part of what makes old stuff so much better is that it truly is of finer quality and higher quality material. Spray painting a plastic neon squirt gun as a means of reclaiming the past? No on that! Antique diving helmuts didn't have brass studs on them because some pimply-faced teen who jerks off to anime porn thought it looked cool with his goggles, but because they actually held stuff together.

4) The prevalance of goggles. With everything. What the fuck is up with goggles and certain subcultures? It looks dumb to randomly wear goggles, okay? Even if they're faux-antique, they're still goggles.

5) Corsets. Again, what is it with nerdy subcultures and their association with corsets? Like moths to a flame. Corsets can be worn done right, but most people just put on just a corset (not something actually done in the past) like it's a tank top or something. I know people think it's a classy way to show off their boobs, but those people are wrong. It's a trashy way to show your boobs, and is so not historically accurate.

6) This "official Steampunk band" Abney Park, which features a bunch of dorks and some half naked girls gyrating to some terrible goth-type music. Unique! Also, not only are the three guys in this band wearing goggles in this photo, but their logo is a skull with goggles on it. Just as i'twas in the golden age!


I suppose if everyone could pull it off as well as the girl above in green who actually is wearing a corset in a unique way (as opposed to the corseted, goggled, top-hatted, Tim Burtonesque example at the top of this post), steampunk would be a little more attractive. But there doesn't seem to be enough thought put into it, and there are just too many gears stuck to stuff for no reason. If you're going to commit yourself to such a dramatic aesthetic, you should put time, energy and thought into what makes it unique and beautiful instead of just hopping on the brass-knob encrusted bandwagon.

Pregnant Celebs and Their In-Demand Spawn

It certainly doesn't take a "trendwatcher" to recognize the current and hot, hot, hot trend of celebrities under 25, like, getting pregnant. Jessica Alba, Katie Holmes, Ashlee (oh Ashlee), Christina Aguilera, Nicole Richie, Lily Allen, and, of course, little Jamie Lynn are all included in this category, and the media's obsession with, and breathless scrutiny of, this subject is seemingly endless. We are subject to the constant examining of every female celebrities' stomach and whether or not there is a visible "baby bump" -possibly the grossest phrase in the English language. (Which is great, because these ladies aren't really examined closely enough to see if they've recently gained or lost weight.)

Magazines pay millions for photos of the newborns because everyone is desperate to see how exactly Joel Madden's DNA will be transferred onto a baby's face, even though babies all look the same (like little blobs, duh.) At the same time, we get glowing reports of pregnancy from the stars, gushing about how it's the most important thing a woman can do and how complete they all feel.

This fascination with motherhood is pretty disturbing for a few reasons. The first is, all these women are really, really young. While it's certainly possible to be good mother at 22, it's not very far into adulthood to make that kind of commitment. However, young female celebrities have always been coded as older than they are, from posing for photoshoots in their underwear at fifteen to being called out as "sluts" when they're less-than-perfect. In Jamie Lynn's case, the media initially pegged her as a slut, but now since she's keeping the baby (wtf) they're back to reporting what a good little mommy she's going to be. As soon as a female is past puberty and in the public eye, she may as well be 35, nevermind the fact that she's a child herself.


What is most disturbing, though, is the simple fact that it is, indeed, a trend. Female stars historically have not gotten pregnant at a young age because they put their careers first; now, being pregant seems to be a calculated career move of its own. It's like a hot new role for them to play, guaranteeing immediate attention and admiration. How many times have we heard that Jennifer Aniston is a cold bitch for not wanting a family and that's why Brad was driven into Angelina's (surprisingly) fertile arms? A lot! For the "bad" celebrity girl (Richie, Aguilera) it makes them appear softer, more wholesome. Now when they pose naked for a magazine cover, it's in a dreamy, Earth mothery pose, surrounded by their little cherubs or proudly displaying their pregnant stomach. For the "good" stars, like Alba, it's cool to be pregnant too because obvs being pregnant is every good girl's dream, just like wearing a white veil on your wedding day and giving up your career to have a child.

It's hard work being pregnant, and harder work raising a kid, but, more than anything, the media seems enchanted with the ethereal and stereotypically feminine concept of motherhood and how great it is, not its possible drawbacks, multiple challenges, and ultimate reality. Raising a child lasts far longer than being pregnant and the pre-toddler years, but to the media, it's just babies, babies, babies! These women (well, some of them) should be famous for their talents or skills or wearing assless chaps in a mud-filled boxing ring, not because they're fulfilling God's master plan.

Lastly, everyone famous names their kids, like, Wheatley or Savannah 3 or Lula Mae or something retarded like that. All these kids are going to grow up to have coke problems and be in lame LA bands anyway, y'all.