Don't Make Jessica Chastain Cry!
Britney Spears takes back some control, Jessica Chastain has a new accent, Normani and Tinashe annihilate the competiton, Shakira takes surfing lessons, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
Hello, yes, I’m late again. Please, let’s not make a big deal about it! The show goes on, and next week the Monday letter will be out on an actual Monday. Your favorite little queer annoyance has had a very scattered schedule lately, but things are starting to finally fall into a routine again, which means that your weekly nonsense will finally be on time again. Isn’t that delicious?
I assume that we’ve all had “Bunny Is A Rider” on repeat all week, yes? How’ve you all been? What’s going on with everyone else? When’s our first NYC meetup happening? By “meetup,” I, of course, mean following the Gossip Girl cast around the Upper East Side, dressed in deconstructed school uniforms and trying to work our way onto set by locating craft services and picking up a scone and saying, “God, these have been so good this week!” ANYWAY!
Top Shelf, Low Brow: July 12 — July 18
Britney Takes Control
Last weekend, I cried on the subway twice. The first was because I realized that Jeana Keough from the first five seasons of The Real Housewives of Orange County reminds me slightly of my mom (kind, silly, exuberant with bright energy when they feel comfortable), whom I haven’t seen since Christmas 2019 and miss very dearly, but will hopefully see soon. The second time was when I read Britney Spears’ latest Instagram captions, seemingly now actually written by Spears herself after the team controlling her social media relinquished that control after intense scrutiny following Spears’ latest conservatorship hearings last week, which have finally allowed Spears to be able to hire her own legal representation—what a novel concept!
It didn’t take more than a day for Spears to launch into greater, even more horrifyingly depressing detail about some of the things she’s had to endure over the last thirteen years.
It just feels right to me that Britney can finally publically fire back at Jamie Lynn Spears, the professional leech most remembered for being the least exciting part of her own Nickelodeon show. After years of Jamie Lynn showing a supportive face in public but being an entirely different operator behind the scenes, how intensely gratifying for Britney to be able to voice the hurt she experienced at the hands of her own family, especially her younger sister who should’ve been at her side and listening to her personal wishes. Luckily, karma always has its kiss for us, and one of these sisters has an indomitable legacy until the end of time while the other is doing the #BabyBottlePopJingleChallenge.
The audacity to respond to Britney’s caption like this when you’re out here selling novelty candy (and not in the Rihanna “Sell Me Candy” type of way):
Hopefully, Britney will continue to keep having the last laugh.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Lately, for whatever reason, people I follow keep insisting on putting Alec Baldwin’s instagram handle out there for me to see. And without fail, each and every time, I think this says “Alec Baldwin-ista,” as if his fans have named themselves Baldwinistas.
Rihanna Navy. Britney Army. Arianators. Swifties. Baldwinistas.
If only “Little Monsters” hadn’t already been taken.
Mari-Oral Fixation, Vol. 2
I want to be clear that while I don’t think this song is good, I absolutely love it. I think all songs should sound like they’re sampling a Mario Kart level theme. When I’m working out, I absolutely need a song that sounds like I just entered the last round of the fourth and final race in the Star Cup.
The real problem here is the video, which I do believe was filmed on the set of The Shallows. Shakira, literally known for her dancing, spends 90% of this video on a surfboard and occasionally doing the same moves that Countess LuAnn’s son Noel did when he wanted to learn breakdancing in the second season of Real Housewives of New York.
Like what’s going on here? Why are the hips not lying? Why are the shes not wolfing? Why is Shakira, of all people, serving Jordin Sparks “Red Sangria” choreography and set design? Is “Don’t Wait Up” a song about Shakira ditching her s/o for a night-surfing date with her friends? Do they just love the thrill and danger of surfing when the sharks are out? Let me see the storyboards on this one, there’s got to be some kind of explanation here that I just can’t seem to wrap my head around. Maybe I shouldn’t wait up for it.
(Rating: Top Shelf, all songs should sound like they were made in a lab in 2014 and forgotten about for seven years)
“Nooo ees very emotional, bu don’a mak’a me cry!”
In the grand tradition of redhead actresses suddenly developing strange vocal affectations, Jessica Chastain is now French-Italian!
Very hard to describe the place that this clip sends me to. Jessica Chastain may have been born in California, but her spirit lives on the plush beaches of the Amalfi coast. I can’t decide which would be more bonkers: her falling into a transatlantic accent as soon as she flies over the ocean or her intentionally affecting her delivery to make it more palatable for French-speaking reporters at Cannes.
Just typing this is making me giggle. “Ohh I haven’t taken my peektchures yet!” Like what is she doing!!! The “SO!” at :10 sounding like “SAWWW!” Her gesturing wildly with her hands like she’s doing some kind of Italian vaudeville performance? It’s divine. Prix d'interprétation féminine award for this video alone!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
The girls are DANCING!!!!
After two whole years, Normani finally graced us with another song and was kind enough to fucking annihilate every frame of the video as well. Like, my god. The scene where she dances with herself. The Annihilation alien has retired. David Cronenberg is burning all existing copies of Dead Ringers. Ms. Kordei outsold once again.
Elsewhere, friend of the newsletter Tinashe released the video for “Bouncin’,” the second single from her upcoming project, 333. The things that she’s capable of making look completely effortless would surely have me breaking my wrist on the first take. The fact that Tinashe isn’t on her third set of titanium knees is baffling to me. How does she do it? The greatness she continues to achieve every time…remarkable.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Being rich is a disease that Chrissy Teigen refuses to recover from!
Literally, what is Chrissy Teigen’s problem? Besides the delusional narcissism to think that you simply must interact with the legions of basic weirdos and TJ Maxx moms who are obsessed with you? If I was someone who was being rightfully criticized after years of using my celebrity to sic legions of twitter followers on people for no good reason, I would simply log the fuck off and lurk social media on a private account. I would not be so self-obsessed that I simply must take to Instagram to post this instead of, say, just curling up with an Ottessa Moshfegh book that I’ve been meaning to read for months.
By the way, the “cancel club” refers to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s dead-on-arrival 2011 CW show Ringer and Zoë Kravitz’s High Fidelity, not Chrissy Teigen being run offline because she’s been a Twitter menace for a decade. To have as much time and money as she does and spend it like this? Unfathomable. I’d be learning how to grill peaches. I’d be dressing up in a trenchcoat, bowler hat, fake mustache, and sunglasses and walking around New York to see if anyone still recognized me and sent a pic into Deuxmoi. I’d be paying for a subscription to The Criterion Channel. There are infinite possibilities that Mrs. Cravings could be embarking on. Why be a glutton for punishment!
(Rating: Low Brow)
Real Housewives of New York may be tragically in its flop era, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still an ultrafascinating character study. Case in point, the moment from last week’s episode where Sonja Morgan managed to drink a glass of wine through her mask:
I just…need someone to explain the science of this moment to me. The level of suckage that must be present to do this? The fact that Sonja had to have been keeping the corners of her mouth perfectly tight while she inhaled the wine like a drunk Kirby in Super Smash Bros.? This has to be some kind of human anomaly. Only further proof that even when a season of Housewives is bad, it’s still so, so good.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
The Wendy Beat
Unfortunately, Wendy is now on hiatus until the new season starts in September, so the Wendy beat may have to pause for a while, but we can still go out on a high. Still dying over this Rachel Sennot lookalike rolling her eyes and calling Priyanka Chopra Jonas “Miss Priyanka 🙄”:
Also, Wendy’s birthday was Sunday! Happy birthday to our favorite icon who, relatably, always shows up to her own show unprepared. I composed a post of some of my favorite Wendy moments in celebration.
Taste App kindly had me back for the second week in a row to write about Scarlett Johansson’s filmography, which is an extremely mixed bag with some very high highs and even lower lows.
Always thankful when true, hard-won journalism makes it through the edit!
That’s all for this week, but I have a very important request: my dear friend Kelley has opened a gofundme for a life-saving surgery journey that she has been working to embark on for a long time.
Kelley and I became friends two and a half years ago (crazy because it feels like so much longer) on Letterboxd of all places, a platform where we found that we both had similar interests and affection for rating movies five stars with abandon. I have been so grateful to have her in my life and call her a friend. She is someone that has made life not only livable but interesting, her kindness and her generosity are truly second to none, it often astounds me what a big heart she has, and how remarkable it is that she’s able to give so much to the world after all of the pain she has had to endure in her life. Her resilience is baffling, but it’s not unending. Kelley requires surgery to be able to have a mind, body, and life that she is able to feel happy in every day. These kinds of surgeries are very literally life-saving for trans people. If I could give her all the money in the world, I’d do it in a second. I want desperately for Kelley to have the levity she so deserves. So far, she has been able to raise enough to secure surgery appointments, but now she is at a new hurdle: raising enough for the procedures and for stable security during recovery. Please, if you can, I encourage you to donate and to share her tweet and her gofundme, sharing does so much and goes such a long way towards reaching a goal. It is paramount that we support trans people however possible, even if we don’t have the monetary assistance to be able to give, we have a voice and a platform. Thank you for reading this. 💖