What's with all the Adele baiting lately? The singer is uber-talented and yes, she happens to cut a different shape than her many stick-insect contemporaries. Her music matters above all else, so she doesn't feel the need to starve herself to fit into a celebrity mold. In my books, rather than a target, she's a role model to young women.
But if Joan Rivers sees it that way, it hasn't stopped the 79-year-old from repeatedly taking cheap shots at Adele's weight. I like Rivers. But I don't like fat jokes, just as I don't like racist jokes. To me comedians who indulge in either show a distinct lack of imagination.
It started with Rivers quipping to David Letterman that Adele should have named her hit song "Rolling in the Deep Fried Chicken." She went on to add in a HuffPost live interview: "[Adele's] a chubby lady who's very, very rich, and she should just calm down—or lose weight!"
Is Rivers really that thin (no pun) on material these days that she has to take aim at probably the last celeb who deserves ribbing? It seems so. How would she feel in the face of such criticism about the shocking amount of plastic surgery she has received? How would she feel if someone made fun of Jewish princesses?
"Adele is one of the very few women in pop music I want my daughter to look up to and you're making jokes about the way she looks when you're so insecure about your own face you've spent more money on it than the producers of 'Life of Pi' spent on that tiger," said fellow comedian Adam Hills. "Get a plastic surgeon to manufacture yourself a new soul."
But Rivers isn't the only one picking on Adele. Last year, designer Karl Lagerfield was quoted in Metro saying, "She is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice." Lady Gaga also added her two cents.
Mercifully Adele has her head screwed on straight and her priorities in check. Remarkable for a ridiculously famous 24-year-old. "I've never wanted to look like models on the cover of magazines. I represent the majority of women and I'm very proud of that," she said in an interview with People last year. Hallelujah!
R.I.P. Jim Morrison. In an interview from the vaults, the former Doors frontman was partial to the portly, claiming he felt powerful when he was at his heaviest.
"You know, that's something that really bothers me. What's wrong with being fat? That's what I want to know. Why is it so onerous to be fat? I don't see anything wrong with fat," he apparently said in a 1969 interview with Village Voice. "It's terrible to be thin and wispy because, you know, you'd get knocked over by a strong wind or something. Fat is beautiful."
If he were around today, Jim would certainly race to Adele's defense.
As for Rivers et al, time to find some new material and start picking on someone your own size. Targeting Adele just makes you look mean and small-minded.
Barbie baby, your days are numbered. We see through your war paint and oops, your roots are showing. Thanks to some digital tinkering, we've caught a glimpse of what Barbie might look like first thing in the morning. And you know what? It's not all that pretty.
An Imgur post by Eddi Aguirre depicts the vintage doll in what the Huffington Post calls "a distinctly unpolished state." Much like those images of celebrities without a scrap of makeup on, this image of Barbie au naturel is deeply comforting: what with the "unkempt hair, circles under her eyes, freckles and braces."
Take that, you Barbie wannabe?
See, even Barbie isn't perfect. Made you smile.
Hey career girl, forget all about climbing the slippery ladder and get thee a clever husband. While it sounds like advice straight from a 1950s handbook, Susan Patton’s open letter to the editor of the Daily Princetonian is dead earnest.
In an article in the Huffington Post, the Princeton alumni has been gaining lots of flak for her retrogressive tips to young women. Though Patton herself was surprised at the fallout from her letter, she defended it as “honest advice from a Jewish mother.” (Or rather, from the mouth of an embittered divorcee—don’t do what I did and marry your intellectual inferior.)
According to Patton, the pool of prospective partners is at its greatest during college years, and young women should carpe diem post haste all the way down the aisle:
“Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are,” she writes. “And I say again—you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you.”
So we’ve come full circle. It’s not enough to focus on growing your own career; you’d be better served making a career out of nabbing the right husband before the pickings get too slim.
In Patton’s view, marriage is more strategic game rather than random art. There is no magic number when it comes to tying the knot. It’s not as though you can control when and with whom you fall in love. Says she who married at the ripe age of 21, and has never once looked back… Many people warn against getting married young. But many others argue, as this writer in the Daily Beast, that finding decent marriage material gets harder as you grow older.
Pity Patton's Princeton sons, then. If they had trouble scoring a date before, imagine their prospects now, in the wake of their mother’s outmoded rant.
Do you think Patton needs to get with the romantic times, or does she have a point about marrying young?
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