praying i can finally find my people in the comment section who reject lolita. i do not and will not ever understand the ongoing adoration of that book
Listen. That Washington Post article about the celebrity veneers ruined my life! I'm mentioning it here because I think about it every day, and I cannot stop pointing out celebrity veneers to anyone who will listen (so I guess it ruined their lives too) and then you linked to it in this piece and I read it AGAIN! You should've seen me watching the Oscars last night; pointing out all the weird teeth (and also the normal ones, because they are such a relief when you see them.). I blame YOU, Jessica DeFino! 😆
I really appreciate this essay as I do all of your writing! However I think characterizing Noname’s book club as similar to the others listed isn’t accurate
Noname does not to my knowledge invest/directly profit off beauty culture through her career in the same way as some others listed, and her book club is pretty distinct. As a Black woman and rapper she’s also faced misogynoir in relation to beauty standards.
Her book club has a books to prison program that has run for years. They highlight Black owned bookstores throughout the US, have a Radical Hood Library at their headquarters in Los Angeles and host different radical programs connecting people outside with people inside prisons. All to say I think her use of a book club as a social tool is pretty different and it’s an inaccurate analysis to group them together.
I strongly recommend the book The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman. It's about the kidnapping of a young girl in the 1940s upon which Nabokov loosely based the book. I ended up with a worse opinion of him and his motives as a writer, and yes, what happened to Lolita in pop culture took the sickness so much further. So: people have willfully misread it (or not read it at all), AND the original was already gross!
Nabokov is very specific that to Humbert a "nymphet" is not at all conventionally beautiful, but decidedly in the awkward phase just before full-on adolescence.
I read once that Stanley Kubrick was cornered by the studio into casting a girl who 'looked older' than 12. That he was unhappy with this choice creatively, and had pictured someone like Catherine Demongeot as Lolita - childlike and tomboyish. It's possible I'm remembering the interview wrong. But I have occasionally wondered what that movie would have been like...
When I was abused by my math teacher at 12 years old in the 1980's, the school principal told my parents that "girls get crushes on their teachers," invoking the Lolita stereotype to shame them and blame me. It worked. I understood even then that I was being accused of being a Lolita, an over-sexualized vixen, even though I had not read the book. I didn't need to - Lolita (as a fact, a type of girl) was firmly embedded in our collective cultural psyche, with that poster as its dog-whistle. The effects of the book on girls, the practical reality that it normalized abuse and denigrated victims in the eyes of popular culture, cannot be justified by any claims of "literature." It's unclear to me how anyone can make it through that book, or why they would try. Nabokov greatly exploited the supposed "misunderstanding" of the book, and he did an amount of harm that neither he, nor the people who have lionized it, care to comprehend. Thank you so much for writing this.
"literature is not the antidote to anti-aging serums"
I would say it is. Or at least can be. Just not how girlbosses use it to capitalize on, which I guess is exactly what you're saying.
I'm currently rereading Alan Moore's run of Swamp Thing, and my wonder at the idea of my consciousness becoming one with moss and transforming into an earth elemental makes me totally ok with my face rotting away completely.
So Dakota Johnson, a woman who was completely fine with starring in a tragic girlboss!/Fleabag adaptation of a Jane Austen masterpiece that missed the point entirely.... thinks 'People need to deep dive into knowledge about specific things'. Maybe she should have read Persuasion before she helped make it shallower.
I’ve been thinking about this essay today and am wondering if and when celebrities decide they actually DO have enough money. Like you’ve pointed out, there are so many products on shelves that should have never been made!
I wrote a piece last October subtitled Nymphet Resistance, about a piece of art that is, for me, an antidote to Lolita as a book and a degrading archetype. I've been fighting the dehumanization inherent the Lolita myth for the past 40 years: https://calloffthedogs.substack.com/p/fighting-for-peace. TY
Jessica and fam - do yall have any advice as I still freelance at Sephora’s and these children are horrible even tho I think they’re innocent in a way to the bamboozle plus lax parenting. I would love any advice on how to turn these girls away from Junk elephant and trash skincare brands but they just seem to throw attitudes at me - granted I can be passionate to a punitive degree but I can control myself lol - just need perspective from parents and you! ♥️
If these parents only knew what letting their kids use this sh$t long term on young skin but…maybe I need to let it all go and sell them what they want.
praying i can finally find my people in the comment section who reject lolita. i do not and will not ever understand the ongoing adoration of that book
Listen. That Washington Post article about the celebrity veneers ruined my life! I'm mentioning it here because I think about it every day, and I cannot stop pointing out celebrity veneers to anyone who will listen (so I guess it ruined their lives too) and then you linked to it in this piece and I read it AGAIN! You should've seen me watching the Oscars last night; pointing out all the weird teeth (and also the normal ones, because they are such a relief when you see them.). I blame YOU, Jessica DeFino! 😆
I really appreciate this essay as I do all of your writing! However I think characterizing Noname’s book club as similar to the others listed isn’t accurate
Noname does not to my knowledge invest/directly profit off beauty culture through her career in the same way as some others listed, and her book club is pretty distinct. As a Black woman and rapper she’s also faced misogynoir in relation to beauty standards.
Her book club has a books to prison program that has run for years. They highlight Black owned bookstores throughout the US, have a Radical Hood Library at their headquarters in Los Angeles and host different radical programs connecting people outside with people inside prisons. All to say I think her use of a book club as a social tool is pretty different and it’s an inaccurate analysis to group them together.
I strongly recommend the book The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman. It's about the kidnapping of a young girl in the 1940s upon which Nabokov loosely based the book. I ended up with a worse opinion of him and his motives as a writer, and yes, what happened to Lolita in pop culture took the sickness so much further. So: people have willfully misread it (or not read it at all), AND the original was already gross!
Nabokov is very specific that to Humbert a "nymphet" is not at all conventionally beautiful, but decidedly in the awkward phase just before full-on adolescence.
Loved this one! The classic binary: Beauty versus brains. Reductive as ever.
I read once that Stanley Kubrick was cornered by the studio into casting a girl who 'looked older' than 12. That he was unhappy with this choice creatively, and had pictured someone like Catherine Demongeot as Lolita - childlike and tomboyish. It's possible I'm remembering the interview wrong. But I have occasionally wondered what that movie would have been like...
When I was abused by my math teacher at 12 years old in the 1980's, the school principal told my parents that "girls get crushes on their teachers," invoking the Lolita stereotype to shame them and blame me. It worked. I understood even then that I was being accused of being a Lolita, an over-sexualized vixen, even though I had not read the book. I didn't need to - Lolita (as a fact, a type of girl) was firmly embedded in our collective cultural psyche, with that poster as its dog-whistle. The effects of the book on girls, the practical reality that it normalized abuse and denigrated victims in the eyes of popular culture, cannot be justified by any claims of "literature." It's unclear to me how anyone can make it through that book, or why they would try. Nabokov greatly exploited the supposed "misunderstanding" of the book, and he did an amount of harm that neither he, nor the people who have lionized it, care to comprehend. Thank you so much for writing this.
That review of Lolita from Oprah's book club feels so weirdly off base like the person who wrote it didn't read the book at all.
looooooved this!
"literature is not the antidote to anti-aging serums"
I would say it is. Or at least can be. Just not how girlbosses use it to capitalize on, which I guess is exactly what you're saying.
I'm currently rereading Alan Moore's run of Swamp Thing, and my wonder at the idea of my consciousness becoming one with moss and transforming into an earth elemental makes me totally ok with my face rotting away completely.
So Dakota Johnson, a woman who was completely fine with starring in a tragic girlboss!/Fleabag adaptation of a Jane Austen masterpiece that missed the point entirely.... thinks 'People need to deep dive into knowledge about specific things'. Maybe she should have read Persuasion before she helped make it shallower.
I’ve been thinking about this essay today and am wondering if and when celebrities decide they actually DO have enough money. Like you’ve pointed out, there are so many products on shelves that should have never been made!
I just finished reading Rouge by Mona Awad and now I want an Unpublishable book club to talk about it immediately.
I wrote a piece last October subtitled Nymphet Resistance, about a piece of art that is, for me, an antidote to Lolita as a book and a degrading archetype. I've been fighting the dehumanization inherent the Lolita myth for the past 40 years: https://calloffthedogs.substack.com/p/fighting-for-peace. TY
Jessica and fam - do yall have any advice as I still freelance at Sephora’s and these children are horrible even tho I think they’re innocent in a way to the bamboozle plus lax parenting. I would love any advice on how to turn these girls away from Junk elephant and trash skincare brands but they just seem to throw attitudes at me - granted I can be passionate to a punitive degree but I can control myself lol - just need perspective from parents and you! ♥️
If these parents only knew what letting their kids use this sh$t long term on young skin but…maybe I need to let it all go and sell them what they want.