Backlash. Yawn.

my twitter feed earlier

I’m getting bored of the anticipation/hate-filled backlash cycle tv has got into. It’s US tv more than UK tv. (Do we make boring telly here? Or maybe I just read to too many American sites. ) We had it with New Girl – everyone seemed overexcited before it started overcome with Zooey Deschannel love...until it aired and there was a MASSIVE backlash. The world went mad with MPDG (Manic Pixie Dream Girl) hate. It pretty much went: We all love Zooey Deschannel! This looks silly and fun! WOOOO! And then: ERGH she’s just the one girl who comes in and lives with these guys and she’s so girly I might vom erghhh.  The backlash prompted a scene in the show [just send I spent 20 mins trying to find it youtube] where Jess defends herself:

‘I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I spend my entire day talking to children. And I find it fundamentally strange that you're not a dessert person. That's just weird, and it freaks me out. And I'm sorry I don't talk like Murphy Brown. And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it just slightly cuter. And that doesn't mean I'm not smart and tough and strong.’

But this rambling post is about the backlash against Girls. Before Girls was on I had heard nothing but good things about it. Everyone seemed excited about it: here was this show about non-fabulous twenty-somethings in New York who have awkward sex and ridiculous, messy lives. All the people who had seen previews were excited because it seemed so honest and different. Add to that the fact it is written by and stars a twenty-something woman (who looks like a normal girl). I was excited to see a show about lost and dysfunctional twenty-somethings. 

Now it’s been on, every site I read regularly has had a piece highlighting all the inadequacies of the show: the characters are spoiled; there are no black, asian or latina characters, there are no gay characters. Some writers have complained that the show wasn’t magically their life. People keep referring to a scene where Lena Dunham’s character Hannah, eats a cupcake in the bath while talking to their friend: “I don’t do that! Girls sucks because it’s not my exact life.”(to paraphrase massively). 

I am definitely NOT saying that those unhappy about the lack of diversity in tv should pipe down. I am just saying that it seems unfair for them to target Girls. I know that all the main characters are white. But that is true for a lot of tv but most new shows don't have this much rage directed towards them. Look at what IS good about girls: it’s a show written and created by a young woman about young women. Yes, a young, privileged and white woman about young privileged white women, but let’s not lessen the achievement of Lena Dunham.

When a show is so hyped and so anticipated, it is bound to cause disappointment. Somehow everyone got it into their heads that Girls was supposed to be completely about them so when they watched it they were naturally disappointed. The problem is that we have got so used to having very little that is produced FOR women BY women and subsequently we want each book or film or TV show to have a little of us all in. We need to stop this. We don't need one show that is filled with ALL types of women, we need LOTS of shows that are filled with ALL kinds of women in different combinations. When How to be a Woman came out, Caitlin Moran said that she didn’t want hers to be the only voice, she wanted others to join in. She wanted more women and more variety. WE NEED MORE WOMEN EVERYWHERE, IN ALL OUR GLORIOUS VARIETY!

thank you and good night. 


p.s. it is 1.14 am so this might just be sleepy crazies. 


p.p.s. there are MILLIONS of things about Girls on XOJane, The hairpin, Jezebel and HelloGiggles these pieces are written by proper writers and not sleep deprived nutters.. you probably should have read them in the first place. 

For every teenage girl...

When I read How to be a Woman I had two thoughts 1. I LOVE CAITLIN MORAN and 2. Why couldn’t I have read this when I was thirteen! Then I read Bossypants and wished I’d been given them both as a teenager. When the adolescent awkwardness is at its height, and you feel slightly sick and uncomfortable most of the time (perhaps that was just me), what you need is proof that it can and will get better! 


So I thought it would be nice if we could send a special care package to all 12/13 year old girls. Something that was nothing to do with school or parents. Nothing to do with tampon or sanitary companies. Something that would just say 'Being a teenager is shit. Here are some presents.'


My care package would include:

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

-Because “I do know, that in this case, it really was not suppressed desire that made those boys throw gravel at me while I ran up a hill – but I don’t want my diary to pity me. As far as my diary will know, I  had the philosophical upper hand there. This diary is for glory only.”
My review

Bossypants by Tina Fey

-Because: “I had noticed something was weird earlier in the day, but I knew from commercials that one’s menstrual period was a blue liquid that you poured like detergent onto maxi pads to test their absorbency. This wasn’t blue, so...I ignored it for a few hours.”
I've not written a review yet (bad Fran) 

Vanilla Fountain bath bomb from Lush

-Because they smell INCREDIBLE 

Space girl bath bomb from Lush

-Because they smell INCREDIBLE and THEY HAVE GLITTTER

A big wedge of brie 

-You need something to eat in the bath while reading the books. 






It could come in a nice screenprinted bag like this or this or this 

What would you add?

I am a girl.

I Am A Girl - The Girls With Glasses Theme Song from The Girls With Glasses on Vimeo. 

The internet is a magical place, but I don't need to tell you that. The reason it's a magical place is that you can make it whatever you want. You can grab different sections and pull them found you and create your own special world. Yes, there is lots of hate and horrible stuff on the internet - but only if you go looking for horrible things and hate. It's so easy to build yourself an online world of just the voices you want to hear.

My internet world is mostly made up of twitter and blogs (and facebook, I suppose) and all of these are women's voices. Catching up with twitter is the first thing I do every morning (you either just smiled in recognition or pulled a face) on twitter I have the perfect combination of silliness and news, politics and cake, in my twitter feed. But mostly women. I realised the other day that I have created a mostly female world online. I don't know if it's accepted that the internet just ruled by women now, but Twitter definitely is. I follow so few men on twitter, and I don't think I've ever read a guy's blog... do men blog? If so, what on earth do they write about?!

Through my women's world, I get to find out all the stuff I need, but from a female perspective  - women's views on news keeps me updated with stuff that's going on in the world and I follow various journalists that keep me updated on the big and small stuff that happens here. I live happily in my girl world. I am definitely a girl's girl - I'm not deperately girly, but I am very GIRL. My interests are all girl, my humour is all girl and even my boyfriend has more female friends than male. I have literally no interests that guys tend to share. It's not on purpose! It's just how I am. My girl's world is full of hilarious women, e.g. the GODDESSS that is Caitlin Moran. A few men are allowed into this world but they often get ignored, I suppose this is the opposite to how most men are, or just the media at large - mostly ignoring women but allowing the token amusing one in. 


You can imagine what a horrible shock it is to leave the girl world and find that we have a bunch of entitled public school boys running the country.


I mean WTF?:

How much do you want to slap him/kick him to death? And distressingly, george osbourne's wife is called Frances. How could one of us have married such a creature?? (p.s. I realise that's a picture of cameron, but I don't have a particular fact about him except ERGH)