I don't know why I can't get over Michelle Wolf's monologue at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but I can't. It was so funny. And rad.
I particularly liked the jokes that felt like they had women as the target audience.
The "smoky eye" one. I wonder if there are a lot of men who didn't get the Maybelline reference. I mean, I've probably seen hundred of car commercials in my life, but I can't tell you the taglines of any of the major car companies. I haven't been socialized to give a shit. Most of those commercials are made for men, what with their need for speed. So I'm wondering how many men actually recognize the Maybelline tagline and how many of them don't because they tune out completely during makeup commercials.
I confess, I've bought eye shadow palettes that advertised themselves as smoky eye kits. To get the joke, you have to know (1) what the smoky eye is, and (2) you also kinda need to have some sense of how many smoky eye tutorials show up in women's magazines. Enough where it's possible to get the sense that we're all actually just on the quest for the perfect smoky eye.
The focus of the joke is Sanders' incessant lying in press briefings, not her eye shadow. But if you see how "burning facts and using the ashes as eye shadow" plays on the silly, upbeat tone of the smoky eye tutorial ("So resourceful!"), you get the added perk of a little satirical riff on women's socialization to be hyper-focused on our appearance.
A man couldn't make the eye shadow joke because they don't have to know about the work that goes into creating those sexy, smoky eyes of which they are the beneficiaries (if they are straight and buy into dominant beauty norms).
Also, the "Ivanka is as useful to women as an empty box of tampons" joke. We're the ones who know how annoying it is when you are sitting on the toilet, see that you got your period, reach into the cabinet under the sink for a tampon, and realize that the box is empty. It sucks so bad. Toilet paper wadded up to make do until you can get to CVS. That joke was for us.
All these men and anti-feminist women are crying about how she shouldn't make jokes about Sanders' and Ivanka's appearance (Oh, the diaper genie one!) as if they give a fuck about the ubiquitous reduction of women to their looks. She made no jokes about any woman's appearance. In fact, the kerfuffle over the jokes that aren't about women's appearance, but not about the ones that were actually making fun of individual men's looks, suggests that they really do equate women's value with their appearance. Make fun of Christie's and McConnell's nasty selves, and that's okay, because everyone knows that they're big, respectable men with big, respectable jobs. But if you go after a woman's appearance, you're leaving her with nothing!
I particularly liked the jokes that felt like they had women as the target audience.
The "smoky eye" one. I wonder if there are a lot of men who didn't get the Maybelline reference. I mean, I've probably seen hundred of car commercials in my life, but I can't tell you the taglines of any of the major car companies. I haven't been socialized to give a shit. Most of those commercials are made for men, what with their need for speed. So I'm wondering how many men actually recognize the Maybelline tagline and how many of them don't because they tune out completely during makeup commercials.
I confess, I've bought eye shadow palettes that advertised themselves as smoky eye kits. To get the joke, you have to know (1) what the smoky eye is, and (2) you also kinda need to have some sense of how many smoky eye tutorials show up in women's magazines. Enough where it's possible to get the sense that we're all actually just on the quest for the perfect smoky eye.
The focus of the joke is Sanders' incessant lying in press briefings, not her eye shadow. But if you see how "burning facts and using the ashes as eye shadow" plays on the silly, upbeat tone of the smoky eye tutorial ("So resourceful!"), you get the added perk of a little satirical riff on women's socialization to be hyper-focused on our appearance.
A man couldn't make the eye shadow joke because they don't have to know about the work that goes into creating those sexy, smoky eyes of which they are the beneficiaries (if they are straight and buy into dominant beauty norms).
Also, the "Ivanka is as useful to women as an empty box of tampons" joke. We're the ones who know how annoying it is when you are sitting on the toilet, see that you got your period, reach into the cabinet under the sink for a tampon, and realize that the box is empty. It sucks so bad. Toilet paper wadded up to make do until you can get to CVS. That joke was for us.
All these men and anti-feminist women are crying about how she shouldn't make jokes about Sanders' and Ivanka's appearance (Oh, the diaper genie one!) as if they give a fuck about the ubiquitous reduction of women to their looks. She made no jokes about any woman's appearance. In fact, the kerfuffle over the jokes that aren't about women's appearance, but not about the ones that were actually making fun of individual men's looks, suggests that they really do equate women's value with their appearance. Make fun of Christie's and McConnell's nasty selves, and that's okay, because everyone knows that they're big, respectable men with big, respectable jobs. But if you go after a woman's appearance, you're leaving her with nothing!
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