Seine-sational
Vol. 1 Issue 18 – 27th July 2024
Paris is always a good idea
The 2024 Olympics opening ceremony took place in Paris last night, and it was MAGNIFICENT (and loooong). The Internet, as always, is divided on how they feel about it, but trust me, the French knew how to put on a fun show. Even though the rain poured throughout the ceremony, the performers charged on. The athletes represented their countries on boats, while some were questioning this decision and preferred the usual lap around a stadium, I thought it was an apt deviation given how this style of parade showcased the city’s beauty and incorporated elements that were so quintessentially ~Paris~.
Lady Gaga, surrounded by pink feathers, kicked it off with a Cabaret-esque performance and her rendition of Zizi Jeanmaire’s “Mon Truc En Plumes” (which had me questioning if she had been French all this time), a masked vigilante entered on a boat to the Phantom of the Opera theme and parkouring all over Paris’ building tops, a very unco-ordinated cancan dance (the dancers were on strike over their pay, losing out on rehearsal time, and let’s be honest, a PROTEST? Could it BE any more French than that?), Les Misérables + heavy metal + a touch of history with Marie Antoinette’s guillotined decapitated head, golden statues of prominent female trailblazers being highlighted against the French national anthem, a ménage à trois portrayed by mimes, MINIONS stealing the Moon Mona Lisa (yes, I did Google if they were French too, and their animation studio Illumination indeed is), Louis Vuitton medal cases, runway walks, and finally, Celine Dion enrapturing the audiences with her performance of Edith Piaf's “L'Hymne à l'amour", under the illuminated Eiffel Tower (a brave and rare return after her diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome).
In short, it was peak France™️.
As for the events leading up to the opening ceremony, the Olympic village has cardboard beds, Lululemon supplied Team Canada’s gear and everyone’s jealous, and LVMH, Vogue and NBC threw a star-studded Prelude party a night before the opening ceremony!
Watch out
Trailers for Joker: Folie à Deux, Emily in Paris Season 4: Part 1, A Complete Unknown (ft. Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan) & His Three Daughters were dropped this week.
The line-ups for the Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival were announced.
Deadpool and Wolverine is in theatres! My thoughts and views will be coming in the next issue as I watch it today (hopefully I can also manage to catch Twisters in 4DX) so this is a spoiler-free zone BUT Blake Lively and Gigi Hadid attended the movie’s premiere decked out in red and yellow 👀, while Taylor Swift hilariously congratulated her friends on the movie through an IG Story.
Speaking of Marvel, the San Diego Comic-Con is in full swing where Marvel had a drone show for Deadpool and Wolverine along with one for Fantastic 4 featuring Galactus! And we got our first glimpse at the new first family of Marvel, thanks to Mr Fantastic, Pedro Pascal, himself. In even more Marvel news, President of the studio Kevin Feige got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame bringing together some familiar superheroes.
Rebecca Ferguson of Dune, Mission Impossible, The Greatest Showman, joins Cillian Murphy in the new Peaky Blinders movie.
The 1997 slasher film, I Know What You Did Last Summer is getting a reboot starring Camila Mendes, Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers and Jonah Haur-King.
It wasn’t a secret to those who caught on to a certain dialogue that was said in the last episode of Bridgerton Season 3, but the formal announcement has been made; Luke Thompson’s Benedict Bridgerton will be the leading the next season of the show!
Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent starring Jake Gyllenhaal has been receiving rave reviews following the Season 1 Finale. While I haven’t watch the show, you and me should probably catch up as Season 2 has already been announced.
Haven’t you heard
WhatsApp is set to get a file sharing feature much like Apple’s AirDrop, that wouldn’t require an internet connection.
The Henley Passport Index has released its 2024 global rankings and the strongest passports are that of Singapore, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain, while the weakest is Afghanistan.
Donald Glover under his rap alter ego moniker, Childish Gambino released his fifth (and last) studio album, Bando Stone and the New World, last Friday. The album is also the soundtrack to a film Glover is making, sharing the same name, about the potential end of the world.
In other news, rumour has it that the once-feuding, pop powerhouses Sabrina Carpenter (who has just released her new perfume, Cherry Baby) and Olivia Rodrigo are in talks of a potential collaboration!
Last weekend at the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix, Australian driver Oscar Piastri got his maiden win while McLaren nabbed a 1-2. However, it probably felt like the most disappointing 1-2 for the fans as it was an uncomfortable race to watch following McLaren pitting Lando Norris first despite Piastri leading the race prior, which in turn resulted in team orders of switching positions, something no competitive athlete wants to hear. A team should never put its drivers in that position in the first place but coupled with the lowkey manipulative radio messages to Lando, the team didn’t leave the best impression despite earning the most points at the race weekend. The season continues with the Belgian Grand Prix this Sunday…
Matthew Macfadyen recently said that he feels he was miscast as Mr Darcy in the 2005 movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which is so Darcy of him. But I, on behalf of everyone on this planet would like to emphatically express that HE IS WRONG!
Welcome back, VEEP
Entertaining the rest of the world once again, American politics. As if an ex-President almost getting assassinated and the current one getting Covid wasn’t enough, Joe Biden dropped out of the Presidential race much to the joy of the Democrats. (And people found out about it from Twitter accounts rather than media outlets).
After releasing his statement, Biden tweeted his endorsement of the coconut queen, Kamala Harris, who has since declared her candidacy and been backed by Barack & Michelle Obama and the ‘brat’ singer Charli XCX (who happens to share a few similarities with the VP).
Twitter couldn’t help but draw parallels between the turn of events and the hit HBO show Veep. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ fictional Vice President echoes Kamala Harris’ current situation eerily closely. Talk about existing in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.
Tradwife toxicity
A few days back The Times did a piece about a popular “trad wife” influencer/content creator. (If you’re getting paywalled trying to read it, don’t worry I gotchu). Hannah Neeleman, along with her husband, runs Ballerina Farm, an actual farm that sells produce, and a social media account that sells a certain lifestyle. A lifestyle which, post the Times article, has created an angry stir.
But before we get into that, what does tradwife mean? While the term stands for “traditional wife”, someone who values being a wife and a homemaker, it’s not in the casual sense that it comes across as. The tradwife trend has recently seen a surge on social media. Women who are not just devoted wives and stay-at-home mothers but on top of that, make/cook everything (and I mean everything) from scratch, homeschool their kids and subscribe to conventional gender roles fully believing that women are supposed to submit to and serve the man of the house.
Its popularity is only seeing an upsurge given the aesthetic that comes along with it. One of the most famous creators being Nara Smith, who recently got tapped by Marc Jacobs for a collaboration. These short-form videos usually feature a fully made-up young woman, wearing pretty dresses, speaking in a calm, hushed, almost hypnotic voiceover, living in a bright, minimalist house, where despite them cooking from scratch and living with toddlers, everything is clean and tidy and nothing is ever wrong. Entranced by these videos it’s easy to forget that social media isn’t reality. While these women convey the subtext that their husband is the breadwinner and they don’t want to have a job, the irony is that running these social media accounts is earning the tradwives five and six-figure paychecks.
Back to the Hannah Neeleman article, she wanted to be a ballerina and got accepted to Julliard but left it all as her now-husband urged her to marry him within a few months of meeting him. She talks about being so exhausted doing everything without help (the husband doesn’t want any nanny in the house, they have 8 children, he is the heir to a billionaire) sometimes that she can’t get up from her bed for a week, she says she doesn’t like taking pain relief medication while giving birth but as soon as her husband leaves the room she tells the journalist about the one time she did take it and how good it felt. Throughout the article, the husband interrupts her or answers for her. Some may say that this a consequence of her own choices but this is all she’s known since she was 21. And all of this under the guise of what seems like a perfect life on Instagram and TikTok.
While it’s any woman’s personal choice what role they take up in their family structure and careers, the tradwife content particularly promotes a patriarchal, regressive and postfeminist mindset to impressionable audiences. This is toxicity veiled by an unapproachable aspirational life that does not exist.