Few people know that my first career was as a costume designer in theater, film, and television. I studied theatrical design at university, and, thanks to a very lucky break, slid into the business and worked in that position for a few intense, fun years.
For my taste, Eiko Ishioka was the greatest costume designer in the world. She certainly changed my world with her exquisite costumes for Francis Coppola’s’ Dracula. I was always a “Francis Freak,” but it was Ishioka’s shockingly vibrant, wildly dramatic, luscious wardrobe that jettisoned me into Coppola’s Gothic fantasy and made me want to stay there. Forever. The reds were not incarnadine but blood itself. The juxtaposition of bridal white against the ruthless horror of an undead bride seared my imagination. The bizarre confluence of Japanese discipline, Victorian excess, unbridled sexuality, and sheer theatricality stunned me. I couldn’t get the images out of my mind. For decades.... Read more.
Friends, can it really be true that we’ve had no tv series with a single African-American female lead since 1974??? The article below mentions Teresa Graves’s as an undercover detective in the 1974 made-for-TV flick Get Christie Love!, which I do not remember, but I DO remember watching the beautiful Diahnn Carroll as Julia when I was a kid back in the late ’60s.
So, um, let’s see. Diahnn Carroll broke that glass ceiling, Teresa Graves followed her, and um, we’ve had a mere 40 year absence of series led by a single black woman??
Where have I been that I didn’t notice this disparity? Me, the lifelong feminist writer and (I hope) someone who lives without racial prejudice of any kind. Well, I guess I’ve been living where I’ve always lived, on PLANET WHITE! Apparently, everyone who runs network tv also resides there.
Thanks to the wonderful Shonda Rhimes, who created both Gray’s Anatomy and The Practice, we will once again have a network series fashioned around an independent, intelligent, interesting woman of color.
Check out the article and look for SCANDAL,an upcoming and LONG OVERDUE series inspired by the life of Judy Smith, a real-life political clean-up woman.
I am the guest blogger today at the superb site “Wonders & Marvels: A community for curious minds who love history, its odd stories, and good reads.” That’s us, right? The post is about my research into Victorian insane asylums and female hysteria for DRACULA IN LOVE.
THE SITE IS ALSO HOSTING A 5 COPY GIVEAWAY OF DRACULA IN LOVE!
Libyan women have demonstrated bold and courageous acts during the revolution. Will they go the way of Rosie the Riveter once peace is restored? In Egypt, women were on the front lines of the revolution but NOT A SINGLE female is on the committee to rewrite the Egyptian constitution. Will this document represent women’s rights? Probably not.
Historically, once a revolution or war effort has used female talent, intelligence, energy, and drive, it sends those very women back into traditional roles, denying their evolution as active members of civic life. What a shame it would be if the Arab Spring repeats that mistake. I am hoping that the brave women of Tripoli are neither silenced not sent back into the kitchens.... Read more.
I had tea yesterday with a lovely friend who is a novelist and songwriter and a young mother of two. She told me that in a class she attended on breastfeeding, a new mother admitted in a timid, guilty voice that she had to stop breastfeeding after several weeks because her nipples were cracked and bleeding and she could not produce enough milk. The “teacher/expert,” some breast-feeding Brunhilde, callously replied, “Hey, you can’t be a wimp about it.”
Coincidentally, yesterday morning, I’d also struck up a conversation with a bedraggled-looking working mom who said that she wanted to give her six month old baby formula at night so that both she and the child could get some sleep but her breast-feeding friends shamed her into feeling that she would harm the child.... Read more.
