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An Elegy for Two Once-Divine Female Critics
The American Thinker ^ | December 8, 2012 | Robert Oscar Lopez

Posted on 12/08/2012 2:20:37 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

As recently as five years ago, I counted Ann Coulter and Camille Paglia among my favorite authors, and my guiltiest but most delicious reading pleasures............

.......................It's Paglia that has lost the ability to understand feminine complexity. As she has turned sourer in the last few years, I have tried to psychologize her Orphic descent from edginess to banality. I can't reduce the problem to a simple case of self-pitying bitterness, though she does write, "Paradoxically, a key problem with the current youth cult, which is devouring both entertainment and fashion, is that aging women have become progressively invisible." It seems that Paglia has trouble understanding that Taylor Swift, and many of the other women Paglia derides, are not vain old women trying to pass as young. They are really young, and it's their turn now. They are from a different generation and don't want the faux, fruitless feminism of the second wave.

Which brings me to Ann Coulter......................

........... But whichever way you choose to dissect the situation, the fact is that people born after 1980, as a whole, aren't buying what Romney -- and increasingly, Ann -- tried to sell them in 2012. They are one generation, not several generations separated by race, so we have to analyze them as an organic whole.

Whatever happens to Ann and Camille, one thing is clear: it's time for a new generation of critics. Whatever transpired in the case of Laura Ingraham, I must say I respect her immensely for stepping away from the radio mic for a while. It is a natural thing for life to move in cycles, for older generations to quiet down and soften. There are new ideas out there. I'm all ears.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: coulter; elections; message; messenger; paglia; politics
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To: A.A. Cunningham; MestaMachine
How much less could you care?

He could care less, but he would have to be dead. :-)

21 posted on 12/08/2012 6:59:43 AM PST by NurdlyPeon (New tag line in progress.)
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To: garbanzo
And it's just been proven with Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth!

Once the film industry was opened up to ordinary-looking people (and actors no longer had to prettify their real names), it seemed to usher in the complete collapse of glamor in film.

As I write this, I'm watching a Carole Lombard movie and kvelling at her beauty and acting chops. Taylor Swift: eat your heart out!

22 posted on 12/08/2012 7:14:54 AM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: fieldmarshaldj
I wish Taylor Swift would show up at my door.

Or my foor for that matter ...

23 posted on 12/08/2012 7:21:19 AM PST by IronJack (=)
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To: KC Burke

My interest in Sarah Palin goes well beyond politics. What Camille Paglia calls “sexual persona” is what fascinates me. She is the first female politician who was inordinately sexy; I believe this is what set off the clamor against her. I can still remember my shock when Christopher Hitchens deplored “her swinging hips” in the pages of Vanity Fair. I was celebrating it! Then we met her husband who also had charisma and sexiness. These two had to be stopped by dull, corporate Washington. I’m still hoping for their comback.


24 posted on 12/08/2012 7:22:36 AM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: NurdlyPeon

She.


25 posted on 12/08/2012 7:56:12 AM PST by MestaMachine (It's the !!!!TREASON!!!!, stupid!)
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To: miss marmelstein

I agree with you. Sarah is the epitome of an American woman.


26 posted on 12/08/2012 7:58:42 AM PST by MestaMachine (It's the !!!!TREASON!!!!, stupid!)
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To: miss marmelstein
Paglia sometimes had a few interesting things to say. Very few--and Drudge and Rush would always make sure that those little bits got heard. The rest of her stuff is just darn aging silly lesbianism...so she's just not that HOT anymore. Ha Ha.

I thought Lopez's point about Doris Day, a big talent and gorgeous well into her maturity, was well-taken, although I never thought Calamity Jane was remotely "transgendered"--Lopez is applying his own life-view of having two mommies to this take. Doris Day was not remotely "butch" in Calimity Jane. The sharp-shooting comedic tomboy Jane was twice as alive as her insipid "feminine" rival in the movie. When Jane cleans up and puts on a dress she's twice as pretty as her rival. Watch the movie, it's darn good. Howard Keel is dynamite...

27 posted on 12/08/2012 8:01:45 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: NTHockey

I call the GOP the Washington Generals.


28 posted on 12/08/2012 8:06:28 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: miss marmelstein
People never noticed how modestly Sarah dressed because they were so wowed by her powerhouse femininity. And how *men* seemed to hate her for that! That was so bizarre! The reaction of men to Sarah Palin was like a litmus test. Men who hated her were really awful, unhealhy l sorts of men. I remember one guy who went off on her supposed "trailer park trash" image, and this guy married real trash, a woman with several baby daddies in her life. Sarah Palin was like one of those ink-blot tests...

I miss her badly. I miss that red leather zipped jacket she wore, and her neat skirts that went to just above the knee. I miss the bouffant updo, her glasses and that picture of her changing out of her running shoes and into her high-heeled red patent open-toes...

Could Sarah Palin go work with Jim Demint at Heritage maybe, and help us start a new America Party?

29 posted on 12/08/2012 8:08:29 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle

Well, Sarah didn’t always dress modestly. I can remember the crazed reaction at FR when a photo of her wearing a white jersey-like blouse was published. Some people here wanted to brand her with a scarlet “A”. I loved it! In the immortal words of Zero Mostel (or Mel Brooks): “If you got it, flaunt it, baby, flaunt it!”


30 posted on 12/08/2012 8:12:32 AM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: miss marmelstein
Well, sometime compare what Sarah wore to what the Fox babes wear on their "business" programs. Sometimes I'm just shocked at what they do with the "leg chair"--

I haven't seen the white blouse, and I loved her fashions during the 2008 election (I remember when the left lost their minds when $150K was spent to dress the middle-class Palin family, making it even harder to take the awful and extravagant get up of the linebacker Moochelle). Most of the outfits fit her very nicely, but I don't remember any that flashed skin.

31 posted on 12/08/2012 8:22:39 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle

I was hoping someone would post the famous white blouse photo. It’s...shall we say...formfitting. Usually the men at FR like it - some of the women get very puritanical about it. Of course, now that I’ve oversold it, you will think it’s completely boring!


32 posted on 12/08/2012 8:34:21 AM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: miss marmelstein
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285570/Boob-job-internet-rumours-rife-Sarah-Palin-steps-tight-fitting-T-shirt.html

Is this it?

Think this might be for a hot day with outside activities. It may be hard for Sarah just to dress for the weather when she's got so much going for her; it attracts attention. And I say that with an amazing lack of envy.

33 posted on 12/08/2012 8:40:15 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: miss marmelstein

I guess I’ve got my catty streak like any woman, but my reaction to Sarah Palin was always about admiration. Kind of, “when I grow up I want to be just like her.” Even though I’m older than she. It was a crushing disappointment to watch her get out of politics and, really, out of public life.


34 posted on 12/08/2012 8:48:53 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
the Republican consulting class’ reasoning — and, thereby, entire strategy — was based on denying that 2008 ever happened.

Mark my words, 2016 will be a repeat. Like liberals everywhere, they never learn.

35 posted on 12/08/2012 9:27:16 AM PST by Graybeard58 ("Civil rights” leader and MSNB-Hee Haw host Al Sharpton - Larry Elder)
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To: Mamzelle

That’s it. It’s a very clingy shirt and given the angle, it probably emphasized her breasts. But it’s a great shot, anyway.

I’ve always admired beauty in women and refuse to get jealous about it. Beauty is so rare in this world that we need to celebrate it rather than denigrating.


36 posted on 12/08/2012 10:33:24 AM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: Usagi_yo
Although in 2005, Ann was seemingly not yet on the homosexual bandwagon.

"Gov. Mitt Romney will never recover from his acquiescence to the Massachusetts Supreme Court's miraculous discovery of a right to gay marriage."

By 2006 she was supporting him for president.

Coulter has more than a half decade invested in Mitt Romney.

37 posted on 12/08/2012 10:40:38 AM PST by ansel12 (A.Coulter2005(truncated)Romney will never recover from his Court's create of a right to gay marriage)
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To: Mamzelle
It was a crushing disappointment to watch her get out of politics and, really, out of public life.

Palin isn't out of politics, in 2010 she was the single most important player of either party, and in 2012, she was the most successful individual in GOP politics, aside from her other endorsements and campaigning, she gave us Senator Ted Cruz over Dewhurst, and she gave us our only Senate pick up in Deb Fischer, over Senator Bob Kerry for an open seat held by the democrats.

38 posted on 12/08/2012 10:55:15 AM PST by ansel12 (A.Coulter2005(truncated)Romney will never recover from his Court's create of a right to gay marriage)
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To: jocon307

I agree with him about Ann Coulter, she is a washed up has been, 6 years of her slobbering over Romney has revealed too much.

Coulter has built a 6 year high wall between her and conservatism and rational thought.

“”Which brings me to Ann Coulter. After trumpeting Mitt Romney to conservatives for a year, her sharpness has dulled. Pessimistic and out of ideas, she gets even Laura Ingraham to say tha she is “demoralized.” Ann is convinced that America is lost forever because Mitt, as she told Laura Ingraham, was a “magnificent candidate.”
Thus reads the text box inside my head as I listen to Ann clinging to the mystique of robotic, multiple-mansion-dwelling, and squiggly-as-spaghetti Romney as the man that any sane conservative should be leaping for joy to elect: “Earth to Ann! We’re just not that into him. He was a bad choice. He was squishy and all he did was talk about Bain Capital at choreographed cheerleading conventions, always in the swing states.””


39 posted on 12/08/2012 11:02:25 AM PST by ansel12 (A.Coulter2005(truncated)Romney will never recover from his Court's create of a right to gay marriage)
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To: jocon307
The author of this piece was way too full of himself

And way too into Doris Day. I was trying to figure out why I didn't like the column. You put your finger on it.

I guess it's too personal for Lopez. He read Camille's column and didn't like it, then he saw Coulter's column about the Latino vote and rushed into print before he had time to digest everything and make a more organized response.

40 posted on 12/08/2012 11:22:44 AM PST by x
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