Wednesday 12 March 2008

Here is the News!

My Dearest Darlings, in my mission to promote the power and necessity of glamour in your dreary lives I hope to illuminate. I have commented on the merits of those remarkable few who have been inexplicably thrust into the media with the sometimes questionable title of ‘glamorous’ and I have celebrated those that deserve the honor and accolade of truly personifying glamour. My aim is to act as beacon for the countless unfortunate souls who aspire to be more than they are, though are completely impotent in the face of even the simplest of tasks. I will warn you of the hypocrisies that the heteronormative masses attempt to seduce you with. I promise to speak frankly to you with an honesty and morality that you seldom experience. I endeavour to educate you in the differences between visual beguilement for the betterment of humankind and the evil and cynical deception that intends to keep you from the truth.

Below I spoke of Madonna and the sickening games the media play, I detest the way they give with one hand and take away with the other. The patriarchal world’s attitude to femininity is conditional, youthfulness and beauty is celebrated when personified by a submissive girl, though when the same girl blossoms into a splendid self confident woman they are disposed of for a younger model. The same is not true of men, whose evolution and journey to wisdom is celebrated.

One need not go far to see evidence of the disparity between the acceptance of female to male aging. Just turn on any streaming news channel and it’s more than likely there will be a plain greying middle-aged man sat next to a twenty something beauty queen, she will flirt and cajole her co-host by giggling at his continuous inanities. He will sneer and gawp down the blouse of his co-anchor spluttering through his script. As he smugly leers at his colleague he winks and chuckles at the glassy eyed audience, blind witness to the subtle cruelty of the cultural humiliation of what is likely to be a respectable and intelligent journalist forced into subordination by the powers that be.

My poor brain-departed Darlings, do not be tricked by this revolting display of double standards, grumble and support the glorious women who have earned a place on our screens. The list of cantankerous elderly ‘gentlemen’ on our sets is endless, I challenge you to find the same amount of women who gracefully evolve before our eyes. Oprah Winfrey is a wonderful American example of this; she is forthright and outspoken and has done a lot of work that our British equivalents ape. Though where is she on our own screens? Could it be that she is an older strong black woman who does not sit well with the tele-visual landscape of ubiquitous blonde bombshells? Does she stray from the ‘eye candy’ ideal that husbands secretly drool over whilst their unadorned flatulent partners sit unaware? I suggest that the magnificent mature woman is shelved and nubile news reading vixens wheeled out, simply to titillate the portly and the prurient.

Bring back Moira Stewart and re-instate Anna Ford!

Yours with undivided attention the fabulous Ms Coco LaVerne x