The Bangs in The Gilded Age Will Not Be Silenced
Also: Timothée on SNL, "Sexiest Man Alive" laughs, and my Old Money Weekend
Ben and I went to San Diego last week and treated ourselves to a stay at The Lodge at Torrey Pines, which I can only describe as “The American Version of a British Lord’s Vacation Estate.” My kind of living!
Say what you want about old money, but those patriarchy dudes knew how to make themselves comfortable! Everything was lush, hewn from natural substances, and somehow smelled like academia and Christmas. [Fresh fir and sandalwood with a hint of smoke?] The part of me that is an elder British man chose Oxford for my study abroad was in heaven.
Anyhoo, our main subject this week is the very-bad-but-fun-to-watch HBO show The Gilded Age, which is about the battle between Old and New Money in 1880s New York City!
Thus, I’m returning to one of my favorite questions for you, Dear Reader: What are some of YOUR current — or all-time — “so bad it’s fun” shows to watch? Drop a comment and let us know!
In the News - People’s Sexiest Man Alive Finalists
Patrick Dempsey is People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” this year, and I have nothing to say about that other than Good for him! He’s really Benjamin Buttoning.
I’m more intrigued by the list of finalists: Pedro Pascal [my pick for SURE], Timothée Chalamet, Usher [it sort of invalidates this whole project that Usher has never won??], Jamie Foxx, Lenny Kravitz, and…
…Jason Kelce (!!)! Très charmant!! The people at People really said, “There are two Kelce brothers: One of them is dating the most famous woman in the world, and the other looks like Hagrid.” “Hagrid for sure!”
Who knew People could be a feast for the soul? People: In her Lumberjack Era, I daresay!
Saturday Night Live Highlights: Timothée Chalamet
In his second SNL hosting gig, Sexiest Man Alive Finalist and this blog’s firstborn son, Timothée Hal Chalamet, made a triumphant return to the sketch comedy stage. The musical guest was the triune sad-girl group Boygenius, who gave gorgeous performances with a lot of hopping in lieu of dancing. [White performers owe so much to Coldplay’s Chris Martin, patron saint of Little Hops.]
I thought it was a stellar episode! My favorite parts were, in no particular order:
Timmy’s Monologue | “Museum of Hip-Hop Panel” (cute, but the original, “Rap Roundtable,” is better) | “The Woman in Me: Auditions” (my favorite) | “Your Co-Worker Who Is Extremely Busy Doing Seemingly Nothing” (a return!) | “Little Orphan Cassidy” (consider me a fan of new cast member Chloe Troast after this one!)
Watching - The Gilded Age Season 2
Last week, Bustle published “The Definitive Guide to Taylor Swift’s Bangs,” and all I could think was, “They read my iPhone Note about The Gilded Age Season 2!”
I mean, I’m sure the Gilded Age hair and makeup department did their research, but why does it seem like their “research” was just: “Going to The Eras Tour” or “Watching the ‘Cardigan’ music video 500,000 times”??
Created by Julian Fellowes, the writer and producer of Downton Abbey [a show I did not like very much!]—The Gilded Age is a period drama with a laundry list of main characters and intersecting plots. But no character this season has more power, personality, or obstinacy than The Bangs on These Women.
In the modern tradition of women’s hairstyles, bangs are a sign of post-traumatic growth — often following a bad breakup or other major life event. Bangs are usually a mistake, but always an assertion of the self and the self’s acceptance—assertion even!—of change. Thus, perhaps, a mistake worth making!
[I say all this as a person with thin, fine, curly hair who hasn’t had bangs since she was six because I don’t hate myself, and I don’t want to look like Theon Greyjoy.]
So, too, the bangs of The Gilded Age, Season 2. The Bangs on These Women are a Great American Novel unto themselves. They are a Taylor Swift song; an emotional battle etched in fringe. They are curly, straight, and everything in between. They defy gravity. They are, dare I say, gaudy. The voices of these bangs are crying out that every single woman here is absolutely spiraling. These bangs are writing all-lowercase poetry in their Moleskine™️ journals and listening to Boygenius on loop. [Ironically, no one on Boygenius has bangs. But spiritually, they do.]
A woman in 1880s America may not have many freedoms, but her bangs will not be silenced! These bangs tell us that these women are going THROUGH IT — if “IT” is “immense economic change, great conflict between the old ways and brand new systems, and huge fortunes being made and lost.” In short, they’re going through the Gilded Age.
Gilded Age Bangs are the ur-text on women who need a change. She may be spiraling now, but she’s gonna pick up the pieces of her shorn hair and start a new life, honey!
Anyhoo! I continue to be a loyal hate-watcher of The Gilded Age now that it’s in its second season. No show is more unintentionally hilarious or fun to mock your way through with your friends over a glass of champers. One reviewer said, “I’m having fun, but I don’t know why.” Exactly.
When everything in the real world feels [and is] the highest of stakes—why not watch a show set in a different time period, where the plot doesn’t really matter, the story isn’t that great, and the stakes are just that someone might wear the wrong hat???
I mean, on paper, the stakes in The Gilded Age are high: Will this gay man survive in a dangerous world? Will this Black woman overcome racism and the loss of her child? Will unchecked greed destroy a young America? And yet, somehow, it all goes down as ephemerally as a puff of cotton candy. It’s so dumb and gorgeous and fun to make fun of.
Speaking of making fun, I’ll leave you with this piece from McSweeney’s last year:
I LOVE a so bad it's good show. I went through a huge Bachelor/Bachelorette phase that I feel fits into this category - although that might be said of any/all reality TV so if we're focusing on scripted shows I loved Chuck (so cheesy, so sexist) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (an all time fav of mine for no reason??). I am not watching a lot of TV right now but when I am it's going back to old favs like The West Wing and Warehouse 13 (wait! another cheesy show!).
Your bangs review of The Gilded Age is making me wanna watch it tho...