Lesbians! Sex on display! Intertextual readings on the encoding of women’s bodies in the age of phallocentrism! When you hire Roseanne as your guest editor – whether you’re The New Yorker, which published its Roseanne-edited Women’s Issue three years ago, or the National Enquirer, which published its own Roseanne issue last week – some things never change …
NATIONAL ENQUIRER THE NEW YORKER I WAS EATEN BY CALISTA FLOCKHART:
TWINKIE’S OWN STORY OF ITS TERRIFYING ORDEAL
– Enquirer headline“The cascade of change in law and society, almost all of it for the better, has not washed away the ambivalence that many women feel about their ‘roles.’ ” – From a “Comment” essay by Dorothy Wickenden “Jewel has the eyes and gaze of a philosopher.
People just can’t help but gravitate toward her.”
– From a special section on “The World’s Most Beautiful Women”“Hillary Clinton explains that she’s been trying to practice something called ‘the discipline of gratitude’ and refers me to a book by a Jesuit priest, Henri Nouwen.” – From “Hating Hillary,” by Henry Louis Gates Jr.DIFF’RENT STROKES CUTIE MISSING AFTER DEADLY COCAINE BINGE
Says lesbian lover Jennifer Wejbe: “I was bringing home the bacon… Dana was freebasing … and drinking like a fish – she even had a delivery service bring cases of Bud Ice right to our house.”“If the Muse is that dream of Eros which inspires art, and if the woman artist is as possessed by worldly ambition as she is by the dream, then there is probably no alternative to bisexuality.”
– From “Is the Muse Dead?,” by Arlene CroceTOWN GIVES TWO THUMBS UP TO GAL WHO MOWS TOPLESS
Says Desiree Davis: “I go topless when I mow so I won’t get tan lines. It takes two hours, so I get a good deep tan that lasts all year long.”“I met a woman who hung out with an S&M club downtown called the Eulenspiegel Society; when she ended up being beaten black and blue (even on the face), I realized she and I were talking a different language of aberrant desire.” – From “Unlikely Obsession,” by Daphne Merkin