Thought.is

Yeah, I was surprised, too. The trailer is a mess.

Don’t get me wrong: vocal fry drives me mad. Up-talk makes me crazy.

But when you write about gender, sex, body image, pop culture, and the other things I write about, the sense that you’re unserious is compounded; not only are you a woman, but you write about frivolous feminine topics.

This is an age-old American story, a quintessentially American tension: when progress happens, when rights are granted or upheld, the spoils must be granted to Black men or to white women — but never to both at once. Time and time again, the twisted white supremacy and misogyny embedded deep in the heart of America demands that we choose: Black men or white women?

Among American dancers, this movie is a cult classic. Among Australian dancers — among Australians, generally — it’s just a part of national mythology.

I once told a young man about this rule, and he pointed out that for a lot of Americans, the books they read in high school, an age at which a lot of favorite books are seized upon, are written by men.

My grandmother, who will turn one hundred in a few short weeks, is as sharp as, and at times, sharper than, a tack. Her hearing has been going for years, but that hasn’t prevented her from completing the New York Times crossword almost every day.

I drink it because I like the taste, obviously, though it was an acquired one, like beer and coffee. But I also love the feeling of subverting people’s expectations.

Friends and colleagues, anyone who’s remarked of late that this dissertation seems to be taking rather a long time, please don’t imagine that this has escaped my notice.

In such a world, going without makeup isn’t an act of bravery on par with battling cancer, but it takes guts nonetheless.