"I have never spoken to [Dylan Mulvaney], nor will I. I try to be, for the LGBT community, the adult in the room. She is not."

"She is bouncing around all over the place. I have nothing in common with her. The fringe is the worst thing that can happen to the trans community and the media only wants to report on that because of the sensationalization of it and honestly that’s got to stop."

Said Caitlyn Jenner, quoted in The NY Post.

Jenner also weighed in on Trump '24: "I think Trump is going to win this thing… He is a great man and he did tremendous things for this country.... We need an adult in the room and that adult right now is Donald Trump and that’s just kind of the way I feel right now."

She likes that word "adult." But that's a high level of generality. If you make looking for the adults your guiding principle, good luck finding your way around America.

I retreat to the OED. Here's the relevant definition, 2b: "Mature in attitude, outlook, behaviour, etc.; emotionally and mentally grown-up." There's a historical example from 1927 that I assure you I read only after writing the previous paragraph:

"It is a widely-held notion in Europe..that the American is not adult, that he remains all his life a child."

"I invented Edna because I hated her.... I poured out my hatred of the standards of the little people of their generation."

Wrote Barry Humphries, quoted in "Barry Humphries (Dame Edna to You, Possums) Is Dead at 89/Bewigged, bejeweled and bejowled, Mr. Humphries’s creation was one of the longest-lived characters ever channeled by a single performer" (NYT).

Dame Edna emerged when the young Mr. Humphries, under the sway of Dadaism, was performing with a repertory company based at the University of Melbourne.... On long bus tours, he entertained his colleagues with the character of Mrs. Norm Everage — born Edna May Beazley in Wagga Wagga, Australia, sometime in the 1930s — an ordinary housewife who had found sudden acclaim after winning a nationwide competition, the Lovely Mother Quest. 

Unthinkable as it seems, Edna was dowdy then, given to mousy brown hair and pillbox hats. But she was already in full command of the arsenal of bourgeois bigotries that would be a hallmark of her later self...

I loved Dame Edna. (Click my "Dame Edna" tag.) But not everyone appreciated this sort of humor: 

Caitlyn Jenner's campaign ad — complete with images of Bruce Jenner winning the Decathlon and the ancient voice-over "He wants the world record."

Here's how I ran into the ad:

Whoever created this stunning breakout campaign commercial just made Caitlyn Jenner a viable candidate for governor of California. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, it’s hard to disagree with a single sentiment in this video: https://t.co/nzYKT5YjE1 via @YouTube

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) May 4, 2021

Here's a screen shot I made:

That's not a fleeting glimpse of the past. There are repeated images from the stellar 1976 Olympic performance and of Caitlyn today looking feelingly at the gold medal. 

We hear Jenner's voice: California needs "new leaders... who are unafraid to challenge"  —  pause — "and to change" — pause — "the status quo." At that first pause, right before "and to change" — we see 2 magazine covers, side by side, one with Bruce Jenner celebrating winning the gold and one showing Caitlyn Jenner. That is, Jenner is "unafraid to challenge and to change the status quo," as demonstrated by breaking the world record in the Decathlon and then — in a second bodily achievement — coming out as transgender. 

I wonder how hard it was to decide whether to elevate or obscure the Jenner of the 1970s.

"Caitlyn Jenner has accepted Joy Behar’s apology for misgendering the California gubernatorial hopeful, telling the daytime host she’s 'not about cancel culture.'"

"'Don’t sweat it, @JoyVBehar,' Jenner, 71, tweeted early Saturday morning. 'I’m not about cancel culture. I know where your heart is. California has bigger issues than pronouns.'... '[Behar] didn’t say it pointedly. She kept making the mistake. She corrected herself, and then accidentally did it again. She was not being malicious by any means,' an insider told Page Six while pointing out that Behar is an 'advocate' who 'has been honored by [LGBTQ+ rights group] GLAAD.'"

Page Six reports.

Good move by Jenner. Someone who wants to win the support of the masses can't lean into self-based fussiness. It's fine to recommend compassion about pronouns for young people who are struggling with their identity, but when you want to present yourself as ready to take on everyone else's problems and govern, you need to make people feel that you are well grounded and fully supported from within. You need to make other people comfortable — not worried that in talking about you they could say something wrong and have their lives ruined. 

It's really a matter of etiquette, and a politician should not make people feel that they have to live up to some new, difficult standard of etiquette. Behar can't even do it when she's on TV and trying to make up for a slip she's already made.

(To comment, email me here.)

"I can’t believe you’re here, wow. You’ve got balls, girl"/"Remember when your picture was on Wheaties boxes back when people could still look at you when they eat?"

"Let’s face it. No one wants to be here. The person who went to the greatest lengths to not show up tonight was Bruce Jenner"/"You goddamn hypocrite. You’re, like, against gay marriage. You voted for Trump. You’re like the Auntie Tom of the trans community."

Things said about Caitlin Jenner at the Alec Baldwin roast, quoted in "Caitlyn Jenner Was Savagely Mocked at the ‘Roast of Alec Baldwin’… And Then Again Afterwards" (Decider).

Here's Jenner's response:

If you’re one of @Caitlyn_Jenner’s haters, this set is going to be tough for you. #BaldwinRoastpic.twitter.com/JUhUWh3AFI

— Comedy Central (@ComedyCentral) September 16, 2019

"If I can find the courage to be who I am, then you can too. If you have a problem with that, then you can suck my dick — if you can find it!!!."

"There’s a reason that after describing gender as fundamentally a performance, [Judith] Butler counsels people to revel in messing with its scripts..."

"... to treat gender as nothing more than an ironic parody. Gender categories need to be taken down a notch, she thinks, but not only because they harm people in all the ways feminism spends so much time criticizing. Butler charges that in their focus on spelling out the harms of gendered socialization, feminists unwittingly entrenched the very things they claimed to be criticizing. By demarcating feminism’s subject matter — by articulating a concrete category of harms that deserved feminist attention — feminists inadvertently defined womanhood in a manner that implies that there are right and wrong ways to be a woman.... The women who are accused of being impostors these days are often trans women.... Feminists who deny 'real woman' status to trans women seem to rely on a false assumption — that all trans women have lived in the world unproblematically as men at some point — and claim the importance of affirming the identity and experiences of those who’ve spent entire lives in women’s shoes.... TERFs [trans-exclusionary radical feminists] also sometimes complain that the performances of femininity enacted by trans women are chiefly retrograde stereotypes, caricatures of a femininity designed primarily for the pleasure of men. When Caitlyn Jenner says that she has always felt like a woman, for example, what she seems to mean by this is that she wants to be an airheaded piece of arm candy all dolled up for delights of the male gaze.... If cis women were honest... we’d admit that if some trans women occasionally camp up their femininity a little more than TERFs might like, they’re not doing anything we’re not just as guilty of. If we don’t like what we see when trans women turn the mirror of femininity toward us, we have only ourselves to blame."

From "Who Counts as a Woman?/The attempt to exclude trans women from the ranks of women reinforces the dangerous idea that there is a right way to be female" by philosophy professor Carol Hay (in the NYT).

ADDED: Despite Hay's stern lecture on the right way to be a feminist, this is the top-rated comment at the NYT:

Every time I read articles on this topic, it makes me feel like I’ve gone through the looking glass. I was born female in a male-dominated world and subject to discrimination, harassment, and the threat of sexual violence just because I was a girl and now a woman. I had no more choice being born female than My partner did being born African-American.

I have fought my whole life to be heard in the workplace and to be seen as more than a pretty face or female body. But now I have to once again sit down and shut up because some men now want to be women and need to explain to me via academic proxy that if I talk about topics such as my female anatomy or menstruation I am being non-inclusive. Sorry, this is nonsense and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

I do not wish transgender people any ill will, live and let live. Just don’t tell me what it is really like to [b]e a woman, ok?

"Clearly, filtering isn’t [Alec] Baldwin’s strong suit... [H]e asked about Caitlyn Jenner—specifically her transition."

"At one point, he went off on a long tangent about how Jenner used to coach his daughter Ireland’s school track team. 'He would shake my hand, and I say this not with any judgment,' Baldwin began, all but promising an ill-advised comment. 'There wasn’t a drop of Caitlyn in him when I knew him.' After doing an impression of Jenner at the time, seemingly playing up his 'masculine' interests and demeanor, he concluded, 'I didn’t see any of that coming.' At Baldwin’s urging, [Kim] Kardashian discussed walking in on Jenner dressed in women’s clothing when she was 25, after which she immediately packed a bag and ran out of the house. Jenner told Kardashian not to tell her mother, saying, 'She’ll kill me.' Without getting into any of the reported drama between Caitlyn and the Kardashians, Kim said that she just wants Jenner to be happy...."

From "The Hell That Was Watching Kim Kardashian and Alec Baldwin Chat for an Hour/The second episode of ‘The Alec Baldwin Show’ featured a grueling sit-down talk between the reality-TV superstar and SNL’s Trump" (The Daily Beast).

As noted in the previous post, Alec Baldwin is in trouble.

Caitlyn Jenner wears a Make-America-Great-Again hat to drive in an Austin-Healy convertible in Malibu and insists she hates Trump.

TMZ delivers the implausible explanation:

Before leaving home she realized she needed a hat ... something better than a golf visor to protect her hair. So she rummaged through the 10 hats in her closet and grabbed one without looking at the stitching.

"Would anyone believe that?" I asked out loud. "Certainly not a woman," Meade answered.

(The story continues: Jenner wears the hat, arrives at her destination, throws the hat on the floor, and, on returning to the car an hour later, picks up  the hat and, only then, notices the "Make America Great Again." She's supposedly horrified — because "What he's doing to our [transgender] community is absolutely f***ing awful" — but put the hat back on for the ride to Starbucks, takes the hat off to go into Starbucks, then puts the hat back on to drive home. She drives all the way home before realizing that she left her purse at Starbucks, drives back, and, in a rush, enters Starbucks with the hat on, and  it's on the drive home that a photographer seems to have taken a picture of her driving and wearing the hat.)

ADDED: Do men — as opposed to women — just slap a hat on their head and not notice the writing?  I ask Meade if he just picks any hat or picks a hat by shape or whether he always notices which affiliation he's selecting. He says he always notices and pushes me to take a picture of his array of hats for the blog. So here goes:

"I gotta find out where I can do a better job. Can I do a better job from the outside, kind of working the perimeter of the political scene, being open to talk to anybody?"

"Or are you better off from the inside, and we are in the process of determining that."

Caitlyn Jenner muses about running for office. The U.S. Senate is the proposed entry point. Why not? When you're a star, they let you go in wherever you want. Look at Kid Rock. Look at Donald Trump.

"It could’ve been handled in the most amazing, loving way. Talk about your journey and keep it to that."

"That I would’ve had great respect for. Don't talk about — in a real negative way — like everything was like I'm such a bad person. There’s lies that are printed in a book that lives there for the end of time, so your children are going to read this book about their grandparents and have a story that’s fabricated, that’s in print, and is a fabrication."

Who knows what's fabricated? I can't keep up.

It's entirely possible that Caitlyn Jenner wrote a book trashing the Kardashians with the collusion, acceptance, and encouragement of the rest of the family in the pursuit of the shared goal of setting up reality-show scenes like the one I'm quoting above.

It does make a pretty great scene:



That's acting to some extent, but who can tell? I have no base line to know what these people would be like in a completely unscripted setting.

Can you imagine having your most gripping emotional moment in lighting that fabulous, with your makeup done that flawlessly?

"A year after Caitlyn Jenner announced her new name and gender, the popularity of the name Caitlyn plummeted more than any other baby name..."

"... according to Social Security's annual list of the most popular baby names."

In fact, the four names that dropped the most were all variations of the same name: Caitlin, Caitlyn, Katelynn and Kaitlynn.

To plummet, a name has to be high in the first place. If you're thinking of asking how Hillary/Hilary is doing, you should realize that name hasn't been high. Hillary dropped out of the top 1,000 after 2008 and hasn't returned. It peaked in 1992 at 132 and plummeted to 566 in 2 years.

By the way, Barack has never been in the top 1,000. And Ann, in the top 100 until 1975, is about to drop out of the top 1,000. How can such an ordinary, obvious name fall into oblivion? Simplicity isn't what it used to be.

"Here’s the deal breaker with the Republican Party. And the deal breaker is, 'You mess with my community... you don’t give us equality and a fair shot, I’m coming after you.'”

Said Caitlyn Jenner.

"I mean, I'm a girl and I like being a girl, but I've just never been into it like they have. I think I get that from my dad."

"I'd say I'm more of a Jenner than a Kardashian... I was a huge tomboy... I had a phase where I wore boys' clothes. I was always hanging out with guys. I've always connected with guys more."

If Pepsi pulled this ad, why can I still see it?

The NYT has an excellent summary of the social media uproar — "Pepsi Pulls Ad Accused of Trivializing Black Lives Matter":

Pepsi has apologized for a controversial advertisement that borrowed imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement, after a day of intense criticism from people who said it trivialized the widespread protests against the killings of black people by the police....

The ad looks very beautiful and expensive, and it seems to be part of a recent trend in ads (for example during the Super Bowl) that associate the product with a deep-but-shallow angsty-but-feel-good political message. And it reminds me of the old I'd-like-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke prettiness:



Coke told us "It's the real thing," so maybe Pepsi's the fake thing, and in that light, I suspect Pepsi made a beautiful and intentionally flawed commercial that would stir up social media and get everyone to watch the commercial and talk about it. Pepsi would apologize, but it wouldn't really be sorry. It made you look.

And I'm saying that because if that wasn't the idea, Pepsi is just so dumb. That commercial took a lot of work and a lot of money to make. So many people were involved. They had to know some segment of social media would trash them for appropriating the seriousness and pain of others. Unless they are flat-out idiots with too much money to throw around, perhaps enough to buy the world a Coke.

But if they were indeed idiots, it gives me hope. Hope that advertisers will henceforth eschew politics in ads for commercial products. Maintain the separation of commerce and politics.

AND: Much of the social-media trashing uses images from recent protests, such as the lovely black woman in a long dress who stood elegantly in front of riot-geared police. They're aghast at the idea that a woman giving a Pepsi to a cop would solve the problems that the protests are about. But maybe the commercial was made by old fools who remember the idea of protesting the Vietnam war by sticking flowers into the barrels of the rifles of guardsmen — as seen in the famous photograph "Flower Power" (by Bernie Boston):



BUT: Only a desire for virality can explain why, when Kendall Jenner rips off her blonde wig (at 1:48), she hands it to a black woman. Here, hold my wig. I gotta protest. I mean, it's one thing to say stop being blonde if you're going to join a protest, but it's aggravating to fling that thing at the nearest black woman.

But let's talk about the gender question — why does Jenner take off her wig and, also, wipe off her lipstick? That seems to say women who fix up their hair and put on makeup are somehow unfit for the political uprising — even an uprising consisting of not much more than a search for love and a display of graceful loveliness. That rejects a lot of women.

And what about the association with that other Jenner, Caitlyn? There's quite a bit of wiggage and makeup on that one.

ADDED: Now, I'm getting interested in the question of how much makeup to wear to a protest. I found this at reddit:

I'm going to DC for the Women's March on Washington on January 21 (the day after the inauguration) and I'm thinking about how I want to do my makeup for the day. Factors I'm considering:

• for everyday makeup I just do my brows, cream blush, and whatever lipstick I'm in the mood for at the moment
• it's gonna be cold and I'll be sleep deprived and tired from travel, so I want to go with something that won't require touch-up
• do I want to go for something sharp/severe and angry, or go for something overtly feminine [i have a thing about how society praises women when we act more masculine/ aggressive, and that femininity and softness are seen as signals of weakness rather than a certain kind of strength)

ALSO: Meade sends me this video...



... and I'm all: "Is that the music? I was trying to figure out who it was. I thought it might be Sting." I see it's Skip Marley — Bob Marley's grandson — and I feel sorry for him. Such a nice song and now it's getting dragged down by this controversy. Or is it getting a boost through this virality? We're all listening to it, noticing him.

In the comments, Meade, signing on to the virality theory, writes:

The entire thing is very Trump-y. Skip Marley, Jenner, Pepsi... even Trump will win from this.

AND: Rewatching the commercial, I'm struck by the complete lack of any racial message in the protest. The signs say "Join the conversation" or "Love" or show peace signs. Why are people saying Pepsi is using Black Lives Matter rather than a completely nonspecific anodyne generic protest? Is it just that there are many black people (along with a lot of other people) in the commercial?! Isn't it racist to look at black individuals and understand them as an embodiment of their race.

I didn't fix on the lyrics to the song, other than to notice the word "generation," long associated with Pepsi. You can read the lyrics here, along this response from Skip Marley to the question whether it's about the Trump election:

It didn’t stem from [the election], but it just happened to fall around that time. The song can be used in that way. It can [be used like that] because it’s up to people and their interpretation of a song. You can say it, but it’s not really a political song. I don’t want it to be viewed as a political song because it’s not really that kind of song. But I’m happy that people take it as strength in these times. It’s for the people in the United States to reassure that there’s a feeling inside that we're lions.

PLUS: I don't know if Skip Marley is, like his grandfather, a Rastafarian, but the lion is an important symbol in that religion. And the song does warn about losing religious freedom ("Yeah, if ya took all my rights away/Yeah, if ya tellin' me how to pray/Yeah, if ya won't let us demonstrate/Yeah, you're wrong...").

IN THE COMMENTS: Sean Gleeson said...

I didn't see a protest in the ad. More of a parade. The signs were wordless peace, love, and smiley face symbols. Everyone is smiling ear to ear. Even the police, who are not bothering anyone or barking orders, just standing by, like they are on a parade route. It's got kind of a flash-mob street party vibe.

Thanks for making me see the lineage back to "I'm a Pepper"!

The renaissance of manufacturing in America.

Gummy bears!

"Most of all they just like the business environment," [Scott] Walker said.

Great. Now, legalize marijuana and we've got something.

"Well @realDonaldTrump, from one Republican to another, this is a disaster. You made a promise to protect the LGBTQ community. Call me."

Well @realDonaldTrump, from one Republican to another, this is a disaster. You made a promise to protect the LGBTQ community. Call me. pic.twitter.com/XwYe0LNUOq

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) February 24, 2017

"It may rain, it may not rain. I don't care, it doesn't matter. If it really pours that's OK because people will realize it's my real hair and that's OK."

Said Donald Trump, at last night's pre-inaugural dinner. Lots of pictures at the link (to The Daily Mail). Unlike the previous night's dinner, this one had not just Kellyanne Conway but the full triumvirate of Trump women. Melania was sheathed from neck to wrists to floor in skin-tight, nude-tone sparkle. Ivanka was a tower of white with a black void midsection.

Rounding out the female entourage — in addition to Tiffany — was Caitlyn Jenner, dripping fringe and displaying side-boob.

But I want to concentrate on the little speech Trump gave, his last pre-President speech. I was a bit critical of the remarks he made, earlier in the evening, at the feet of the statue of Abraham Lincoln. I said it was too partisan, with the bragging about the campaign and the polls. Some of it was fine, and I'm looking forward to hearing the Inaugural Address, which I hope turns out to be if not appropriate in the standard way at least some new kind of Trump appropriate — Trumpropriate.

The post title is from the text of last night's dinner speech, and now I'm reading the whole thing, live-blogging my reading. Go to the first link to find the full text. I'm just picking out things I want to talk about:

That was some big victory, some victory. And records were set that haven't been beaten since Ronald Reagan from the Republican side. 

That's how he begins, partisan and bragging about winning. And a bit incoherent. If you haven't beaten Reagan, you haven't set a record.

Caitlyn Jenner endorses Ted Cruz and wants to serve as an adviser to Ted on trans issues.

“Wouldn’t it be great? Let’s say he goes on to be president. And I have all my girls on a trans issues board to advise him on making decisions when it comes to trans issues. Isn’t that a good idea? Trans ambassador to the president of the United States, so we can say, ‘Ted, love what you’re doing but here’s what’s going on.'"

"There is not a thing wrong with wanting comfortable, low drama clothes that provide coverage."

"But when a wealthy reality TV star is on the public appearance trail wearing ill-fitting, unflattering cheap catalogue clothes with crappy wigs, an intervention is called for. No one’s expecting her to sport the high-drag of her daughters and step-daughters, but some polish and elegance isn’t an unreasonable expectation."

Tom & Lorenzo get severe with Caitlyn Jenner.

Caitlyn Jenner mocked in Philadelphia's Mummers Parade... replete with "Dude Looks Like a Lady."

"The Mummers Parade, held each New Year's Day and said to be the oldest folk festival in the country, has tried in recent years to be more diverse, but a musical 'act' put on by a group called Finnegan New Year's Brigade Comic Club was criticized as hurtful and bigoted," says The Daily Mail (with lots of photos). Here's video:



The group's response, via Twitter, was: "OMG STOP EVERYONE! Happy New Year 2016!! #Sensitive." And, an hour later: "Finnegans is seriously done with this bs tweeting back and forth and assumptions. Be a man literally and contact our email." And also:



I can't be a man literally, and I'm not one to email people in the news to try to get more info, but I'm interested in the context of the Mummers Parade. I haven't watched it in decades, but I remember the Mummers Parade of a half century ago, when I got my TV from local Philadelphia channels. It was always a bit of a mystery who these men are and why they were dressing up so fancy.  So I found an old news article about Finnegan New Year Brigade. Here. This is from 1997:

Finnegan New Year Brigade is determined to challenge for the Mummers comic brigade top prize. So for 1998, it has turned itself into a wench club. The guys in Riverfront NYB, who have paraded in wench dresses almost forever and won the big one in '95, are hard at work in their Two Street lair on elaborate props and gold lame turbans. It's the first time they'll strut without the traditional long-braided wigs. Last year, Bryson NYB, a 175-member family wench brigade, copped first prize with silver tinsel wigs and space age gimmickry that included actual females in dresses.

... As the rest of the parade shrinks, the freshest, fastest-growing part of modern mummery is the oldest - wenches. In Thursday's Mummers Parade, up to one quarter of all the estimated 8,000 costumed marchers will be (mostly) guys in wench dresses....

A decade or so ago, the city and some Comic Division directors were trying to exterminate the wench as everything wrong with mummery - drunk, unprepared, unaffiliated, boring, or (before the 1964 blackface ban) insultingly crude.

So cross-dressing is a big deal, and it's something the authorities have been embarrassed about for a long time. It's the low-class end of the traditional parade.

Finnegan NYB, named for a playground in Southwest Philadelphia where members met playing ball, is actually practicing tomorrow for their "Wenches of Oz.'' These are motivated guys, 120 strong, plus 17 sons and three young daughters, out to improve last year's ninth prize.

"It seems like all the time the wenches are winning it,'' said Captain Mike Inemer of Turnersville, N.J. "So we're going to give it a try.''....

ADDED: Wikipedia sums up the history of the Mummers Parade, which "traces back to mid-17th-century roots, blending elements from Swedish, Finnish, Irish, English, German, and other European heritages, as well as African heritage":