"Something was on the front of her head—either glasses or a nose."
July 13, 2016 9:53 AM   Subscribe

Behold Your Newest Silver-Screen Sex Goddess, Jane Neighbor
Neighbor is twenty-eight and twenty-two, at once. She is a kind of gorgeous that can only be found in or very near rivers. She is blonde but also blond, depending on the spelling. She is tall when she is on a ladder, and medium-tall when she is halfway up the ladder. Her eyelashes spell “glory.” Her naked hands can open wet jars, with just the strength of her slender fingers. She can be sexy and pointy and things that aren’t even adjectives, like glossary, or aren’t even words, like hilabrion. Her voice sounds like a truck full of rain. — Rachel Axler, The New Yorker
posted by Atom Eyes (71 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't quite get this, interested in anyone's take on it.
posted by agregoli at 9:57 AM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


wat
posted by GuyZero at 9:59 AM on July 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Hail Jane Neighbor, first among the Nacirema.
posted by Mayor West at 9:59 AM on July 13, 2016 [8 favorites]


See also Stop Jizzing All Over Journalism on the AV Club.
posted by Etrigan at 10:01 AM on July 13, 2016 [19 favorites]


Yes, she is the fair, empty slate for fantasy, unblemished by troublesome words, engendered by thought. She is a higher priced lubricant. She just made your golden cream corn surprise. She is a figment newton.
posted by Oyéah at 10:02 AM on July 13, 2016 [45 favorites]


See also About Face: On Beauty, Characters And Threading The Needle by Mefi's own Linda Holmes on NPR.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:03 AM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


(Not so) distantly related to Hatsune Miku?
posted by sammyo at 10:06 AM on July 13, 2016


See also Stop Jizzing All Over Journalism on the AV Club.

The comments, jesus.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:08 AM on July 13, 2016


I thought this was very funny indeed. Barthelme-y, in a lighter way.

Also, "then she responded, but I wasn't listening" is just right.
posted by Frowner at 10:08 AM on July 13, 2016 [14 favorites]


Lainey Gossip on the Margot Robbie profile.

Lainey Gossip on the Renee Zellweger piece.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:08 AM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


She is a figment newton.

She is a fig newton. She is a newt figment. She is a few nigments.
posted by maryr at 10:15 AM on July 13, 2016 [8 favorites]


Wow, um. Yah, don't understand any of this, nevermind!
posted by agregoli at 10:16 AM on July 13, 2016


I read some parts of that Robbie profile and I thought it was satire!

It's not satire?
posted by amanda at 10:19 AM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]



The original Vanity Fair piece, because July 4th is past and you won't get to see your creepy uncle again until Thanksgiving.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:19 AM on July 13, 2016 [7 favorites]


It's a tone poem. It just happens to have a celebrity interview as its central motif.
posted by bonehead at 10:21 AM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


"By now you know all about Neighbor’s successes: summer blockbusters, winter barnbusters, suppertime bustblockers, even movies. I asked her what it was like to be the new face of Sheila, in the remake of the megahit “Sheila the Exorbitant,” and she shrugged her delicate bones into a croissant­-like shape and laughed a tinkling laugh. Then she responded, but I wasn’t listening."

I laughed hard enough that I snorted and the cat looked at me.
posted by mai at 10:25 AM on July 13, 2016 [24 favorites]


Also: "Recently, I met Jane under a bridge next to a defunct dentist’s office, on the Lower North Side of somewhere in Queens. (It’s a celebrity haunt, in that I think some famous people were maybe killed there.)"

Every celebrity puff-profile taken to its absurdist logical extreme.
posted by mai at 10:27 AM on July 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


The VF piece:
Australia is America 50 years ago, sunny and slow, a throwback, which is why you go there for throwback people. They still live and die with the plot turns of soap operas in Melbourne and Perth, still dwell in a single mass market in Adelaide and Sydney. In the morning, they watch Australia’s Today show. In other words, it’s just like America, only different.
This link:
Portugaria is America a few hours ago, because of the time difference. Its people are a simple people, a throwback people, like Americans but a few hours ago. In Portugaria, they watch 
Portugarian “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which is the exact same show as America’s “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” In Portugaria, every young, ambitious actress dreams of Hollywood and its mythic, far­away opportunities for stardom, and every other person just has that dream where all of his teeth fall out.
So, yeah, straight up parody of VF. As if it wasn't a parody of itself in the first place.
posted by briank at 10:29 AM on July 13, 2016 [19 favorites]


I really miss The Toast.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:31 AM on July 13, 2016 [26 favorites]


Also here is VF:
I met Margot in the restaurant in the Mark hotel, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It’s a celebrity haunt. You sense them in the shadows, in their booths, tracking you with suspicious eyes. She wandered through the room like a second-semester freshman, finally at ease with the system. She stopped at tables along the way to talk to friends. I don’t remember what she was wearing, but it was simple, her hair combed around those painfully blue eyes. We sat in the corner. She looked at me and smiled.
And here is Axler's pitch perfect parody:
Recently, I met Jane under a bridge next to a defunct dentist’s office, on the Lower North Side of somewhere in Queens. (It’s a celebrity haunt, in that I think some famous people were maybe killed there.) I don’t remember what she was wearing, but I think it was hair? Something was on the front of her head—either glasses or a nose. I probably should have taken notes. She made noises with the lower part of her face, and I was mesmerized.
Frankly, I think the New Yorker piece is hilarious even without knowing what it's specifically parodying; but once you see that horrifying, creepy VF mess, it's even better.
posted by The Bellman at 10:36 AM on July 13, 2016 [45 favorites]


"She is a fig newton. She is a newt figment. She is a few nigments."

FRUIT AND CAKE
posted by klangklangston at 10:36 AM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


I guess when we post humor pieces we should automatically add [Note: This is a humor piece. Please do not take seriously or nitpick details.]
posted by languagehat at 10:38 AM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


Or just add SLTheNewYorker.
posted by Huck500 at 10:40 AM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


From that AV club piece, the perfect tweet: "None of y'all get to make fun of 12yo girls writing horny fanfic while you're writing ledes like this".
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:42 AM on July 13, 2016 [19 favorites]


Please do not take seriously or nitpick details.

That's how I approach all FPP's.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:43 AM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


Does "silver screen" even make sense anymore for anything?
posted by chavenet at 10:43 AM on July 13, 2016


I was also a fan of the Roxane Gay tweet (which led to me missing the Toast even more): "Every issue of Vanity Fair this month comes with a thin sheen of Rich Cohen's semen holding the pages of Margot Robbie's profile together."
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:44 AM on July 13, 2016 [13 favorites]


Here's my read – Rich Cohen does super important man stuff like talk about the Rolling Stones and write about other super cool and real rock and roll stars. Not puff pieces on tits in movies.
Robbie grew up in Gold Coast, a city on Australia’s Pacific shore, 500 miles north of Sydney. In an old movie, you might have seen a crossroad sign demonstrating just how isolated it was, just how far from the known capitals. Four thousand miles to Tokyo. Ten thousand miles to London. Seven thousand miles to Los Angeles. Margot lived with her mother and three siblings—her parents divorced when she was a kid—in a house in the hills, the sleepiest part of a sleepy city at the bottom of the world. Her mother is a physiotherapist. Her father does some farming and some other stuff. Now and then, she stayed with cousins who lived in the hinterland of the hinterland, where there really were kangaroos and a dingo really will eat your baby. When she talks about it, you see the arid country, the horizon on every side, blue sky, yellow fields. “But I don’t like to talk about it,” she says, because it only “encourages stereotypes. People always want to know, ‘Did you have kangaroos outside your bedroom window?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, but none of my other friends did.’ Or ‘Did you have snakes running around?’ And again, ‘Yes, in our house, but this isn’t an Australian thing.’ ”
Christ, what an asshole he is.
posted by amanda at 10:52 AM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


It's Poe's Law for sexism. Any satire of sexism will be indistinguishable from actual sexism.
posted by maxsparber at 10:57 AM on July 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


I posted this FPP about a parody of a male actor being written about the same way female actors are on the Blue a while back. If Cohen is keen to write about actors, then I expect the same breathless creepiness on an Esquire article about Chris Hemsworth with his byline stat.
posted by Kitteh at 11:12 AM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


i am howling at this! it is so perfect.

also : A history of male journalists fetishizing their famous female subjects, in 8 profiles
posted by nadawi at 11:12 AM on July 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


Such a good article, but I was drawn to the subscription ad at the bottom of the article:

READ SOMETHING THAT MEANS SOMETHING

And the cognitive dissonance triggered my Hollywood sexist lust mechanism.
posted by carsonb at 11:14 AM on July 13, 2016


For the record, I didn't even know about the Vanity Fair piece when I posted this. Just thought it was a damn funny bit of writing. Now I like it even more.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:26 AM on July 13, 2016 [10 favorites]


That was... hilabrion.

At the very least.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:27 AM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


Holy sham-on. The Robbie piece, I mean.

I had seen mentions pop up in Twitter but hadn't pursued them, I had no idea who she was and wasn't interested. Now I feel like I learned all I need to know about it. Thanks Metafilter!
posted by emjaybee at 11:31 AM on July 13, 2016


[Note: This is a humor piece. Please do not take seriously or nitpick details.]

Booooooooooring.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:35 AM on July 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


I read some parts of that Robbie profile and I thought it was satire!
It's not satire?


I’ve come to the conclusion that everything is satire. Certainly my job. Everything in entertainment and politics. Everything. (This epiphany came to me while reading #GOPPlatform on twitter and realizing that IT was not all satire, but actual voted-on stuff.)

In a word, French horn.
posted by NorthernLite at 11:35 AM on July 13, 2016 [10 favorites]


From the AV Club article linked above, I really like these words from writer Caroline Siede:

That brings me to another idea I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: It’s really easy to intellectualize something when you don’t have a foot in the race. We all do it. For instance, I don’t personally know anyone in the military so it’s easy for me to discuss American military intervention in abstract concepts related to justice, freedom, and global politics. For those with a family member in the armed forces, however, I bet those conversations are a lot less abstract.

And that same idea applies to sexism too. Since men don’t experience sexism firsthand (and by sexism I mean systemic bias based on gender), it’s easier for them to intellectualize it. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve discussed sexism with men who insist on playing devil’s advocate, steering the conversation toward bizarre extenuating circumstances, or nit-picking tiny details that are irrelevant to my larger point. That immediately derails the conversation in ways they find intellectually stimulating and I find completely emotionally draining.

Now, believe me, I love insane intellectual debates as much as the next person (hell, I’m the person who tried to argue The Walking Dead is more optimistic than Game Of Thrones), but not when the debate becomes a roadblock to social progress. So here’s a piece of advice for those who find themselves in a conversation with someone who has more lived experience on the topic: Shut up and listen. And if a bunch of women tell you that a celebrity profile is skeevy and sexist, recognize that the world might not need you to defend it on intellectual grounds.

This. So much. Applies to so many things right now.
posted by amanda at 11:38 AM on July 13, 2016 [43 favorites]


On the music journalism front, this piece on Sky Ferreira (nsfw) is gross as fuck. The Stranger did a pitch-perfect satirical apology complete with male "rebel rock critic" faux-intellectualizing.
posted by naju at 12:06 PM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Oh, Rich Cohen wrote that Robbie piece? I just read his new Rolling Stones book, and it was a fluff-job/love letter with an even thicker-than-usual layer of THEY'RE THE LAST RAWK STARS, MAANNNN mythologizing slathered on top of stories you've read a million times already.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:11 PM on July 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Having your hair combed around your eyes does sound really painful.
posted by sarcasticah at 12:18 PM on July 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Just a small suggestion when posting articles like this, which only make sense when understood as responses to other articles:

Include the link to the original article? And maybe some supporting text (or other links) explaining the controversy? Otherwise I have no idea what I'm reading. I barely have any idea who Margot Robbie is in the first place.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:22 PM on July 13, 2016


I can't take Vanity Fair any more, I can't deal with it. I've had a subscription for, mmm, 20 years or so, an annual Christmas present from my mom, and it used to be good -- but pffft. Any suggestions for a replacement magazine? Something with a good mix of celebrity photos and William Langewiesche?
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:27 PM on July 13, 2016


This is like a bunch of MeFi usernames. I'm just not sure how many.

Challenge: Construct a short story entirely out of usernames (ok, and conjunctions).
posted by Leon at 12:30 PM on July 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


I also had no idea about the VF article, and also do not know who Margot Robie is. And yet somehow I was able to figure out that a story containing the sentence "This Sharktaugust, there is only one such radiant sex-fairy star to watch" was a humor piece and enjoy it as such.
posted by neroli at 12:33 PM on July 13, 2016 [25 favorites]


I assumed it was a reference to this?

Female Script Intros

But I guess the consensus is otherwise...
posted by Cozybee at 12:36 PM on July 13, 2016


escape from the potato planet - the poster didn't know it was a response and took it just as a humor piece (which it stands as pretty well, i think). the context was provided pretty quickly in comments. it seems well explained by now in any case.
posted by nadawi at 12:42 PM on July 13, 2016 [10 favorites]


Include the link to the original article?

Counterpoint: maybe we shouldn't be giving more eyeballs and hate-clicks to tedious, sexist trash.

(I reread that Sky Ferreira piece after I linked it, and thought, oh god, why would I subject anyone to this)
posted by naju at 12:42 PM on July 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is like a bunch of MeFi usernames. I'm just not sure how many.

I really really want to change my username to "figment newton" now...
posted by alleycat01 at 12:45 PM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


The comments here cleared up the context for me, but even without the context it's pretty a pretty clear sendup of a self-absorbed, sexist interviewer.

That it's very nearly a line by line sendup is pretty hysterical.
posted by Mooski at 12:47 PM on July 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


And sad.

[damn right I don't edit for content]
posted by Mooski at 12:48 PM on July 13, 2016 [8 favorites]


When the impossible-to-overrate comedy Clueless made Silverstone a star, the rush to commodify her was swift and fiercely stupid. In Rolling Stone, Rich Cohen — yes, the same Rich Cohen cited above — opened a profile of Silverstone like so:

"Alicia Silverstone is a kittenish 18-year-old movie star whom lots of men want to sleep with."


Oh god, it was this same guy? The guy who wrote that article where the opening line (as above) make me stuff the issue of Rolling Stone back into the magazine rack in disgust? Figures.
posted by jokeefe at 1:26 PM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


This is like a bunch of MeFi usernames. I'm just not sure how many.

Challenge: Construct a short story entirely out of usernames (ok, and conjunctions).


Ooh, what forum could we do this in?
First draft:

In the northernlite, Detective MCMikeNamara and his partner saulgoodman stared down at the corpse in the library. (AKA Room 641-A. Or was it roomthreeseventeen?) The body was hardly more than a homunculus.

MCMikeNamara was on the phone with his Capt., Renault. “This is the work of the filthy light thief. He suffocated him with a lobstermitten.” “Zarq-alors,” said Renault, who meant Zutalors! Across the room Kitteh, who’d discovered the body, was feeling existential dread and faint of butt. “It’s raining Florence Henderson,” she muttered glumly to no one in particular.
posted by NorthernLite at 1:40 PM on July 13, 2016 [26 favorites]


That was nowhere near as funny as this one.
https://theawl.com/how-to-optimize-your-flesh-prison-995b53bd66b8#.12lyv5i98
posted by varion at 1:45 PM on July 13, 2016


Years and years ago, back when I was still pitching music features on the regular, I read a profile of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I think it was in Spin. The entire first five or so graphs were about how Karen O looked, what the band was wearing, how cool they were to look like that… And the whole time, I was thinking, "Who the fuck cares? Who cares what they look like? Who cares what they're wearing? That doesn't tell me anything about their music."

About that time, I promised myself to never write a profile that tries to draw meaningful characterization out of someone's appearance, and to never get stuck in the "great musician for a woman" trap.

On some level, I can understand the urge to write that kind of leering profile — everyone has crushes, and part of celebrity culture is using sexuality, especially in rock. But I never really care about another dude's boner-dowsing, and I expect a reader to be as bored by mine as they would be if I was writing about some rambling dream I had or some high-school in-joke — with the extra discomfort of it being kind of a gross thing to put on someone uninvited, and women get that shit all the time. If a woman wants to know whether she gives me a boner, I figure she'll ask, and even then it's unlikely a reader will be all that interested.
posted by klangklangston at 1:58 PM on July 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


this recent interview with grimes focuses completely on the music and her as a musician - it's both great to see, and depressing that it's so rare.
posted by nadawi at 2:07 PM on July 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


nadawi, I was tempted to post that interview myself — and it made me want to check out grimes' music, cuz she sounded really really interesting. Isn't that what interviews are supposed to do?

These apes...
posted by tspae at 3:09 PM on July 13, 2016


The Grimes interview is posted on a site selling music software. I like the interview. It's refreshing in a way that it shouldn't be. Vanity Fair's demographics are nearly 4-1 women. Not sure why they feel like women want to read articles written this way. We just don't have very high expectations for male writers, I guess?
posted by amanda at 3:13 PM on July 13, 2016


The last time I read one of these celebrity profile / promo / puff things was about 15 years ago. It was very like this, but not as funny. Even though it's targeted at a specific example, it's a pretty good send-up of the genre as a whole.
posted by Western Infidels at 3:24 PM on July 13, 2016


Amanda and the Western Infidels took the stage. Nadawi was front and center, her camera at the ready to capture the band as they played with the Northern Lights as their backdrop.

The klangklangston of the crowd gave her that feeling, the one that reached inside her ears and gave her neurons a goose. The Mooski, the native people of MooLand were dancing a traditional naju, lanterns aloft in anticipation of the music to come....
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 3:30 PM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


grimes is really interesting. everyone should check her out - both her albums and her videos. great stuff. i also love this kexp performance.
posted by nadawi at 3:46 PM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Damn for some reason when I try to read this, I hear Bob Dylan sing every other sentence in my head... Like back when he was constantly both pissed off and drooling after someone... And I like Dylan, and I like this piece. But too annoying, had to give up.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 4:33 PM on July 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


And your pleasure knows no limits
Your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and zarq.
posted by Oyéah at 5:12 PM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


A similar parody was written by Ben Pobjie for The Shovel here in Australia a week ago.
posted by But tomorrow is another day... at 7:24 PM on July 13, 2016


So, the two things I'm curious about are:

Did she pick the name "Jane Neighbor" based purely on the expression "America is so far gone, we have to go to Australia to find a girl next door", or is it also a callback to the Aussie show Neighbors?

Did she use the expression "megahit 'Sheila the Exorbitant'" knowing that putting "megahit" and "Sheila" right next to each other would make the reader read it as "megashit", or was that coincidental?
posted by Bugbread at 7:51 PM on July 13, 2016


Bugbread: I think it's a play on "the girl next door".
posted by Leon at 1:41 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I like this "take an existing essay and turn it up to eleven, line by line" writing technique. It produces really good phrases ("She is a kind of gorgeous that can only be found in or very near rivers") even if the thing as a whole isn't quite coherent.
posted by Leon at 1:45 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I guess when we post humor pieces

I just can't tell anymore.
posted by malocchio at 6:13 AM on July 14, 2016


Thanks for that, 2016.
posted by maryr at 6:44 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Did she use the expression "megahit 'Sheila the Exorbitant'" knowing that putting "megahit" and "Sheila"

Possibly but I assumed it was a play on how Australians use "Sheila" to refer to a woman.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:08 AM on July 14, 2016


Hi! I'm being very explicit in stating that I am now linking to a humor piece that satirizes how the press typically covers the wardrobes of wives of politicians! Except in this case, the woman is the politician so the article is about her husband's clothes, to humorous effect! What fun!

Theresa May’s husband steals the show in sexy navy suit as he starts new life as First Man
posted by Squeak Attack at 8:22 AM on July 14, 2016 [11 favorites]


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