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Mad As A Wet Hen #1: A Roundup of Media Affronts

December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

How about that new Taco Bell ad featuring 11-year-old boys on the beach ogling a shapely lifeguard… Guess what? According to Cosmopolitan you’ll never get a date without duct tape and a “No Trespassing” sign… When Camille Paglia addresses the defunct pedophilic Calvin Klein ads in the October 31 issue of The Advocate, she implies that pedophilia is somehow...

Bitch Suggested Listening #1

December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

Reviewed in this issue: Red Aunts, #1 Chicken (Epitaph); Cub, Betti-Cola (Mint); Cibo Matto, "Birthday Cake" b/w "Black Hole Sun"; Liz Phair, Juvenilia (Matador); Team Dresch, Personal Best (Chainsaw/Candy-Ass)

Magazines We Hate

by Lisa Jervis
December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

Esquire’s annual “Women We Love” feature gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Hidden behind the premise of honoring them, the article puts women firmly in their place by using the traditional patriarchal tool of male approval—rewarding certain traits in the female while disparaging others.

This year’s model is a morass of contradictory feelings about...

Bitch Male Objectification Rave of the Month: John Travolta

by Andi Zeisler
December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

We here at Bitch are in thorough approval of the post-Pulp Fiction Travolta renaissance that has awarded our favorite 1980s cinematic cheese-king some new credibility. Back in our prepubescent days, we wished we could be Olivia Newton-John in Grease, J.T.’s disco-dancing partner in Saturday Night Fever, and Debra Winger in the god-awful Urban Cowboy...

Amazon Women on the Moon: Images of Femininity in the Video Age

by Andi Zeisler
December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

Like some grizzled old-timer sitting on the porch of the homestead talking about the good old days, I think back to the first time I saw MTV and pity the prepubescents of today who didn’t have the luck to see, as I did, the wonder of MTV when it first aired. I was eight years old, alone in my living room, and somehow I knew that I was witnessing a tremendous event: a connection with...

Are You Ready for the Sex, Girls?: The Mixed Messages of Kids

by Lisa Jervis
December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

Kids has been hailed as a film that breaks the teen-movie mold and shows a long-hidden side of young life. But, while it may be more graphic and harsh than other movies, it basically covers the same ground: voracious young male sexuality. The only innovative element of the movie—an honest portrayal of female sexual pleasure—is conflicted at best.

Two opposing dynamics of...

Whee! #1: Some Cockle-Warming Tidbits

December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

We love Claire from 90210. She's so brainy; she's so hot. She never plays dumb for the boys and she gets to fuck them anyway... Yay for the recent changes in Ms. Not that we didn't adore it before, but now we're foaming at the mouth with love... Good for NBC for making visible the covert racism of Friends in a promo for David Schwimmer's SNL appearance... We...

Bait and Switch Sassy

by Lisa Jervis
December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

Back in March a horrible thing happened. After a few months of checking the newsstands for my beloved Sassy, wondering what the hell was up and why I couldn’t find it anywhere, suddenly there it was—mutilated almost beyond recognition. Peterson Publishing (they also own Guns & Ammo) bought Sassy, replaced the entire staff, and gutted the editorial...

"Subversion on a Massive Level”: Gender as Constructed Spectacle

by Lisa Jervis
December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

When I rented Sleep With Me, I was expecting a silly angst-ridden Gen-X romantic comedy. I’d read the back of the box, so I knew that Joe and Sarah were married but that Frank, Joe’s best friend, was in love with her. Instead of an entertaining but benign and forgettable 90 minutes, I got a playful, subversive discourse on gender as a constructed spectacle.

First...

Editors' Letter: Premiere: Introduction

by Lisa Jervis
December 31, 1995 at 9:00pm

This magazine is about speaking up.

I’ve always been a media junkie. Magazines, movies, television—I love them all and tend to consume them voraciously. But indiscriminate media consumption, maybe more than any other binge, can make you sick.

When I was twelve years old I was looking for something to reflect who I thought I was. I wanted to confirm that I was not a freak,...

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