Y'All Were Joking About Oppenheimer, Right?
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Anna Marie Tendler Announces Her New Memoir
Photographer and multidisciplinary artist Anna Marie Tendler surprised fans this week with the announcement of a new memoir coming this August.
Fans immediately began to speculate as to whether Men Have Called Her Crazy (are we sold on this cover and font, friends?) would divulge any details about Tendler’s marriage to comedian John Mulaney. And while I hope Tendler continues to coast off that speculation to her secure pre-order bag, “sources” have already confirmed to TMZ that her memoir makes no mention of Mulaney or his new partner Olivia Munn. I said as much on TikTok three days ago when I predicted that Tendler’s memoir would follow in the path of Emma Forrest’s Your Voice In My Head and Julia Fox’s Down the Drain by not naming Mulaney at all. In a way, I argued, it would be the ultimate form of revenge.
As writers and artists, Forrest and Fox both share in Tendler’s experience of being overshadowed in the public eye by the spectre of their exes (Colin Farrell and Kanye West, respectively), yet neither of them actually name the men in their memoirs. Forrest refers to Farrell with only a nickname, and Fox relegates West to the last chapter of her book as if we needed any reminder that he is but a blip in her epic life story.
There’s been some predictable backlash to Tendler’s announcement so far, with some asking whether it would be appropriate for Tendler to write about Mulaney’s problems with drugs and alcohol, even in the context of the dissolution of their marriage. Others have suggested that Tendler is a woman scorned in search of a cash grab (even though Mulaney has been touring his side of their divorce story in the standup special Baby J, which made it all the way to Netflix last year).
By not mentioning Mulaney at all, Tendler would be regaining her own autonomy after a few years of pretty intense projection around her choice (or lack thereof) in to live childfree during her marriage to Mulaney. As we all know, Mulaney went on to have a child with Munn pretty soon after his split from Tendler was announced. In my video I called the projection around her perceived victimhood “the Jon Hamm/Jennifer Westfeldt effect.” As LaineyGossip wrote last year, the common response around Jon Hamm’s recent marriage to actress Anna Osceola is eye-rolls (she is 35; he is 52; they married at the location where they met on Mad Men…). And because Hamm’s ex-partner of 18 years, Jennifer Westfeldt, is much less famous (despite being an accomplished writer), detractors often paint a picture of him as the philandering ex who traded in the older model for a younger version. But as LaineyGossip points out, the presumption that Hamm led Westfeldt astray without giving her a ring or kids for eighteen years only to marry someone else hasn’t been substantiated by Westfeldt at all. In fact, it could have been the exact opposite: that Westfeldt was steadfast in not wanting children or kids and the relationship ended as a result.
All that to say, I relish the chance for a woman in the public eye to reclaim a bit of agency over her own story, in any shape and form. Besides, Tendler is a longtime artist and photographer and I hope this book re-establishes her as such.
Oscar Predictions 2024
The Oscars are this Sunday, which means that soon enough we can all stop pretending that Oppenheimer was a good movie. Sorry, but please say sike.
For those of you participating in a betting pool, I’d say there are at least a few nominees you can consider a sure lock to win:
Best Actor & Best Supporting Actor: Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr, respectively (yawns). If any Oscar voters are in still in line to nominate Zac Efron for The Iron Claw or Charles Melton for May December, stay in line, there’s still time to make it right.
Best Actress & Best Supporting Actress: Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon has a slight edge over Emma Stone in Poor Things, so I’d say it’s Gladstone’s to lose. Still, I would have loved to see Greta Lee preserve some of her early momentum for Past Lives. Conversely, Da’vine Joy Randolph has been the sure Best Supporting Actress winner all along for her gutting performance in the otherwise just-fine The Holdovers, so it will be lovely to watch her take her well-earned victory lap.
Best Picture & Best Director: Oppenheimer’s to lose, innit? Listen, I hope I’m wrong. I wish we could have seen Past Lives’ Celine Song nominated for Best Director, and Anatomy of a Fall would be almost too-good for a Best Picture pick. So it seems it’ll be Oppenheimer’s night, while we wait for Song’s next throuple project.
Writing (Adapted Screenplay): Not to say that I hope Barbie wins, even though it’s in the wrong category, but I do think Gerwig & Baumbach deserve something for their efforts (apart from the billion dollars). I have yet to see American Fiction or Zone of Interest (blame the movie theatres here thx!) but I hear American Fiction could be a lock for this one over Oppenheimer. And sorry to keep shitting on Oppenheimer but this is also exactly what I sound like when I’m a real human physicist building a machine to accelerate electrons:
Writing (Original Screenplay): I truly can’t decide with this one. Between Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Maestro, May December, and Past Lives, my instinct is to say Anatomy will win, so we’ll see whether that holds up after the Sunday broadcast.
Who are you favourites to win this weekend?
The Celebrity Book Club Complex
SEO-heavy hitter Emily Gould returns to The Cut this week, this time asking: “Does every famous woman have a book club now?” Emily, baby, you must not know about this little place called BookTok.
She’s not wrong—I’ve written before about how the influencer/intellectual divide has become increasingly blurred, but celebs have known for a minute the value of a book stylist to help them appear well-read. The celeb book club isn’t new either (See Oprah, Reese, etc.) but the new crop of younger actresses who are funnelling their book clubs into production companies is indicative of a rising trend. Last year, there were plenty of headlines about how Margot Robbie, Emma Stone, Kristen Stewart, and Sydney Sweeney were branching out as producers of their own films; since then, each has commented on how freeing the dual role of producer/actor was for them (not to mention the financial benefits of having options outside of acting). And while Robbie, Stone, Stewart, and Sweeney don’t have book clubs (yet), Gould does mention that Dakota Johnson’s newest foray into the book club space is likely a move towards producing the books as well. It’s a smart move, considering Johnson has that inherent coolness needed to market a product based entirely on her own aesthetic capital. I’m curious, do you follow any celebrity book clubs, and do you see there being a saturation point when it gets a bit old, or are we already there?
Justice for Messi the Dog!
Despite rumours that star canine actor Messi would appear at the Oscars on behalf of Anatomy of a Fall, fans (me) were dismayed to learn that Messi’s invite got lost in the mail. Apparently, a recent nominee luncheon was the last straw for the haters, who got him banned from the show for being too good of a boy:
“After all, being a dog, he was not technically a nominee. Multiple companies with nominated films complained to the Academy that allowing him to attend the event gave Anatomy of a Fall an advantage during the voting window, according to a source with knowledge of the complaints.”
Rumors are already swirling as to who could be the Tonya Harding to Messi’s Nancy Kerrigan. Let Messi speak!
Monica Lewinsky Says “Vote!”
Last week, Tracy Clark-Flory went deep on the recent Monica Lewinsky x Reformation campaign and the milquetoast feminism behind these ambiguous marketing ploys tied loosely to an aesthetics of ‘empowerment’ through voting and consumerism. “This campaign isn’t meaningfully selling women on voting so much as it is selling them the feeling of voting,” Clark-Flory writes. Given the allegations that exist surrounding Joe Biden, it’s interesting to see that the person being used to launder the his image is Monica Lewinsky. Oh, the magic of capitalism in washing away the sins of the world.
In Other Celebrity News
If your partner is making a movie about your marriage and ScarJo shows up to play a character, run!
Natalie Portman divorces her husband and everyone starts paging Jonathan Safran Foer.
Anne Hathaway is starring in the Olivia Wilde Story and Hunter Harris has the breakdown (it really is 2 crazy bitches telling each other exactlyyyy)
America Ferrera is apparently set to play Cuban artist Ana Mendieta in a new series… Hmm!
Lastly, The New Yorker is reporting that UMG and other music studios are undergoing some pretty high-stakes experiments with AI. Real bold move for Sofia Richie’s father-in-law (and CEO of UMG) Lucian Grainge, who has a habit of showing up at the scene of every crime…
Happy Dune 2 Weekend 2 All Those Who Celebrate
AKA me because I’m going to see it tonight… 🪱
On My Reading List This Weekend
Amanda Montei and Leslie Jamison in conversation on motherhood and memoirs (Electric Lit)
Magdalene Taylor on why it’s all obviously the phones (Many Such Cases)
We’ve forgotten what real skin looks like (The New Statesman)
Daisy Alioto on cicadas and Flaco (Dirt)
Why I hope my parents won’t read my novel (The Guardian)
Uncovering the higher truth of Jay Shetty (The Guardian)
Rachel Cusk and Merve Emre in conversation on the end of character (The Yale Review)
What a major solar storm could do to our planet (The New Yorker), from Kathryn Schulz, author of “The Really Big One,” who was just born to terrorize, I guess.
Kate Zambreno says literature shouldn’t be about empowerment (Dirt)
A miracle drug for cystic fibrosis and what happens when a death sentence is unexpectedly lifted (The Atlantic): “To plan for such a miracle would have been foolish, but to live in its unexpected aftermath can still be painful.”
"Emily, baby, you must not know about this little place called BookTok." LOL