My Take on Pop Culture Events of the Summer

I was in the US for three months and needed to soak up enough TV to last through another year in France. Where to start? Star Jones, Katie Couric, Rosie O’Donnell. Mark Foley, Jim McGreevey, Project Runway, Pluto — so much of over blown non-importance happened.

Daytime television turned into a merry-go-round of perky women. Katie Couric jumped to the evening news and her presentation of world events was critiqued less than her wardrobe. News anchor as fashion plate, she sported a swanky white jacket and a belt on the outside of her sweater in her first week on the air. I lost my appetite for television news sometime around the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder investigation (the first one), so I could only stomach two outings with Ms. Couric.

What I did stomach this summmer though was Rosie O’Donnell’s camera hogging on The View. Is “brassy” overused to describe her? Did Barbara Walters make a mistake hiring her? Ratings suggest it was a good idea, but it no longer looks like Ms. Walter’s show. The best news for the show though is that with O’Donnell on screen no one can remember the Star Jones dismissal.

Speaking of stars, in the outer reaches of the solar system, Pluto lost it’s status as a planet. Scorpios the world over noticed a change in our personalities. The only sign of the zodiac influenced by two planets, does the diminished Pluto still hold a secretive sway over us? Or is the agressive nature of Mars our sole guide now? One theory holds that the stripping of Pluto of its planethood is actually just another admission of our human denial of death. By pushing Pluto, already the smallest and furthest, out of the solar system hierarchy we are in fact burying our heads in the sand on the topic of any afterlife. If Pluto has no importance, then neither does death, the argument goes.

What did matter, a ton, this summer was fashion. In addition to Katie Couric’s outfits, I really got into Project Runway, the Bravo! reality series with competing designer wannabes. Coupled with the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada, everywhere I turn I pay extra attention to cut and fabric. And stitching. And details like button plackets and cotton/poly blends. That’s all.

In politics gay men continued to dominate, without actually having any power. Jim McGreevey, the gay ex-governor of New Jersey, was on tour promoting his book. While discussing it on The View he was criticized by co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck for including overt descriptions of his covert sex life. She used the boring objection “children could read it”. If we have to live in a child-proof world does that mean all personal development stops at puberty?

Speaking of taking advantage of children and gay politicians (this is painful), Mark Foley sure came out of his Closet of Power with a bang. And a bottle of sacramental chardonnay too, if you believe his “I was drunk and abused by priests” defense. After getting caught sexually electronically harrassing teenage Congressional pages, the GOP publicity whore from Florida resigned and drove out of town in his convertible. A few summers ago when I volunteered at a charity event where he was present, he never once flirted with me. Granted, by his standards I’m an old fart. What I find most interesting about the Foley scandal - Trollgate, if you will - is the national impact it has had on House races. Is the American electorate so fickle that a letch from Florida could cause doubts about a candidate in the suburbs of Omaha? We’ll found out in November. I’ll be in France, observing from a distance.