LZ Sunday Paper Newsletter: The "Final(e)s" Edition
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Dear Readers,
For the approximately twenty-six readers who are not watching the Mad Men finale tonight, I highly recommend that you find your HBO-On-Demand app and watch the first season of "Silicon Valley."
Many viewers and critics agree that the series presents a fairly accurate, if exaggerated, vision of the start-up world in Silicon Valley. Others feel more strongly, like Slate:
"Let me count all the ways I hate Silicon Valley."
Clearly, me and Slate disagree. But before I say why I think it is super funny and often poignant, here is a quickie literary trope refresher:
Not every piece of art or culture deserves to be excused in the service of satire, but to me it seems like creator Mike Judge and the phenomenal writers and actors make this show scriptastically self-aware. He has spent a long and fruitful career deciphering the mind of the eternally adolescent boy, from "Beavis & Butthead," to "Office Space," and now "Silicon Valley." I feel like the guy creates a detailed, closed world and it's kind of hyper-real and distanced from itself all at the same time.
Case in point from Season One:
[Scene: a huge tech conference]:
“Guys this place is a vortex of distraction. Normally the tech world is 2% women. The next three days? 15%.”
[A nerd programmer-y satan-worshipping character named Gilfoyle responds]:
“Well, it’s a goddamn meat market.”
So no, they're not explicitly criticizing the themes of sexism, racism, and generally douchey insularity that are the now-public hallmarks of the Bay Area start-up culture. But you sure do get the point.
In any case, I think it can be nominated and then win, hands down, for the non-existent awards show category of Best-Show-to-Least-Women Character Ratio on television right now.
This current show, "Silicon Valley," sparked the memory of me, and apparently lots of television critics who remembered that, a long-ish time ago we made a show about The Valley, too. We thought it came out okay. Quartz disagreed:
"Bravo’s Silicon Valley, which was cancelled after a short first season, displayed a certain earnest enthusiasm for startup culture that struck many viewers as annoying and, worse, boring."
Pando Daily put a finer point on our humble docu-soap amongst the canon of Valley-based film and TV:
"Hollywood has a spotty record of documenting Silicon Valley faithfully, from the well-crafted yet factually-challenged “Social Network” to the total shitshow that was Bravo’s “Start Ups: Silicon Valley.”
Thank you for your considered opinion, media-ites.
Like I said, it's sometimes difficult to know whether artists are being stupid-funny in a smart way or a super- dumb and offensive way. I think "Silicon Valley" is pretty biting, acerbic, and sad. But what do I know? I was apparently the female audience of one who thought that the brilliant, serially offensive-to-everyone Seth McFarlane's much maligned Academy Awards number "We Saw Your Boobs" was really funny, too.
Heh, heh, heh, uhhhh, he said…every week the LZ Sunday Paper selects and delivers news about women in business, politics, entrepreneurship, film, tv, music, literature, sports, and pop culture, roughly in that order. Usually, there's a laugh or two. Last week, lots of readers emailed to say that they were moved to tears by many of the pieces. You can find that edition, along with the rest of the Archive at LZSundayPaper.com.
You can send me a note or an item you think I should see here. There's so much interesting stuff out there I can't wait 'til each Sunday so I tweet it during the week. Follow me @LZSundayPaper.
See you next week for the unofficial kickoff of the summer season, Memorial Day!
LZ
THE PIC(K) OF THE WEEK:
Mad Men: 20 Most Feminist Moments via The Hollywood Reporter
NEWS & INSIGHTS:
Elizabeth Warren Ascendant: A Choice Not An Echo via The Economist
Why The Retirement Savings Crisis Is Also A Woman's Crisis via The Washington Post
Tech Women Choose Possibility via Medium
Start-Up Season 2 Podcast: Two Women Build A Dating Company In The Male Dominated World Of Start-Ups via Gimlet Media
Isaiah Thomas Has No Business Running The Liberty via The New York Post
How Some Men Fake An 80-Hour Work Week, and Why It Matters via The New York Times
The Slow Death Of The Secretary via The Atlantic
Five Women Leaders On Getting Ahead In Fashion via The Business Of Fashion
How Stylists Prep Teen Starlets For The Red Carpet via Fashionista
Can The ACLU Fix Hollywood's Gender Problem via Fast Company
Inside TV's Most Controversial Sex Scenes: How TV Got Real via Time
What Chrissy Teigen Thinks She Looks Like: Kid Rock via The New York Times
Long Term Data On Complications Adds To Criticism Of Essure Contraceptive Implant via The New York Times
This Is What A Feminist Wedding Magazine Looks Like via Time Magazine
Mom: The Designated Worrier via The New York Times
The Period Fairy Makes It Okay To Talk About Menstruation via Mashable
Childless By (100% Regret-free) Choice via More Magazine
Teen Girls Protest School's Sexist Prom Message via Salon
AND WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT:
100 Years Of Maybelline Ads Show How Little Has Changed In Beauty via Fashionista
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The LZ Sunday Paper™ (soon to be registered trademarked and copyrighted) launched at the dawn of 2014. We expose and recirculate interesting content that is about, and frequently by, women in business, with a dose of ultra-relevant culture. We think that culture comes in size high, medium, and low. Our audience for this content is vast and not gender-driven. Every week we expect at least one good laugh. Send suggestions, clips, or names of people you think might enjoy this to LZSundayPaper@gmail.com.
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