I had quite a disappointing summer of reading. I just didn’t find anything new that I really loved. The unrelenting meh-ness of it all was quite dispiriting so I re-read a few old favourites to make me feel better but now I haven’t picked up a book at all for the last two or three weeks, making me feel sad again.
I’m going to dust myself off tomorrow and start again so in the coming weeks, I’ll hopefully have lots of nice things to tell you about. The new Naomi Klein book sounds great so I think I’ll start there.
In the meantime, I’ve been watching telly.
The Supermodels on Apple TV+ is great fun. It’s a four part series looking at how Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford revolutionised modelling and became “super”. I mostly find fashion documentaries unsuccessful as they tend to portray the world as rarefied/ridiculous (which of course it is) while failing to capture the joy and excitement of it.
This one works because the four women went beyond fashion with their ubiquity. Whether you cared about clothes or not, they were everywhere and their images became part of the fabric of the culture. The film also depicts a simpler pre-internet age which feels increasingly sacred.
We’ve all got so used to the fact that any retrospective about women in the public eye is inevitably a story about misery and exploitation that I was pleasantly surprised to see how they had largely positive success stories. That isn’t to say that there weren’t dodgy relationships or negative experiences and maybe I’ve just been manipulated by an oversimplified, airbrushed version of history but it really did seem like they were calling the shots, making a load of money and having a great time doing it.
Also, they’re just so gorgeous. Both in the archive footage and new interviews, it’s impossible not to be slack-jawed about how exquisite they were and still are.
Another documentary that I loved is Judy Blume Forever on Prime Video. My god, that woman is incredible. It’s striking to see how radically sex positive Blume was for her time and depressing to note that 50 years after she started writing, there are still repressed lunatics seeking to have her books banned.
The film is a vivid scrapbook that captures the playfulness of the author’s writing and personality without being too cloying. She is a generous, warm and engaging subject and the vignettes about her upbringing and personal life are lovely.
Via various celeby talking heads and hardcore Judy Blume fans, you hear first hand how she influenced so many young women’s lives as well was the wider culture. Wonderful stuff.
See you next time!
Hannah