Category: Scholarship In Action (Page 11 of 15)

Cher is Not Sorry

May 7, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Why do I scan the Internet…err…rather read my daily Cher RSS Yahoo feed and leach off the Cher research of CherGroups posters 🙂 …for news of Cher every week? For blogs like this one, that's why.

Sure, some years I coast by…keeping up with the latest Cher deeds and automatically regurgitating some inane thoughts about them week to week. But then once in a while I get re-engaged in the ever-interesting topic of “what cultural phenomenon is going on with our fascinations and, for some, negative attitudes, about Cher." Deep thoughts is what I mean.

I’m always looking for some Cher Scholarship out there on the wires. Which is why I’m excited about my new Cher Scholar section Expert Corner – two new posts will be going up this week, too. But this blog below was not written by a Cher Scholar; she's an everyday-Jane-Cher-appreciator nicknamed Pilgrium Soul. And it’s a pretty smart Cher theory she speaks of.

http://www.harpyness.com/2009/04/30/youve-got-me-cher/

The article begins by talking about her conflicting like and dislike of the movie Moonstruck and its “weird gender issues.” I would love for her to elaborate about this. I suspect there is something to this, and it might be an Italian cultural thing in play. But then she defends her love of Cher (against claims of commercialism, plastic surgery and the silly costumes thing – familiar proclamations of Cher’s lack of seriousness). But she loves Cher anyway. Why? Because…

“Before I knew I was a feminist I knew Cher was not sorry. She was not normal, she was not what people expected and she did not seem to care.”

Cher isn't (publicly) sorry and that's something to chew on. I think this explains a lot about why certain fans have gravitated to her. Fans who, for whatever reason in their lives, have been made to feel or have made themselves feel sorry.

And Pilgrim Soul verifies that this hearkens back her to own childhood of sorryness (as opposed to sorrow) and her own feelings of guilt and sorryness over her self-perceived flaws.

“I grew to love women who grew tired of making apologies for themselves.”

That is so awesome. It reminds me of what an influence my 11th grade English teacher was on me, someone who got married later in life, was having a kid later in life, and had a “why worry” attitude about pretty much everything. She also had a Tyne Daily air about her. She too wasn’t sorry.
I wanted to be like her. What a life that would be, I thought. Empowered and unapologetic.

I feel like Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck right now: “That’s it!…No, that’s it!”

Ask Cher Scholar & New Expert Corner!

April 9, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 7 Comments

CherScholar.com has a new section: Expert Corner — more details at the end of this post!

On Wednesday, January 13, 2009 James Smith wrote:

My question is about Cher's wigs. I do consider myself a huge fan, but something that friends sometimes ask me about is her wigs, and I don't know very much at all. I really really find it difficult to tell with wigs… No matter how hard I look, I simply just can't tell if they're wigs or not.

I know Cher's real hair is apparently long and black, so was it her real hair throughout the 60s and and 70s?
If it was her real hair up until after the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, when did Cher start wearing wigs? Was it sort of late 70s, after her divorce?
Was the black hair during her Geffen 87-89 period a wig? It is black but it just seems so big…
The hair on the front cover of the Believe album, is that her real hair?
Is it her real hair when she performs “Way of Love” during the Farewell Tour?
I have no idea if you'll know this, but do you know how many wigs Cher owns? I know she has a special room for them, but how many of them are there?!

Cher and wigs: complicated, in a word.

Cher Scholar Interviews Rona Barrett

March 21, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 7 Comments

My bf and I spent one evening watching the new Rona Barrett DVD Rona Barrett’s Hollywood, a set of iconic interviews of 70s celebrities.

Honestly, we were struck by how fresh and honest the interviews were in comparison to the stale, stiff Barbara Walters interviews we’ve come to know over the last 25 years. Don’t get me wrong: I have loved me some Barbara Walters interview in my day. But seriously, I can’t stand The View and haven’t watched a pre-Oscar special in years.

Interestingly, in Rona Barrett’s interviews there are no “million-dollar” questions and yet somehow she gets into a superstar’s comfort zone with graceful civility. Personally, I think this is because she knows how to have a comfortable conversation and celebrities feel at ease. I’m reminded of Jon Favreau’s Dinner for Five shows except without the extra four dinner guests. Which means less grandstanding chat between stars.

My bf thinks Ron’s gift is that she sounds genuinely interested.

Cher Scholar JeffRey had this to say about the prospect of watching Rona Barrett’s new DVD: it feels like visiting a friend I haven’t seen in a long time.

In the DVD’s Cher interview, Rona says she’s known Cher since Cher was a “street kid” in the 60s and that she
admired Cher because she “had guts” and was honest. The interview takes place after Cher’s breakup with Sonny and David Geffen, right as she was falling in love with Gregg Allman. She squeals with affection and like other interviews of the mid-70s, she is unusually unguarded and open. She seems remarkably comfortable. She has striking eyebrows, long eyelashes, glamor nails and uses phrases like “bummed out.”

As I watched it I thought what a beautiful mouth Cher had. And those teeth. The Rona Barrett DVD is full of very 70s celebrity teeth, pre-hyper-perfection. I miss Cher’s teeth. I do not miss Burt Reynolds’ teeth, however. It’s also amazing how candid Rona gets asking about sex and Cher talks about how liberated and sexually free she had planned to be after leaving Sonny. However, she just wasn’t the type to sleep around. Great interview!

Many people my age also remember Rona Barrett’s fan magazines of the 70s that sat on newsstands right along Picture Screen and Photoplay. Magazines full of Sonny & Cher candid photos and wacky stories. Recently, a friend of mine gave me this copy (cover above; click here to see full image) of Rona Barrett’s Hollywood
from a celebrity-signing fair in LA.

Inside Cher is on practically every page, but the magazine has two (two!) full-page articles about her as well. The first one discusses the recent calls for censorship on The Cher Show – was Cher dressing too slutty? According to one Ohio TV station manager she was. Fans were asked to fill out a questionnaire on the topic.

Click here to read the full text and fill out the survey. (You may need to adjust your screen resolution.)

Please forward your responses to the comments section of this blog post!

In the back of the magazine there’s a second article, this one an interview in color with Laverne. Sweet! Click here to read the full text. When I saw Cher in Las Vegas last weekend, Cher’s mock interview with Laverne before Laverne’s “I Got to be Me” video reminded me of this article. Laverne deserves more airtime. Cher may have changed. But Laverne stays the same.

Anyway, I had the privilege of being able to interview Rona Barrett last week about the new DVD, her charity foundation and the Rona Barrett magazines.

Click here to read the full interview where she talks about interviewing Cher and Cher’s longevity.

L.A. readers
should know that Rona will be appearing for a DVD signing Wednesday, March 25 at
7:30 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble located at The Grove at the Farmers Market (Fairfax &
Third).

A Cher Essay

January 29, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

Someone wrote an essay defending Cher! http://thedartmouth.com/2009/01/27/arts/music/

I would be SO excited about this literary event except that it’s so bad. The worst quote I can cull from it would be that the song Half Breed was about:

“the challenges she faced growing up as a half-Cherokee, half-Caucasian woman.”

The author also states that Cher would be a phenomenal commencement speaker which was really hard for me to picture (because that would be a bit of a boring existence for Cher – doing the Bill Cosby at uuniversities and colleges); although I agree she would have good life-experience to impart and two of the speeches I've heard from her (Sonny’s eulogy and her Academy Award acceptance speech, for example) have been good. On the other hand, I do seem to recall a few not-so-hot speeches (Billboard Awards Life Achievement Award speech).

This blogger also claims Cher is a “Diva of bygone days, star of the cinema and wise-worded woman, Cher brings much more to the table than she is given credit for.”

Diva of bygone days? Ummm…she is still kicking ass as a diva in Vegas, still active fodder for the 'bloids, still a big deal when she makes an appearance on TV, still winning awards, still being offered movie projects. I mean why cite Tea with Mussolini to sum up her crowning movie achievements? To not mention Mask or Moonstruck when making your argument, or even her more recent Stuck on You?

You say she “brings to the table” and then list out none of her sweets. I ask for chocolates and I get rice cakes.

Criminey! I can’t do this by myself! 😉

Collecting Cher

January 15, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

At first I got excited that this article on collecting Cher stuff was out there! Finally, something I could send my parents to ensure them I’ve investing my money properly. 🙂

Who am I kidding?

This article addressed none of the financial advantages I’ve always hoped there’d be in collecting Cher junk. And the author, Victor, is a bit stodgy to boot.

Typical sentence:

“A complete discography of her collectibles is not something to be taken lightly. Ideally, a complete collection could be gathered, giving you something that can be proudly displayed.”

Proudly displayed? A Cher collection can take over your house. Or Basement. Or parents’ basement. Or storage facility B.

“You could also try collecting her t-shirts from all of her different tours. This could also be quite a task to complete as she has toured a number of different times. Gathering a complete collection of these shirts could prove to be a challenge, yet one that you could have a great deal of fun with.”

Victor lists possible avenues of collection: Records, the aforementioned t-shirts, autographed photos, autographed movie scripts, the S&C model cars, stuff from her perfume line, the “look-alike dolls,” alarm clocks and night lights (Jesus, I don’t even have a Cher alarm clock!), wristwatches, trading cards, and musical instruments…

“can all bear her name and because of this, you would do well to add any of these items to your memorabilia collection…Cher has certainly always been a vibrant personality in our culture and building up a stock of her celebrity collectibles could not only be a bit of a challenge, but give you a great deal of fun in the meantime.”

Psst…Victor makes it sound WAY more boring than it actually is. I see that this is because he reuses bland monosyllabic words over and over again in his piece. I’d recommend a thesaurus, which you can also have quite “a great deal of fun with.”

The Captain & Tennille Show

January 15, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

For Christmas, among other things (like the awesome Carol Burnette "Went with the Wind" doll), I received a collection of the Captain & Tennille variety show episodes which aired on ABC on Mondays from September 1976 to March 1977.

I can’t help but compare this show to The Sonny & Cher Show running at the same time. In the episodes I’ve seen so far there are far less skits on C&T and more musical numbers, sometimes more experimental (there was a word jazz segment with Penny Marshall, Tennille and Ron Palillo –Horseshack- and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs -Freddie Washington- from Welcome Back Kotter which was good) but for the most part the show is heavy on Tennille singing alone or with musical guests, including an amazing duet with Dionne Warwick. The Captain actually speaks on the show and is actually pretty charming and has good comedic timing. I like him. They’re talented to be sure. And I do love variety shows, pretty unconditionally, including this one. Trouble is, the show lacks something sparkly that S&C had, despite all the required rhinestones on Tennille’s dresses.

And in the premiere episode they go through a long joke setup with Jackie Gleason, mistaking each other for other iconic celebrities of the time culminating in Gleason confusing them with Sonny & Cher. Which was probably the big elephant in the room. “We’re not Sonny & Cher” the joke seemed to say.

Which is something all new variety seems to feel compelled to say, especially if co-hosted by a man and wife. Nick and Jessica Simpson were emphatic before their TV special a few years ago — we’re not trying to be Sonny & Cher. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne also recently declared their new show would not be a new Sonny & Cher. It’s kind of a back-handed compliment. They’re saying simultaneously, we’re not trying to copycat what has become known as the standard of couple-variety shows and we intend to be much cooler than that.

And that’s the fascinating paradox of Sonny & Cher. When they hit town in the 60s, they were hyper-cool, then in the mid-60s they were perceived as waning-cool. Then in the late 60s definitely not cool due to their anti-drug stance and the changing musical culture. Back on TV, they were cool kinda but not cool kinda because older people were now watching them.

Cher in Translation

October 13, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 6 Comments

I didn’t post last week. There was just a lot of drama going on and work was utterly busy. Yeah, I said it. Utterly. My upcoming wedding, planning for which had gone off track for about 6 months, got back on track last week just in time for the economy to collapse and the political process to implode with crazy candidate behavior and, quite frankly, what seems like scary lynch mobs forming. I’m addicted to election news.

Then I joined a Ulyssesreading group with my bf and some people at work which has been very challenging but rewarding (so far I like James Joyce's overall structure and much of his poetic language but the stream of consciousness, after pages and pages, fails to serve). I’ve been trying to keep up in pottery (did the annual trip to Ojai this weekend where we revisited Sylvia Raz and found a new favorite sculptor, Ted Gall). I’ve also been trying to organize the wedding planning schedule from a 6-month stockpile of notes, keep up with political emails and do the 9 to 5 (which has entailed a lot of web postings of foreign language translations on Internet policy). And then there have been the interpersonal disappointments, the alienation, the self-doubt, the mild passive-aggressive persecution, the ennui. What can you do?

But I’ve wanted to publish this blog post for months, back when Cher scholar Peter sent me a slew of Sonny & Cher singles on CD in Italian and French. There was a lot to chew on and I kept waiting for my bf to have time to translate the three rare songs; but that time never materialized. He’s just not as dedicated to Cher scholarship as I am. What gives?

I did learn many interesting facts about Sonny & Cher singing in translation in the 60s. Can I just say how very kewl the whole thing is, Cher singing in Italian and French? I really love it. Almost as much as Cher with an Italian accent in Moonstruck. It can really make you think about a song in a different way. According to one website, in 1966 Cher herself competed in Italy with four covers of "Bang Bang" already on the charts by cover artists. How crazy is that? And Ahmet Ertegun said the song was” one of the greatest post-WW2 songs ever written.” I mean it’s good but… calm down.

New CherScholar.com Cooking

September 12, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

There is a lot I wan't to talk about right now that I hope I can get to next week: a very interesting French/Italian collection of 60s Sonny & Cher songs a diligent Cher scholar sent me last week and my first experiences after joining The Official, International, World-Renowned Cher Fan Club. It was actually fun and I'll divulge my journeys into that early next week. In the meantime, I've been revamping CherScholar.com.

The idea for this came to me last year when I realized I needed to professionalize my publishing credits page and CherScholar.com looked pretty amateurish as it was inter-woven into my other sites. It needed to grow up a bit. Not that it's completely mature now, but it's better.

It's up and surf-able but only in a sort of beta form. When I transfered all the text, encoded punctuations became garbled and I now need to re-read every freakin word of the damn thing to find unfortunate parentheses and dashes a global search and replace surely missed. And that's a major pain in my ass and will take me a few days. I blame Microsoft products. But it's readable at this point.

I've organized the site more like a learning institution and expanded out some of the sections a tiny bit (tabloids, records) and added whole new sections on books on Cher, television, photographs and concerts. And there's a new glossary of Cher terms I hope you'll enjoy.

If you can stand to wade through the typos, spelling errors and punctuation tragedies, check it out at www.cherscholar.com. Otherwise, wait a week!

Yours in Cher scholarship…

Cher Hearts Hillary

August 28, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

I’m a Cher fan; I’m a dog fan; I love Mexican food; I dig pottery and poetry; I adore the southwest and I’m a political junkie. Two of these things have come to clash this week – Cher and politics. Don’t get me wrong: I love me some Cher stuff; but I actually get really fired up about the politics.

And yet I really debated even covering this issue in 'I Found Some Blog,' even bothering to discuss Cher’s comments to Liz Smith about both of their feelings on US presidential democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. I debated discussing it for two days and for two big reasons.

First, my parents told me never to bring up politics in a mixed crowd. So you can probably guess by that rule my parents are democrats. This blog is definitely a mixed crowd. So in warning: if you’re not someone of liberal leanings, go get yourself some coffee or take a walk around the block.

Secondly, is this blog really the place to hash out this sort of thing? And this is really a stickler. On the one hand the purpose of this blog originally was more about me and my learning to journal on a regular basis about semi-personal things, all under the guise of a celebrity blog; so political discussions sorta fit within that framework. And sometimes personal anecdotes bring readers and writers together—but sometimes personal subjects are just too derisive, you know? Sometimes it just doesn’t help to share.
But does that make soap-boxing permanently off limits? We can’t go that far.

CherCON 08

June 19, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

CherCon is coming with some new auction prizes of note. Below is the official press release:

Cher Convention 2008
The Ultimate Cher Odyssey
Caesars Palace Las Vegas
August 11-12

Pre-Concert and After-Concert Dance Parties With Non-Stop Entertainment
Grammy Nominee: Pepper Mashay. Musician: Frank D. Wright. MC: Wayne Smith, and One of the Largest Gatherings of Cher Impersonators in the World. Many Other Celebrity Impersonators of: Celine Dion, Elton John, Bette Midler, Sonny, Rod Stewart, and Laverne.

Live Charity Auction by Juliens Auctions
Including 2 Tickets to Cher's September 27th Concert, and Meet and Greet with Cher, and 2 Night Stay at Caesars. And an Autographed Guitar from Musician Frank D. Wright.

Cher Impersonator Show, Cher Seminar, Cher Game, Cher Museum, Cher Music, Cher Videos, Cher Karaoke Contest, Dance Contest, Awards Ceremony, Silent Auctions, Cocktail Parties, Rare Cher Memorabilia, Vendors Including StarWares Collectibles from LA.

Cher fans of all ages and from all over the world are invited to the 16,000 sq ft Tiberius Ballroom at Caesars Palace to celebrate the multi-talented Cher!

August 11th 9 PM-2 AM The Pre-Concert Dance Party
August 12th 11AM-5 PM The Convention
August 12th 9 PM-2 AM The After-Concert Dance Party

All 3 Events – $110 per person in advance, $140 per person at the door. To Pre-Register go to www.CherConvention.com.

Caesars Palace Special Convention Room Rate $159 per night, For Reservations go to
http://www.harrahs.com/CheckGroupAvailability.do?propCode=CLV&groupCode=SCCCA8.

All proceeds go to the Children's Craniofacial Association
Cher is the National Spokesperson. She became involved after her award winning performance in the movie 'Mask', in which she played the mother of a boy born with a severe facial disfigurement. CCA provides support to children born with facial deformities. www.CCAKids.com.

Registration Contact: Jill Gorecki
Email: JGorecki@ccakids.com

Media Contact: Kim Werdman
Email: KimWerdman@CherConvention.com

Category: Scholarship In Action (Page 11 of 15)

Cher is Not Sorry

Ask Cher Scholar & New Expert Corner!

Cher Scholar Interviews Rona Barrett

A Cher Essay

Collecting Cher

The Captain & Tennille Show

Cher in Translation

New CherScholar.com Cooking

Cher Hearts Hillary

CherCON 08

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