I Found Some Blog

a division of the Chersonian Institute

Page 34 of 109

Cher Teases with Tweets: A New Perfume in 2015?

March 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments

UninhibitedI've been felled for two weeks by a cold virus! I literally came home every day from work and downed night-time cold juice and then slept for ten hours until I had to do it all over again the next day. I'm barely over it but we have some Cher news to cover.

My friends have been in a donnybrook over Morrissey's continued disses of Madonna, including of her then-upcoming performance on the Brit Awards. Although Morrissey does have a point to make about award shows being more about promotion flim-flam than about talent awarding, he complicates his argument by continually being a bitter butter ball.

In any case, Morrissey was probably gleeful to see Madonna take a nasty fall during her Brit Awards performance last week. Listening to The Stephanie Miller Show, I found out that Cher and Liza Minnelli had given public support to Madonna after her fall. Someone on the show joked that falling on stage was like a Tuesday for Liza. Funny. But Cher's tweet reminds us how stressful dance performances can be, especially considering Madonna's wardrobe malfunction.

"Heard Madonna Fell On Stage This is Something WE ALL DREAD…MADGE, I GIVE U PROPS, U R a CHAMP 4 FINISHING YOUR SONG…I HOPE U R UNHURT"

Cher World is reporting on some other Cher tweets involving 2015 projects. She's planning to launch a new perfume. More Cher crap to buy! Awesome! I truly hope she poses with another giant jug of the new stuff (see pic above). Cher World also posts some of her latest pics and says that she's still working to restart her tour.

Don-williamsI saw the laconic Don Williams perform last night at our "big" showroom at the Isleta Indian casino. He was awesome although much older than I expected. They had to prop him up on a bar stool to play for an hour and 10 minutes. He barely moved but then he barely moved back in the 1970s. But with that voice, who needs dancers and wardrobe malfunctions? I've been watching old country acts on Pop Goes the Country and itching to see some of them. Unfortunately, most of them have died or retired.

I still keep hoping Cher will come near Albuquerque but looking up our biggest venue, the sadly small Tingley Coliseum at 11,571 seats. Which I guess is why all the somewhat decent acts prefer the Indian casinos.

ScoobyThe Music Times has done a review of Cher's non-variety-show TV work, including her appearance on Scooby Doo. This reminds me, I met a huge Scooby Doo fan at work a few weeks ago. We deconstructed the shows together. I lamented not being able to find Scooby Doo bandaids and she told me when to expect their return to the market. I asked her about her feelings on Scooby Dum and Scrappy Doo (not favorable as expected) and I said I was a purest for the original creepy series. I especially didn't like the celebrity series because it was too light (visually), to silly and not scary enough. She agreed, she said, with the exception of the Sonny & Cher episode!

Christina Aguilera does a Cher impersonation on The Tonight Show. This remind me, do you notice how many times Bravo plays B?. How far Bravo has fallen. I'm taking to making a list of everything that annoys me about that movie. It feels like a scholarly project. Mr. Cher Scholar is helping. I keep suggesting we watch Silkwood as an antidote.

Cher criticizes the Arkansas governor over not vetoing his state's anti-LGBT bill.

One of my friends has sent me subscriptions to three celeb rags: Us Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, and the Star. Having the Star (or any tabloid) home delivered feels surreal. The February 16 issue has Val Kilmer dying for his religion, which apparently is Christian Science. Another piece praises Chaz for getting buff, losing 65 pounds down from his high of 250 pounds. They claim he wants to try out for Mr. Universe and is on a low carb, no sugar, no dairy diet. Fellow tabloids TMZ and The Daily Mail also reported the story. In any case, Chaz is now celebrity fit.

The Star also shows a full page of Kim Kardashian wearing various outfits involving furs. Boo! She's now my least-favorite Armenian celebrity, which means there's a pretty wide gap between the two Armenian celebrities I know.

  

Mary Cheney’s Comments About Drag and Blackface

February 7, 2015 / / 0 Comments

RupaulCNN obtained a private Facebook post by Mary Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney where she equates drag queens with white people donning blackface. Read the story here.

She says, "If a man has all the right in the world to put on a high wig, sequined dress and a full face of makeup, why isn’t it socially acceptable for a white person to don blackface?"

Apparently, a commercial for the upcoming season of RuPaul's Drag Race sparked her question.

She continues, “Why is it socially acceptable — as a form of entertainment — for men to put on dresses, make up and high heels and act out every offensive stereotype of women (bitchy, catty, dumb, slutty, etc.) — but it is not socially acceptable — as a form of entertainment — for a white person to put on blackface and act out offensive stereotypes of African Americans? Shouldn’t both be OK or neither?”

Cheney is not the first woman or feminist to raise the issue of drag being anti-feminist but I'd like to take this apart for a moment. I've been reading quite a large amount of academic essays on camp and drag lately.

I first became interested in drag (and gender theory) when I started reading academic pop culture essays in anthologies and periodicals with a particular interest in applying what I was reading to Cher. Pop culture academicians kept calling her a 'female drag queen.' They called Dolly Parton one too. I went in search of what that meant. Was it a negative slur, as in Cher is a poor imitation of a real woman? Turns out calling Cher and Dolly drag queens just meant that their style of feminine dress was so over-the-top and exaggerated, it served to expose the "put on" nature of femininity. The artificiality of it.

This coincided with recent theories of gender being performative, the idea being you have no core gender self. You take on a performance character by choice. Being butch, fey, girlie, tomboy are all cultural and not biological ideas and as such are roles that can be switched, roles that are culturally-defined and arbitrary.

Right off, I imagined Cheney didn't accept performative gender theory. And because of this she wouldn't accept that that one's gender is therefore more perforamative and fluid (even hetero expressions of it) than is one's ethnicity.

Speaking directly to the issue of blackface, part of the offensiveness of it was the racism that accompanied it and how disparaging it was to black culture. The same is not true for drag. To equate the two is based on a false premise of intent. I do not read drag as dismissive, as some feminists do.

In fact, Cheny's own commentary betrays her. She takes on the the male chauvinist view when she says, "[they] act out every offensive stereotype of women (bitchy, catty, dumb, slutty, etc.)."  Gay men can be just as bitchy, catty, dumb, slutty.  So can straight men for that matter. Whose to say these are not just basic human diva traits? To assign them to women is sexist, sexist from men, lesbians or feminists. It's buying into the patriarchal view of women and refusing to see how powerful a glamazon character can be. It sends a message to both women and drag queens: tone it down; outrageousness  is not okay.

That is why is was so powerful to see a butch lesbian feel empowerment going thru Drag U. And for me, the show Drag U is what proves that not only do costumes drive feelings, (think a karate outfit, a policeman's uniform or a glamazon's couture), but that finding value in glamour isn't self-hating for women or anti-feminist for men. 

It's very different from blackface due to how women are being interpreted. This is not to say there aren't women-hatin drag queens. But they're rare. In any case, drag isn't really about "aping women." It's about finding your inner power. Its about taking on the character of the glamazon. No drag queen is performing an eek meek.

Considering RuPaul is the most prominent drag queen and a black man, I was particularly looking forward to his rebuttal. Unfortunately, he didn't address the drama of blackface directly. He just presented a history of the political history of drag: http://www.mediaite.com/online/rupaul-tells-mary-cheney-how-dressing-in-drag-is-different-from-blackface/

I was hoping for more but Betty Bowers had a good quote about it, one that assumes you know that Mary Cheney is a lesbian:

"Men in clothes traditionally worn by women is blackface, says Mary Cheney, wearing clothes traditionally worn by men."

More on performative gender theory

 

Cher’s Angry Tweets, The Seventies: Glamour, Ratings & Concerts

February 7, 2015 / / 2 Comments

Cherspecial2The New Year brings new apologies for the lag in blog postings. I've been on the new job for just about a month. No, I'm not teaching at my local community college. I'm continuing my day-job of web content specializin'. And I've been a bit more swamped with family reunion duties that I predicted. My novel-writing and blogging schedule has slipped all to hell!

But…I'm working in a communications department full of really interesting and creative people, our studio department has an animator and an award-winning director, our web team has two visual artists, two photographers, a competitive dancer and a soap maker. Similar to my experiences at ICANN, I've arrived just in time for a sweet web re-branding launch. It's been fun so far.

But anyway, time to move on to…

Cher's Angry Tweets

Cher made some tweets about Hitler and the cloud last month that hit many news outlets. My guess is the tweets were meant to be a joke but I didn't read into them too closely. These people made the attempts to sort it out:

  • PosterMediaite
    "It may not matter in 5 yrs, but Hitler Tweets are forever."
  • Tech Times
    "Our best guess is that Cher was expressing frustration with Apple's iCloud service. Or maybe she was commenting on the recent scandal involving nude photos of celebrities leaking from iCloud thanks to hackers."

Twitchy.com covers Cher's tweets about U.S. Congress. Cher Scholar's old friend Doug Wemple, who wrote a wonderful heart-felt story in Cher Zine 1 about coming out and his long, frustrating journey to try to see Cher in concert, gets caught up in the tweet sweep too.

Which all reminds me of the trailer I saw last weekend for a movie coming to my local independent movie house, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry. This movie reminds me so much of the situation surrounding Cher's tweets. The trailer chronicles the expression of anger from feminists in second and third wave actions and protests and how uncomfortable this made (and continues to make) some folks. People who disagree with Cher's politics consistently try to characterize her as a nut. It's not a new tactic as this film shows. Looking forward to seeing it.

Giddy Gossip

Lot's of gossipy stuff in the news:

Studio-margauxSeventies Glamour

Just finished the affordably-priced coffee-table book Seventies Glamour by David Willis. It covers all the icons of 70s style, including Margaux Hemmingway, who's photo at Studio 54 (not in the book) has forever fascinated me. She seems so "over it" and strangely comfortable in her pose.

SeventiesglamourThe zeitgeist of the 70s with its "tarnished luster" and the "complex broken mirror ball glamour" is covered. Cher is listed as one of "the beautiful people," a new version of the 1960s "jet set." She's listed in an uberclass alongside Liza Minnelli, Halston, Truman Capote, Divine, Hugh Hefner, Calvin Klein, Liz Taylor and Jackie O. Not too shabby. Although Cher is not cited as an influence or contributor to it, glitter and glam rock are discussed. Cher has one page dedicated to her with a picture of her Stars album cover of 1975 and the joyous color poster for Cher…Special in 1978. I found some groovy out-takes of that session online (above and below).

Cherspecial3 Cherspecial1  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seventies Ratings

When I was working on my eBook about Writing in the Age of Narcissism, I came across an article by Lev Grossman called "The Beast with a Billion Eyes," Time Magazine, 2012. He said "for every minute that passes in real time, 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube." And this was in 2012! He talks about how YouTube, like cable TV before it, has challenged network ratings, chronicling the tumbling numbers, decade to decade, from the 80s The Cosby Show to the 90s Seinfeld show to 2008's American Idol. He says, "Obviously No. 1 isn't what it used to be."

I often don't know what these ratings numbers mean. Are they talking about audience share, Nielsen rank or actual audience views. When people talk about ratings, they never use the same measurements.

For instance, allegedly, Carol Burnett averaged $30 million people a week in her heyday. But in 2004, Nick and Jessica Simpson won their slot with 11.4 million. But it's complicated by the fact that fewer people were watching TVs in the 1970s. There were fewer devices at least. I decided I need to make a list of Nielsen rankings for Cher's TV shows that covers all three dimensions: total audience, audience percentage share and Nielsen rank. So far I've only found this source that lists each year's top 30 shows: http://www.classictvhits.com/tvratings/

The Sonny & Cher Comdy Hour 1971: http://www.classictvhits.com/tvratings/1971.htm

Rank #27, viewers: 12,544,200

The Sonny & Cher Comdy Hour 1973: http://www.classictvhits.com/tvratings/1973.htm

Rank #8, Viewers 15,424,600

In 1972 and 1974, they weren't in the top 30. Cher's solo show also didn't crack the top 30 in total. Nor did The Sonny & Cher Show of 1976-7.

TakemehometourA Topless 1979 Show?

When speaking to my cousin and Aunt a few weeks ago, they divulged to me that they saw Cher in Las Vegas during the 1979 "Take Me Home" tour. My aunt said she'll never forget it (in a negative sense) because the show featured scandalous topless dancers.

I started to say, "But I saw the show on TV and it didn't have…." and then I thought, well, of course it wouldn't.

Can anyone help me out there? Did Cher's 1979 Vegas show feature topless dancers?

  

 

 

 

Cher Scholar Has Another Book Out

January 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Cover-smallOver the weekend I posted a small little eBook called Writing in the Age of Narcissism. It's about the narcissism epidemic in our culture and how this affects literary criticism and poets.

Here's the blurb:

If you’re a poet or writer in any other form or genre, you’ve probably witnessed many modern, uncivilized behaviors from fellow students, writers and academic colleagues—their public relations gestures, their catty reviews and essays, and their often uncivil career moves. Like actors, visual artists and politicians, cut-throat pirate maneuverings have become the new normal. It’s what occurs whenever there are more people practicing an art than any particular economy can support.

The difference with writers is their ability to develop highly conceptualized, rationalizations in order to prove their worth and ideals. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has reached a critical mass in meaningless attempts to pull focus in a society obsessed with the show-biz spotlight.

This essay traces how the narcissism epidemic affects writers, including our gestures of post-modernism and irony, and proposes an alternative way to be a more positive writer, critic and reader.

End of blurb.

For any Cher Zombies who also happen to be literary zombies, this might be of interest to you.

Writing in the Age of Narcissism
Mary McCray (2015)
Trementina Books
72 pages
eBook

Kindle $1.99  Buy
PDF, epub, Sony $1.99  Buy

More about the book, including bonus discussion on writing strategies and narcissism.

    

Cher’s Greatest Twitter Hits

January 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

MorrisPage Six is reporting that Cher used Twitter to help son Elijah find his lost puppy Morris. The web article says Morris was eventually located and that Elijah and Cher are slowly mending their relationship.

Speaking of Twitter, here's a website that has collected Cher's greatest tweets from 2014.

"When perusing the Turn Back Time singer's social media outlet, it is very much like walking into a Hall of Mirrors with the eight members of the band Stereo Kicks: Confusing. Enlightening. Saddening Sometimes spiritual. But always a joy from month to month. It took us a long time to scroll down Cher's timeline, so please god, please appreciate this."

Perez Hilton also recently posted a Best Of Tweets List.

I caught up with Cher's latest and greatest tweets today and I see that she is promising not to drink a drop of Dr. Pepper until her first resumed tour rehearsal, whenever that shall be. If this sacrifice works anything like sacrificing picante salsa works for me, it's a worthwhile incentive of deprivation.

Cher also promises that when she gets better she will write a book:

Walked 1hr & Worked Out [arm muscle emoticon] Felt GOOD.Its a Long Road,but I feel myself getting a little Stronger everyday [ghost emoticon] When this is over im WRITING A BOOK‼️

I will remember this promise.

   

Cher Homes, Calendars, Tour Stuff , Screen Sirens, Oscar Winning Chart Toppers

January 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

CalHappy New Year! I started my new job this week at Central New Mexico Community College. So far so good. Everyone is smart, interesting and involved in cool extra-curricular projects.

Over my two week break between jobs I started to go through my back log of emails. I found plenty of Cher links to keep us busy until Cher is back to selling us stuff.

It's the new year and you may be in need of some fan-made Cher Calendars. Here are some places to get some:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cher-DESKTOP-CALENDAR-2015-NEW-Dressed-to-Kill-D2K-Tour-Closer-to-the-Truth-/261688900218?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ceddfba7a

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cher-CALENDAR-2015-NEW-Dressed-to-Kill-D2K-Tour-Closer-to-the-Truth-Magazine-/251663378456?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a984e6818

Links

My friend Julie sent me this link, a vacation rental in Palm Springs billing itself as Sonny & Cher's love nest. Does anyone recognize this house? 

Lovenest2 Lovenest  

 

 

 

  

 

The Cher Look Book – a 101 picture slide show of Cher in New York Magazine.

A short little interview in the Times Union.

Cher doesn't just like running with a younger crowd — she likes outrunning them: a long interview in The Wisconsin Gazette

Video

Cher's Caesar's Palace monologue.

Factoids

DrewcherCher scholar Jefrey noted that in the March 23rd 2012 issue of Entertainment Weekly, (I know! I can't believe that was sitting in my email still), Drew Barrymore co-hosted Turner Classic Movies with Robert Osborne for a special called "The Essentials." They played classics movies like Gilda and Diabolique. Barrymore was asked who her favorite screen sirens of all time were.

She chose Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda, Annette Bening and Cher. Wow. Awesome company there. Barrymore said about Cher, "She's strong and comedic and
incredibly brave, but shows vulnerability. I think she's the epitome of rock & roll." (Can Barrymore talk some sense into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?) She cited Silkwood, Moonstruck, Mask, and The JloWitches of Eastwick as some of her favorite Cher performances.

My friend Christopher also notified me that in December of last year Jennifer Lawrence became the highest-charting Oscar-winning actress on the Hot 100 since Cher took "Believe" to #1 in 1999. Lawrence hit at #12 with a song from the latest Hunger Games movie, "The Hanging Tree."

  

Cher Christmas

December 29, 2014 / / 6 Comments

SantaTwo Cher scholars have asked me why there was no Cher Christmas tree post this year. Well, the tree stayed in the box out in the garage. There was no Christmas tree this year. No Christmas lights or Christmas cards.

A lot of things conspired at the end of the year to make this so:

– I didn't add a new outfit for the tree this year. That usually inspires me to put up the tree.

– I was bummed out about what a sucky year 2014 was, health wise for everybody.

-  ICANN laid me off right before Christmas and hired people in India to do our jobs. In the turmoil of cleaning up ICANN tasks and preparing to start my new job at Central New Mexico College, I was swamped and pooped.

– Mailing Xmas gifts took all my energy this year so there was little left for holiday cheer. Our house was depressingly dark this year compared to our neighbors but I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it and Mr. Cher Scholar is not the festive type. Although he did try to get me interested in Christmas with his sudden, new-found interest in Christmas yard inflatables. Now if there was a Cher Christmas inflatable…

– I’m in the thick of three new writing projects: my New Mexico novel (post scene-layout, starting the first draft), my Buddhist-cowboy poems (finished the final draft, preparing to submit), and a new eBook (finished final draft; getting ready to publish in early 2015), and a long list of end of the year to-dos regarding my writing and websites. I also reformatted my first poetry book (get it on Amazon or Smashwords at a new price of $2.99).

Cher Christmas

C580_Cher_Ugly_Holiday_SweatshirtNew_grandeLuckily Cher was more festive than me and launched a whole line of Christmas products. I bought the ugly-sweater sweatshirt (and wore it on Christmas to visit my three Aunts) and the White Hat Girls Tee.

 

CloserMy friend Julie wrote to tell me Cher was on the cover of a new magazine called Closer and she saw it at Target. I was a day late and missed it. Here's the article about Cher's cancelled tour.

   

Cher Bits Catchup

December 29, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Richard-pryorCher History

A pretty funny recent article about how Richard Pryor once freaked out on the set of the Flip Wilson Show and fisticuffs ensued and Cher allegedly went and locked herself in her dressing room. It's an excerpt of a new biography about him. It's interesting that Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor both have new biographies out and how they were pitted against each other in the 1980s: clean comedy versus dirty comedy. And how history changes everything. As Camile O'Sullivan sings: "time's the revelator."

Cher Tweet Explosions

Cher takes the Robber Barons to task. My grandfather would love that Cher is invoking the Robber Barsons. Too bad she hadn’t done this by 1978 when I was eight and he asked me soberly over the kitchen table what her politics were:

In December Cher also tried to raise awareness for abused Pigs:

6a00d8341d6c7753ef01b8d089f36b970c-200wiA few weeks ago I linked to a Sonny & Cher video taken in a record store and Cher scholar Robrt recognized the album cover in the video. I also remembered Cher plays this video in her latest show.

Robrt believes this is their second album released in Italy with the Italian-language singles added.

Hall of Fame

I think from time to time about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s ridiculous prejudice in denying Cher an induction. I figure she deserves to be in for at least these things:

1. Her style influence in the 1960s and 70s

2. The collected impact of these songs alone:

  • “Bang Bang” – figuring the amount of covers this song has had.
  • “I Got You Babe” – and the phenomenal fad of this song.
  • “The Beat Goes On” – and how a pop song title has insinuated itself so fully in our cultural conversations. I hear this phrase over and over again on TV and in publications; and how impossibly uncoverable the song remains to this day.

We've all seen the most well-known picture of Cher and Angelica Houtson:

Angelica1

But there’s also a Cher picture in Angelica's new book, Watch Me.

Cher-houston

  

Cher on South Park

December 29, 2014 / / 1 Comment

SonnycherMr. Cher Scholar has just gotten into South Park so we’ve been watching rerun episodes so he can catch up on ten years of pop culture.

I hadn’t watched the show in years but I remember the Cher satire: South Park police playing “Believe” in a Waco-like attempt to drive the holed-up cult members insane. They call “Believe” really bad music and insist, “Nobody can stand this much Cher.” But hilariously, the closeted Mr. Garrison loves the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t3tB9o5TqY

Before Christmas I saw that South Park also did a breakout riff on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in a very funny mash-up with Terrance & Phillip on the episode “Terrance & Phillip: Behind the Blow” from 2001.

I captured it on my camera. Higher quality link to .wmv: http://www.cherscholar.com/tandpsandc2.wmv

MP4:




FLV:

If I were to describe South Park, I would say it’s one of the best animated shows ever produced, consistently hilarious and well-written morality tales. The creators have impressively tackled movies and Broadway. It’s easy to appreciate well-rounded characters like Randy Marsh and Shelly (who’s hardly ever on but is one of my favorites), the eternally frustrated Mr. Garrrison, and the goodhearted Butters. And although the show is socially (and verbally) liberal, its creators are decidedly not. Occasionally they go a bit conservative for me. Combined together I’d say they skew overall middle-to-conservative politically. The Huffington Post does a good article on trying to determine the political bias of the show and the complications: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/25/matt-stone-trey-parker-ar_n_475744.html

Speaking of conservative, I came across a conservative blog complaining about Cher’s tweets.  The article is called “The Unbearable Whiteness of Cher” and it sits on the Tea Party News Network. So rest assured there’s a gratuitous amount of name calling in the article: Goddess of Botox, Queen of Plastic Surgery, dimwit, tool… My two cents:

  • The article is really about how white the city of Malibu is. And the only reason the article is even worth mentioning is because the author made a pie charge to describe this whiteness of Malibu. His thesis: Cher can’t possibly like black people because she doesn’t live near them (as figured in the pie chart). Conversely, Rand Paul is not a racist because Bowling Green, Kentucky, has a higher black population than Malibu.
  • His implied thesis: rich liberals who don’t have a large enough black population in their neighborhoods are banned from discussing race issues. It’s a creepy racist way of saying “It’s not your problem. We’re living with them. Stay out of it.”
  • Although low black populations in rich neighborhoods is a legitimate cause of concern, we can easily find poor white people (living near black people) who would be more than willing to say the same things Cher has been saying. Do you have to live in the appropriate pie-charted neighborhood to judge Rand Paul?
  • If Cher didn’t talk about issues like Ferguson, that wouldn’t go over well either. It’s a trap she can’t win. And Alex David would be calling Cher a hypocrite no matter what she did, unless she agreed with Rand Paul.
  • This is good time to remind everyone how The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour hosted a plethora of black entertainers no other variety show would host or support. But unless Chris Rock becomes her neighbor soon, this probably doesn’t count for anything.

   

« Older posts Newer posts »

Cher Scholar reserves the right to modify or delete any comments deemed inappropriate at our discretion.

Email Cher Scholar

© 2025 I Found Some Blog

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑