Howard Stern has arguably become famous for saying what everyone else is thinking, but saying it louder and meaner. Yesterday, Howard went in on Gabourey Sidibe, calling Oprah a “liar” for saying that the Precious star will have a “glittering career” ahead of her.
This was actually something that I just talked about with my mother the other day. I won’t lie, I still haven’t seen Precious and don’t intend to. I simply don’t like movies that deal with heavy social issues. You should see my NetFlix cue, it’s all either foreign gay dramas, movies starring Winona Ryder, or something in between. My mother who has seen the movie, loved it and raved about Gabourey’s moving performance. At the same time, she doubted whether there were other roles for extremely overweight black women in Hollywood (my words).
The thing about Gabourey’s case is that she doesn’t have a resumé of past film movies that led up to her starring role in Precious. She has become completely and utterly defined by that singular role. I think it’s telling that Howard Stern (though he might have just been being a dick) didn’t know Gabourey’s name and kept calling her “Precious.” In any future role, she’ll be known as “the Precious actress” and her persona will likely overwhelm any character she’s tasked with portraying. Outside of a Gone With The Wind remake, I simply don’t see what other leading roles she could play.
Things don’t have to end with Precious, though. I would suggest she attach her name to a multi-million dollar diet supplement contract, lose the weight, write a book about the experience, go on Oprah and then retire to a career as an E! Entertainment correspondent. Hey I’m not crying for Gabourey.
What do you see as Gabby’s place in Hollywood? Does she have to lose weight to gain acceptance and roles?
While I lived in France, there was a lot of commotion going on whether Turkey should be allowed to enter the European Union. I had no real opinion on the matter besides the fact that by consulting a map, you could see that Turkey was not, in fact, part of continental Europe.
This final collection designed by Alexander McQueen is full of such bittersweet beauty. There are so many metaphors to be found in the collection’s neo-romantic renaissance splendor. The clothes have a regal, angelic feel with beautiful prints that recall the Florentine Quattrocento. It is testament to the artistic and creative genius the fashion world has lost. 
With the remaining pieces of shiny panel, I sewed them onto one lapel of this black Zara blazer. I was originally planning to hand sew individual gold sequins onto both lapels, but I was impatient and went ahead with this instead. I only have one small piece of panel left, not enough to cover the other side, so I’m going to leave it in its present asymmetrical form. I think Adam Lambert would approve, don’t you?
The next project I tried out this evening was sewing on these shiny plastic panels onto a pair of simple American Apparel nylon spandex leggings. I wanted to give the leggings a bit more complexity and a futuristic feel. This was one of the harder sewing projects I undertook as the elasticity of the leggings made it difficult to sew down the panels evenly. They didn’t come out perfectly, but it was pretty good nonetheless.
