Shoot The Messenger Please

A Huff Po post about an inter­view (show, per­for­mance piece, who the fuck knows), Lizz Wins­tead did with Tra­cie Egan and Moe Tka­cik, two wri­ters from Jeze­bel.

Lizz is dis­tres­sed about this inter­view, an inter­view in which two women she thought were cle­ver, funny, insight­ful, and inte­lli­gent were none of the above. As a mat­ter of fact neither Trace or Moe could string three words together cohe­rently. Poor Lizz now feels res­pon­si­ble, so she wants them to take res­pon­si­bi­lity, as after all they are “role models”.

The whole humi­lia­ting grou­ping is here on Shoot the Mes­sen­ger. In this case shoo­ting the mes­sen­ger might be a good idea..

True, after vie­wing the clips my The Valley Doll is Dead illu­sion was des­tro­yed. I guess it’s now Valley Doll Femi­nism. A pathe­tic scene in which a large part of the dis­cus­sion was some kind of incohe­rent quasi drun­ken dia­lo­gue about rape. Now, the wri­ter inter­vie­wer (who kept these imbe­ci­les tal­king for an hour), shoc­ked that “Slut Machine” and her part­ner in crime exhi­bi­ted such dis­re­gard for their res­pon­si­bi­lity as role models to a gene­ra­tion of women, put up the vids and wrote a post to “hold these young women accoun­ta­ble for the sta­te­ments they made as they seem sure to keep repea­ting them.”

The girls come on, appa­rently drunk or suf­fe­ring from recent hea­der ball syn­drome. They exhi­bit a flip­pant dis­re­gard for the serious­ness of topic, but are too drunk (or brain dama­ged), to actually work the hip­ness they were trying to con­vey. Truth is, the res­pon­si­bi­lity lies with the writer/interviewer who assu­med — inco­rrectly —  these peo­ple were even worthy of an inter­view, and were role models for anyone.

Pre­su­ming anyone with the name “slut machine” a role model, espe­cially after rea­ding her blog, was pretty stu­pid to begin with. What hap­pe­ned is she inter­vie­wed a cou­ple of rather inar­ti­cu­late wanna be “new wave femi­nism icons” in a venue which leans itself often to comedy, and now wants to hold them res­pon­si­ble for their ridi­cu­lously emba­rras­sing diatribe.

She might want to hold her­self accoun­ta­ble for not doing research. True it was dis­gus­ting, but no one holds these pathe­ti­cally sad crea­tu­res up as role models, at least not anyone who mat­ters ( anyone with an ounce of rea­son ). Lizz should have known that. It would have saved us all a lot of pain.

I did have to remove Jeze­bel from my rea­der though, and for this I thank her. My rea­der was get­ting a little crowded.

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50 Comments

  • I stop­ped rea­ding Jeze­bel a while ago. This con­firms it was a good decision.

  • I don’t align myself with pop cul­ture femi­nism, like you said long ago when you pos­ted about sui­cide girls, it’s a farce, and these women are just another dis­play of the joke being pla­yed om women.

    They aren’t femi­nists though. They are, as you so aptly put it, imbeciles.

    Total losers, and the author should take res­pon­si­bi­lity for not kno­wing it. As brain dead as they appea­red it is unli­kely they will get it or if they did care.

  • I don’t think Moe and Tra­cie came off that badly.

    I think Tra­cie got kind of scre­wed over when she was tal­king about rape pre­ven­tion. First, Lizz cas­ti­ga­ted her for put­ting her­self in risky situa­tions by slee­ping around, and then when she star­ted to talk about how she keeps her­self out of situa­tions where she feels unsafe, she got his­sed at, because the audience thought she was saying she was somehow bet­ter than women who don’t take precautions.

    There were a lot of pla­ces where I felt they were misun­ders­tood, and that wouldn’t have hap­pe­ned if they hadn’t been so drunk, but I’m willing to for­give. They both do good work on Jezebel.

    • I’m not con­vin­ced of their good work but Lizz did something which loo­ked a bit set up to me.

  • It’s not making any sense to me. Perhaps I should get cof­fee.
    They seem high on something.
    I don’t like, or find enter­tain­ment with the way any of them were thro­wing around the word: “rape” so lightly.

    • It’s easier to get a grip on it st the “Shoot the Mes­sen­ger” site, but ove­rall not much to get a grip on, as no one seem to have a grip.

  • I’m not sure what to say about that, it looks like they went on there thin­king it was some kind of a joke.

    I guess from what you’ve said, I don’t read Jeze­bel, these women are all full of snark and humor on the Jeze­bel site and just came into this situa­tion not clear hea­ded, not expec­ting serious conversation.

    Yea they look ridi­cu­lous and are the oppo­site of arti­cu­late, but like you said why would the inter­vie­wer have expec­ted anything more. To then go write a long public com­plaint expose is a little self serving.

  • Every word here is true. Tra­cie Egan can rot for all I care; her ver­sion of femi­nism is worse than cramps.

    • As I’m bliss­fully unfa­mi­liar with most of her work I can’t con­cur I can only say I would find it hard to believe these women are really much i the way of con­tri­bu­tors to anything.

  • Jeze­bel is part of Gaw­ker Media. These ladies are edi­tors — not neces­sa­rily wri­ters. And I agree that Jeze­bel isn’t “smart femi­nist” at all. It’s snarky pop culture.

    • Not even good snarky pop cul­ture. I had them on my rea­der but haven’t seriously read them in some time.

    • They both post con­tent on the web­site under their noms de blog (Moe and Slut Machine).

      • Yes, luc­kily I won’t be rea­ding them, actually hadn’t read them for some time, the post at Huff Po just caught my atten­tion and I found it silly that the women who wrote it actually thought she had a leg to stand on, once I thought about it.

  • It’s like you know more men in this big city should be rapists than there are (not ver­ba­tim – I was going to do the com­ment in the style of the inter­view but that line was too sick)

    The inter­view should have ended then But the lar­ger truth is that peo­ple who are ear­ning money – good money – from blog­ging aren’t wri­ters or deep thin­kers or any­body you would want to drink with

    I can’t believe I want to take pride in a country where many peo­ple sec­retly or not want to be Perez Hilton

    Femi­nist isn’t the issue. Inte­lli­gence is. It is irres­pon­si­ble not to use pro­tec­tion when having sex. I’m sure every­body makes that mis­take a time or ten but to laugh about it when preg­nancy bad as that could be isn’t the only unin­ten­ded con­se­quence isn’t funny or cute

    I’m so glad blog­ging and this whole cult of cele­brity by women who can be cle­ver with words wasn’t around when I was in my 20’s because like I would have pro­bably come off like them

  • This ‘dis­cus­sion’ was pue­rile to say the least — what a waste of film and time. Rape — oh, you’ll get over that — what the hell is that? No won­der youn­ger chil­dren are so mes­sed up — they think anything ‘enter­tai­ners’ say is gos­pel. BTW — I watched 1 minute and 15 seconds — that should be a record. Had I watched more, there would have been bloodshed.

  • I’m brain dead myself (sun) and Lizz should have nixed the inter­view when one of the girls said she was an expert on China – that’s a far stretch

    All 3 came off ridi­cu­lously stu­pid. A pre-interview is more impor­tant than the actual inter­view and a good pre-interview will stop most poten­tial pro­blems – or the inter­vie­wer is so skill­ful she will reduce the inter­vie­wees to something truly funny. This was just pathetic

  • I had to view it twice and was like wtf.

    I find it hard to ima­gine the author thought this would be an inter­view with “role models”. She pro­bably got unex­pec­ted outrage then deci­ded to make a big deal of it. Agree with you on that.

    It was a vomit indu­cing dis­play for all of them, not just the two jeze­bel women. The per­ni­cious socie­tal pathos of Gaw­ker media spreads to femi­nism. Go figure. That Huff Po bothe­red with this is amazing.

    • Wow casey I’m impres­sed. “per­ni­cious socie­tal pathos” I love it. May I use that? Somewhere?

      Yes I hate to keep com­men­ting because all I can say is yea dude, like yea man.

  • Just take a deep breath of relief and think

    “THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I”

    right-o though

    like thro­wing dirty vege­ta­ble into a dirty pot, and then acting all sur­pri­sed when the water is so damn dirty. DUH

  • a banal and mediocre inter­view..
    they should all be ban­ned for being so inane and totally imma­ture about such a serious issue..

  • So much for the new hip depra­vity, and those who don’t know it when they see it.

    That was nothing but idio­tic. I’m glad you called out the author on her own self ser­ving atti­tude in this case.

    Down with “oh so cool” miscreants.

  • I can’t believe that was real. It looks like a joke, or a bad attempt at one.

    • It does look like a joke. Sadly I don’t think it was except that the peo­ple are a joke and the inter­vie­wer going on like these peo­ple were real role models even wroth calling out now that was the joke.

  • Was not jeze­bel the wic­ked wife of King Ahab? Wic­ked is as wic­ked does. Which is not to be con­fu­sed with a hearty Pea­body “wic­ked!” Which the current jeze­bel appa­rently is not.

    • Jeze­bel was many thing depen­ding b ut wic­ked was one of them. These women are not wic­ked just wic­kedly igno­rant, a pro­duct of…god knows what.

  • Yeah, that was lame. Whoo boy. This is every ste­rotype about rape, gen­der, sexual free­dom, etc. reaf­fir­med by dizzy bimbos.

    OK, I’m typing and lis­te­ning and just heard “I paid someone to rape me once.” I’m kind of pis­sed now.

    • At some point you get sad, and then you rea­lize they are idiots and idiots can’t be held res­pon­si­ble for their behavior.

  • I love rea­ding the com­ments here.

    It’s all been said. I have to go rinse that nasty taste out of my mouth now.

    The fee­ling of sit­ting on the steps of the dorm lis­te­ning to a sto­ned room­mate ram­ble on wasn’t so bad, it was the topic and the inter­vie­wer let­ting it go on and on, when it was obvious some of the pie­ces were mis­sing from the these girl’s jig­saw puzzle.

  • Well, I didn’t have the op. to hear the video — at the library and all.

    But maybe you can find some Patrio­tism and bet­ter belief in Ame­rica in my most recent post. I think it works — but then again, I am bia­sed. ;) (And I should note, I don’t like all I write. Alot of it is garbino..)

    Shoot off fire­works this wee­kend? I didn’t — but I smelt my fair share.

  • Oi,tudo bem?
    Obri­gada por me add e pela visita ao meu blog.
    See you soon!

  • Was that in English?

    The video, not the com­ment above, I know that’s not English.

    The women who wrote the Huf­fing­ton post whine should be as emba­rras­sed. Nothing worse than self righ­teous­ness after the fact.

    I’m s till trying to figure out what lan­guage those women were speaking?

  • I’ve been rea­ding a lot of dif­fe­rent blogs that have dis­cus­sed this femi­nist debacle. I like what you have to say. I saw the video, and I was com­ple­tely stun­ned that any­body would make those kind of statements.

    You might want to check out the Colette’s Love Bytes blog. She pos­ted about this. I thought she brought up some inte­res­ting points. I think it’s coletteslovebytes.com, but I’m not sure. You can goo­gle it.

    I feel bad for any­body who con­si­de­red Tra­cie or Moe their lite­rary heroes. They’re idiots. I think you could’ve inter­vie­wed Girls Gone Wild girls, and they would’ve had smar­ter things to say about rape.

    Ok, and wtf was up with the com­ment about pulling out is a great method of birth con­trol??!!! It’s SO not. Those two repulse me. I don’t want to read Jeze­bel any­more because of those twits.

  • Now that I’ve clo­sed my mouth, I have no clue what to even think, let alone say. That has to rank right up there in the top 3 igno­rant, mind­less, sha­me­ful dis­plays that I’ve ever seen.

  • Thanks for brin­ging me back from vaca­tion to rea­lity, coo­per. I’m too old for jeze­bel, so I’m clue­less there. But I’m ama­zed that Wins­tead asked them to be on to begin with. For wha­te­ver my opi­nion is worth, it was emba­rras­sing watching those two women utter their ridi­cu­lous com­ments. It was biza­rre — like they weren’t sure it was serious. I can’t ima­gine anyone wan­ting to be made an ass of in quite that fashion. I won­der if they’ve seen the play­back and have just blown it off, chal­king it up to yet another thing that doesn’t mat­ter. Unbelievable.

  • Kelly­pea, I’m glad you back safe and sound.
    I have no idea what is in the minds of some peo­ple but I’m sure it was sha­ken off as just another day. A sad dis­gus­ting day but duh ya know it’s like, oh well.

  • You are a bitch. Maybe you should go write for Jeze­bel now that Tka­cik left for gree­ner pastures.

    http://gawker.com/5027587/jezebel-moe-jumps-to-radar?cpage=2