Those who have read it may remember that I specifically noted in that post that the possibility of diminishing number of the Confused Liberal Hipsters who misguidedly uphold Lena Dunham in high esteem as their feminist hero can be just my wishful thinking. Still, I feel obligated to tell my readers that yes, indeed, it was nothing more than a momentary slip into an illusion that people may be getting a little bit less stupid.
I cited New York Magazine's long-time silence about Girls and its creator as a hopeful sign. Well, I spoke too soon: In the current issue The Approval Matrix placed that (I mean the image in the picture) on the Brilliant side.
Then again, they might've been sarcastic... Like in, "brilliantly exploitive and shockingly repetitive," or something? You never know nowadays - hipsters don't possess genuine humor. Thanks, Tina Fey! And guess what? See the article below.
"And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
And he marvelled because of their unbelief, And he went round about the villages, teaching."
Mark 6:2 - 6
The Frustrated CFO comment:
Philosophical and belletristic powers of biblical stories lie in their proverbial precision and universality. It's no surprise that people frequently use phrases that became ingrained into our common cultural consciousness without even knowing that they are quoting the Bible.
In this particular case, many use a simplified version (No man is a prophet in his own land); others put it into their own words ("He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot" [Douglas Adams]) - but the truth remains: People who know us privately, who observe us growing up or growing old, who see us in our house robes and undies, who bring us tissues and teas when we are sick, cannot appreciate us for our achievements, even if they enjoy their fruits.
Great men and women are frequently treated carelessly by their siblings, long-time friends, old neighbors, spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends. I frequently hear stories told by various business owners and executives about their children who have no idea what their parents do, don't care to find out, and treat them as if they were some silly schmucks. Scary people who control fates and well-being of numerous entities and their employees around the world are made fun of at home. My own daughter rarely shows any respect to me, but will admire and listen to other people.
It takes someone as objective as I am to acknowledge an extraordinary person in someone very close. Alas, it's an impossibly rare exception to the common rule: one will not get honored in his/her own house.
Ever since this company made into a couple of 2013 national lists of the fastest growing entities, we have been accosted by a slew of various business services offering their assistance and support: insurance brokers, real estate brokers, HR management providers, marketing consultants, etc., and most notably for me - bankers.
The troubles that befell the banking industry a few years back resulted in its consolidation. The competition among the diminished number of the key players in the field of institutional finance has stiffened. They are fighting for clients with proven records of steady profitability, growing equity, and assets with high market liquidity, which, of course, are not that easy to find in our "recovering" economy. Hence, they are after our business.
All the better for us: We are approaching the expiration date of the credit agreement with our current lender and are looking for a relationship that would be a more suitable match to the fast-growing company. So, I'm doing what I've done quite a few times throughout my career: I'm meeting with a lot of bankers - explaining the business, answering their drilling questions, providing them with extensive data, spinning the info in the most thrilling way.
While all this is going on, I cannot help but notice the increased percentage of women in the banking mix. Well, that shouldn't be surprising, actually: according to many statistical reviews, more than 50% of the corporate middle management in this country are presently females. I hear from our own sales staff that purchase managers of our customers' (industrial sector, by the way) are predominately highly technical women in their 30s.
Of course, as we climb further up the ladder, the numbers diminish: men dominate upper management to the extend of 70-80%, and only 10% of the C-level executives are women. Still, I used to be the only "skirt" in a room full of male execs and financiers. Now, there is a female contingent on the opposite side of the table in 3 out of 4 meetings. Hell, the founder/CEO of this company is a woman. Hence, our board of directors is 50% female (her and I) - we are the tough side of the directorship.
So, here I am in our conference room listening to two representatives from one of the 10 largest banks in the world, who are making a presentation of their proposal (aka a Term Sheet in business dealings). One of them is a diminutive woman of Korean origin in her late 50s - she is the boss, the North-East Regional Director, a big gun brought on to get the deal closer to the finish line. With her is one of her many subordinates - a young and ambitious man in his early 30s. If I end up choosing this bank, I will get him as my Relationship Manager (RM).
The menagerie is balanced by a man at my side - COO/owner/our CEO's whity husband. He has his full charm on: he cannot help it - he has a soft spot for Pacific-Asian women. Now he admiringly "complements" the banker-lady for being deceptively tough, i.e. looking pretty and soft, while being steely behind her eyes. I tense up: here goes seclusive male chauvinism, and you never know how a woman will react to it.
She handles it beautifully, though: "Well, you know how it is - brain and beauty combined are lethal." She turns to me: "Right?" Well, I wouldn't know - never got a chance to rely on no beauty, just my brain. But I don't say that. I just smile.
I wish my COO would do the same, but he somehow takes it as an invitation for further "admiring." "Yes, you are absolutely right. I couldn't put it better myself," and he embarks on telling the bankers how his wife, our CEO, is especially successful in sales because she is a woman who can speak "sweetly on the phone." He actually uses those words. "It used to take me," he says, "four phone calls before Dow Chemical would call me back. But she sweetly leaves a voice mail and they return her call within 5 minutes!"
He is absolutely overjoyed with pride. The Korean lady's mouth gets very thin and she looks at me again -we both know: this is how it is. The men will always find the way to treat us as if we were inferior, whether through insults or with "compliments."
I am disgusted, but I'm willing to dismiss this on the principle "forgive them, for they know not what they do." And right then he turns his head to me, looks straight into my eyes, and says, "You cannot repeat it outside of this room. L. always gets very upset when I say this, even though I mean it as a good thing."
Seriously, dude? You've been warned about it before? By your wife, who is also your boss? And what? You cannot help yourself? Of course, you cannot, because it's written into your genetic code, like a primal instinct. And you are too insecure to consciously fight it off! If it was me... But she is not me, in many ways she is very different. And that's why he'd financed this business for her.
In all honesty, I thought I was done with Ms. Lena Dunham. I said everything I wanted to say about "her Movie," and "her Show," and her "success"; I analyzed the background, motivations, and the role of the hipster media; I expressed my opinions - negative and otherwise (HBO's Girls Still Play with "Tiny Furniture", 2013 Golden Globe Awards, and the breakthrough 8th episode of season 2). The topic was important to me as yet another evidence of social and intellectual degradation of the so-called "cultured" bi-coastal populace. But as far as I was concerned, I exhausted the subject - I threw it into my waste basket, all used-up and crumpled. I had no future expectations (I still don't) and I simply stopped paying attention.
Unfortunately, one cannot prevent other people from sharing their reactions - if not to her work, then to her public presence. And you can swat away incidental remarks, but this Vogue-cover affair created a splash of diverse opinions, which were shoved into my face by my personal and public social networks.
The funny thing is that if it wasn't for the chatter around it, I wouldn't even know that the cover happened in the first place: I never bought a single copy of Vogue in my life. Moreover, I never even notice it on the newsstands. It's not a conscious effort, but, come to think of it, my mind must be blocking it out - after all, this magazine and it's kin are responsible for image crises of millions of women around the world.
But again, this "controversy" of Ms. Dunham's image gracing the cover of Vogue was brought to my attention. And, as a life-long student of human psychology, I found the spectrum of reactions to this occurrence in itself to be quite a curious matter, which I'm itching to analyze. So, fuck it, here is my assessment of various opinion-expressing groups.
1. Lena Dunham's acquaintances from her pre-celebritylife.
It just so happens that I am separated by a mere one degree from Lena Dunham's former Oberlin College classmates (one of my client's nieces), and I hear that these young women are absolutely scandalized by her success in general and the Vogue cover in particular. Apparently, Ms. Dunham was an undistinguished student. Moreover, she was "practically unnoticeable" (mind you, not unconventional, rabble-rousing, or irksome as a lot of real artists are perceived in schools, but simply unnoticeable) in the classes of her chosen major, Creative Writing. Outraged exclamations such as "She was Nothing, just unremarkableNothing!"have been quoted to me.
Well, let me tell you: unremarkable she could've been, but she was never a Nothing. Obviously these socially popular and academically overachieving children of wealthy businessmen (now, by the way, all in post-graduate programs trying hard to better their job-market chances) didn't bother to learn anything about their awkward-looking classmate. Lena Dunham has been born and will always remain a person with deep roots and vast connections in the artistic community. Do I really have to explain that in this world it counts for more than any kind of personal and/or creative substance?
You see that picture at the top of this post? That's Aura Rosenberg's 1997 portrait of Lena, age 11, as her mother's, Laurie Simmons, artistic object - a dummy. How telling! Ms. Dunahm has been manipulated into the life she has right now since childhood. She always knew that her creative efforts, such as they are, will get at least some attention from her parents' close-knitted network of artists, gallery owners, museum curators, screenwriters, actors, and, of course, PR professionals.
So, while the members of this opinion group were chasing top grades, prestigious internships, and references from esteemed literature professors, Lena Dunham didn't need any of that - she was already writing her awful sketches for the "arty" web series, which eventually made her a MOMA (!) darling, as well as scripts for her self-directed and self-starred unwatchable shorts, which, despite their quality, were accepted for showing at indie festivals.
2. Inexplicably blind fans, who naively think that Lena Dunham is one of them - a college grad struggling through her life in a big city full of dull jobs, bizarro living arrangements, hopeless relationships, and fake friendships. Not too pretty or interesting, not too hard-working, intelligent just enough by the currently very low standards, and without any relevant life skills, yet feeling entitled to success and happiness. These pitiful creatures loooooove Tiny Furniture and Girls, they devour Lena's tweets and voyeuristically follow her Instagram. And they went and shelled out $10 for the damn Vogue, because they mindlessly welcome every instance of public recognition of the person they mistakenly perceive as an "unlikely star." Her very success provides them with a false sense of hope for their own future.
They are so self-absorbed and clueless, they didn't even notice the familial loft (presently on sale by Lena's parents for $6.25 million). They are not sophisticated enough to grasp the priciness of the clothes Ms. Dunham was wearing in the photos taken before she made a single penny. They already forgot about one of the first-season episodes, in which Hannah Horvath "worries" about her high school classmate who is going to Hollywood without having any connections. In their blindness these people are not much different from the first group - they have no clue just how privileged Lena Dunham is.
3. Starving skinny bitches, fashion zealots, and male chauvinists,who are having seizures every time someone who "doesn't fit Vogue's image" is featured on the cover of the magazine: like Jennifer Hudson, or Adele, or Ms. Dunham. What can I say to these fucking assholes? Go and eat something - your brain screams for some sugar! You say, these women (I don't care much for any of them, by the way) don't fit the "beauty" standard, but Sarah Jessica Parker does? How about Kristen Stewart who looks in all dresses as if she is in drag? And in whose acid-induced hallucinatory trip Lady Gaga can be considered a "dream girl?"
Vogue covers have nothing to do with beauty, or at least they shouldn't - they are supposed to entice prospective advertisers into buying space inside the mag. The trend-setting bullshit should be secondary to Anna Wintour - as a CEO of the business that is the periodic publication in her charge, her primary focus should be in increasing revenues. And it appears that she has been making terrible executive decisions.
The advertisers are interested in the number of eyes that will see their products and, like nowhere else, this book is judged by its cover: if they believe (whether right or wrong - doesn't matter) that the celebrity featured on the cover will attract more readers, they will be fighting for the commercial space. Thus, Lady Gaga makes sense, so does Beyonce. Kristen Stewart while The Twilight was still a work-in-progress was an excellent business choice, now - not so much.
So, it's a total mystery to me as a revenue-conscious CFO, why would Anna Wintour cancel Miley Cyrus's December cover, while apparently "chasing" Lena Dunham for the January one. Let see: One is an international mega star who at her "mature" age of 21 is worth $150 million made primarily by her multi-platinum album sales and sold-out concerts (truth be told, I'm getting nauseous writing about it, but money talks). And the other one? A tiny auteur of a tiny movie with a tiny furniture that led to a tiny show.
Oh, don't tell me it's because of the "wrong message!" A fully clothed girl pretends to be sexual with a man on stage as a joke and that's appalling? Wait a minute! Isn't the other one is actually stark naked in most episodes of her show, frequently rubbing her bare vagina against her male co-star (for the sake of the show's "emotional realism," of course)? Ah, but over 10 million people watched MTV VMA - Miley made a big splash! An orthodox catholic priest Sinead O'Connor voiced her scorn all the way from her rural Ireland. So, the editor-in-chief chickened out! On the other hand, the last episode of Girls was seen by 830 thousand people - that's safe. Well, the numbers speak for themselves - bad executive decisions all around, Anna Wintour, and skinny or fat makes no difference.
4. Cool-headed and reasonable, but unfortunately overly optimistic people.They understand very well what Lena Dunham is, how she came about, where her interests lie, and how much value her work has. Yet, they convinced themselves that the adoring people will eventually come around to their side, shed the blinds, and realize that they've had a temporary brain lock, or, at the very least, will get bored of the emptiness and repetitiveness. They believe that, just like much lauded by hipster media back in 2007 Diablo Cody (one of the 50 smartest people in Hollywood at the time, no less!), she will disappear into the mass of forgotten washouts.
Uh-uh, my friends! Lena is not going anywhere.
In the nepotism ridden Tinseltown Diablo Cody's momentary success was a rare case of an outsider's rise. She surprised herself with that ascent as much as she did the entertainment industry. Standing there with the damn statue in her hand she was speechless - she knew it was all about the hype and that she didn't really deserve the Oscar (Ratatouille, not Juno, was supposed to win that year).
Have you watched Lena accepting her big and small awards? Have you seen her in interviews and in photo ops? There is an unmistakable sense of entitlement and belonging in her every word and move. She is gleeful. It's not about deserving it for her. She knows she was born for this.
5. Confused liberal hipstersin a tireless search for social rebels and antiheros. They looked at Lena's naked body and let themselves to be fooled into thinking, "That girl's got balls; this is a feminist statement." They truly believe that she is the "voice of her generation;" that she influences people (at least according to 2013 Time's list). Moreover, they convinced themselves that Lena Dunham's main human and artistic purpose is to fight their holy war for the right to be who they are and how they look. (Never mind that this representative sample is limited strictly to white, urban, college grads.)
These people are very disappointed. They feel like their idol has fallen. In their ardent fervor of feminist puritanism, they are convinced that the right thing to do for their "spokesperson" should have been to say to the devil-woman Wintour, "Thanks, but no thanks. You can shove your glamorous magazine and its cover up your skinny ass." And they write about it at length: "Why Lena Dunham Should Say No to Anna Wintour," and stuff like that.
It may be a wishful thinking on my part, but there are some signs that the size of this group of Dunham missionaries is shrinking. For examples, New York Magazine, the original (circa Spring 2012) herald of Lena Dunham's coming as "the ballsiest," the funniest, the most genuine, etc., etc., etc., has been absolutely silent for months about their former darling and her creations, making a single exception by placing an off-off-off-Broadway play that spoofs Girls via Little Women on the brilliant side of The Approval Matrix. Maybe some previously infatuated people start sobering up and finally realize that the only group Lena Dunham represents is herself. Who knows, of course? There may be another cover in the works.
6. Me, not surprised whatsoever. As Tyler Perry's Madea said, "If someone shows you who they are, believe them." (Thank you, the brilliant people who introduced me to that quote). So, when in the final scene of Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham's self-admitted movie about her life) she tells her real mother that she just "wants to be famous," I heard it loud and clear. That's the main focus, the life's purpose.
And for the sake of achieving it, Ms. Dunham will do whatever it takes: Parody the explicitness of the true art revolutionaries by stripping in front of the camera whether it makes sense in the storytelling context or doesn't (it actually did once - in the shower scene of Tiny Furniture); make politically correct statements, so appealing to the liberal media; pledge unyielding admiration and love to anyone who has some sort of pull. And yes, you only need to ask - she will pose for Vogue.
7. And then there is Kanye West... The poor man is terribly aggravated on account of his "friend" Anna Wintour selecting Lena Dunham for that cover instead of his Kim. He says that it's not fair; that his Kim is "just as talented as Lena Dunham" (oh, she is, Kanye, she is - just as talented and far more popular). And by getting hysterical over this bullshit Kanye West unwittingly exposes how incredibly irrelevant the whole thing is. That's the consideration? Lena Dunham or Kim Kardashian? That's just funny.
Let's keep it in perspective, people. In the grand scheme of things literally only a handful of people cares. Vogue has a circulation of 1.2 million. 1 million people follow Lena Dunham's twitter, and apparently not all of them even watch her show (average 780,000 viewers). And yes, some of those who are aware of Lena Dunham's existence hold media and entertainment strings in their hands. And maybe that's all that Lena Dunham needs to be satisfied with herself, but intelligent people should know better: three months from now even the faithful perusers of Vogue will not remember who was on the cover of the January 2014 issue.
Forgive me for being inattentive to such extra-accommodating bells and whistles, but I only noticed it yesterday night: after you finish watching a TV show's episode or a movie on Hulu Plus, a little window with both facebook and Twitter logos/links appears in the middle of your screen. I take it that this is Hulu's offer to its subscribers to share the news of just procured entertainment experience with their personal social network.
My God! Do people actually do that? Like in self-admiring way, or something? I just watched an episode of "Brooklyn 99" on Hulu Plus. So fucking cool! Or: "Persona" on Hulu Plus, just now. Fucking rad!Attention seeking much? How boring are these people's lives? How heartbreakingly pathetic!
The Frustrated CFO goes to a corporate party and during cocktails mingles with bankers, all kinds of brokers, execs from various industries, business owners, etc. Everyone exchanges cards, handshakes, hugs, or cheek-pecks depending on the length and the warmth of the relationships. Some people talk shop, some solicit business and/or advice, some boast about themselves and/or their children, some discuss the Super Bowl without much enthusiasm (it's NYC after all - we only got excited when we saw our very own Eli Manning in the stands watching the event turning miserably for his brother). Many, of course, discuss the weather - it has been an appropriately cold winter, which makes the clueless schmucks unhappy.
The Frustrated CFO does her duty of actively participating in this business-social hubbub. She doesn't even have her cards out, because in this room everyone knows her and she knows everyone. This is great - no pressure, no awkwardness, no need for ice-breaking: she freely rotates herself around the space joining a conversation here and there, mostly listening to others chattering away.
The party is not very large - just 60 people. So, it is a testimony to the prevalence of the trend that she catches two independent dialogues, which support one of her it's-only-gonna-get-worth observations: that there is no such thing anymore as a "secure" profession.
A VP of Acquisition and Investment from a Commercial Real Estate Brokerage humorously tells a story how at a recent RE conference she met a middle-aged gentlemen with a double-sided business card. One side introduced him as a licensed commercial property broker and another... as a cardiologist. He told her that he'd been a practicing heart specialist for 25 years before getting into selling corner delis, Korean restaurants, and warehouses. People didn't know how to react and, therefore, they snickered - a typical response. Someone said, "I wouldn't trust that guy with my heart."
Well, I've been saying for some time now that HMO's together with malpractice insurers did a pretty thorough job of downgrading the medical profession from one of the highest-earning trades to a regular struggling-to-survive occupation. This is why it's so hard to find a good primary physician nowadays: the insurance pays $8-$25 monthly allowance for PP patients and the only appointment you are allowed to bill to the provider is the annual full physical. Every single privately practicing doctor that I know, including specialists, feels obligated to tell me how he is about to lose everything and how he cannot afford his kids' tuition anymore. But I have to be honest: A cardiologist going into real estate? That was surprising even to me.
In another conversation The Frustrated CFO's corporate attorney was explaining how they had to push one of the partners out because "he wasn't bringing enough business." His arrangement gave him rights to share in the combined profits, while the other partners didn't feel that he was pulling his weight. So, they simply didn't renew his contract. Now, the attorney said, the ousted ex-partner went to work for a law firm that kept all attorneys strictly on the eat-what-you-kill basis. No more sharing in each other's efforts - if you don't bring any business on your own, you don't earn anything at all.
Well, this has been a shift in many partnership-based professions: not just law firms, but also accounting, managerial consulting, architecture & design, web development, advertising, and some-such companies. It's not that important anymore whether you are a good lawyer - it's all about the salesmanship, the "rolodex," the ability to snatch a new client. I keep waiting for the time when these entities start hiring sales execs without the required professional backgrounds and pay them humongous bonuses for selling services fulfilled by someone else.
As recently as 10 years ago parents still thought that as long as they force their children into being a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or a money manager (regardless of the kids' actual talents and dreams), they did their "duty" of making sure that these young men and women were financially comfortable and could provide for themselves and their future families. But it's not true anymore: there are no more cushy jobs, no security in any profession, no guarantees.
"An unworthy and tiresome thing money, at best, but it can at least ease the heart of the lover. When he lightens his purse he lightens his heart, though this can hardly be accounted a virtue, for such giving is perhaps the most insidious form of self-indulgence that is known to mankind."
"EXCLUSIVE: President Barack Obama told CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday that some of the country's largest corporations have signed on to a White House plan to boost the hiring of the long-term unemployed.
'What we have done is to gather together 300 companies, just to start with, including some of the top 50 companies in the country, companies like Walmart, and Apple, Ford and others, to say: Let's establish best practices,' Obama said in the exclusive interview...
Obama's move is in line with his pledge to use executive action on his agenda items that he hasn't been able to get through Congress."
The Frustrated CFO Comment:
Alrighty then! So, this is how we are going to deal with overpopulation and economic stagnation: Instead of cutting down government spendings, ceasing the preposterous fueling of the financial sector, ending the subsidies to failing industries, letting the stock market to finally adjust to its real value, providing incentives to domestic manufacturers for repatriating their productions from overseas, and reducing business taxes in order to reignite small-business growth, the President proposes to create a new form of Welfare, i.e. to force big-time employers to absorb long-term unemployed people - in exchange for some tax credits, no doubt.
Hmm... Not that I'm concerned for the overgrown business superpowers with their blown out of proportion stock values and unjustifiable multi-million-dollar executive salaries, but if they don't experience a labor-force deficit, why would they accept extra employees? That goes against every single principle of a market economy, even in its degenerative form we have right now! And where they are going to employ them? Walmart is planning on opening more super-stores? They are everywhere already. So is Apple. And Ford? Do you mean Ford Motor Company, the one that posts $5-$6 billion losses every year; the one in Detroit - the city declared bankrupt by US judge Stephen Rhodes two month ago? You must be kidding!
And how these companies are going to pay these people? I can't imagine the execs will let their ballooned compensations to be slashed by 80%. So, what then? Everybody, except for a handful of the privileged, will take the same percentage cut to accommodate the unnecessary additions? Let's make most people equally poor, so that everyone can be "employed" and bring home something? Wait a minute! Didn't somebody already tried this experiment? Oh, yes, communists in the socialist camp did! Worked like a charm: destroyed their economies and created hordes of lazy, unmotivated, and unskilled workers! Welcome to your future, people, courtesy of your elected leader!