Bradley Cooper and My Inner Discourse
On Ambition and Desire
Academy Award nominations come out this week and I’ve been making my way through the films on the shortlist that are available for streaming. I watched Maestro after reading a lot of the discourse about it. The film was very meh to me but more interesting is the discussion of director/actor/writer Bradley Cooper.
He desperately desires an Oscar for this film. It’s not such a crazy dream. Winning an Oscar is a pinnacle of his field and to win it for a film he was so heavily involved in every aspect of creating would obviously provide significant validation. But what is it about Bradley Cooper’s naked wanting that is so off-putting to me and to many others?
I remember all of the “Hathahate” in 2013 when Anne Hathaway was the clear Oscar favorite for her role in Les Miserables. As an Anne fan, that all felt very unfair and misogynistic. So it’s interesting to see a similar disdain arise for a male celebrity.
It’s a very weird and perverse line we ask people to walk. They should care about their craft but not too much. They should work for it, but not too obviously. They should be relatable but also on a pedestal. They should want to win, but also be extremely humble and grateful and very quiet about this inner desire.
Obviously I do not know Bradley Cooper personally. He does not care what I think about him and his celebrity status will not be dimmed by these conversations. I think it’s more interesting to try and see what this same conversation looks like in our daily lives.
Is this something I hate seeing reflected about myself? Am I finding it easier to be snarky than to be earnest? Am I the kind of person who can’t celebrate success for others? Why does it feel kind of icky to see someone deeply care about something?
I don't have a great answer here but it’s what is on my mind as I start this week.
Also as a note: The other way Bradley Cooper dominated my brain space this week was in the interview where he talked about training for six years to learn how to conduct six minutes of music for the film. My friend Josh always used to talk about how the only part of acting and celebrity that interested him was how they got to learn so many random skills over the course of their lives. While my first inclination was to think about how absurd that time commitment is for such a short moment in the final film, Josh's framing made me think about how cool it was to have the opportunity to learn and train in that way.
This Week’s Recommendations
'My body left Gaza but my heart is still there': A neurosurgeon on what he saw in Gaza
Family Family by Laurie Frankel - This was an absolutely incredible read! I was enthralled from the first chapter and could not put it down. It beautifully expanded my definition of family and challenged me to think about what preconceptions and misconceptions I held about adoption, all while weaving a gorgeous layered narrative. It comes out officially tomorrow! Thank you to Laurie Frankel, NetGalley, and Holt/Macmillian publishers for the opportunity to read this advance copy.
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid - I adored Such a Fun Age (by the same author) so this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024! I am obsessed with the way Kiley Reid is able to take huge social issues and bring it into the messy granular with very compelling characters. Come and Get It was an absolutely stunning work on the impact of choices and I would have read hundreds more pages enveloped in this world, but Kiley Reid is all the smarter for leaving the reader alone with their spinning thoughts at the ending. It comes out on January 30 so pre-order or reserve a copy at your library today! Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Putnam for the advance copy.
I always read Alice Wong, especially when her very important words start with a sentence like this, “The answers lie in poop.” This read is truly so critical - “Do disabled people count? Have we ever mattered except when it’s an election year?“
“‘Voting with our dollar’ is an idea that very, very quickly crumbles when applied to many situations. And honestly, it’s a slogan I hate, because it sells people on the idea that there is any significant agency in the limited (often terrible) choices that have been presented to us by the ruling class. Are you, for example, voting with your dollar when you pay for your groceries, or your utility bill? No. You’re just fighting to live in a society.”
“There is something weird about the public reintroductions of Natalia Grace Barnett and Gypsy Rose Blanchard. The way we rubberneck over their past trauma but then expect it to be neatly resolved by the time they hit our television screens.”
Body sprays are back - “Could the comeback be driven by millennial nostalgia, or is it speaking to a younger generation with no memory of the phenomenon that was Bath & Body Works Cucumber Melon?”
“As girls, this is what we're led to believe — just one more lipstick, one more cleanser, one more nail polish, and now — one more Stanley cup. If it sounds ridiculous, it's because it is, and once I got a little older, I realized that actually, I did not need four Urban Decay Naked Palettes and every eyeshadow shade of brown MAC had ever made. It’s liberating to understand that the purchase of something won’t deliver you Perfect Girlhood/Womanhood.”
As we enter yet another Trump election cycle, this piece on American Evangelicals seems especially poignant - “But many of those same people have chosen to idealize a Christian America that puts them at odds with Christianity. They have allowed their national identity to shape their faith identity instead of the other way around.”
I have to tell you it never crossed my mind that some people were born on planes until I read this article.