Hello Genius, It's Your Weekly Wag!

Glorious Things with Dorinda Medley, Nosegate, and End of Summer Goodies...

Proboscis Maximus!

Dear Wags,

We were not undone by Bradley Cooper wearing a fake schnoz to portray Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. To borrow from another famous Israelite, sometimes a nose is just a nose. We can also cope with Helen Mirren and several tons of prosthesis playing Golda Meir, Luke Combs covering Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, and Whitney Houston suping up Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You. We need not exhume the story of how Elvis made off with Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog. Nor shall we launch another demographic investigation into the cast of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Representation frequently matters, but culture itself is appropriation. Plus, there are only so many Sarah Lawrence professors for a reporter to call.

We wrote a long, sober piece about culture, identity and Hollywood. But a hummingbird news cycle blew past us! So we’ll save it for when Meryl Streep stars in The Irma Manischewitz Story. Oh, we kid (insert Yiddishism here). According to Rashi, the right answer to thorny questions about depictions of Jewishness—or any other sort of -ness—is: It depends.

Grownup people understand that Hollywood has a sordid history of exclusion. They also get that acting is about about playing a diversity of characters, not minding census categories. Ultimately, show business is a pretend game, not a 23andMe test.

Like Bernstein, Cooper is famous, handsome, and talented. And he’s not Jewish. On your own time, you may engage in a Talmudic tussle over just who gets to define Jewishness—among other areas of glorious differentiation—for the rest of us. Despite a perennial compulsion to jam ourselves (and others) into boxes, human beings contain multitudes. Cooper clearly has more in common with a world famous conductor than yours truly. Lennie’s kids are over the moon about it, as you would be if a movie star were playing your pops.

Cooper’s given equipment isn’t small, but he went in for a little dramatic augmentation. Maybe a fake beak will work the same magic as Nicole Kidman’s prosthetic honker in The Hours. Back in 2003, somebody said she won her 2003 Oscar by a nose, a joke that would not land in the Catskills. An Academy Award is motivation enough for an actor of any background to spend hours in a makeup chair. But enough of this (insert Yiddishism here). Let us feast on delightful distractions.

Yours Ever,

---

---

Every so often, we ask a creative whiz for three gifts from the muses. And who better to tap than Delightful Dorinda Medley, entrepreneur and star of Real Housewives' Ultimate Girls Trip: RHONY Legacy? As chatelaine of Bluestone Manor, her Berkshire manse, Dorinda throws an affair to remember. Accept no Bravo substitutes and take her guidance when it comes to making your reality more glamorous.

1. Florida Squeezed sunscreen. I love this line because it's anti-aging, reef-friendly and never tested on animals, so it's a conscious product. I have the 30 and the 50 SPF sun sticks at my pool right now. The 50 is especially easy to use. I don’t like an overpowering sunscreen smell. These smell like oranges, go on with a fresh mist beautifully, and give you a nice sheen.

2. Bluestone Manor Bourbon. It’s inspired by my beautiful, iconic Bluestone Manor. The bourbon evokes the feeling of a speakeasy, which the manor used to be in the early 20th century. It’s smooth and delicious and tastes like caramel and butterscotch. I also love that it’s made by a women-owned company. I thought it was time for women to be part of this man’s club of creating and enjoying dark liquor.

2. FaceGym Pro Tools. These electrify your face. If you’re going out at night or have puffiness under your eyes, use one for 10 minutes and oh, my God, the results last for four or five days. I also do red light therapy once a week. I think it's the way to go for healing, regeneration, muscle pain—everything. It makes me feel like a million bucks.

   ---

   ---

   

   ---

Best of Summer 2023

There were shows we loved this summer, but the one we really hated was called The Hollywood Strikes. There are glimmers of hope, but they come too late for the bevy of seasonal festivals (Venice runs August 30-September 9; Telluride August 31-September 4; and Toronto September 7-17). As Poobah Fran Drescher says, this is an “inflection point” in a Human-Robot War. It may have been inevitable and necessary. That doesn’t mean it isn’t really damaging. Old fashioned awards season is that much closer to total oblivion. What comes next is anybody’s guess, but our Best Of list hides behind the paywall. —Marcello Rubini