Lately #29: An iconic Oscars photo, a wellness scam and Modern Love
Five things to entertain you, and one piece of advice.
Hello from the tail-end of Oscars week!
(I’ve taken a stab at voice-recording this edition if you’d rather listen…)
I wish that I could present us as the best place for an Oscars rundown but, like most, we’ve caught up on the winners and speeches on our phone screens. The chat between myself and Gillian consisted of the following: How much we love Kieran’s acceptance speeches and the baby madness he inflicts on his poor wife; whether playing a sex-worker is the fastest route for an actress to land an Oscar (not taking anything away from Mikey Madison, but this is worth a discussion); and how a Bond tribute seemed a bizarre choice. It feels like the Oscars ceremony is in dire need of a re-invention.
My two favourite speech snippets of the night: when Sean Baker, director of Best Picture Anora, took time to highlight the importance of supporting movie theatres (get yourselves to the movies, folks), and when Yuval Abraham, the Israeli co-director of Best Documentary Feature No Other Land, said this of his Palestinian co-director, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother.”
Yara
The backstory behind a photo…
You’ve probably come across this iconic post-Oscars poolside photograph of Faye Dunaway taken by Terry O’Neill, but do you know the backstory? I didn’t until I watched the HBO documentary Faye: The Many Lives of Faye Dunaway.
It was taken at 6.30 a.m. at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1977, the morning after Dunaway’s Best Actress Oscar win for her role in Network (two earlier nominations had left her empty-handed). It was likely the last thing she wanted to do, but O’Neill had pitched the idea of the post-Oscars image to her during a People Magazine shoot, saying that if she won she wouldn’t just want the same old pictures of her holding the statue in the press room. This was his thinking:
“I wanted to capture that moment — the morning after — the moment the actor wakes up and it dawns on them that, overnight, they’ve not only just become a star, but also a millionaire. This is that moment of realisation.”
It’s likely that O’Neill’s easy charm sealed the deal as the two married in 1983, and stayed together until 1987.
Something we should all be watching…
I have never been one to resist a scam-artist story. For those of you who have told us you’ve loved our previous fraudster recommendations Scamanda, Sweet Bobby and The Dropout, you’ll want to add Apple Cider Vinegar to your watch list.
It’s been a decade since Australian wellness entrepreneur Belle Gibson, who built an empire based on the claim that she had a brain tumour, was exposed as a fraud and convicted. The series, based on the non-fiction book The Woman Who Fooled The World by journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, takes a look at how far Belle went to cover up her lie (and this is what always makes a scammer story fascinating, isn’t it?)
According to a Time Magazine article, it’s estimated that 80% of true crime viewers are women, and that we’re drawn to female scammers:
The ones who really seem to hold our attention are regular women—or women who were regular until they invented an alternate reality in which they appeared to be extraordinary. Which makes each one of them a fun-house mirror and a screen on which we project both our anxieties about trusting other women and our own urges to get what we want by breaking bad.
It’s true, I do find myself thinking what it would take to channel that level of audacity - not to ‘break bad’ necessarily - but to be bolder? I secretly admire the storytelling abilities of the Belles and Anna Delveys of this world.
And while Apple Cider Vinegar is rife with dramatic detail, the creators are careful to clarify that while it is “inspired by a true story, certain characters and events have been created or fictionalised” - an all important caveat following the Baby Reindeer fall-out.
To get closer to the real people behind the story (I’ll save you the googling) you can follow up by watching Netflix’s two-part documentary: The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist. Interestingly and perhaps controversially, many of the real-life people linked to Belle, who have a first-hand perspective, weren’t interviewed by the series creators.
A podcast you’ll want to share…
It’s been a while since I listened to the Modern Love podcast, but I have always loved the glimpse it provides into the complicated love lives of real people. A recent episode popped up in my podcast feed titled How to Fall (and Stay) in Love.
The podcast invited listeners to submit voice notes about the exact moment they knew they were falling in love, and the stories that bookend the beginning and end of this episode will both pull at your heartstrings and make you laugh. Sometimes it’s the most inexplicable of things!
The core of the podcast is an interview with journalist Mandy Len Catron about her viral essay published a decade ago titled: To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This. In it, Mandy describes a list of 36 questions developed by a psychologist that are meant to help spark and deepen intimacy.
Mandy’s essay includes her own personal experiment.
More than 20 years ago, the psychologist Arthur Aaron succeeded in making two strangers fall in love in his laboratory. Last summer, I applied his technique in my own life, which is how I found myself standing on a bridge at midnight staring into a man's eyes for exactly four minutes.
Read the original essay here or listen here (with the bonus of a 10 year update!).
Something that may surprise you…
There’s been an unexpected shift in the world of animation, away from the dominance of American studios. The animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 out of China has overtaken Pixar’s Inside Out 2 to become the highest-grossing animated film globally of all-time.
The film reimagines the story of Ne Zha, a boy with extraordinary powers who appears across Chinese culture and legend and it has already grossed close to $1.9 billion since its release in January (and is the first to top $1 billion in a single market).
Take a look at the trailer to get a sense of its visual grandeur (sea dragons and all!)
Something for a brain break…
Gillian sent me this hilarious Oscars fashion rundown and I had to share, because nothing made me laugh more this week. Would this be as funny if he wasn’t Scottish? I doubt it.
BONUS: More Oscars reading from the Substack-verse…
This joyful visual recap by author
and illustrator Justin Teodoro. We particularly loved Justin’s illustrated ode to Terry O’Neill’s portrait of Faye Dunaway.
This newsletter from our good friend journalist
which covers so much including a fun fashion vote and thoughts on why so few of us are watching the ceremony these days.
One piece of advice:
For anyone that feels like they’re going through it at the moment, some wisdom from Jane Austen:
“If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.”
LOL! on that Oscar fashion recap!!! Thanks for sharing!
Wow I had no idea Ne Zha did that well at the box office. China is really killing it lately on the "soft power" side.
I find it so fascinating that women love true crime so much. I'm one of them but I have no idea why.