When Titanic came out media dubbed Kate Winslet "piggy" and "fat" and wouldn't stop hounding her over her supposedly "obese" weight. She spoke herself how that made her utterly miserable.
But when I saw her character first she was the most stunning human I have ever seen in my life. Utter perfection. Not once have I thought she was fat - she was what I wished I could be even if by 2%. (Also, that perhaps I'm not very straight lol)
Media tore her to shreads trying to get her to develop an eating disorder like it was fashionable at the time and I thank heavens that she had a strong enough will power to not go down that path. Her aging naturally, at least so far, is another example of that strong will.
Kate Winslet was, and still is, a heavenly beauty.
i think i will be able to handle it when 1989 rr come out because its so stupid and so obvious that ill just make fun of anyone who believes it lmaoo, what i can handle and what really f*cks up my mental health is louis randomly participating in bg LMAO
To me personally Louis saying one random thing to fans that people forget about after a new concert happened is nowhere near as bad as 1989 re-record/H***lor. TBH I forgot that happened until you brought it up but H**lor I can never forget bc the media, her fans, some of H fans and Het H**lor shippers won't let me !!!
We all saw what happened with Red re-release. I couldn't go anywhere on the internet without hearing about that stupid red scarf and J*ke. Once 1989 comes out it's going to be the same thing just replace J*ke with H and the scarf with the infamous boat picture. If you dont know their relationship ended with poor T getting dumped on a boat and pictured sitting on the boat alone after H left her and partied with friends including Louis.
Nothing against you but I'm assuming your a newer fan bc it's usually newer fans who weren't around and don't fully understand how bad H**lor in late 2012 into 2013 award season was that think this way. With how much L&H couldn't STAND H**lor and the mention of it, you could see they were always upset before and during H**lor when asked about it. The "I loved you first" interview is a prime example not a single joke made by Louis that day just quite and defeated looking.
Once H**lor ended L&H thought they didn't have to deal with it anymore [que them celebrating the day H**lor ended] but that didn't become the case. We ended up with the "slandering toxic ex" story line of 2013. It really F****d H over and started the peak of "womanizer H" image. Which REALLY spiked the amount of "bad boy womanizer" Het H fanfics written [like after which got published and movies made]. All of 2013 H was trashed by the media and you could see H was completely done with everything that year constantly being asked about which women he's F****d or about H**lor.
Album after album, year after year he was STILL being asked about her. You would think it would stop but it never did. Every time he's asked about H**lor he is uncomfortable and annoyed. It clearly effected him and Louis big time more so than any other stunt relationship. So this re-record of an album aimed to be about H is just going to bring up the topic of H**lor AGAIN and not just by annoying H**lor shippers but every part of the internet and media.
Okay, I’ll admit it. When Watermelon Sugar hit the radio and I suddenly had to hear it everywhere, in my head I kinda went, “Jesus Harry, we get it. You like to fuck.”
But I was just playin’! Joshin’ my boy! You know I love Harry, and more to the point, I think he’s a very thoughtful artist. I think he’s straining for an emotional truth in his work that he must constantly interrogate and shape--hence his propensity to change lyrics and cadence (the Spotify Singles version of Two Ghosts comes to mind) in live performance.
I don’t really believe that his music, allusions to fruit juices aside, is mostly sexual. But even if it were--would that be a bad thing?
At the ripe old age of nearly-27, Harry is definitely allowed to have sex, you know? Like all adults. He’s also allowed to sing about it. I have a friend who is a rather brilliant, cerebral young musician (And also an Aquarius! Go figure.) who has songs about sex, because sex is part of his life. Sex, beyond being fun when done right, is also a realm of extreme spiritual and emotional truth. It’s also...sexy. It makes for good music. We know this. So no harm done there.
A Note On Olivia Wilde
In recent days, Harry’s been photographed holding hands with Olivia Wilde. I have a lot of respect for Wilde, both for her longstanding activism and her career. On House she portrayed the first canonical bisexual I ever saw on TV, a massive moment in my life that made my heart hammer with a sense of recognition I was too young to really appreciate.
Yet I can see why the current media setup--including a Vanity Fair piece dropped yesterday--might make some longtime Harry fans nervous. A decade ago, Harry’s purported involvement with Caroline Flack had fans frothing at the mouth. Whether the relationship was legit or not is hardly the question, and, out of respect to the tragic situation surrounding Flack, I wish to speak instead on the hideous media coverage at that time.
So much of what defined Harry’s media image as a teenager was sexual. The world very quickly realized, I think, that he is a massively charismatic person, but the extremely sexualized coverage he received was singular and disgusting. He could not so much as speak to a woman without speculation that they were involved. An exhausting burden for anyone, let alone someone so young and so suddenly exposed to the world’s scrutiny. In 2012 my mother very cheerfully read off that infamous “400 women in a year” headline to me and it made my stomach twist.
Beyond the closeting many suspected was behind this early media narrative, there was also the fear fans held of Harry’s predation. First Caroline, then Taylor--Harry was linked to older women all the time, and as we know, age gaps create power imbalances. Harry was still a teenager. It all seemed wrong.
So perhaps the Wilde thing chafes, as we remember these wounds of old. Two things to consider, however:
1) Harry is no longer any sort of child. He’s an adult man with a career that he has made conscious efforts toward maintaining. Time has ruled that none of his fame was an accident or mistake. He has chosen this path, treacherous though it may be, and that’s worth respecting.
2) Essentially, he and Olivia Wilde are peers. For one, they’re co-stars, but they’re also both household names, both wealthy beyond imagining, both seemingly secure in their image and personhood. This is pure speculation, but I suspect they have a bit of an intellectual connection, whatever else they are.
It is not so unheard of that a person in their mid/late-20′s might date someone in their 30′s, especially if they share a career and relative position in society. The world is very large and full of people, and finding a person you connect with is a brilliant feeling. If that’s what they have, these two adult peers, then fantastic. And if it’s PR for the film they’re in together? Wouldn’t be the first time. Wilde is admittedly gorgeous. Who better to offer her their arm than a handsome man who cut his teeth as a young lothario?
And Yet...
The womanizer image, grafted onto Harry in his days of earliest fame, has never sat right againsthsi skin. We certainly talk about it enough around these parts: Harry Styles starts each day with a glass of antioxidant rich Respect Women Juice, yet media (and many fans) would have you believe he wakes up, sees a lamp shade that looks like a boob, and just starts wacking it. If media was reality, Harry would have to be a bedridden compulsive to keep it up.
Now, one can respect women and still have sex with a lot of them. Promiscuity is not inherently evil or immoral or filthy or wrong. Really, for me the question becomes, “How comfortable are you, dear HStyles fan, with speculating on the amount of sex he has?”
We are all a little bit complicit in Harry’s sexualization through the years. Some of it is less okay than the rest. I’m not here to decide for you, but hopefully it’s become clearer over time what is and is not creepy, what is and is not invasive, what would and would not make Styles himself lose sleep if he knew it existed with his name attached.
The media, writ large, is more broadly complicit in this sexualization. In 2011, Alan Carr interviewed 1D for Chatty Man and--having already confirmed which of the boys was 18 and old enough to drink--begins to hassle Harry (not yet 18) about “pussygate,” aka
Black & white for nostalgia purposes.
Listen, I get it. You wanna take the piss out of the 17-year-old pop star, because it’s funny and silly and he’ll be embarrassed but cool about it probably. You wanna tease him. Because he’s a kid.
On their next interview with Alan Carr, Harry is once again addressed on sexual terms--”Harry, give us your gravy!”--that are playful but also pointed. By age 18, Harry had dealt with this for years.
Hi, Watermelon Sugar
Harry is not the only musician, not even the only member of the band, to have their personal life made a public topic. Superstardom in the 21st century is invasive to the highest degree. But it seems peculiar that the specter of hyper-sexualization chases Styles most everywhere, despite the decidedly non-sexual accolades and regard his career has gathered in the last five years, and despite the lack of flagrant behavior.
Perhaps this specter hangs on because of Harry’s emotional and sensual approach to music--I mean, he does talk about fruit juice a lot, and fabric, and flowers. In an interview with Zane Lowe, the friendly, stoney mood is momentarily dampened by Lowe’s assumption that Watermelon Sugar is about oral sex.
“Everyone’s kind of figured out what it is about, the joys of mutually appreciated oral pleasure. That’s what everyone’s saying,“ Lowe tacks on defensively.
According to some, Harry even confirmed as much at a different point. In the Zane Lowe interview, he denies it.
For what it’s worth, In Watermelon Sugar is a post-apocalyptic novel by Richard Brautigan from the 1960′s. The book, a sparse narrative of a commune existing post-societal collapse, has been called “a parody of the pastoral” by Patrick Morrow. “This society may represent what modern man might wish it to be...but the distortion in the new society is also obvious and just as unattractive.”
Harry has confirmed that a copy of the book was present during the genesis of the song. The shimmery, ephemeral lyrics--the fragility of sugar itself, easily melted--seem to hint at a desire to stay in the best parts of feeling while acknowledging that these moments are necessarily short-lived. In Morrow’s view, Brautigan’s book is about reality denial. In my view, Styles’ song is, at least a little bit, about the same.
So it’s not that the song isn’t about oral sex--it’s that it’s about more than oral sex.
Or maybe it’s that oral sex is about more than oral sex.
Or maybe it’s about nothing, and there are certainly those who choose to believe that. Still, it seems a shame that so much of Harry’s image continues to be wrapped up in that of the Don Juan, the Casanova, the Lothario.
my dad works in theatre/film and he asked me why he had to get tickets to go see ”a man who publically sleeps around to get his roles” when he read the article... i didnt even realize how bad this would look on harrys side
Yeah none of them look good, but maybe worst from Harry’s side.
Can you explain your tags on that post about a ten years contract? Thank you!
Hi anon, i’lltry my best (me and english: a notp ;)
The hiatus hasnever made sense to me. Regardless of what Liam said, it seems that they havecommitments as solo artists for a long term (world tours –cheers-) so why didn’t they simply break up the band?They could easily decide to come back together later, as a lot of boybandsalready did. Why did they decide to stay on hiatus for so long? What’s more, itlooks like they have the same media image, and the resulting obligations, aswhen they were active members of 1D. In particular, can Louis’ decision to stay with Simon and his situation withEleanor and Freddie be explained just saying their contract expired but he losta legal war with Syco? I’m not sold on this theory, given that the other boysseem to have the same media image as before, too (Let’s talk, for example,about Harry, shared clothes and blurry pictures, but also daddy Liam and carefree Niall ) So my theory (one of them atleast lol) is that their contract had a term, and obligations about the numberof albums and tours. They likely fulfilled the latter, but not the duration of thecontract, so they were free to go in hiatus and go solo ( with the right of first refusal ) but they still had to beofficially members of 1d (ergo, maintain that image), because their contractwas not expired. So, given what Liam said about 2020, the theory of that anon,on a ten years contract after X-Factor, like for example KellyClarkson with America Idol, can make sense to me. In any case, I hope they will befree of Simon when they’ll be back (and they’ll be back because they want it,not just because they have to)
edit: anon, i forgot to say (thanks to @afulltimelarrie who reminded me) that given that they didn’t have a tour for mitam, it’s also possible they had a ten years contract, fullfilled all ther albums/tours obligations but the tour for mitam and agreed on going in hiatus, on condition that they come back before the ten years mark for that tour. 2020 makes sense in this hypothesis too, because they would have a tour just before october/december 2020. Obviously, i prefer the other option, because i’d love to see them back together free from Simon, and not just because they have to. Either way, i don’t think they’re free yet,
