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Frances

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  1. OMG -- that makes me insane! I've seen Carole shame critics on Twitter for tiny things that could be typos. Her writing is full of spelling and grammar errors.
  2. I remember her schtick around food resembled what I know of eating disorder therapy, which has a lot to do with eliminating cycles of restriction of "forbidden" foods and binge/emotional eating. I seem to remember her saying that there were no rules against certain kinds of foods (e.g., French fries) and the only rules are things like "no food noise" (obsessive, anxious worrying about food and exercise) and no binging. The theory behind that approach in the eating disorder landscape is that your body will just reach a natural "set point" -- someplace that is neither overweight nor underweight for your particular body. I think that's actually what Bethenny is referring to by "Naturally Thin," but she branded it in a different way. I'm not sure how I feel about her use of the words "thin" or "skinny," but understand that it was a marketing choice at the time. The correct term is "fat shaming," not "skinny shaming," although I have never thought that Bethenny's brand really was fat shaming (it might have been a little tone deaf). But even if it was, Carole doesn't know the correct term, which suggests to me that she doesn't really know or care much about the relevant issues around fatness and body image. She was just using a term (incorrectly) as a way to get at Bethenny. On a not unrelated note, I don't think Carole understands what "age shaming" or "ageism" mean to people who are really concerned about those issues. Just like she doesn't understand what the term "bullying" means to people who are concerned about bullying. And she doesn't understand what being "tone deaf" around race and ethnicity and culture means to people who are actually concerned about those issues. She just appropriates and misuses a lot of phrases she thinks have something to do with being politically righteous.
  3. I completely agree with this!!! I actually don't think Bethenny ever made that big of a deal of Carole and Tinsley's closeness. She said exactly one time that they were "BFFs" and "thick as thieves," and she appeared vulnerable and sensitive to the relationship in Cartagena -- even jealous. So what? From watching the show, I didn't feel like she was spinning a huge story about Carole so much as she was just processing her own feelings and perception of the situation. That's what everyone does is situations where they're being ghosted, or faded out, or just experiencing a shift in a relationship. They come up with speculative theories about what was happening. Whether those theories are true or not doesn't matter. There was nothing even remotely defamatory in what Bethenny said. Carole is the one who repeated the terms "BFF" and "thick as thieves" over and over and over and over. It didn't need to matter. Now her story is that she and Bethenny were never that close, and she just got focussed on other stuff and wanted more space to focus on herself. What's the difference? That's a comparable explanation to the idea that she became closer friends with Tinsley. Neither explanation is better or worse. Why focus so much on the accuracy? Carole seems obsessed with defining the level of closeness of all her relationships -- letting everyone know that she is simultaneously so cool that she won't define anything, but also that she's super #rideordie. Teenagers sometimes present themselves that way, because they tend to have idealized understandings of their own identities. Adults know that it's okay to be vulnerable and crave intimacy, and also that none of us can be loyal all the time. I think Carole is mainly angry that Bethenny undermined Carole's "cool girl" autobiography, and the main problem with that is it just wasn't cool to begin with.
  4. I think you are dead on! I have also always noticed that Carole has a very distinctive way of emphasizing the word "girl" in self-narration. The other women often refer to the whole group in terms of "the girls." But Carole is constantly talking about "the kind of girl" she is, and she has a tendency to paint pejorative pictures of a generic type of woman and follow up by saying "I'm not that girl." Carole claims to be less self-involved than someone like Bethenny who is so focussed on personal drama and her brand. But, for me Carole seems constantly to be doing autobiography, and that often involves distinguishing herself from (and implicitly saying she is superior to) caricatures she draws of types of women. I think her use of the word "girl" is a big part of that.
  5. Never gets old. Just saw an interview with Carole. I think her favourite way to avoid taking responsibility is to describe herself, and then say "I'm not that girl."
  6. Jovani, indeed! This is pretty much my favourite post ever. I especially appreciate the incisive comments on Carole's comments about "Indian." I could not believe how offensive and just plain stupid that was!
  7. I think she should have done some more of them, or just stuck with shorter distances. She just didn't look prepared for that marathon.
  8. I really noticed how terrible her form is, too! She looked so uncomfortable, and in the footage I saw she was mostly walking...and then having trouble even walking. It would have been much better for her to start with something like a half-marathon, or even just a 10K, and try to learn to be more comfortable in her body. I agree that the marathon probably messed up her body.
  9. I am beginning to believe that Carole actually believes her own bullshit -- as in, she does lie sometimes, but often she's not so much lying as she's become very, very, very sane, as in the intensity and attention have gotten into her head, and she's just living in some alternate reality she and her puppets have constructed. Kind of like her pal POTUS 45.
  10. When I saw that post, I cringed with embarrassment for her. Bragging about being ahead of the game fashion-wise? It's so juvenile, I can't even... Bethenny made a couple of modest comments about how Carole had become pretty oriented to superficial things like her appearance. I'd like someone to count the number of comments, because I did not hear her repeating this stuff even a fraction as much as Carole repeated it. And Carole went apeshit about Bethenny's false narration and lying. But Carole is the one doing the things that make her look vain and superficial (and juvenile). How she cannot see that is beyond me. I actually think Carole draws attention to her fashion sense and how sexy her body is more than most of the other housewives. Ramona is pretty vain and superficial too, though she would never try to deny that. Carole doesn't like being compared with girly girl Tinsley. Tinsley did the glam squad thing in Cartagena and she seems to have some obsession about having her hair done. But other than that, I don't see her constantly saying "look at how cool and sexy my clothes are...look at how hot my body is..." the way Carole does.
  11. I agree it's desperate. And hypocritical, but no surprises there. She knows a lot of people will assume that she landed a new job, so she's trying to create a narrative by implication. Signing with an agency suggests she's looking for new projects. Kind of wondering about two possible scenarios: One is that she just signed up with the new agency so she could make a big announcement and keep the drama going. The second is that she knew she was at loose-ends career-wise all along, and just constructed this huge drama with Bethenny to get her name in the media spotlight (and she doesn't actually mind that the press she's getting is negative).
  12. Ha-- that's so awesome. Thank you. "You get the face you deserve!"
  13. Oh...someone must have forgot to give us the memo that she was holding Bethenny "accountable." That's not what I thought accountability means, but I am not the kind of girl who is very, very, very sane and has a huge hippocampus. I just remembered Teddi Mellencamp and her accountability coach business. Can't stop thinking Carole should send in her stellar resume. Or maybe she already did and the reunion was like an audition.
  14. YES! Let's set a couple of things aside. First, it's not bashing and bullying to say that someone needs to have a best friend. It's not bashing and bullying to create a narrative that someone needs to have a best friend, even if that narrative is false. It's also not bashing and bullying to use that narrative as an explanation of why your friend started to distance themselves from you. Second, sometimes people just make up explanations for why things happened in the moment to explain it to themselves. The BFF comment might have been a bit exaggerated, but who cares? Children take labels like "best friend" super seriously -- it's like an occupation. Adults kind of throw that language around a bit more casually. All Bethenny seemed to mean was that there was something different about her relationship with Carole, and Carole seemed to be hanging out with Tinsley a lot. Carole latched on to this "BFF" and "thick as thieves" language and blew it up into something it didn't need to be. But let's say Carole is right, and I'm wrong about the above. Let's say Bethenny actually slandered her by creating a narrative that "Carole's the kind of person who needs to have a best friend." Why on god's green earth is Carole going out of her way to prove Bethenny right? Carole makes no sense.
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