There are certain celebrities that people are extra invested in, and Amanda Bynes definitely fits that category. I feel like our entire generation has been rooting for Amanda to succeed since the “I want Drake to murder my vagina” days, and things finally seem to be going in a positive direction. The last several years have been quite the roller coaster for Amanda, but this week she graduated from college, which is a super big accomplishment for her.
Amanda Bynes first enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) back in 2014, but she had some issues during her time there. In her first year there, she was reportedly kicked out of school for a multitude of reasons. She allegedly showed up to class high (who would do such a thing??), got caught cheating on tests, and caused “horrendous arguments” with her classmates. Okay, so none of these are *good* things, but I feel like everyone reading this can probably check at least one of those boxes.
Also, in doing my research for this (reading several old Page Six articles), I learned that Amanda Bynes got arrested for a DUI in 2014 because she was under the influence of ADDERALL. I’m sorry, this is a crime?? How much Adderall do you have to be cracked out on to get arrested, because we’ve probably all been there. Amanda Bynes really did college just like all the rest of us.
FIDM graduate 2019 #fidmgraduation pic.twitter.com/KdFI5dPOdK
— amanda bynes (@amandabynes) June 25, 2019
But apparently FIDM decided to let Amanda back in, and now she’s finally done with her degree. We hadn’t really heard from Amanda for a few years, until she resurfaced last fall with her Paper magazine cover. In the interview, she was open about her past substance abuse issues, and seemed hopeful about her future in fashion. She said that she planned to launch a clothing line, and she even wore some of her own pieces for the shoot.
All things considered, it seemed like Amanda Bynes was doing well. But then, it was reported earlier this year that Amanda had entered a mental health facility for stress-related reasons. There were never really any public details about this, but I was definitely nervous that we were going to go down another dark path with Amanda. To be honest, I still feel like I have PTSD from all those manic tweets back in 2013.
Even if we don’t know everything about Amanda Bynes’ situation, her graduation seems like a good sign that she figured things out, at least for now. I would love to have a chat with her about what’s going on with her hair, but mostly I’m just happy that she got that degree. Congrats girl, now welcome to post-grad life. It’s soooo fun and not stressful at all!
Images: Shutterstock; amandabynes / Twitter
From one betch to all the betches out there, happy International Women’s Day! May we take no sh*t from men neither today nor any day! According to the UN, “International Women’s Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic, or political.” So basically, it is a day that women are actually acknowledged for being badass bosses, regardless of extenuating traits like race or politics. Recognition of women’s existence and achievements seems like it should be an everyday thing, but whatever, I’m not here to complain. On the contrary, I’m about to make y’all really happy with some flashback Friday feminist empowerment from our favorite television shows circa the ’90s and early 2000s.
That’s right, some of our favorite childhood shows made a legit and impactful effort to instill feminism in our young and impressionable minds so that we would be prepared to enter young adulthood with the betchy confidence of Angelica Pickles circa the early years. Let’s get to it.
‘Rugrats’
I’m going to start with Rugrats because it is the freshest in my memory. A few weeks ago, my roommate and I were watching that Friends episode guest starring Elizabeth Daily, AKA the voice of Tommy Pickles. (For those of you who are wondering, her actual real life voice is the literal same as that of Tommy Pickles.) So, like any sober 25-year-olds, we got nostalgic and wanted to relive the joy of a Rugrats episode, but because cartoon quality has gotten significantly more legit since the ’90s, Rugrats no longer graces our television screens via cable. It is, however, on available for purchase. So without hesitation, we threw our hard-earned dolla dolla bills at the entire first season of this show, and literally watched the entire thing within a week. I am not impressed with us, but I am impressed with the astute level of feminism in this gift to humanity.
For those of you who may have forgotten, Angelica is low-key the star of the show because she was bossy as hell, and I am here for it! How could she not be when her boss bitch mom actually uttered the words, “Angelica will make it in a male-dominated power structure.” Um, YES. Let’s not forget about DiDi Pickles, who was the glue that held her weird little fam together. Let’s face it, her hubs was a toy inventor with the mental capacity of a stale cracker, and Tommy is a textbook case of ADHD’s early symptoms. She was progressive af and we aren’t mad about it. Betty Deville is another top contender for most feminist queen of Rugrats. She was always donning her athleisure because she gotta #werk, raise a family, and crush souls of judgmental trolls all day everyday. Last but not least, Charlotte Pickles, who was gloriously terrifying and got whatever the f*ck she wanted. This human form of a power stance knew how to command a room and didn’t have time to deal with your sh*t. Claps for you, Charlotte.
‘The Amanda Show’
The Amanda Show was SNL for ’90s babies. She was Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Maya Rudolph, Leslie Jones and Tina Fey all rolled into one sassy betch. Because Amanda played upwards of 800 different characters in countless sketches on this blessing of a television show (#MoodysPoint), I just don’t have the time to go into all of them, and I refuse to focus on only a few because they all deserve recognition. So instead, I’m going to focus on the show in general. The Amanda Show made humor accessible. I know what you’re thinking, “What?” But think about it, The Amanda Show was just an endless sea of hilarious jokes from a group of really attractive kids who were not afraid to don heinously ugly wigs, outfits, or fake teeth for a laugh. I feel pretty confident in myself, but idk if I could have thrown on a pair of fugly overalls, a bucket hat and dentures in front of a 1) live studio audience and 2) millions of viewers at home. Kudos to you, Amanda. We love you!
‘The Powerpuff Girls’
I watched this show a looong time ago, so I’m going to keep this brief. If there is another definition of girl power that isn’t “Sugar, spice, and everything nice,” I don’t want to hear it. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls, but Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction: chemical X. Thus, the Powerpuff Girls were born using their ultra-superpowers. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil, and I’m impressed. These sister were like, what, seven years old and fighting crime? I can’t even find a dude who washes his hair, and these girls were out here making the world a safer place. Good for them.
‘The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air’
Each of the three main women in this amazing show were absolute queens in their own right, but I am just going to focus on one, the matriarch and feminist icon, the OG Vivian Banks. (Not her replacement who looked literally nothing like her in any way, and I need an explanation from the producers for this abomination). Anyway, Vivian 1.0 showed all of us plebeians how to rock a mint green power suit and raise a family, both of which are impressive. So in like, basically every episode, Aunt Viv stood up to sexism, ageism, racism and a slew of other -isms, because she’s a hero who’s too stylish to wear a cape. Her education about cultural references was truly unparalleled. Let’s not forget her absolutely schooling Will when he acted like he was an expert in black history because he read Malcolm X’s autobiography. The exact quote was: “You can read that book, you can wear the t-shirt, you can put the posters up and shout the slogans, but unless you know all of the history behind it, you’re trivializing the entire struggle.” YAS, AUNT VIV, YAS. The bottom line is Vivian was a woman who was unabashed to speak her mind, especially when dealing with her moronic male counterparts. Sorry, Carlton, we love your mom and her dance moves more.
‘Sex and the City’
Ok, before everyone judges my mom for letting me watch this show, she didn’t know I binged harder on SATC than I did on Halloween candy. Skip your eye rolls and scoffs for calling this show feminist, but what would you call a squad of women who subconsciously discussed the bs behind the coveted fairytale ending and openly shut down slut-shaming? This group of revolutionary women (I’m a total Carrie) made it okay to engage in sex with guys you aren’t Facebook official with, to have fun without worrying about the haters and, of course, to prioritize Manolos over all else. Idk if this was intentional or not, but these four women make up one perfect betch: Charlotte is romantic, Miranda is brilliant, Carrie is funny, and Samantha is Samantha. Of course, no one woman is actually perfect, which is why all of these traits are separated into four individual women, but they are all great and I love them. On a side note: it truly breaks my heart that SJP and Kim Cattrall aren’t actually friends IRL, because their characters were the most likable on the show. Truly, no one could pull off jewel tones and feathered accessories like they could. I’m hoping that somewhere in lower Manhattan, Carrie and Samantha are getting afternoon cocktails rn.
‘Lizzie McGuire’
This show was my life, and I have no shame in my game. Lizzie was a cultural icon who struggled between staying true to herself and wanting to fit in, but then she realized how much the popular kids sucked and got over it. Snaps. Lizzie’s main feminist feat is that she was not afraid to go through all of the same struggles all teenage girls go through: heartbreak, annoying siblings, eating issues, and, most iconically, bra shopping with your mom. Lizzie facing all of these preteen issues made all of us realize that these are just normal parts of life, and we shouldn’t feel embarrassed to be experiencing them. Lizzie came into her true feminist self in the final scene of the movie, though, when she chose herself and her hair extensions over a guy. Nevermind that he lied, cheated, and tried to pass Lizzie off as Brunette Lizzie Isabella, but he tried to play her for a fool, which just isn’t how you save your career, sweetie. Lizzie’s too smart for that sh*t, you Italian meatball!
Images: Nickelodeon; @stephdelucaaa, @freshprince.ig; @wearemitu / Instagram; Giphy (3)
The bar for a TV reboot has officially been lowered. The finale of American Idol was barely a year ago, but now three out of four major networks are fighting over who’ll get to bring it back. If you just audibly groaned, that’s the correct emotional response. Welcome to Trump’s America.
If you’re wondering how we got here, let’s break it down: earlier this year, word got out that FremantleMedia, the show’s production company, was shopping around a revival and was in talks with Fox and NBC. The info was vague, but it didn’t come from nowhere. Somewhere in LA, we could already sense Ryan Seacrest getting his tips re-frosted and Paula Abdul popping half a bottle of Xanax. That somehow fell through, but then yesterday news broke that ABC now wants to bring American Idol back next year. Apparently the show is “the hottest property out there,” which is either a blatant lie or a very scary truth.
We’re really unsure what we did to deserve this. Sure, we liked American Idol back in like 2004 when we were in middle school and we thought Ruben Studdard was a lovable teddy bear, but who the fuck thinks this is a good idea now, in 2017? The show was literally canceled a year ago because of bad ratings, so what makes all these TV execs think it’ll make them a shitload of money this time around? This is like when you answer a fuckboy’s 2am “U up?” text for the 16th time hoping that this time he’ll ask you for a relationship. At this point, Hollywood producers have less creativity than Simon Cowell’s supply of shirts.
None of us are excited for the potential return of American Idol, but here are a few 2000s reboots that we could get behind:
1. ‘The O.C.’
Pour one out for this classic, gone too soon. All they really need to do is find a way to bring Marissa back from the dead, and this could be lit AF. Honestly we’d watch Mischa Barton just live her life on a hidden camera, so someone should make this happen.
2. ‘The Hills’
Look, we know everything that happened on this show was fake as fuck. So what? It was entertaining as hell, and we’d love to see some of these girls (*cough* Lauren and Heidi) forced to be in the same room again. Now that they’re like, all moms there would be a super interesting new dynamic. LC forever.
3. ‘Sex and the City’
Yes, we know they did two movies and the second one sucked. We don’t care. This epic girl squad deserves a full season reboot, no questions asked. Doesn’t HBO just like, keep Sarah Jessica Parker locked in their offices or something?
4. ‘Paris Hilton’s My New BFF’
Moment of silence for the fact that this ever existed. Yes it’s trashier than the culmination of all my late-night decisions, but we would watch a reboot of this show in a heartbeat. Now the poor contestants would have to help Paris DJ at some club in Ibiza and compete to be the first to release a sex tape, and it would absolutely be an incredible shit show.
5. ‘Friends’
We will never not want a legit Friends reunion. We know it probably won’t ever happen, but nevertheless, we persist.
6. ‘Gossip Girl’
Need we say more? If you could get Blake Lively to leave her palace complex in upstate NY, this could truly be epic. Leighton Meester definitely doesn’t have anything better going on, and we would kill to see Blair Waldorf as a mom.
7. ‘Punk’d’
This could just come back on Youtube or some shit like that, but who doesn’t want a little bit of Ashton Kutcher running around fucking shit up in their day? Horrible people, that’s who. Still waiting for Ashton to pop out of the woodwork and tell us we’ve all been punk’d for the last six months tbh…
8. ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’
This show was everything. Stupid jokes, cool ~magic~, and Melissa Joan Hart getting herself into literally every embarrassing situation you could imagine. Netflix, start the paperwork, because this would be the perfect thing to bring back. We’ll take 10% on the back end as a small finder’s fee.
9. ‘Alias’
Now that Jennifer Garner is officially done with Ben Affleck’s bullshit, she could use a project to really devote her energy to. Aka time to bring back Alias! Jen was always an underrated badass, and she could definitely get back into it.
10. ‘The Amanda Show’
Amanda Bynes has had a rough few years, and we really have no clue where she is now or what she’s been up to. Seriously, where’s Amanda? Can someone please let us know or alert the proper authorities? Wherever she is, Amanda needs to find a way to become a normal person again, and going back to her roots would be the perfect thing. Bring in the dancing lobsters, rake in the cash.
