Home Is Where the History Isn't
“As a child, I was spied on (think: me, in an observation room with a researcher standing on the other side of a one-way mirror); as an adult, I became a spy (think: me, notebook in hand, observing a scene from the view from nowhere).” Read my latest Reverse Cowgirl newsletter here and don’t forget to subscribe.
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Data Baby Featured in Library Journal
Library Journal featured my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment in their “Memoir Preview | Titles and Trends” column. You can pre-order a copy of Data Baby here.
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The Fixer Is In
I don’t talk a lot about my strategic communications consulting work, aka The Fixer, because most of my clients find me through word-of-mouth and because my clients are often high-profile, high-net-worth individuals. But if you’re interested in learning more about how we might work together, you can purchase an introductory one-hour session with me here or email me to find out more about what I do here.
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Data Baby Named 'Best Biography in 2023' by Raemona Magazine
Raemona Magazine named my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, “Best Biography in 2023” as part of their “Great Reads for 2023” list. You can pre-order a copy of Data Baby here.
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What He Said
via Clayton Cubitt
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Data Baby Reviewed in Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews says my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, is “An intelligently provocative memoir and investigation.” From the review: “As she examines the dark side of experimentation on human subjects, Breslin also asks disturbing questions about the consequences modern data-gathering will have on future generations.” You can pre-order my book here.
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Single Mannequin
Data Baby Featured on Next Big Idea Club's 'Books to Watch Out for' List
Next Big Idea Club featured my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, in their “40 Nonfiction Books to Watch Out for in 2023” list. (Release date is actually November 7, 2023.) You can pre-order my book here.
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You Can't Take It With You
A few highlights from my “You Can’t Take It With You” estate sales photo series exploring love, loss, and the fleeting nature of fame in the San Fernando Valley (and Los Angeles too). Follow me on Instagram for more.
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Data Baby Featured on Beyond the Bookends’ ‘most anticipated’ list
Beyond the Bookends featured my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, in their “28 Most Anticipated New November 2023 Book Releases by Genre” list. Pre-order a copy of my book here.
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Gold Diggers
Data Baby Is One of Glamour's "Best Memoirs by Women Still to Come in 2023"
Glamour featured my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, as one of “The Best Memoirs by Women Still to Come in 2023.” Pre-order a copy of my book to make sure you get one on Amazon here.
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The Lost Vagina
“The point is, I started thinking, you know, what if my silicone vagina didn’t have to be lost?” Read the rest of my latest Reverse Cowgirl newsletter here, and don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter while you’re there.
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The Tingle
“I bought a poster (you can see it in the photo above) for an X-rated 1978 movie called ‘She Did It Her Way.’” Read the rest of my latest Reverse Cowgirl newsletter here. Don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there.
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Big Shoes to Fill
The Theatre
“I took this photo of the Tiki Theatre on Friday while standing in the street on Santa Monica Boulevard as traffic approached.” Read the rest of my Substack newsletter. Subscribe to get it in your inbox weekly.
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How HBO’s "The Idol," With A Little Help From Valentino, Rewrote The "Pretty Woman" Playbook
In the third episode of the controversial HBO series “The Idol,” Jocelyn, a pop star played by Lily-Rose Depp, and Tedros, a slimy wannabe Svengali played by Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, head off for a shopping spree at the Valentino boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. After bypassing a gaggle of adoring Jocelyn fans out front, the duo undertake some retail therapy. “You see that young lady over there?” Tedros asks a store employee. “Got anything in this store as beautiful as she is?” Jocelyn tries on a series of Valentino outfits as Tedros eggs her on, threatens to “curb stomp” an employee he believes his ogling his girl, and dismisses one top as “trash.”
Eventually, the pair end up having sex in a dressing room. When Jocelyn exits before Tedros can finish, he finishes himself off alone in the dressing room while holding onto a rack of Valentino clothes. Afterwards, he looks at his soiled hands. Then his gaze turns to the very expensive Valentino red dresses hanging nearby. The camera cuts away, but the implication is clear: he wipes his hands off on the dresses.
Did Valentino sign off on this? I wondered as I watched the scene. After all, Valentino is a venerated luxury fashion brand. Founded in 1959 by Valentino Garavani, its designs have been worn by Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, and Oprah Winfrey. Had Valentino cosigned on what appeared to be the bespoiling of its brand—or was this was what product placement looked like in 2023? In search of an answer, I reached out to Valentino for comment. I didn’t get a response back.
For an expert’s take, I sent an email to Stacy Jones, the CEO of Hollywood Branded, a pop culture marketing agency. She didn’t know if there was any brand partnership between Valentino and “The Idol,” but she did offer her take on the provocative Valentino scene, which had generated some debate on Twitter.
“While the scene in the Valentino store was certainly explicit, there isn’t damage to the brand,” Jones opined. “Even the derogatory mentions made by Tedros about some of the styles and the store’s stylist had no lasting negative impact. Tedros is shown to be the not-so-nice character he is, and it was in fact Tedros who came off looking poorly, not Valentino. The growing spotlight on Valentino dressing Lily-Rose's character and having her model their clothing on screen feels like a win regardless. The saying that you can’t pay for media worth that is true. This particular product placement is over delivering on brand awareness big time. There is not a lot of risk in offending older Valentino consumers as they simply won’t be watching the series. They are not the target audience.” These days, Valentino may be more interested in targeting millennials and Gen Z as potential customers. According to Bain & Co.: “These generations are expected to account for as much as 70% of the global luxury market by 2025.”
Not only that, it seemed I had missed the point entirely. As Jones pointed out in her email to me, the Valentino scene from “The Idol” was a redux of a scene from the 1990 film “Pretty Woman,” starring Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward, a Hollywood escort, and Richard Gere as Edward Lewis, a wealthy businessman, right down to the “Do you have anything in this shop as beautiful as she is?” line. “I googled to see where [the boutique shopping scene] in ‘Pretty Woman’ was filmed as I thought it had a high likelihood of being Valentino,” Jones added. “This article states ‘Pretty Woman’ filmed the Rodeo Drive scene specifically at Valentino. There are a lot of similarities in the scenes, just taken up many adult notches with an edgier, modern touch.”
Is “The Idol” “‘torture porn’”? Has it “set back the feminist movement by at least a decade”? Is it “anti-feminist spectacle”? Or is something more complex at work? At least in the case of the Valentino scene, the subtext is resolutely feminist. In “Pretty Woman,” Vivian says: “I want the fairy tale.”; she wants a man to rescue her. In Sam Levinson’s “The Idol,” the fairy tale is over. After all, it’s Jocelyn who denies Tedros his own pleasure, who is the star, and who, we presume, foots the bill for their shopping trip. In this retelling, the woman holds the power, not the man.
On a recent Friday afternoon, I made my way to the Valentino boutique. Since it was late June, the well-heeled shoppers making their way up and down the sidewalks had to share space with groups of tourists. In the Valentino store, I was met by a security guard. A salesperson followed me around as I admired a pair of $1,800 see-through platform pumps that reminded me of the strippers’ shoe brand of choice, Pleaser Shoes, and a red dress that looked like one Jocelyn had worn. On the second floor, the salesperson indicated the dressing room where the racy scene for “The Idol” had been shot, supposedly. I opened the door. No one, much less Tedros, was there.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com.
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"The Idol," Valentino, and Me
As I was watching last week’s episode of “The Idol,” in which the main characters have sex in a Valentino dressing room, I thought: Is this for real? It was a brand partnership involving couture and cum, it seemed. (If you’ve seen the scene, you know what I mean.) I wrote about it for Forbes.com, including a trip to Beverly Hills to eyeball the dressing room of the Valentino boutique where the scene was shot (apparently). Read it.
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