We’ve left 2010 behind us, right were it belongs, but in the spirit of learning from our mistakes and building on our strengths, we’d like to do a quick frolic through the best and worst things of 2010 (according to us). May we never again have to sit through three hours 500 million dollars worth of computer-simulated blue people AMEN.
PERSON
(according to Senior Editor Rachel)
WORST: John McCain
He is a pretty shitty person in general – hates/fears gay people for no apparent reason, misleads about his war record, etc – but it’s more about what he represents. I feel like he really embodies the blind, baseless, gibbering fear of change and progress that is our biggest obstacle, that’s responsible for things like the National Portrait Gallery freakout and NOM. Fuck you, John McCain, and all that you stand for.
BEST: Judge Walker
I tried to be more creative, but honestly, this man is the shit. Not just because of his Prop 8 ruling – although obvs that was a pretty big deal – but because of the 138 pages he wrote to back it up. There’s now a body of legal evidence about our personhood and legitimacy that we can refer back to whenever we need to from now on, and that makes me want to hug Judge Walker with my legs.
ALBUM
(according to Music Editor Crystal)
WORST: Cardiology, Good Charlotte
Good Charlotte’s Cardiology was not really the ‘worst’ album of 2010 on a technical level. I mean, Heidi Montag’s performance on her debut album was exceptionally shit and featured a quantity of auto-tune that should be outlawed. But Cardiology left the worst taste in my mouth. I don’t have overly high expectations of Good Charlotte, in general, but I can’t help feeling like the band didn’t even try. That disappoints me more than the misguided ambitions of a reality famewhore could.
BEST: High Violet, The National
High Violet is the ‘best’ album because it’s the one that moved me the most in 2010, a year where basically all I wanted to do was feel. It makes this thing happen where my chest shrinks and my breath goes and my heart beats double-time and I need to fast-forward to New Kids On The Block because I get scared I’ll choke and start sobbing on the bus. I also like it because it reminds me of Bret Easton Ellis, and the time I heard Bret Easton Ellis talk about how much it reminds him of Bret Easton Ellis.
POP CULTURE MOMENT
(according to Senior Editor Jess)
WORST: Ramin Setoodeh and his “Straight Jacket”
Ramin Setoodeh publicly singles out Sean Hayes and Jonathan Groff as evidence that gay actors “just aren’t believable playing straight” in a confusing, baseless and bigoted April 2010 Newsweek article entitled “Straight Jacket.” In a disturbing twist, it’s later confirmed that Setoodeh is gay himself.
BEST: Kristin Chenoweth Responds
Two weeks later, Sean Hayes’ Promises Promises co-star Kristin Chenoweth writes a scathing response piece, published exclusively on Autostraddle, stating Setoodeh’s article offends her as a human being, a woman and a Christian. It is Chenoweth’s article that truly ignites a media firestorm giving Newsweek’s outward display of homophobia a platform to be analyzed on television, radio and every blog imaginable. Autostraddle is credited in The New York Times with breaking the story. Setoodeh leaves Newsweek about a month later.
FASHION TREND
(according to Style Editor Becky)
WORST: Clogs
I didn’t like them when my sister wore them back in the 90s, and I wasn’t particularly fond of their early come back. If you rock clogs, than you rock, I just can’t step. Not this year, anyway.
BEST: Aviation Style
This is a favorite trend of mine; namely because I love Amelia Earhart but also because I can really get down with a good leather jacket. I hope it sticks around in 2011.
FEELING
(according to Intern Emily)
WORST: September
You know when you wake up and your head is actually a block of concrete instead of a head and you have to work really hard to lift it up and walking around is just like, forget about it, you have to drag yourself across the floor to get anywhere and so you think maybe it’s best to stay in bed, just you and September.
BEST: Falling in love
This one time i met a girl, got drunk/sang songs to her and called it love. after that the stars all seemed to mean something whenever i looked at them.
LEGAL HAPPENINGS
(according to Legal Eagle Jessica S.)
BEST: Perry v. Shwarzenegger
In the courts, it was a good year for the gays. Judges were basically tripping over one another in a race to decree it unconstitutional to treat us as second-class citizens, which is almost as awesome as if legislators didn’t think such treatment okay in the first place. But “best” is a superlative, meaning that I must pick just one, and therefore I must choose Perry v. Schwarzenegger (aka Prop 8). Beyond deeming Prop 8 unconstitutional, this case created an extraordinary factual record demonstrating the lack of legitimate arguments from the opponents of marriage equality. They failed spectacularly in a very public forum. It was awesome.
WORST: Citizens United v Federal Election Commission
It was not such a good year for the integrity of our electoral process. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court essentially held that corporations have a constitutionally protected right to buy elections.
BOOKS
(according to Editor-in-Chief Riese)
LGBT
WORST: Out on the Net
I haven’t read it but judging by its cover i think it’s not really my thing.
BEST: Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, by Portia De Rossi
But I haven’t read Ricky Martin’s “ME” yet, so you never know.
BOOKS I WAS SUPPOSED TO REVIEW THIS YEAR BUT DIDN’T
WORST: The Others, by Siba Al-Harez
The book description looked super fascinating and then it was SO HARD TO FOLLOW. I literally have no clue what happened and I read about 75% of it. I think there was an affair and some sort of religious things happening. I even made Laura & Emily read it too but they couldn’t get through it. I don’t want to link to it because I have trouble saying any book is bad. It was probs very good. I’m just dumb maybe.
BEST: And the Heart Says Whatever, by Emily Gould
Totally going to finish this review soon though.
OVERALL
WORST: Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure by Glen Beck
I haven’t read it but I’ve seen clips of his show on the Daily Show and I don’t think it would be my thing.
BEST: Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
No reason necessary you just have to trust me AND EVERYONE ELSE on this one.
MOVIES
(according to Julie & Brandy)
Since no one wants to make our movie (Nicest Thing: www.nicestthingthemovie.com!), or cast us in anything, we feel it is our duty to harshly judge everyone else’s work based on a sliding scale of rage, bitterness, lesbianisim, and lack of any real significant training.
That’s our philosophy in a nutshell, but there was one other major factor that came into consideration when Autostraddle asked us to choose our best and worst movies of 2010: MONEY.
Movies are expensive, and in these hard economic times, they seem like a giant waste of money (especially the shitty ones). They’re expensive to make, expensive to advertise, and last but not least, they are expensive for girls like us to go and see. Ticket prices start around $12 and go all the way up to $20 each if the movie is in 3D and playing at a douchey Imax. Then you have to pay for parking (if you’re in a major city), popcorn (if you’re not on a diet), and an enormous diet coke (no matter what). The cost of GOING to the movies is obscene (especially when you know you can stay home and watch FREE youtube videos of cats snuggling with babies before suddenly attacking them), but the cost of MAKING the movies is downright disturbing. It doesn’t matter if they make a profit or not, at the end of the day, the absolute last thing this country needs is a $500 MILLION DOLLAR movie about blue losers living on Pandora.
WORST: Black Swan and Avatar
BEST:
The Kids Are All Right and The Runaways
Unrelated and unsolicited political side note: Actually, the best movie of 2010 was Barack Obama leading the Senate to overturn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. And we say boo! to all the people who don’t want to give him the credit he deserves.
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DESIGN
(according to Alex)
The dead horse has been beaten over this repeatedly, but I can’t deny that obviously the worst thing that happened in design in 2010 was the Gap logo redesign.
It was such a disaster in at least 13 different ways. This is a great article about why the new Gap logo failed (@creativity-online), but you can also google “Gap logo fail” and get more where that came from. Yes, I tell you to google things. Whatever. I can’t believe things like this still happen with big corporate companies these days. So dumb.
Now onto the better and in my opinion, the best thing about 2010 — This Wired Magazine iPad app (@Mashable):
OH MY GOD ITS THE FUTURE. A lot of people have criticized the iPad which I get. It was maybe “unimpressive” or “overhyped”, but that’s fine. But I think what Wired is doing here shows that when used correctly (or cleverly?), the iPad gives designers and developers the tools to take our media experiences to the next level. I think the iPad is the first step in this new direction and the Wired app makes me excited to see what other will do with this shit in the future.
WEBSITE
(according to Tinkerbell)
Hello Autostraddle this is Tinkerbell. As a dog who is just learning about reading and writing, I am only sometimes able to use the internet computer.
WORST:
Once upon a time I was in love and would check CuteOverload dot com every day for my future love. Now it takes such a long time to load. I am also confused about what to do on facebook dot com besides look at the faces of my compatriots who I already see more often than they are pretty to look at. Also, everyone keeps birthing babies when I do not have as much hair ribbon as I need.
BEST:
Google dot com. You type a word into a box and they tell you where to find it. If you spell it wrong they will tell you how everybody else spells it so you never have to think any thoughts in your head. Usually they are wrong but it’s better than nothing. I also like that you can search as many words as you want. Any word at all that you want you can type it in, and they will tell you other places to find things. You can do this forever. It is like having a magnet while reading Where’s Waldo, an excellent book from before I was born.
Never has a truer statement about facebook been typed/pawed.
Best: Autostraddle’s new layout
Thanks Jay :) We’re still working on it/updating, so hopefully it will keep getting better!
maybe not so much on topic but what i love about this new layout is that i will no longer ACCIDENTLY CLICK ON THE TOP BANNER AD when i meant to go back to the home page…. did make me want to go to dinah shore real bad with an autostraddle calendar for a while, tho.
Great list, team. And I’m loving the new look which is surprising because I don’t do well with change (I still haven’t switched to the “New Profile SHINY OMGZ” on the good ol’ BookFace). But can someone please explain the recurring “Thunder’s Arena” ad at the top of the page (http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/ikern/Picture1-2.png)? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love checkin’ out them wrestling videos and photos as much as the next gay lady, but I can’t help but have this gnawing feeling that maybe, in the immortal words of Big Bird (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueZ6tvqhk8U), “one of these things is not like the other.” Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Sweet. Thanks. Oh, and Happy 2011. May the awkward 90’s fad of skorts never see the light of this new decade.
Thanks Irene! Your photobucket link image thingy isn’t working, if you still have this screenshot, could you email to me? alex [at] autostraddle [dot] com.
Our ads come from networks and are geotargeted, etc, so I’ve never seen this Thunders Arena ad you speak of but would like to know about it so I can see what I can do.
the ads don’t work well in my area of the world. Like, some are not displayed at all. Also (not sure if this is done on purpose) we used to be able to see the number of comments at the top of the page in every post, which we now don’t.
tinkerbell’s opinions make me so happy. LOVE.
I love her. We have a similar writing style.
Will 2011 bring us the joy of seeing Julie and Brandy dressed as swans?
That would be…. perfect.
I’d really REALLY like to see this. I disagree with them but I’d like to see why as well.
Wait…Tinkerbell is straight!?
Parenting fail.
btw, not sure this is the right place to ask, but what’s going on with her and littlefoot? Have they split up? Are they in a long distance relationship? Or has littlefoot moved to California as well?
Tinkerbell seems to have more smarts than most people I know.
really agreeing with emily’s picks.
<3
the cat with the iPod looks like Laneia. Just saying.
::shakes my mommas finger at Riese::
Nena, don’t judge a book by its cover even if it has something stupid on it.
DISAGREE ABOUT BLACK SWAN.
It has mad chicks AND literal madness. What could be better?
also, john mccain? the worst person of the year?
i get it. i dig it. but he’s old and bitter and even his own party thinks he’s a flakey grumbly old man who cant make up his mind about anything.
there has to be a worse person…somewhere there has to be a nastier meaner and more detrimental person walking the planet…i mean damn how bout instead of one guy we pick groups like:
1) child molesting priests/swimcoaches/scoutmasters etc
2) tea partiers ha!
3) alaskans (i kid!)
anyway, hey i love you all and applaud like everything you say but i pipe up a little when im feelin feisty.
:)
I’ve seen black swan today and it is amazing…so disagree
THERE ARE SO MANY CATS ON THIS PAGE, I’M IN LOVE.
Love the list!
I totally agree with you about The Others by Siba Al-Harez, it was impossible to follow. And what’s more, I wouldn’t recommend trying to finish it to the end. Some difficult books have great endings that make you feel like the time you spent plowing through the whole thing was totally worth it–this is NOT one of those books.
i have to say, julie and brandy’s remake of avatar is 1000x funnier now that i’ve seen the movie.
also i think i got about halfway through “the others”? i totally forgot about that book until now.
AH! I had not been exposed to the new gap logo fail but that actually made my stomach hurt, just looking at it. How does something like that happen? I don’t understand. I just read some articles about it and now I’m even more confused!
OH DEAR LORD, THE KITTENS. I am slayed.
I’m also on the list of people who got halfway through ‘The Others’ and just put it down. I was so confused! I thought I was just being dumb and culturally illiterate, but maybe not?
Anyone else read the article, and then go back and stare at the kitten pictures? So cute!
I, too, disagree about Black Swan. I mean, I understand where you were coming from in the review, and I definitely had a few “WTF?” moments in the theater (while sharing two seats between three girls) but after the movie had ended, I found that I had fallen in love with the film. Maybe it was the dance. I’m a sucker for ballet, feminist criticism notwithstanding.
I got And The Heart Says Whatever to read on a long bus journey over the holidays…I read it twice, and then once more during the return journey. Love, love, love it.
Disagree with Black Swan. I thought it was a great movie.
Also, I just read somewhere that Mila Kunis and Macauley Culkin broke up…after 8 years. Em, how did I not know that they were together?? Am I the only one?
Are you people high over there?? The Kids Are Alright as a best and Black Swan and Avatar as worst for films of 2010? My girlfriend and I tried to watch The Kids Are All Right twice and fell asleep both times, because quite simply, it felt contrived, forced and awkward. Julianne Moore cheats on her wife with Mark Ruffalo (of all people); breeder sex drools. I mean come on.
As for Avatar, who cares if they’re a bunch of blue people on some made up planet. It was entertaining and visually stimulating. “What America needs” has absolutely no relevance what so ever. And Black Swan? Don’t even get me started. Where Aronofsky fails in apparent heavy-handedness, he far in a way makes up for in his ability to craft a skin crawling film that is pretty damn near the closest I’ve felt to insane in a long time.
Ironic though most people on that thread you linked for Black Swan agreed it was fantastic.
+The National (I housed the band! This guy’s voice is like a Leonard Cohen & Nick Cave hybrid. So much love.)
+Aviation Style (So perf! Dapper & globally professional version of steampunk.)
*HERMES’ 2009 collection was amazing.
Aviation & androgyny & if we are talking Runaways (Julie & Brandy!) can we all just take a second & look at the hotness that would be Joan Jett circa 1920?!
http://www.millionlooks.com/images/hermes-fall-2009-11.jpg
Ogle more here:
http://www.millionlooks.com/images/hermes-fall-2009-12.jpg
http://www.millionlooks.com/images/hermes-fall-2009-4.jpg
+Books – everybody that reads books needs to read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. Especially if you like cats. More especially if you like dogs. You will cry but it’s okay, crying is good & it is power crying not sad crying. Riese! Have you read it? Please read it.
P.S. Falling in love. I watched TiMER last night (oh, please do that too) & I would not want a countdown, but I do want to fall in love in 2011.
!!! my friend and i discovered that we both dressed up as Amelia Earhart for book reports in elementary school. we’re also both prettyyy queer. coincidence? i think not.
1. I haven’t been on this site in AGES!!!!
2. Black Swan was incredible. At least I thought so. I’m about to search the site for an article on why it was hated so much by the Autostraddle team. Was it like a terrible representation of a good girl/bad girl dichotomy? Can’t wait to read some complaints! Also, The Kids Are Alright and The Runaways as best movies? The Kids Are Alright was…alright. Nothing special if you ask me. Yes, it portrays a modern gay family but I wasn’t entirely pleased with the execution. The Runaways had some terrific performance but all in all was kind of dull if you ask me. (PS. My film of 2010: Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.)
3. LOVE the new National Album but fave of the year has to be Beach House – Teen Dream.
omg i totally agree w/ like your entire life! Scott Pilgrim was pretty cool and everyone should watch it [high]. that Beach House album is so money / “Walk in the Park,” ahh! and as for the Runaways… man, i so WANTED it to be my fav. film of year but it was just pretty ordinary for me.
p.s. – Autostraddle’s review of Black Swan is both positive and a good read!: http://www.autostraddle.com/black-swan-has-mad-chicks-69450/
ANDREW SHIRVELL should have tied with McCain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwObjKZg9Jw
Also, DISAGREE about Black Swan. That hallucinatory (or was it?) sex scene turned me on in a squirmy, whydoIlikehalfbirdwoman? way.
I just like all the cat pictures and saved some of them to my hard drive. Why do I feel like everyone is so angry about Black Swan? It was just an opinion… Look at the pictures of the kittens moar. Then you’ll feel happy.
I love the gap logo fail because I can only imagine how much time and money went into creating such a huge fail.
But I don’t quite agree with Tinkerbell on the awesomeness that is google… mostly because they still refuse to auto-complete the word lesbian for me. Not cool google.