Musings on...Misuse and Misappropriation

No, No, No, Not This Award Season, a Passionate Plea

Much like my attitude doppelganger Moira Rose, I enjoy award season. I love the corny monologues, the opportunity to ‘vote’ in the privacy of my own home like I have any membership in any academy, but my true love is the red carpet. Dresses, jewelry, shoes, makeup and hair. As I plan on watching The Golden Globes tonight, I am looking forward to the gowns, the tuxes and for acerbic host Nikki Glaser to read the room.

But I do have one tiny little request.

For the red carpet coverage: can the words ‘legendary’ and ‘icon’ be used in the proper context? If Drew Barrymore is the epitome of a hands on style of interview, the red carpet is the epicenter of effusive flattery and incorrect word usage. Now don’t get me wrong, j’adore the correspondents and there are many I consider very competent red carpet commentators. One of my favorites to follow is obviously grateful to be in the room, she does her homework and is visibly prepared with thought-provoking and well-researched questions. She is a fan, just like us and I appreciate that immensely. But...really everyone is not a legend, everyone is not an icon. I would like the participation trophying (see how I misused that?) of every person that passes on the red carpet to stop.

I'm trying to not be grumpy old man, and I understand the desire to ‘give everyone their flowers’, which also should be vernacularly buried. Kill it dead immediately. Yes, yes, I understand that the sentiment is very nice, but it’s okay if you just give someone a sincere compliment “I loved your work’ ‘I was inspired by your performance’. But the context of “I just want to let you know I love/appreciate/honor you before you die. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to tell you, you know, in case the next time we meet is when I’m standing over your casket and I don’t want that to be the only time I told you what you meant to me. Just thought you should know.” A little dark for the red carpet, n’est pas?

No one asked me for it, but I have developed a lexicon of sorts for proper red carpet flattery and how these words should be applied. I would appreciate it if anyone would heed my cry. I am not trying to gatekeep and I understand the fluidity of the English language, but girl, please. If everyone is an icon or legend, then no one is. I do not drink, but I have had the fleeting thought that if you took a shot every time a commentator used the words, you would never see the telecast because you would be on the floor. I’m not suggesting this, I’m just saying.

Legend: an extremely famous or notorious person, especially in a particular field. Remarkable enough to be famous; very well known. A story handed down for generations among a people and popularly believed

I’ve dissected the definition into a specific criteria for evaluation

• A person’s talent, work or infamy has endured through time.

• They have been discovered by a new generation.

• If they have endured long enough to have had multiple career incarnations

• If they have endured so long AND had multiple incarnations that the new generation may not be aware of their original persona or incarnation.

We were having a casual conversation with our children about Adidas and mentioned Run DMC. They could not get the connection, and we told them Run DMC is why Adidas became super-hot in America, and particularly the black community. Still blank looks. My daughter asked “You mean Rev Run from Rev Run’s Renovation?” Then my husband and I had the blank stares. I had forgotten that Joseph Simmons, the man that once had a parental advisory warning on his music, actually had a show on HGTV for this family’s home renovation. He was on the same channel as Joanna Gaines. My revolutionary leader was now my daughter’s PG-rated reality TV entertainment as a minister, father and design guru with his wife. That’s called evolution.

Musings on...Parenting Fails

The same is true for Snoop Dogg and the Ices: T and Cube. I remember just making the cutoff to purchase these albums without permission. (For the children: We used to walk into a music store and buy the cassette tape and someone monitored our purchase, Google it). Snoop was once on trial for murder, but now hangs out with Martha Stewart in the Hamptons, headlines Superbowl half times and is the voice of America at the Olympics. A legend outlives their past personas when necessary. Ice T was the ‘original gangster’ with a song “Cop Killer” and now he only accepts roles when he plays a policeman. (Law & Order and New Jack City). Ice Cube, the meanest mugger ever, has a IMDB of heartwarming movies my children have known for their entire lives. WE HAD BOOTLEGS OF THEIR EXPLICITLY WORDED RECORDINGS, do you hear me? We could not play them at full volume. We could not play them at parties on campus. They were the original no-fly list! We would crank the volume in our cars with the windows down as a sign of rebellion. Did they evolve with us or we with them? LEGENDS!

I was obsessed with Martha Stewart as I transitioned to living on my own, but at the time, she was a very Caucasian commodity. I always loved her, but very few of my contemporaries appreciated those monthly calendars in her magazine. There was a very small gang of us riding for the blonde lady from New England. I know her for ‘It’s a Good Thing’ and placid domesticity, but now Martha is hip hop-adjacent, trying to sell me CBD gummies while my daughter and her friends like her thirst traps, which are expertly composed and well lit. Always perfectly delightful and a LEGEND!

So, legend status comes down to endurance and some evolution. Watch out Quinta, Gwyneth, Selena, Hailey, Kim and Kylie, you are extraordinary business women, forging a new frontier in a social age, but you’re not in the pantheon yet. But you are in the waiting room.

Icon: a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration, a symbol

This one is frustrating for me to witness because we all know what an icon is. An icon is a symbol, a representation, a blueprint, an emoji that when you see it, you know what it means. We know which company is a bitten apple, the shoe with the swoop, we don't send peaches and eggplants willy nilly, because we KNOW what it invites. An icon’s face, image, voice, or writing elicits almost instant recall.

Fashion icons doing iconic stuff. One look and you just know.

These are fashion icons, making history in front of us, with many more to follow. One successfully styled red carpet moment does not a fashion icon make. I’ll leave this right here-Every model is not a supermodel. Every curated photo shoot does not an icon make. There were people who broke the internet before there was an internet and they are still serving superior looks. Maybe, like true vintage, true icon status must have a time designation as well.

The determination can be foggy, and the terms can overlap, but using my unsolicited criteria is a fun exercise. Well, it’s fun for me because I can channel my inner Inigo Montaya. I’m just a girl enchanted with words and the pictures and feelings they convey when utilized with skill, but you may disagree with my offense. I called the newsletter Musings & Miscellany because it is random, non-consequential stuff happening here. No rockets sent to space, no great diseases cured, no world peace attained. Just loose thoughts while I enjoy my hot lattes, thinking about fashion, art, words and stuff.

Cher is a legend AND a fashion icon. Legend because we are still playing her music, she is still socially relevant and mostly everyone knows who she is. Having one name is also fairly iconic. She’s a fashion icon, because people dress up as her for Halloween and we get the reference. She is a singer that became an actor (with an Oscar) and can still swing back to singing.

If you are the source material, you’re an icon.

If someone dresses as you for Halloween, you’re an icon. Christina Aguilera as Cher

Zendaya has iconic red carpet looks, but she’s not an icon-not yet. I am here for everything she and Law put down but tell me you have one definitive look that comes to mind when you say her name. Will you remember it in the next year? Ten years from now? Remember, she’s done homages to other greats-but has anyone copied her yet? And we need to see her style evolve and endure for more years to be legendary. I am very sure I will be watching her for decades to come.

Zendaya’s homage to the Williams sisters. When people are paying homage to her, she will be the icon.

Gwyneth Paltrow is on the cusp of both. She did have an iconic fashion moment that collided with her legendary performance for Shakespeare in Love at the Oscars. And many people do use her film wardrobes as an archetype of an era, but that is costume. She is definitely stylish, and she has made a great transition between careers and business ventures. J’adored Gwyneth for years and I have no doubt she is on the yellow brick road to legendary icon status.

When you see these images, do you hear the words or sounds that go with it? Icons!

I do realize that the speed of social media makes things fuzzy. The beast always needs content and the way anyone new to the game can become the star of the moment truncates the legitimacy of earned accolades. And the speed of consumption prevents the moment from really taking hold for a place of mental permanence, and therefore icon status. Just because it scrolls past us at the speed of light, doesn’t make it a rising star. Anyone and everyone is so quickly crowned the next big thing, but we can’t have a new next thing every week. Glen Powell, for all his charm, is not Tom Cruise, not yet. Jools, bless her heart, is in the game with ‘very demure, very mindful’, because we all know what it means and its source, but will we say it in 2026? Even by the end of 2025? (I probably will-I love it!) I want her to ride it until the wheels fall off, but how much longer will that be? Not legendary, but it is an iconic moment.

More Word Play

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