Debbie Harry is 74 years old and a punk icon. She was the lead of Blondie, she sang and rapped and spent time at Studio 54 and she hung out with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. She changed music and she changed what a frontwoman could look like and BE. Debbie has written a memoir called Face It. The book was released to critics and the response has been… stupid. It’s not that people don’t like the memoir. It’s that people can’t stop being sexist. This was the headline getting so much attention:
Review: In her memoir, Debbie Harry proves she’s more than just a pretty blonde in tight pants https://t.co/JlZh82Icme
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 27, 2019
The hell?? Imagine saying that about a rock/punk icon-dude. David Bowie was more than a pretty blonde in tight pants. Axl Rose: more than a pretty blonde who gained some weight. I have no idea if a man or a woman wrote that WaPo headline, but a woman (Sibbie O’Sullivan) wrote the review of the book for WaPo and this is how she opened it:
Even if Debbie Harry, of the band Blondie, isn’t to your taste — her voice too thin, her sexiness too blatant, her music too smooth — you can’t dismiss certain truths about her. She paid her dues; her ambition never waned; and she was there, there being New York in the late ’60s and ’70s — a city full of garbage, rent-controlled apartments, and men and women discovering new ways of making art and music. Harry’s story is an illuminating one, considering how much New York has changed and how stars are made and marketed today.
…Seriously, what the hell? “Her voice too thin, her sexiness too blatant, her music too smooth…” I just…
WaPo did change the headline after everyone yelled at them:
We've changed the headline. We got this one wrong and we appreciate the feedback. https://t.co/keVQCbxVx4
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 28, 2019
Looking forward to the Marie Curie book…
Review: In her memoir, Marie Curie proves she's more than just a slut with some beakers https://t.co/awSDTewKXi
— Louis Virtel (@louisvirtel) September 28, 2019
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Smh smh smh
Debbie Harry is awesome and Blondie was a fantastic band. What kills me is that the Post and the NYT are considered the “erudite, forward thinking” newspapers and then there’s this tweet, and last week the NYT tweet about the Kavanagh abuse of his Yale classmate that began, “A penis in your face may be harmless fun, but…”
began, “A penis in your face may be harmless fun, but…”
SERIOUSLY???!!!
What?! That’s nuts (no pun intended)!
Well at lease WaPo saw the error of their ways and changed the review’s title. Hopefully, they’ll be more mindful of treating women equally when writing/editing any story.
…the hell???? I can’t believe this discussion is still a thing. DO F*CKING BETTER, WaPo.
Screw them. Her fans (myself included) know the real Debbie Harry has always been an outspoken trail blazer, the fact that she’s also gorgeous is just a bonus.
UGH. Yes. These types of mischaracterizations haunted Harry in the 70s. I saw the Blondie documentary a couple of years ago, it was really good! And a lot of ppl at CBGB thought all Blondie was was Debbie out there is hot pants shaking her a**. But Blondie was one of the greatest bands of that era, if not of all time, and Harry was a brilliant singer/songwriter, a true musical genius and star. To think that her genius is being dismissed on the same terms as it was when she was 20 is just irritating.
I love me some Blondie. “Roll me in designer sheets I’ll never get enough…” Wapo was looking pretty good there for a while compared to NYT. Guess they felt compelled to even things out.
This makes me SOOO ANGRY!!!
Who let this slide all the way through to publication?
And WHY does the reviewer undermine Debbie in every way in the opening
then try to prop her up as some one who at least has paid her dues.
Ugh cause she 74 so that was like a given though…
SO MAD at this
That is utterly ridiculous, and everyone who approved that should have known better. The author of the review just sounds bitter.
Glad they changed it and admitted they were wrong, but come on.
When you think of all the synthesized-pitch-fixing that goes on with pop stars today, who all SOUND ALIKE, it’s bizarre for someone to describe Harry’s voice as being “too thin.” WTH?! The author of this article is clearly not very hip. Those years plus the ’80s were some of the best decades in NY’s creative scene. Why, the silly NY Times even did a whole Style Magazine about the 1980s as THE decade to be an artist in NYC.
Also, Harry looks amazing.