This week we delve into the relentless and perverted mind of Catherine Breillat, the French filmmaker and novelist who has disturbed audiences for 50 years. Broadly consideredcinéma du corps,Catherine’s movies explore the grotesqueness of sex and the body, depraved sexual longing, petulant, manipulative, and erratic women, and fraught and often violent sexual encounters.

In this episode, we explore Breillat’s ability to craft characters we can’t stand, invert the expected power dynamics between men and women, and engender such a visceral response from her audience. We also review her many capital-c Controversies and discuss how her insistence on women’s manipulative tendencies works so well in art and… less well in real life. 

Plus! More on Ripe / Dead psychology, a rant on Margaret Qualley from Holly, and a rave on Eileen Kelly / @killerandasweetthang from Linnea Grace. 

Mentioned:

• STARGIRL Episode 50: The Body Series with Eloise Skinner 

• CRUSH Rachel Antonoff SS 2014 short (Margaret Qualley prototype foreshadowing…) 

• Movies by Catherine Breillat:A Real Young Girl(1976),36 Fillette(1988),Romance(1999),Fat Girl(2001),Sleeping Beauty(2011),Abuse of Weakness(2013),Last Summer(2024)

• “Catherine Breillat’s Unselling Cinema of Desire” Victoria Uren (2025)

• Catherine Breillat’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct

“State of Grace: Catherine Breillat on Last Summer” interview with Grace Byron inScreen Slate(2024)

This week we go back to basics and investigate what one of the world’s hottest young women has to teach us about our own self hate (!). We revisit the classic STARGIRL paradigm of Ripe vs. Dead and examine the latent Threat of Dead beauty, and traverse Lily-Rose’s metaphorical potential as a descendant of Hollywood Royalty, ready and willing sex object, and generational leader in her own right.

We also revisit our conversation about the simultaneous crumbling of and longing for trusted institutions via a few current events: the LA fires and David Lynch’s passing, the TikTok ban fakeout, and President Trump’s inauguration. 

Plus! A Rave on classic and beloved Stargirl Sky Ferreira, from Helen <3

Discussed:

Addison’s Rolling Stone cover story

Kelela new music (?) announcement

Lily-Rose Depp on the Happy Sad Confused podcast

“Extremely Overanalyzing Hollywood’s Nepo Baby Boom” New York Magazine (2022)

Lily-Rose Depp provided pale skin brown nipple representation on screen discourse

The Power Notebooks, Katie Roiphe (2020)

*Full episode on Patreon*

Today we travel back in time to the early 2010s and delve into the moody, mysterious soundscape of Kelela, the singer and dance music producer who soundtracked my early twenties. We explore her evolution from Muse to a handful of forward-thinking, UK-based producers to an Artist in her own right, why she stands above the scores of more famous Alt R&B artists (FKA Twigs, Solange, SZA, Tinashe, etc.), and the ways she’s employed more Narrative Control in recent years by explicitly defining her audience and who she will and won’t work with. We also check in on the Club — the rules of it, who it is and isn’t “for," and whether or not it's meaningfully alienating... anyone in 2025.

PLUS! This episode features exclusive voice notes from my husband, weirdo music nerd, and former club kid, David <3

Mentioned:

Kelela interview with Tanya Bunter (2023)

Raven review/profile in NYT (2023)

Interview in Dazed(2022)

Happy New Year!

In this episode of The Body Series, I share my entire fitness journey: Growing up as a ballerina to college weight gain, inactivity, and depression, finding weightlifting and getting my sh*t together, getting injured, experimenting with different styles of training, and eventually becoming a personal trainer. 

I also explore the various mindsets and motivations I’ve had with working out, examine online fitness content vs. IRL gym culture, and opine on how we could make the gym feel sexier with different tropes, narratives, and interior design :)

I believe that getting fit is a site of huge personal transformation. Doing so completely changed my identity, helped me build self trust, and even made me a stronger and more original thinker. 

I have a few more 1:1 personal training spots open for both in-person (NYC) and virtual clients. Book a free 30-minute consult call with me to learn more!

If you’re into these ideas, check out the following:

Happy Holidays! In this Christmas Special, we enter the timeless, charmed world of Dame Julie Andrews and my favorite movie of all time, The Sound of Music. We explore how Rodgers & Hammerstein evolved and elevated the musical as a form, the grand folk ideal of Maria von Trapp (vs. the self-conscious twee heroines of the 2010s), the actually-very-adult lessons of The Sound of Music, and the Dream / Threat of Unassailable Goodness. 

My word for 2025 is Majestic — see you there ✨

Discussed:

*Full episode on Patreon*

To celebrate the end of a wild year, we’ve got a special, 2-in-1 episode for y’all:

First, Addison Rae Part II: A return to the crux of the STARGIRL project. I delve deep into my ever-evolving, sort of twisted relationship with Addison Rae and reflect on how, when I first intercepted her in 2020, she alerted me to how far I had strayed from what I actually valued and wanted in my life. This is STARGIRL theory of the universe at its best: When we let our fixations be a guiding light, rather than something to repress or indulge ironically, we shed layers of cope and allow ourselves to actually emerge and evolve.

Then, we look back at the dominant STARGIRL conversations of 2024: Spirituality, Health and Fitness, Feminine Caricature, and Nostalgia for / Mistrust of Institutions. Of note: the return to New Age dirty hippie vibes; animal based diets; the revived interest in fitness and athleticism; Brat; “Aquamarine,” modern dance, and Lexee Smith; Wicked, the totally delegitimized “arbiters of health,” Luigi….. And more. 

Plus, Rants / Raves on Emma Chamberlain (c/o @tuylor) and Scout Dixon West (c/o Madeleine).

Discussed:

This week we welcome Miss Biz Sherbert and traverse the personal and cultural impact of Scarlett Johansson, perhaps the greatest sex symbol of the 21st century. We discuss the allure of pre-cultural fragmentation Hollywood, the coveted spot of Box Office Megastar X Indie Darling, and how the earthiness and wit that ScarJo pioneered got transmuted into a sarcastic hyper-relatability a la Jennifer Lawrence (shiver). 

We also explore what makes ScarJo distinct among the hoards of perky blondes we roll our eyes at (Reese Witherspoon, Blake Lively, Cameron Diaz, etc.), and question if a ScarJo “lineage” is even possible.

Biz Sherbert is a writer with a focus on image-making, the internet, and identity. Follow Biz on Instagram and listen to Nymphet Alumni!

Discussed:

Happy Thanksgiving! This week we investigate the Queen of Home Arts, Martha Stewart herself. We get inside the late ‘80s suburban decadence of Martha Stewart Living, and examine the Dream / Threat of Northeastern WASP-y frigidity. We also situate Martha in a lineage of STARGIRL domestic goddesses (Gwyneth Paltrow, Alison Roman, Ballerina Farm), explore the weirdness of transforming the Home into a stage, and reflect on who we “inherit” domesticity from in our modern era. 

Discussed:

Announcements:

The Body Series returns this week with my dear friend Molly, a licensed social worker, who shares her experience working as a therapist in NYC. We discuss the cultural fatigue around therapy speak and “trauma,” how CBT, DBT, Attachment Theory, etc. got subsumed into (and weaponized by?) mainstream discourse, and the current trend toward somatic healing practices. We also explore the downsides of overidentifying with diagnoses, and put Molly’s expertise in conversation with past Body Series guests, Emmeline Clein, Eloise Skinner, and Sloane Elizabeth.

Discussed:

Am I a Nicki fan? This week I’m joined by my friend Enzo Escober for a proper nostalgia trip. We reminisce about the ways that Nicki’s unprecedented, cartoonish female aggression served as real catharsis during our hormonal teenage years, and why her mode of pure id is so endlessly appealing. We also discuss Nicki’s contributions to 2010s Plasticity, the “Black Gaga” comparison (incorrect), and how it feels to watch her kick, bite, and scream to avoid passing the torch. 

Enzo Escober is a writer and critic from Manila. He has been published in Guernica, Slate, The Drift, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. He is the co-host of Diva Discourse, a podcast about Beyoncé, and lives in Brooklyn. 

Discussed: