Saturday, April 19, 2008

Padma Lakshmi Does Her Mother (and Third-Wave Feminism) Proud

Possums, it seems that our Padma was recently the host of an important media event, the New York Women in Communications’ Matrix Awards (since we adore women--precisely because we don’t want to shag them--we wish the award organizers had picked a more etymologically sound name; after all, according to Merriam-Webster, “matrix” comes from the Latin word for a “female animal used for breeding,” to which we say, Eeewww).

At any rate, while at the podium fulfilling her hosting duties, Padma delivered herself of a remark that would have no doubt thrilled Simone de Beauvoir (whose biography Padma once claimed to be reading) and Betty Friedan: “I’m living my mother’s dream. I sit on my ass, I eat and I talk.”

You tell it on the mountain, sister! Make Momma proud! That’s why activists burnt their black, lacy, see-through bras like the one you’re wearing in the pic.

And there was another interesting tidbit from that luncheon. It looks like Padma might be in the Hillary camp:

Gather a thousand-plus female media professionals in a room and it’s likely more than a few of them will be Hillary Clinton sympathizers. So it was no surprise at today’s Matrix Awards luncheon when emcee Padma Lakshmi referenced “the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton” in her opening remarks, and then paused for applause. The surprise was how little applause it elicited -- so little that several attendees remarked on it after the event. One who works in magazine publishing described the response as “tepid”; another, a TV executive, characterized it as “golf claps.”

We would have pegged Padma as an “Obama girl,” but hey, what do we know?

2 comments:

hughman said...

golf claps? a la the Diana Shore classics? those are tepid claps indeed.

the dogs' mother said...

Worn out from reading all the posts. Welcome back and in fine form!