This is a hilarious piece. It's equal opportunity skewering. It's not just teasing the plumpsters, it also takes swipes at skinny, status-obsessed New Yorkers and finally builds to a paean to Penny's for trying to make affordable clothes that are (not too frighteningly) on-trend. You were caught in a New York Times pearl-clutching hurricane, which builds up in power and destructiveness as it speeds through the city room. (I know firsthand. I've been caught in them myself. Luckily, I had a staff job and a union.) Their loss. You are a wonderful writer.
As I said when I reposted this piece on Xwitter, I was flabbergasted (at the time) by the avalanche of bad will and crabby publicity you incurred for what was a quintessentially superb and on-song “Cintra Wilson Article,” like so many others. I couldn’t believe my eyes: there you were on a morning news show, with your name passing through the paper-cut that was Katie Couric’s mouth—only Katie was brandishing her “concerned hardcore journalist look,” furrowed brow and all, for the occasion.
Clearly there were a number of media mechanisms at work in the orchestrated vilification of your piece, but the ad hominem shit must have been wrenching. The irony of it all was that such widespread press made you more Q-rating famous than ever you’d been, but my thought was, “I don’t think this is what she wants to be renowned for”—just one article in a wide body of work that ought to have been taken into account.
Then again, that JC Penny critique was classic Cintra. You were doing your JOB. You were writing in the style for which you had long already become known and loved. The style your readers expected from you. Wanted from you. THEY published it. The Times honcho, Keller, should have castigated himself for being thoroughly unaware, apparently, of the capabilities of one of his own popular columnists! The groveling blubber about his “Mom” being a devout JC Penney shopper really took the cake. One could just imagine his Mom and her milieu gathering at Penney’s and forming impromptu prayer circles around the mannequins or sharing tidbits of Scripture and recipes with the staff. Soooo … FOLKSY and HOMEY.
Just like the NYT.
They hung you out to dry, girl. But you were doing your thing as you were paid to do it, in your unique voice. Take heart in that, at least, Warrior Mama. And let me tell you: one day this entire hivemind trend of masochistic wailing and reupholstering of fainting couches at every micro-detectable perception of offense is going to die in a brilliant bonfire sparked by the very lint extracted from those rash-infected navel gazers who spawned the cancer.
I hope to God you’re right. This shit has begun to alienate me from the Left even though the Right is at their most horrible and dangerous since the Third Reich. Obviously, I would never vote against anybody…anyTHING…with a chance of keeping Trump from gaining the White House again. But I live in the Heartland and it’s little short of amazing how much these brainlessly shortsighted crusades against the possibility that somebody might have their feelings hurt or be “triggered” fire up the Booboisie. What the gutless Times people forgot in this instance is that “the cruelty is the point” is the watchword, not merely of the Fascist morons who wish to destroy the country, but of the Uber morons who trample their own best interests to vote for the Fascist morons. They live in Amarillo and Lubbock, Texas, and everyplace that is rural, and they laugh the hardest at stuff like “people of Wal-Mart” because they identify with those people but feel superior to them at the same time. The people they hate the most are the ones they can’t identify with at all, such as the people who currently run the Times. The large women in unbelievable costumes shopping for garbage at Wal-Mart might not throw Ms. Wilson under the bus, if she were a co-worker, with anything like the heedless speed of the New Breed at All the News that Fits, We Print.
BINGO. Cannons to the left of me, cannons to the right. Fascism is a chameleon happy to loiter on any old rock as a bastion, but the primary purpose is to deceive, after all, and matters are even more deeply rooted than the lemming-like groupthink we encounter across the spectrum. I thank Mothra, Obi Wan Kenobi, Galadriel, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I enjoy my own company and could live (sanely) without ever seeing another person. But what a tragedy … because I like people.
I should say that I am talking about the truly grotesque white trash who would consider J.C. Penney's "elitist" or, at the very least "too dressy." The might (and will) vote for Trump, but would never be as chickenshit as the Times was to Ms. Wilson. The Penney's crowd wanna be rich enough to eat KFC on their private jet. No wonder they squawked.
You used the word “waddle.” At a writers conference critique session I described a young woman as “waddling” and was horribly pitilessly excoriated for using that one word. I have a ballet background and there’s a duck like waddling that comes from turning out the feet. That was the image in my mind, not anything involving weight. The agent supposedly there to supervise the group - herself obese- smiled with satisfaction at my public beating.
I never understood the back lash. So sad. I absolutely love your JC article. I sent it to so many friends, and they too loved it. So few people have a sense of humor, especially the larger-than-life crowd. Let them stew (yummy) in their anger and stretched out black leggings paired with Crocs and oversized zip up hoodies. I am over it.
Wow. You must forgive me, but I'm an out-of-touch Puerto Rican male who didn't know you existed until you showed up on Substack. Because I'm a repressed snark, I live vicariously through writers like you even if our worldviews are, at times, the polar opposite. I also tend to sympathize with underdogs.
Keep doing what you're doing, Cintra. I'm larfing.
will read this full piece and listen later but wanted to just share impression of first paragraph alone before being tempted to weigh in with the usual suspects, accolades, "opinions" which come far too easily and hmmm warily, wearily, and of course negligible re-stacks (fine with me as with you i'm at an age where what we have accomplished is what it is and my role will never be as "influencer" ha and yet.. so much more to be done) :
you never pretend to be other than what you are and it is purely delightful a survivor
People need to lighten up! Pretty much everyone is offended by something and they're ready to pounce at the slightest thing, like they enjoy it. It's tedious and the world needs more people like you, Cintra. I'm currently "Fear and Clothing" and loving it!
Read the article! Only crime I could possibly find was it was TOO witty! And this enraged people! I LOVED it. My favorite of many favorite lines: ...."announces your inferiority to evil classmates as surely as if you were cursed to be followed around by a tuba section.”
So funny. Based on the backlash you describe, I was expecting the article to be much more snide. It was true, fair, and hilarious. And educational: I never knew obese mannequins even existed.
You stepped in it, a la J K Rowling, by telling the truth.
Possibly more than stepped in, rolled around in it, managing to offend via brutal accuracy and humor committed by a woman as well as by failing to support the 2009 myth of Our Classless Democracy, a myth even then on its way out but necessary to the NYT circulation figures.
If it’s any consolation, I had to stop drinking my morning coffee for fear of spit takes while I read original article; the image of the Liz-wearing senior manager at the DMV may never leave me.
Every treasure comes with a curse. The gift of wit comes with the inevitability that you will one day "go too far," and in a way that the wit's self finds inexplicable. This leads to genuine bewilderment: But, but, but I've gotten away with much worse before. As noted theologian St. Tom Waits says: 'Doncha know there ain't no devil, it's just God when he's drunk.'
And Bill Keller: the man who, at Bush's request, spiked the story about Bush's illegal spying on American citizens until after the 2004 election -- may he be spat on in the street by the decent, then rot in hell.
When I was working on my high school newspaper, we sometimes found ourselves at the printer with space problems, sometimes things that needed to be shortened, other times with a glaring blank space on a page. I was good at bullshit, so I got sent along to pad or edit so they could get it out in time. Christmas of 1962, there was a gaping hole on the back page, and I crapped out a piece called “Let’s Put the ‘X’ back in Xmas,” attributed to a representative of the Birchnut Society. I wasn’t proud of it, since it was way too obvious and heavy handed, but I didn’t expect any reaction because it sarcastically said that the holiday wasn’t commercial enough and should drop the sentimental stuff in favor of more profit seeking measures. Much better done by Stan Freberg already. Imagine my surprise when the thing came out and caused an uproar. This was in Homestead, Florida, by the way, and we had just had the fun of being the southernmost mainland city with an Air Force during the Cuban missile crisis the month before. Representatives of the Homestead Ministerial Society descended on the principal’s office demanding my head on a platter. I felt like Lenny Bruce. Florida is even worse today, of course, but I was young and innocent. It didn’t take much to “go too far” and it still doesn’t.
Cintra, there are many people who cannot appreciate social satire and lack a sense of humour. They are invested in being personally triggered by everything , regardless of whether it is aimed at them. Whether it is intended in malice or cleverly crafted editorial content for the sake of humour. I read your article- it was biting and funny.
I was involved in a project with a designer brand launching a masstige line in this
“ new “ iteration of JC PENNEY. Apparently, every single idea in my brain was far too radical to be considered acceptable and vetoed.
In retrospect I consider this rejection a supreme compliment.
I think you should do the same ...People who can’t laugh or think outside the big box are not our people .
You have always stayed true to yourself! Nothing to regret there. 🖤
This thing you wrote in January meant a lot to me tonight in March. I needed this. I've been in the trenches over that baby-painting article and I fear I engaged in the scrum.
Well said. Most of my heroes have seen their asses go into the blades because some publisher/editor’s ass felt a hint of heat. Cintra joins that August body.
"A leading reporter on the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. McNeil announced his departure last month in the wake of an article in The Daily Beast about his comments and behavior during a Times-sponsored trip for high school students to Peru in 2019. Several students and their parents complained that Mr. McNeil, who was serving as an expert guide on the trip, had used a racial slur and made other insensitive remarks."
i actually lost a friendship with a solid liberal buddy over this nonsense a few years ago...when some people dig their heels in with self righteous identifiers of purity or whatever they are ungovernable... no doubt this "incident" caught your attention as well ugh he was only repeating the word for clarity after a student's question
Yeah, sounds like they were pretty happy to rake in all the cultural cachet that came from publishing Cintra Wilson in the 2000s, until they had to spend more than thirty seconds a day sending assholes the bedbug letter.
There’s a couple variations based on different complaints, but roughly: Guy stays in a hotel, finds a bedbug, writes to the CEO about it. Gets a letter back: “Oh, we’re so sorry, we try to maintain the highest standards, discount on your next visit” etc. with a post-it accidentally stuck on the back: “Send this asshole the bedbug letter.”
Ooh. That brings back some memories. My folks would buy "husky" pants and sew them up so I could wear them for a few years. Other than that, they were very cultivated people.
Cintra,
This is a hilarious piece. It's equal opportunity skewering. It's not just teasing the plumpsters, it also takes swipes at skinny, status-obsessed New Yorkers and finally builds to a paean to Penny's for trying to make affordable clothes that are (not too frighteningly) on-trend. You were caught in a New York Times pearl-clutching hurricane, which builds up in power and destructiveness as it speeds through the city room. (I know firsthand. I've been caught in them myself. Luckily, I had a staff job and a union.) Their loss. You are a wonderful writer.
Thank you so much, amazing Ms. Wadler!!!
As I said when I reposted this piece on Xwitter, I was flabbergasted (at the time) by the avalanche of bad will and crabby publicity you incurred for what was a quintessentially superb and on-song “Cintra Wilson Article,” like so many others. I couldn’t believe my eyes: there you were on a morning news show, with your name passing through the paper-cut that was Katie Couric’s mouth—only Katie was brandishing her “concerned hardcore journalist look,” furrowed brow and all, for the occasion.
Clearly there were a number of media mechanisms at work in the orchestrated vilification of your piece, but the ad hominem shit must have been wrenching. The irony of it all was that such widespread press made you more Q-rating famous than ever you’d been, but my thought was, “I don’t think this is what she wants to be renowned for”—just one article in a wide body of work that ought to have been taken into account.
Then again, that JC Penny critique was classic Cintra. You were doing your JOB. You were writing in the style for which you had long already become known and loved. The style your readers expected from you. Wanted from you. THEY published it. The Times honcho, Keller, should have castigated himself for being thoroughly unaware, apparently, of the capabilities of one of his own popular columnists! The groveling blubber about his “Mom” being a devout JC Penney shopper really took the cake. One could just imagine his Mom and her milieu gathering at Penney’s and forming impromptu prayer circles around the mannequins or sharing tidbits of Scripture and recipes with the staff. Soooo … FOLKSY and HOMEY.
Just like the NYT.
They hung you out to dry, girl. But you were doing your thing as you were paid to do it, in your unique voice. Take heart in that, at least, Warrior Mama. And let me tell you: one day this entire hivemind trend of masochistic wailing and reupholstering of fainting couches at every micro-detectable perception of offense is going to die in a brilliant bonfire sparked by the very lint extracted from those rash-infected navel gazers who spawned the cancer.
And FUNNY shall rise again.
God I hope you're right. Thank you as always my dear friend.
I hope to God you’re right. This shit has begun to alienate me from the Left even though the Right is at their most horrible and dangerous since the Third Reich. Obviously, I would never vote against anybody…anyTHING…with a chance of keeping Trump from gaining the White House again. But I live in the Heartland and it’s little short of amazing how much these brainlessly shortsighted crusades against the possibility that somebody might have their feelings hurt or be “triggered” fire up the Booboisie. What the gutless Times people forgot in this instance is that “the cruelty is the point” is the watchword, not merely of the Fascist morons who wish to destroy the country, but of the Uber morons who trample their own best interests to vote for the Fascist morons. They live in Amarillo and Lubbock, Texas, and everyplace that is rural, and they laugh the hardest at stuff like “people of Wal-Mart” because they identify with those people but feel superior to them at the same time. The people they hate the most are the ones they can’t identify with at all, such as the people who currently run the Times. The large women in unbelievable costumes shopping for garbage at Wal-Mart might not throw Ms. Wilson under the bus, if she were a co-worker, with anything like the heedless speed of the New Breed at All the News that Fits, We Print.
BINGO. Cannons to the left of me, cannons to the right. Fascism is a chameleon happy to loiter on any old rock as a bastion, but the primary purpose is to deceive, after all, and matters are even more deeply rooted than the lemming-like groupthink we encounter across the spectrum. I thank Mothra, Obi Wan Kenobi, Galadriel, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I enjoy my own company and could live (sanely) without ever seeing another person. But what a tragedy … because I like people.
I should say that I am talking about the truly grotesque white trash who would consider J.C. Penney's "elitist" or, at the very least "too dressy." The might (and will) vote for Trump, but would never be as chickenshit as the Times was to Ms. Wilson. The Penney's crowd wanna be rich enough to eat KFC on their private jet. No wonder they squawked.
You used the word “waddle.” At a writers conference critique session I described a young woman as “waddling” and was horribly pitilessly excoriated for using that one word. I have a ballet background and there’s a duck like waddling that comes from turning out the feet. That was the image in my mind, not anything involving weight. The agent supposedly there to supervise the group - herself obese- smiled with satisfaction at my public beating.
WOW. You feel my pain! Thanks for the story!
I never understood the back lash. So sad. I absolutely love your JC article. I sent it to so many friends, and they too loved it. So few people have a sense of humor, especially the larger-than-life crowd. Let them stew (yummy) in their anger and stretched out black leggings paired with Crocs and oversized zip up hoodies. I am over it.
Wow. You must forgive me, but I'm an out-of-touch Puerto Rican male who didn't know you existed until you showed up on Substack. Because I'm a repressed snark, I live vicariously through writers like you even if our worldviews are, at times, the polar opposite. I also tend to sympathize with underdogs.
Keep doing what you're doing, Cintra. I'm larfing.
I'm glad to have you around.
I think I see the problem. Your hilariously on-point observations were the polyester pants that they worried made their asses look big.
And who needs Pilates? This experienced weight fluctuator laughed her flat ass off long enough to burn up a couple Grand Slams’ worth of calories.
Right on Mama
will read this full piece and listen later but wanted to just share impression of first paragraph alone before being tempted to weigh in with the usual suspects, accolades, "opinions" which come far too easily and hmmm warily, wearily, and of course negligible re-stacks (fine with me as with you i'm at an age where what we have accomplished is what it is and my role will never be as "influencer" ha and yet.. so much more to be done) :
you never pretend to be other than what you are and it is purely delightful a survivor
People need to lighten up! Pretty much everyone is offended by something and they're ready to pounce at the slightest thing, like they enjoy it. It's tedious and the world needs more people like you, Cintra. I'm currently "Fear and Clothing" and loving it!
OMG! Thank you for reading my book!!
Fucking hilarious!!
(fist bump, explosion sound)
Read the article! Only crime I could possibly find was it was TOO witty! And this enraged people! I LOVED it. My favorite of many favorite lines: ...."announces your inferiority to evil classmates as surely as if you were cursed to be followed around by a tuba section.”
Beautiful job, as with all your writing.
Thank you Ms. Mary Ann!!
So funny. Based on the backlash you describe, I was expecting the article to be much more snide. It was true, fair, and hilarious. And educational: I never knew obese mannequins even existed.
Neither did I!!!
You stepped in it, a la J K Rowling, by telling the truth.
Possibly more than stepped in, rolled around in it, managing to offend via brutal accuracy and humor committed by a woman as well as by failing to support the 2009 myth of Our Classless Democracy, a myth even then on its way out but necessary to the NYT circulation figures.
If it’s any consolation, I had to stop drinking my morning coffee for fear of spit takes while I read original article; the image of the Liz-wearing senior manager at the DMV may never leave me.
I’m truly sorry you got hurt.
Thank you kind Lida
Every treasure comes with a curse. The gift of wit comes with the inevitability that you will one day "go too far," and in a way that the wit's self finds inexplicable. This leads to genuine bewilderment: But, but, but I've gotten away with much worse before. As noted theologian St. Tom Waits says: 'Doncha know there ain't no devil, it's just God when he's drunk.'
And Bill Keller: the man who, at Bush's request, spiked the story about Bush's illegal spying on American citizens until after the 2004 election -- may he be spat on in the street by the decent, then rot in hell.
When I was working on my high school newspaper, we sometimes found ourselves at the printer with space problems, sometimes things that needed to be shortened, other times with a glaring blank space on a page. I was good at bullshit, so I got sent along to pad or edit so they could get it out in time. Christmas of 1962, there was a gaping hole on the back page, and I crapped out a piece called “Let’s Put the ‘X’ back in Xmas,” attributed to a representative of the Birchnut Society. I wasn’t proud of it, since it was way too obvious and heavy handed, but I didn’t expect any reaction because it sarcastically said that the holiday wasn’t commercial enough and should drop the sentimental stuff in favor of more profit seeking measures. Much better done by Stan Freberg already. Imagine my surprise when the thing came out and caused an uproar. This was in Homestead, Florida, by the way, and we had just had the fun of being the southernmost mainland city with an Air Force during the Cuban missile crisis the month before. Representatives of the Homestead Ministerial Society descended on the principal’s office demanding my head on a platter. I felt like Lenny Bruce. Florida is even worse today, of course, but I was young and innocent. It didn’t take much to “go too far” and it still doesn’t.
Cintra, there are many people who cannot appreciate social satire and lack a sense of humour. They are invested in being personally triggered by everything , regardless of whether it is aimed at them. Whether it is intended in malice or cleverly crafted editorial content for the sake of humour. I read your article- it was biting and funny.
I was involved in a project with a designer brand launching a masstige line in this
“ new “ iteration of JC PENNEY. Apparently, every single idea in my brain was far too radical to be considered acceptable and vetoed.
In retrospect I consider this rejection a supreme compliment.
I think you should do the same ...People who can’t laugh or think outside the big box are not our people .
You have always stayed true to yourself! Nothing to regret there. 🖤
This thing you wrote in January meant a lot to me tonight in March. I needed this. I've been in the trenches over that baby-painting article and I fear I engaged in the scrum.
Thank you for that compliment. It's one I actually deserve.
Well said. Most of my heroes have seen their asses go into the blades because some publisher/editor’s ass felt a hint of heat. Cintra joins that August body.
Sad but true.
"A leading reporter on the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. McNeil announced his departure last month in the wake of an article in The Daily Beast about his comments and behavior during a Times-sponsored trip for high school students to Peru in 2019. Several students and their parents complained that Mr. McNeil, who was serving as an expert guide on the trip, had used a racial slur and made other insensitive remarks."
i actually lost a friendship with a solid liberal buddy over this nonsense a few years ago...when some people dig their heels in with self righteous identifiers of purity or whatever they are ungovernable... no doubt this "incident" caught your attention as well ugh he was only repeating the word for clarity after a student's question
Yeah, sounds like they were pretty happy to rake in all the cultural cachet that came from publishing Cintra Wilson in the 2000s, until they had to spend more than thirty seconds a day sending assholes the bedbug letter.
I have no idea what "the bedbug letter" is, but I'm sure you're right....
There’s a couple variations based on different complaints, but roughly: Guy stays in a hotel, finds a bedbug, writes to the CEO about it. Gets a letter back: “Oh, we’re so sorry, we try to maintain the highest standards, discount on your next visit” etc. with a post-it accidentally stuck on the back: “Send this asshole the bedbug letter.”
Bahahahaha
I think I remember that now. I considered journalism as a career when when I was a kid.
They had a brand of jeans called Tuffy’s which were cheap, hideous and indestructible,
I remember Tuffys! They came in "husky" sizes.
Yes, and the knees wee reinforced with what had to be steel because I swear it hurt to put them on!
Ooh. That brings back some memories. My folks would buy "husky" pants and sew them up so I could wear them for a few years. Other than that, they were very cultivated people.