Caitlin Flanagan is Joanna Eberhart – post stepford!

So why hasn’t the New Yorker caught on yet?

She does live in the valley of the dolls!

Stepford wives (2004):

Claire Wellington: I asked myself, "Where would people never notice a town full of robots?"

I think Colbert dialed it way down when he realized how truly unintelligent she really is. Its like every time she opened her mouth he paused, turned it down a notch, and then proceeded, only to watch in horror as he realized he needed to dial it down again. He is probably the quickest man on TV, and luckily for her, and other guests, he seems to have a conscience.

Im starting to think more and more it is aconspiracy,makes her look crazies and you cant focus on what she says. Sometimes you can listen towhat people say and agree but when you actually think about it, its ridculous. You cant focus on what she says, she can't allow that, because otherwise you would realize how pathetic it is that this woman preaches about being a happy housewife on one income yet works, hires help, and spends time away from the kids touting her book. Though that might necessarily not be a bad thing, her hypocrisy makes me wonder how great she is as a parent,she should know better consdiering howmuch offense she obviously took when her own mother went to work. At this point her kids see her less than I ever saw of my own mother who divorced sharing equal custody with my dad and had a full time job.

Sorry, I can't seem to bring up my rage to the boiling point where I can bring my intellect to bear on the falsehoods of Flanagan. It's Saturday and I'm sleepy. Besides, this is about television, so superficiality is to be expected.

So here's my thoughts: 1) Was I the only one wondering if some of the (male) audience wasn't getting the satire? and 2) Why do all conservative women seem to have such fugly hair?

thank you for that clip and the excellent preamble.

just, thank you.

I'm so amused -- you Americans do the American Gothic genre like no other group!

I understand what Caitlin was doing. She tried to get a rise out of Stephen, did it poorly, and it certainly wasn't as heretical as is being claimed. Sure, she's a little galling, but how many times did the Dean Scream get bandied about the interweb?

Or is that it? Conservatives run roughshod over liberal quirks and pecadillos, so turnabout is fair play? I don't want to deny the commenters their outrage, but overreaction is best left for the Fox News windbags.

"savvy businesswoman who saw a gullible market and sold to it."

Oh totally. She's like a freakin PT Barnum.

It occurs to me that Flanagan probably was trying to play along, to be more outrageous than Colbert. At least, I'm hoping that's the case. But if so, she didn't carry it off. Her strongest turn was when flirting with Colbert. Otherwise, she sounded a bit too earnest and unsure of herself to be doing effective parody. It would have been better if she'd gotten herself permed and hairsprayed up like a Dallas church lady, worn one of those retro pastel-colored dresses with the full skirts and the little waists, pearls, and heels, and spoken in stentorian Barbara Bush tones. Then, maybe, she might have outgunned Colbert.

If people now believe that she condemns date night at the Olive Garden (shudder), well, that's her own damn fault.

And she's still a fraud.

I've been reading bits about her in Broadsheet and Shakespeare's Sister, but I did not fully comprehend the horror that is Caitlin Flanagan until I saw this clip. (I usually watch the show, but I missed this episode.) Dear God. I'd love to think she's a female Colbert, so successful and brilliant in her satire that no one even guesses the truth, but oh my God, she seemed sincere.

I can only hope that beholding the naked evil of the chauvinist movement will make some people think about what it really means.

And fie on her for ruining my name.

Here's why my “outrage is not knee-jerk” and why women like Caitlin Flanagan are bad news. If Joan W. and the letter writers covered this already, so be it.

You expect a relic like Phyllis Schlafly or a fool like Ann Coulter (who cannot write--oh, her books are badly written) to make asses of themselves with their anti-woman, anti-feminist b.s.

It's different when an articulate, educated, votes Democrat, pro-choice (so she says), humorous, self-deprecating woman who writes for the New Yorker no less, BLAMES FEMINISM for a whole host of things, including husbands not getting any action unless they're forced to take their wives to Olive Garden.

It’s like blaming democracy for George W. Bush being president. (ok, you could probably lay some blame there, but that’s another letter.)

This is more than Caitlin Flanagan being “contrarian” and finding a gimmick to make a buck. She really believes that feminists are family killers and make “women not respected in the home.” It's a kind of self-hate that she is trying to project/market to women who will listen.

And the irony of it all is mind blowing.

P.S. I think she looks like a young Ethel Kennedy, but sadly the comparison stops there.

Yes, and she has that look of a harridan, also. Pinched and sharp jawed and self-righteous. VERY WEIRD HAIRSTYLE!

The easiest way to make a killing today is to write a crappy book --- either a crappy self-help book, a crappy polemic, a crappy self-congratulatory "I've made it, why can't you?" book, a crappy memoir made up of gross exaggerations and outright lies ... you get the picture.

Flanagan wanted to be a millionaire. There are tons of books on how to be everywoman; she simply said "Fuck that, I'm going to write one that's the exact opposite and I'm going to get tons of publicity just on the very nature of the topic itself."

And she did. She's getting tons of publicity and tons of money for being a contrarian, like so many other people today. She figured "Hitchens and Paglia are cleaning up like bandits, why can't I? I'll pen an antifeminist, pro-1950s housewife load of horseshit and it will sell itself. I'll get to go on a shitload of TV shows. That will get my name in lights and I'll be invited to all the cool publishing cocktail parties."

The "controversy" is meaningless and the outrage directed at her is knee-jerk. She successfully marketed an idea and people bought into it. She's no more worthy of political or social seriousness than your average motivational speaker appearing at the local Marriot conference room this weekend.