Anne Helen Petersen
If Taylor Swift Won’t Write Her Memoir, Her Fans Will Do It For Her
Simon & Schuster is inviting fans to write the ultimate, crowdsourced Taylor Swift biography. It’s a brilliant idea. But who benefits?
Anne Helen Petersen
Inside Enya's Irish Kingdom
Over the course of three decades and with 80 million records sold, Enya has morphed into more than musician: She's her own adjective. What makes her music — and the mysterious woman behind it — appealing to so many? Anne Helen Petersen visits the reclusive singer in Ireland.
Anne Helen Petersen
How A Fake Quote And Old Image Of Meryl Streep Went Viral
It has less to do with Streep and far more to do with how we'd like Hollywood to work.
Anne Helen Petersen
Eli Horowitz Wants To Teach You How To Read
McSweeney’s was one of the most significant indie publishing houses of the last 20 years — and Eli Horowitz was a central force behind it. Armed with an app-based novel that aspires to be the most bonkers book ever written, can he change that world again?
Anne Helen Petersen
Inside The New Feminist Show You Need To Watch Right Now
The new Amazon pilot Good Girls Revolt offers a window into the sexist working conditions of journalism in 1969 — and the beginning of what would be a long fight to equalize pay and opportunity. But what’s going on behind the camera is just as powerful.
Anne Helen Petersen
Brie Larson Is Ready To Become Your Favorite Actress
Her breakthrough performance in Room has everyone talking about an Oscar and signals the end of her relative anonymity. Can Brie Larson survive becoming the next Jennifer Lawrence without losing her balance?
Anne Helen Petersen
How The West Was Wrong: The Making Of John Wayne
Few figures exemplify the West and, really, Americanness, more than John Wayne. How does the resilience of his image — and the thinly veiled bigotry, xenophobia, and sexism that structure it — point to the darkness at the heart of the Western myth?
Anne Helen Petersen
Anne Hathaway Can't Win
When you do everything right and society hates you for it, that’s Anne Hathaway Syndrome. In The Intern, Hathaway acts out that conundrum — but will it make us like her?
Anne Helen Petersen
Tiger Beat Turns 50, But Teen Idols Stay The Same Age
For 50 years, the name Tiger Beat has promised the same thing: beautiful teen idols. Today, the reboot of the magazine — with such unlikely backers as Kevin Durant and Nick Cannon — hinges on its ability to offer that same thing...in an only slightly updated package.
Anne Helen Petersen
Alison Brie Graduates
After six years playing a college student on Community — and eight playing a ‘60s housewife on Mad Men — Alison Brie is ready to show she’s more than the sum of her characters’ conservative, type-A parts.
Anne Helen Petersen
The Failure Of Tom Cruise 2.0
As Tom Cruise makes the publicity rounds for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, there's no trace of his couch-jumping public implosion. But can those of us who knew him as the greatest star on earth ever shake the catastrophe of the last 10 years?
Anne Helen Petersen
Forever Young: How Smosh Plans To Build A YouTube Fame That'll Last
Comedy duo Smosh prides themselves on producing videos like the ones they made in high school. But they’ve also created a digital empire that ensures their future in the industry, even as they approach their thirties. The secret of their success is simple — but shouldn’t be ignored.
Anne Helen Petersen
In "Trainwreck," Amy Schumer Calls Bullshit On Postfeminism
Amy Schumer has made her name depicting the fear and loathing of the postfeminist dystopia. Trainwreck is her most ambitious critique yet. Warning: Spoilers if you've never seen a rom-com.
Anne Helen Petersen
Lena Dunham Is Launching A Newsletter For Young Women
“Lenny” wants to provide contemporary feminism for the inbox.
Anne Helen Petersen
Clark Gable Accused Of Raping Co-Star
Loretta Young made her name in Classic Hollywood as a great beauty — and for the cover-up of one of the industry’s greatest scandals: concealing a child, born out of wedlock, with Clark Gable, one of the era’s biggest stars. It wasn’t until recently that even Young learned the right words for what she’d been hiding for decades.
Anne Helen Petersen
"Magic Mike XXL" Gets Off On Getting You Off
The sequel to Magic Mike is almost wholly devoid of plot. But it understands the narrative structure of female desire in the way few films do.
Anne Helen Petersen
The Mark Wahlberg Playbook Is The Oldest One In Hollywood
Mark Wahlberg has been churning out mid-budget genre films for 20 years — which is why it's surprising that his success is predicated on his old-fashioned attitude toward what it means to be a movie star.
Anne Helen Petersen
How In Touch's Duggars Coverage Has Changed Tabloid Journalism
In Touch comes from a long line of publications that split their time between titillating half-truths and rigorous investigative journalism. But is the magazine the last gasp of the American tabloid tradition — or its future?
Anne Helen Petersen
Can Silicon Valley Fix Women's Fashion?
“Fashion tech” companies like Stitch Fix are using algorithms and personal stylists to sell women the priceless commodity of confidence — but who’s left out?
Anne Helen Petersen
Whiskey With A Side Of Shopping: The Masculine Utopia Of Trunk Club
It’s tempting to think of Trunk Club as a well-marketed service for rich, busy dudes — a way to make clueless, frumpy men into well-dressed lazy ones. But is the masculinity that Trunk Club sells worth aspiring to?
Anne Helen Petersen
