Over the course of its critically acclaimed third season, "Louie" has brought in a slew of recognizable and talented actresses, but the women are consistently and cartoonishly messed up -- deranged to the point where watching them elicits no empathy.

Louie, for his part, mostly stands off to the side and watches this parade of deficiency: Delores (Maria Dizzia), who freaks out at Ikea; Laurie (Melissa Leo), who threatens him with violence if he doesn't perform oral sex on her; Maria Bamford, who plays herself as a neurotic iceberg; and Nancy (Nancy Shayne), who feeds her son raw beef. Even bookstore clerk Liz, played brilliantly by Parker Posey over two episodes, doesn't make the kind of impact she might have if her character was less spastic.

That the women are exaggerated isn't the issue; the show has always been hyperbolic. The female characters in previous seasons were damaged, but often ultimately relatable. Pamela had her issues — just like Louie — but she was a real person with normal, human-style emotions. It was easy to imagine her living next door to you, and it was possible to see why Louie liked her.

Continue Reading...

We all know "Eat, Pray, Love" has hijacked book clubs worldwide, and will only become more popular with next week's release of the Julia Roberts movie, but less is known of the way it has affected international travel, creating a kind of bourgeois sexual tourism. I feel bad for these women, who seem to think that by following the same steps as one writer, they can somehow graft her happy ending onto their own frustrated lives. My disdain was such that early in my trip, I wrote a story about how they were ruining Bali (the story recently ran on Jezebel).

Continue Reading...