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Review: 'Assassination Nation' Is 'The Crucible' for the Instagram Generation


“You may think I’m exaggerating, but this is the story of how my town, Salem, lost its mother-fucking mind. I will warn you, though. It gets pretty graphic.”

This is how Assassination Nation‘s NSFW teaser trailer begins, spoken in perfect deadpan swagger by an 18-year-old named Lily (Odessa Young). It’s an in-your-face statement, one meant to grab your attention and maybe scare you a little too. What comes next are “a few” trigger warnings for the following: bullying, blood, abuse, classism, death, alcohol and drug use, sexual content, toxic masculinity, homophobia, transphobia, guns, nationalism, racism, kidnapping, murder, the male gaze, giant frogs, sexism, swearing, torture, violence, gore, weapons, and fragile male egos. “I promise you,” Lily adds at the end. “This is 100 percent a true story.”

When I first saw the trailer, I thought, Damn, that’s brilliant marketing. In just over a minute, the completely establishes the movie’s ethos: Come for a story that will take every buzzword happening in 2018 America—several of the above, plus Trumpism, the patriarchy, capitalism, social media, and Generation Z—and set them all on fire. It screams, “Everything is up for grabs, bitches! LOLZ.” But spoiler: This is how the movie actually begins.

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The intro is fitting, given that Assassination Nation overall feels like you’re watching a YouTube video drunk on Four Loko. Or like Heathers, The Purge, and The Crucible all merged into one Instagram Story about naked selfies. It sounds wild, and it is, because there’s nothing subtle about Assassination Nation. (I mean, the town is seriously called Salem.)

Fans of Heathers will be drawn to the social commentary and candy-coated darkness, while The Purge franchise comes through in the townspeople’s creepy masks and gleeful violence. But The Crucible is the most obvious reference here, given the plot is essentially about a witch hunt: After an anonymous hacker released the private photos and texts of nearly everyone in town, Lily and her three best friends, Bex (Hari Nef), Sarah (Suki Waterhouse), and Em (Abra) are blamed.

PHOTO: Courtesy of NEON

The reasons are hazy at best. Nude photos leak, sexy texts messages are revealed—but once a finger is pointed their way, the townspeople don’t hesitate. They simply accept: Of course these “loose” girls are to blame. They’re responsible for corrupting the men of Salem, which means they’re capable of anything, which means they must be punished. “Who sees a naked photo of a girl and their first thought is Yo, I gotta kill this bitch,” Lily asks as things come to a climax. A lot of people, I guess.

But in movie full of extremes, this fear of women’s sexuality is the most realistic thing about Assassination Nation. Need real-life proof? Try this: According to Indiewire, a scene that features a drawing of a nude woman “in pornographic poses” was deemed too explicit by the MPAA. And so it was cut to keep the R-rating from becoming NC-17. Assassination Nation has extensive gun violence, drug use, murder, gore—and yet it’s the discussion of a drawing made by a teen girl that’s too lurid. (You can see it in the NSFW—because of language—clip, below.)

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Ironically, Lily herself gives the most compelling argument against this. “All you’re looking at is the nudity,” she tells the school principal, who’s trying to reprimand her for the drawing. “But this isn’t about that…≥ This is about everything that goes into it. The pressure, the endless mind fuck, the ten thousand naked selfies you took before this one trying to get it just right. Trying to make sure the light hides your left nipple because it’s slightly inverted or it’s smaller. Or maybe your labia’s too big, but if you pull your pelvic bone up and bend to the left slightly in a low-light setting, then you’ll be beautiful. Hashtag flawless. Body confident.”

“But it’s all one big lie,” she continues. “You can never be, because nobody’s flawless, and all it takes is one fucking asshole to remind you of that. One guy to say, ‘LOL’ or ‘She’s nasty.’ And you’re right back at square one. So, OK, maybe it is explicit or extreme, but it sure as hell looks like life to me.”

Assassination Nation is in theaters September 21.



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Megababe Rosy Pits Review: The Natural Deodorant With a 13,000 Person Waitlist


Thirteen thousand people are waiting for a deodorant, and you just have to hope they have a backup plan. For this is no ordinary natural deodorant: This is Megababe’s Rosy Pits, a stick that’s been out of stock since early August. As of today, it’s back. So why is everyone so thirsty?

As a sweaty person and longtime proponent of aluminum-free deodorants, I’ve tried more than my share of formulas. Most people’s eyes glaze over when I talk about why I switched to natural. They telegraph the message that that’s nice, but they’ll take the chemicals that they know work for them. And yet, maybe the tides are changing, considering so many people are waiting with bated breath to buy Megababe’s latest. Determined to find out what gives, I took Rosy Pits for a test drive.

The first point in the deodorant’s favor comes before you even unscrew the cap. It’s cute: the plastic packaging looks clean but fun, like something you’d find in a feminist boutique before it’s scooped up and stocked in Urban Outfitters (the brand is sold at Ulta, but the deo is currently exclusive to its website). Millennial pink, check; de-stigmatizing personal care products, check. The brand’s taken on other annoying problems, like chafed thighs and boob sweat, with equally cute solutions. As its fourth release, Rosy Pits doesn’t disappoint.

Upon uncapping, the only way to describe its scent is “surprisingly powerful.” It smells more like a cologne than anything: sharp and clean, a little foresty. Think of how a car commercial set in Big Sur looks, and you’re there. It reminds me of sticking my high school boyfriend’s Old Spice antiperspirant under my nose, and inhaling it for five minutes straight—there’s that quality of addictiveness.

More factually, the brand says the formula includes sage, green tea, sandalwood, and horsetail plant, which explains the fragrance. (Even though the stick is named after the rose extract also in there, it didn’t pop out to me.) That’s in addition to coconut oil, aloe leaf juice, and Vitamin E. The combination means the deo is anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-fungal, which neutralizes odor-causing bacteria without alcohol. On the sweat front, the brand ditched aluminum in favor of corn starch, which absorbs wetness without baking soda’s potential for skin irritation.

Simply put, it’s a good deodorant. After swiping it on for a week, I’ve realized that it’s unobtrusive yet efficient. Where I occasionally get a pleasant whiff while wearing Kopari or Schmidt’s natural deodorant, my other faves, I have to really stick my head in my armpit to pick up on Rosy Pits. New York’s a nightmare of sweat and humidity right now, and not once have I smelled like B.O. (there’s nothing like the terrible epiphany of, “What’s that horrible smell? Oh, me.”) Also crucially, I haven’t noticed any white marks on my shirts.

Priced at $18, it’s a new amount to pay for deodorant, but it’s hard to argue with the desire of a town’s-worth of people. And for something so addictively sniffable, I get it.

Megababe Rosy Pits, $18, megababebeauty.com

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Nars Climax Mascara Review: The Volumizing Mascara Lives Up to Its Name


As a brand, Nars loves to lean into a provocative name. Orgasm, Deep Throat, Afterglow; at a certain point it’d make a girl want a refractory period, if the products themselves didn’t work so well. So when I heard about Nars’ newest launch, Climax, a mascara that goes head to head with Better Than Sex in both its racy name and outsized claims, it obviously had my attention. Even the name aside, its pledge to do for your lashes what Orgasm does to your cheeks begged for a test run.

Upon getting my hands on a tube of Climax after Nars’ Ibiza-based launch party (I assume because there’s nowhere sexier than Ibiza. Back me up, Lindsay Lohan), I have to say, the packaging doesn’t say sex in the over-the-top way you’d expect. The mascara comes in a lightweight, glossy red-enameled tube with rings on it. There’s a little bit of a Red Room vibe, but it’s still PG (other than the big “CLIMAX” on the side, but you know, it could refer to the pinnacle of a story). The tube is distinctive and even in my Legends of the Deep-esque makeup bag, it’d be easy to spot.

The wand and its fiber bristles don’t look out of the ordinary, but after you swipe it on, you’ll immediately be impressed. After three coats, my lashes were thick, dark, defined, and long. That’s thanks to what Nars calls the formula’s Lash Moisture Complex, which creates “a whipped, creamy formula that lifts and builds without clumping.”

Mascaras are usually great at one or two things, be that length, curl, volume, definition, or not irritating the hell out of your eyes after a few hours. About a year ago, I decided that curling my lashes was my routine’s weakest link and haven’t curled them since, so I prioritize length and curl, closely followed by volume. There’s no real weak spot to Nars’ new formula. Where the brand’s Audacious mascara is best for length and definition, I’d give Climax a solid “A” on everything.

The formula thickens my lashes from root to tip, and leaves them defined enough that I can see my lashes from about a foot away. The curl was there too; on my deep-set eyes, my lashes just about reached my brows when I looked in the mirror. And while I could eerily see my lashes in my top peripheral vision, it wasn’t irritating by any means. I wasn’t entirely blown away by the length that it gave, but on the flip side, that means it’ll be good to go for daily use, in the office and out in the world.

So the million dollar question: Does it hold up to the name? To be honest, no. Nothing could, it’s an impossible bar. But it did feel great when someone offhandedly complimented my lashes, and I will wear it everyday purely because the tube is very stylish.

Nars Climax Mascara, $24, ulta.com

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Benefit Cosmetics Brow Contour Pro Review: How to Get Full Brows


When will nineties nostalgia peak? The decade is being revived in everything from fashion (see the return of stretchy Steve Maddens) to TV (Sabrina, Buffy, and Charmed are all getting reboots) to hair (scrunchies!)—and now they’re coming for our brows.

Sorry, is that triggering? Let me backtrack: You remember those clicky pens all the cool kids had in school? You’d fidget all of homeroom by pushing down a clicker to change the color of your pen? Well, Benefit Cosmetics is resurrecting them, but instead as a brow pen to more easily help you get that perfect, full-looking Insta brow. Divisively skinny brows aren’t back. Yet anyway. If they do return, you’ve got Rihanna to blame.

Available at Sephora starting today, the Benefit Cosmetics Brow Contour Pro comes in five shade ranges, each comprising four products in one tool: a lighter and a deeper filler shade, a highlighter, and an edge definer. The idea behind it is based off the brow contouring or “carving” technique most Instagrammers use to get that ultra-precise, ultra-thick brow. But instead of needing to deal with multiple brushes, products, and concealer, you can achieve with a single pen.

Brand reps recommend choosing your perfect color based on the definer shade, which should be just slightly lighter than your skin tone. The key is to start off tracing the shape of your brow from corner to tail with the light shade, fill, then add dimension with the darker shade. A little goes a long way (and the formula literally lasts all day), so you don’t want to go too heavy. Personally, I’d fill in a couple strokes and then blend in the color with a spoolie. Next it’s definer time. This is where the “carving” technique comes in: this more or less involves tracing directly under your brow with the definer shade to sharpen the line. Last up: the highlighter, which you want to put just under the arch to make the shape appear more sculpted.

Benefit’s already got a strong knack for brows. Its Gimme Brow gel has long topped the best-seller charts in the brow category (far before Boy Brow was thing), while you’d be hard-pressed not to find one its pencils in most makeup pros’ kits. What makes this tool so interesting, though, is that its’ consistency is neither a marker, gel, nor pencil. Rather, the product goes on like a pomade that’s meant to be blended.

Navigating the pen isn’t quite as intuitive as writing with them was. Despite being lightweight, it feels a little bit clunky to trace with at first, and I wish it came with a built-in spoolie. But its ease for travel more than makes up for it, and getting the motions down is pretty easy after a few initial test runs. Plus, it’s fun as hell to click and twist all day. What can I say? I’m a sucker for nostalgia.

Benefit Cosmetics Brow Contour Pro, $34, sephora.com

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Everlane Work Pant Review


Everlane, the beloved direct-to-consumer retailer that underscores its radical transparency with pricing and manufacturing, tends to know precisely which polished basics its loyal customers are (or soon will be) hankering for: When the seven-year-old e-comm-focused brand launches a new product, quick sell-outs and waitlist soon follow. (When Everlane debuted denim with three styles in 2017, there was a 45,478-person waitlist…on launch day.) Its Work Pant, unveiled at the beginning of 2018, is no exception.

On January 25, Everlane rolled out the $50 trousers (traditional retail price: $100) in regular and ankle lengths, in a few muted colors, like navy, grey, and dark green. Just one day later, the humble, pretty plain office-apropos pants were out of stock and had racked up a pretty insane wait list—12,000 people deep. And while restocks usually happen within a few weeks, the Work Pant took four full months to slowly trickle back to its website. It reappeared in late May.

The initial design objective was “to create a slim pant that was comfortable and looked tailored enough to wear to work,” explains Kelli Dugan, Everlane’s head of merchandising. The design team sampled two different fabrics and spent over a year working towards the best possible fit, she explains, and even focus-grouped the style before producing it. “We held a 30-person fit clinic to understand how the pant fit on different sizes and shapes,” she says. “The result was a pant made with a comfortable 4-way stretch with a flattering high waist, side zip, and a leg lengthening back seam detail.”

Lots of Everlane launches grab attention—why was this particular one so colossally popular? “I think our customer really saw the versatility and high value of a simple, clean work pant at a $50 price point,” Dugan says. “It’s something they can feel comfortable and polished wearing everyday.” The Work Pant is also cheaper than the brand’s most popular jeans, its $68 mid-rise skinny ankle style and its $78 kick crop version. It’s also super-flexible: “We really wanted a fabric that had a good amount of stretch, but had enough weight to hold you in in all the right places, so we went with a four-way stretch cotton,” according to Dugan. “The fabric gives the pant a matte, clean finish, which feels sleek enough for work.”

Everlane The Work Pant, $50, Everlane

The Work Pant has been constantly in low stock across colors and sizes over the past two months, with occasional inventory refreshes. At its New York City location, a salesperson shared that the product has consistently been one of the store’s best-selling items, even in the middle of a seemingly extra-humid summer. It’s also had a longer lag time between its debut and regularly-programmed restocks, which the brand attributes to not realizing just how big a hit it’d created. “We did not anticipate the crazy demand for the pant and had to work with the factory very closely on this restock,” Dugan explains. Also, “the Work Pant is actually made at the same factory as our popular Wide Leg Crop, so we had to balance out production of both to make sure we had enough as we enter fall,” she adds, nodding to the manufacturing transparency the company touts.

The hype surrounding Everlane’s Work Pant is real. Does it live up to it, though? In a bid to find out, I test-drove a pair to see if I could indeed be wowed by a generally unremarkable closet standard.

PHOTO: Everlane

Everlane The Work Pant, $50, Everlane

To note, I work either from home and cafes (leggings, sports bras, and even my very fancy bathrobe from indie Brooklyn label, Vestment, are acceptable at both) or in office environments at fashion publications, where dress codes are nonexistent and creative and/or incredibly casual. When I finally got to wear-testing, it was the swampiest week in July: The air thick with humidity, where you walk around with a sweat sheen (glow) on your face and constant fantasize of strong AC blasts or dips in any body of cool water—pretty much the opposite of prime work pant-wearing season.

The ankle length of the Work Pant might look like a regular inseam, grazing the tops of the feet, if you don’t have very long legs, as was the case for me. They look pretty cute, albeit more casual, if you cuff them once, though. The pant’s silhouette is intended to be equal parts work-appropriate and comfortable, with “a slim, tapered fit instead of a skintight skinny,” Dugan says, while the high rise “holds you in, nips your waist at the perfect point, and features a hidden elastic band for a smooth finish.” That 1.5”-width elastic band is a seriously clutch touch: It hugs you all the way around at belly button-level, like a pair of leggings with moderate compression, instead of a stiff, stretch-free, unforgiving sewn-in waistband that might leave angry red marks in its wake. Just remember that even if they feel a bit like performance-wear that resists schvitzing, they’re not: The Work Pant will indeed show spills, even (temporarily) of water, or sweat stains. Yes, that goes for the black version, too. There’s also a side zipper, “for a modern touch,” Dugan explains—it’s nice, sturdy with an attractive matte finish.

PHOTO: Everlane

Everlane The Work Pant, $50, Everlane

Interestingly, the pants look a lot more conference room-bound from the back than the front. Why? The lack of a separate waistband, centered zip fly, or pockets makes them look more like leggings from the front, so I wouldn’t recommend wearing these with a cropped shirt, or with a top tucked in, either. (There are no pockets whatsoever, including on the butt; though it’s nice to not have the bunched-up bulkiness, it’s useful to have at least one secure spot to tuck in, say, a credit card or phone when needed, so a slim pocket somewhere would be a useful.) By contrast, there’s a sleek, back seam detail, resembling a crisp crease, that’s meant to lengthen the legs, per Dugan: It’s a chic detail, subtle but effective at really making it clear that these aren’t, in fact, leggings.

The many, many Everlane customers that own the Work Pant have shared lots of insights—378 reviews at press time, to be exact. The brand’s design team apparently does parse through all those one- to five-star ratings (current average rating: 4.43 stars), and even makes tweaks accordingly. “We read all of our customer reviews as well as all return comments to make sure we are making improvements based on customer feedback: We pull this data weekly and make fit and product adjustments accordingly,” Dugan says. “Based on feedback from the $50 Work Pant, we actually opened up the waist very slightly for the latest restock.”

PHOTO: Everlane

Everlane The Work Pant, $50, Everlane

Currently, a handful of sizes in each color are available, in both ankle and regular lengths, with certain size-color combos whittled down to just three or four pairs inventory-wise. Many sizes slated for restock on August 22. Frankly, the Work Pant isn’t going to fully replace my go-to black jeans anytime soon—I do appreciate a few pockets in my life, and I think the waistband, though tweaked slightly from version 1.0 to version 2.0, could be made even comfier in a future iteration—but it certainly looks and feels more expensive than its $50 price tag, and it’s significantly less constricting and sad-looking as plain, work-worthy pants tend to be. And anything that simplifies getting dressed for work, especially at this price point, is at least worth a try.

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Hannah Gadsby Netflix Special Review: a Study in Female Anger and Recovery


Netflix comedy specials don’t usually make me cry, but right in the middle of watching Austrialian comedian Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, I broke down. And, up until that particular moment, I’d been having a great time.

Gadsby’s buzzy special takes on everything from her conservative upbringing in Tasmania to Pablo Picasso’s reputation as a notorious womanizer to the humorlessness of her fellow “lezzies” aren’t typical Netflix comedy-special territory. Maybe I was already a little sad because I knew what was coming (OK, maybe I was a little high, too), but there’s a specific moment in the middle of Nanette when Gadsby’s set takes a sharp turn and she announces she’s quitting comedy. She explains that she’s done with self-deprecating humor and dredging up her own painful past for jokes. I could hear the frustration in her voice, and it sounded a lot like my own.

In Nanette, Gadsby is angry—with the misogyny she’s seen in standup comedy, with powerful men who coerce and objectify women in the name of “art,” and with the men who’ve abused her.

So am I.

Like Gadsby, I’ve experienced abuse from men. It’s an experience and a trauma that informs my work, my relationships, and a huge part of my personality and identity. I can trace depression, insecurity, and constant self-sabotage back to these experiences, and they’re part of who I am. I’ve been sad. I’ve cried. I’ve hated myself. I’ve seen therapists who are comfortable helping me work through and express these particular feelings, but few have ever really acknowledged my anger or known what exactly to do with it or with me.

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Watching Nanette and hearing Gadsby describe the anger she still feels and can’t let go of, reminded me that I’m still angry, that my feelings are real. I’m angry at my abuser, and I’m angry at myself. Without any socially acceptable outlet for anger and rage, I, like many other women, have turned the anger on myself. So has Gadsby. “I’ve a built a career out of self-deprecating humor, and I don’t want to do that anymore,” she says in the special. “Because do you understand what self-deprecation means from somebody who already exists in the margins? It’s not humility. It’s humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak. And I simply will not do that anymore. Not to myself, or to anybody who identifies with me.”

Traditionally, stand up comedy—and popular culture at large—hasn’t been friendly toward angry women. Comedian Margaret Cho’s controversial 2015 music video “I Wanna Kill My Rapist” was an angry ode to revenge that some fans and critics felt had “gone too far.” As Cho later told Women’s Health, “Being an angry woman is kind of like the scariest thing that you can be in terms of the patriarchy, because we’re the ones who burned our bras, we’re where feminism comes from.” When Cho reportedly opened her act at a New Jersey comedy club with jokes about rape and white privilege that same year, audience members walked out, and Page Six later called the incident a “meltdown,” reporting the story under the headline “Margaret Cho Loses It.”

As Gadsby herself points out, an angry woman who’s a comedian is considered shrill, overly emotional, or otherwise difficult. Angry male comedians, however, are a tradition as old as standup itself, a fixture in virtually any comedy club, anywhere. Both on screen and off, women are rarely, if ever, allowed to be angry, let alone given an hour-long Netflix special like Nanette that acknowledges their feelings openly.

For this reason, Nanette is powerful, and unlike any comedy Netflix has produced thus far. It’s funny, but unconventional, and arguably might not even be considered a comedy special at all. But if the purpose of comedy is to serve as an escape or a shared experience of witnessing a live person tell their story, perhaps we need to rethink the way comedy is defined.

“[Gadsby] makes us ask: Who is defining what’s funny? Who is being allowed to speak? What perspectives are we including?” comedian Sara Schaefer told Vulture in an interview earlier this month. “It made me think so much about my own comedy and how I’ve been afraid to get ‘too angry’ or ‘too smart’ or ‘too female’ onstage.” And it made me think about how much of my own time—off stage, in my private life—is wasted trying to get to the punchline before someone else can.

In a post- #MeToo entertainment culture, Nanette marks a drastic shift in the way audiences experience the work of women in entertainment. Gadsby forces her audience to bear witness to her pain and her rage, and is a massive victory for funny, angry women—those who are pissed off, who want revenge, who want our abusers to feel the same way they made us feel.

Hey, we can only laugh at ourselves for so long.





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