Amy Winehouse

The hunger for celebrity gossip appears unslakable; there's a reason paparazzi and gossip-mongers can always find employment in Los Angeles. Even in periods of economic depression, in fact perhaps especially in periods of economic depression, the public demands stories about celebrity shenanigans and it particularly wants stories about celebrities gone bad. Celebrities losing control. It consumes, with relish, stories about celebrity breakdowns because many people seem to enjoy a sense of "how the mighty have fallen" over their morning gossip rag.

Working in Hollywood is intensely stressful, which can tend to add to the risks of experiencing mental illness. It is a highly pressured, fast-paced environment, especially for women, who have to fight twice as hard to attain half the popularity and following of their male peers, while remaining "strong" so they can be the subject of flattering profiles rather than lurid tabloid covers. Drug and alcohol abuse tend to be high in this environment as well; I've attended enough Hollywood parties as a non-drinker to know that you experience tremendous pressure to imbibe even when you have good reasons not to do so. While neither drug nor alcohol abuse is necessarily a cause of mental illness, both can cause erratic behavior and they may trigger latent mental illness, especially in a patient who is held under the looking glass instead of being given adequate support.

Welcome back to another episode of Bitch Popaganda! Tune in as Andi, Deb, and Kelsey discuss addiction in the media, Elisabeth Badinter in the New Yorker, and True Blood.



Links after the jump!

Break ups can be a real bitch, can't they? Wouldn't it be nice if both parties could just go their separate ways, cordially, without rancor, and without, say, the desire to take a Louisville slugger to anyone's headlights, to make harassing phone calls at dinnertime, name-calling, jealousy, screaming, crying on the kitchen floor, all five stages of grief, begging, pity parties, ill-advised sex, or way-too-long Dear John messages left on answering machines?

Well, here's a li'l mixtape to get all of that out of your (or your ex's) system, for any future break ups you might experience. These artists do all the heavy emotional lifting--and tire-slashing--so you don't have to. Once played, this mix will enable the listener to make a crime-free, self-respecting, graceful exit. I guarantee it.