Carmen fantasy #MusicMonday Carmen Jones

Another in my biweekly series on adaptations of Carmen.  This scene is from the 1954 film Carmen Jones, which resets the Carmen story in North Carolina during WWII.  Oscar Hammerstein II created a new book for Georges Bizet's music: brilliant.  It's darker than his work with Richard Rodgers.  Here Dorothy Dandridge sings "Dat's Love" (actually dubbed by Marilyn Horne) to the tune of Bizet's Habanera.

Subtle blush

I hate obvious blush. The worst example was Lindsay Lohan at her court appearance for violating court orders (and I feel badly about her situation, as The Parent Trap remake is one of my favorite romcoms).

Perhaps it harkens back to the nude/naked makeup of the early 1990s, but I prefer subtle blushes, and Revlon fills the bill.  I alternate between the Revlon Powder Blush in Sandalwood Beige (a perennial) and Revlon Colorstay Mineral Blush in Honey.

Revlon Powder Blush in Sandalwood Beige

I use a dome-shaped blush brush and apply blush only to the apples of my cheeks.

Raiding the closet

Let's stop glamorising pregnancy out of wedlock

Pregnant and unmarried

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm getting tired of the endless parade of celebrities getting pregnant out of wedlock. Beauty Addict has run a series of posts showing magazine covers of pregnant celebrities:

• Jessica Alba (unmarried)
• Lily Allen (unmarried)
• Halle Berry (unmarried)
• Jennifer Lopez (married!)
  

No, I am not suggesting that we go back to the days when Ingrid Bergmann left the U.S. because of the relentlessly hostile press she had for conceiving out of wedlock. Media has simply gone too far on the other side of the pendulum, and it's time to go back to the center. One can't escape these magazines - these magazines are point of purchase items when one checks out at the cashier.

What sort of example is this giving to young women that pregnancy out of wedlock is desirable? OK, I take marriage seriously - I've held to my heart what my father-in-law wrote to me prior to my marriage - that marriage is a sacrament, not merely a contract.

I received negative replies when I posted my opinions on Beauty Addict. Kristen herself said my comments about Halle Berry were "insensitive." I know Halle Berry's story: her family abandoned by her father and two wrenching divorces (the first from baseball star David Justice, the second from singer Eric Benet). No wonder that she's bummed on marriage. Still, this is not reason to emblazon her picture on magazine covers such as InStyle and People (does her publicist have an "in" with Time Warner, which owns both magazines?). Is Halle Berry seeking validation from the magazines's audiences for her choices?