Leo Season (and Lea Michele)

Some Hemsworth and Swayze, too

On July 22, the sun disembarks from its Cancerian chariot, and lands upon its throne in Leo. This is the time not of physical arrival but of solar, or soul-ar, embodiment, when we announce our intrinsic talents to the world. Through all that you have endured, which of your gifts survived the crossing, to be delivered onto the world, like Moses in the basket?

Some Leo season essentials:

My NYLON column on the Lion and its avatars, including Charli XCX, Valerie Cherish and Mae West

My print and podcast interviews with the Leo and downtown legend Ruby McCollister; and with the Leo priestess Kiko Soireé

An interview with the Leo rave queen Yaeji, from my Time Out days

A podcast on the astrology of the ultimate Leo, and Razzie award winner for worst actress of the century, Madonna

Speaking of Razzies, a celebration of Leo Catwomen Halle Berry and Julie Newmar, for NYLON

Let’s get into it: few Leos can delight the masses like Chris Hemsworth, a solar god whose smile soars across continents. Unlike the other stifled man-babies of the Marvel family, Hemsworth radiates natural ease and self-confidence — the birthright of the king of the zodiac. The new Thor movie over-relies on that natural charisma, when it should bank on him as an anchor for his co-stars.

The Lady Thor comic book arc is one of my favorites, and nobody could take on its many layers better Natalie Portman, the most versatile Gemini actress of the age. But Portman, along the resplendent Libra Tessa Thompson, are cheated out of valuable screen-time and subtle character development, all so that the camera can double down on Hemsworth. For all the ways Leo demands attention, the lion’s real power is to inspire and affect change in others. I’d rather see a Thor who can sit back on his throne and share the spotlight, rather than keeping the Horse & Pony Show going for the most risk-averse media corporation in the world, Walt Disney. It’s insulting to employ the best actresses in the world and give them enormous budgets to wield swords and ride horses, only to cut them off mid-flight. Let her at it, for once!

I equate Hemsworth to fellow Leo and eternal sex symbol Patrick Swayze, who will be remembered not just for his physical perfection, but for his generosity, acting as a rock for his women co-stars. In Ghost, it’s as if Swayze knows Whoopi is going to get the gold in the end; why compete when he can easily help her to glory?

I recently rewatched Dirty Dancing, and was mesmerized. This movie was on nonstop in my mother’s house, so much so that I took it for granted, catching it piecemeal over the years, likely never sitting for a complete viewing. Catching it in full on Israeli TV, I was breathless. The underground parties on “the other side” of camp are hot as shit; Baby and Lisa capture the humanity, and complexity, of J.A.P. sisterhood; and Swayze is fearsome, seductive, and valorously loyal. It’s perfect.

Enough is enough. Let’s get to the main event. In April, I went with my friend Lulu to see Funny Girl, during previews, with seats in the second row orchestra. This is probably my favorite musical, so much so that I tend to listen to the OBC and the movie soundtrack back-to-back. When we walked out of the theater, Lulu said that she wished we had seen MJ instead. At least the dancing would have been better. I had to agree.

I went to Emerson College, a school whose Musical Theater department fed the rabid narcissism of suburban J.A.P. theater kids. Upon arriving in New York, I witnessed the rise of a new kind of ingenue, as seen in the leads of Mean Girls and Fun Home: chirpy, affable blonde girls who likely dazzled their hometown high schools. This is the world of Late Capitalist Twee, and its malcontents: gone are Lindsay Lohan and Winona Ryder, in are the sweet girls next door. As my mother would say about Taylor Swift: “She can’t sing, she can’t dance, and she’s not pretty.” In this new world order, it’s not so much about talent, as not pissing anyone off.

Beanie Feldstein seemed perfectly game for the lead in Funny Girl, but it seems she has known a lot of love and joy in her life, the kind which may insulate one from the grit that Fanny Brice, and Barbra Streisand herself, would have to claw through. In my podcast on the astrology of Elaine Stritch, Larry Owens and I celebrated the grueling charts of the great divas, like Tina Turner’s, filled with so enough opposition to either crush you, or give you the brass balls to survive anything. Perhaps the journey to the stage should be a crawl through mud and barbed wire; to emerge as a diva, to become a north star to hordes of suffering gays, one should have to endure.

So what’s at stake here, then, is the question of my people: Can Jews be likeable? Should we be? In questioning, complaining, battling and bemoaning, we force the rest of you to reckon with your complacency. Jews are ruled by Aries, the ram of Passover, the sign of individuality which emboldened Moses to challenge the beauty, majesty and inhumanity of Pharaoh’s Libran Egypt. For better or worse, we must confront. Streisand, a Yiddishkeit, Bed-Stuy brawler, made herself into a new kind of sex symbol, at a time when Jews were considered a genuine other in America. Crackling with dangerous horniness, she seduces a stacked pantheon of hot gentile men, including Omar Sharif, Ryan O’Neal, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Redford, Jeff Bridges. She pisses them off, nudges them, rouses them from the sleep of decency and propriety. She’s not like them. And it’s hot.

Lea Michele, like Feldstein, is Jewish. She’s conventionally attractive and has had a perfectly successful career. And yet, there’s something about her that pisses people off, something that has attracted a near decade-long backlash, which makes her perfect for this moment. Perhaps a Broadway star shouldn’t be nice. Perhaps a diva should be, as Ollivander says of Voldemort, “terrible, but great.” Fanny Brice couldn’t hide her hunger, nor could Streisand. Neither can Lea Michele. Let her piss them off. They secretly want it.

Until next time,

David Odyssey