Is this outfit on Katie Holmes her own or a Happy Hours character outfit?

Right after I said that Katie Holmes gets more coverage (by paparazzi) than the state of her career really warrants in a mailbag, she announced she is directing and co-starring in a new romantic comedy-drama with Joshua Jackson. Okay then, game on!

Here is Katie on set today in New York, working on Happy Hours. Is this look a character outfit or from her own wardrobe? Since she’s not wearing earphones, a clamshell, etc, I assume this is film wardrobe. I like the sunglasses a lot, and it is entirely too hot for full shoes. This is flip flop weather. You can’t be warm if your feet are cold, you can’t be cool if your dogs are roasting. This is the way.

Happy Hours is supposed to be the first in a film trilogy. Announcing you’re making a whole trilogy before anyone has seen the first movie is very “Kevin Costner’s Horizon”. Maybe see what happens with that first movie before announcing grand plans you might not be able to deliver. Sincerely hope this works out for Katie, though, and I’m rooting for Joshua Jackson after the cancellation of Doctor Odyssey. We truly flew too close to the sun with that one.

What else happened today…

Pamela Anderson is having just the best time on the Naked Gun press tour. This is a very cute dress! (Go Fug Yourself)

Speaking of Ryan Murphy’s American Love Story, Murphy is hitting back at Jack Schlossberg’s comments regarding the show, particularly that he needed the Kennedys’ permission—which he never would have gotten—to make the show. On that, I agree with Murphy. He didn’t and doesn’t need permission. The family is free to speak out against him and the show, but biopics/bio-series are always better without the input of vested parties. American Love Story will probably be a mess, but it won’t live or die on the Kennedys’ involvement. (Celebitchy)

The always astute Kayleigh Donaldson tackles Harry & Meghan and their post-royal conundrum. They’re just regular ole celebrities now, but they haven’t carved out a clear place for themselves in the celebrity ecosystem. To me, they’re trying to do too much. They should refocus and refine their public branding. I understand at least part of the issue is trying to control their images after intense, frequently racist scrutiny from the media, but at a certain point, to be famous means engaging in a system you don’t like and that doesn’t like you back (see also: Sydney Chandler, more on her in tomorrow’s mailbag). They just have to find one toe hold and build from there. I think they can do it, but it will take some concessions toward celebrity they’ve been unwilling to make so far. (Pajiba)

“What if everything we know about Sacagawea is wrong?”

I mean, I’m willing to bet a LOT of it is wrong, because the historical record of her life is written by white men who only knew her for a couple years. To that end, a group of historians, librarians, teachers, and members from the Hidatsa nation—who claim Sacagawea was Hidatsa and not Shoshone—have compiled generations of oral history about “Eagle Woman” into a book, telling their version of Sacagawea’s life, which purports that she lived well into her eighties and died after the Civil War in a raid.

I am inclined to believe the old stories, because there are two versions of the events that happened in Montana in 1876. White people call it Little Big Horn, Lakota call it Greasy Grass. There’s not even an agreement on the name, but the official history goes with the white naming of the locale. For a very long time, it was widely accepted that Custer’s body wasn’t mutilated out of respect (LOL forever), but slowly it began to be acknowledged that yes, his corpse was desecrated, including puncturing his eardrums, something women from the Cheyenne nation always claimed they did so that he would hear better in the next world, and perhaps remember his words (he broke an agreement to stop pursuing the people).

It's not happening fast and there is plenty of push back, but slowly the Native stories about Greasy Grass are being integrated into the history of Custer and what happened in 1876, which was neither battle nor massacre, but a defensive action of the people. Why should Sacagawea’s life be any different? Lewis and Clark’s journals are a mess, they often didn’t mention her for weeks at a time, and when they did it was often as “the Indian woman”, never mind her French fur trapper husband barely spoke English OR Hidatsa and what little history of Sacagawea they give came from him, not her. Why don’t we at least listen to the Hidatsa stories, and consider there was more to Sacagawea than her unreliable narrator of a husband provided? (The New York Times)