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Her name sounds like polite slang for masturbation, but Jill Soloway is not only interested in self-love. She wants to share it with all of us.
She hit Hollywood riding a wave of publicity for her live-action theatrical presentation of The Real Live Brady Bunch. It was only fitting that she soon landed writing gigs on such sitcoms as the animated comedy The Oblongs.
But bigger and better things were to come when she was snatched from the anonymity of syndicated television writing pools to the taste-making and barrier-breaking environs of HBO thanks to Alan Ball. That may sound like the pseudonym for a gay porn star, but it is in fact the name of the creator of Six Feet Under, and Soloway is almost single-handedly responsible for making it the salacious hit that Mr. Skin affectionately refers to as Sex Feet Under.
There is, however, so much more to Soloway than her success as a boob-tube scribe. She hosts a regular Hollywood be-in called Sit 'n' Spin, in which famous writers finally get to bask in the spotlight as they perform embarrassingly funny first-person narratives. Soloway is a natural and warm performer, even when confessing her lifelong hatred of dogs.
That humorous essay is one of many rants and raves making up Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, a memoir recently published by Free Press. Also found at a bookstore near you is Three Kinds of Asking for It (Touchstone), a collection of erotica edited by Susie Bright.
Just because Six Feet Under has run its course doesn't mean Soloway is taking it easy. She's in the midst of a national book tour but was more than happy to take a break and chat with Mr. Skin about sex addiction, The Blue Lagoon, and her ban on further writings about sex. To keep up with all things Soloway, log onto her website, www.jillsoloway.com.
In your new memoir, Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, you bemoan the "pornoization of America," but do you feel any responsibility for this prurient downward cycle, what with your early theater productions such as The Miss Vagina Pageant and Not without My Nipples?
I just named shows those names because I knew it would help them get more of an audience. And it always worked!
You also talk a lot about your seemingly contrary stance on feminism, advocating a separatist nation called "Lesbo Island" while obsessed with a beauty magazine's view of good looks. How do these disparate opinions keep peace in your head?
They don't. It's a big mess in there. Second wave feminism, third wave feminism, a love of reality TV and Jessica Simpson and Andrea Dworkin. Writing the book is a way of sorting out the ambivalence. Writing in general is. But I still haven't come to any big place of answers.
You were a writer on HBO's recently defunct hit Six Feet Under. Is it accurate to say that you generated the story line regarding Rachel Griffiths's character's sex addiction? And would you have ended that narrative with her in recovery if you were the show's creator?
Wow! Good question. You have the inside scoop somehow. Did we have a conversation about this? I did lead a debate in the writer's room trying to get away from the sex-addict-recovery storyline. Sadly I did not win. I find 12 Steps pretty boring as a TV plot. We've all seen those meetings. And politically I felt it would be bold to allow a woman to venture into wild sexual activities without pathologizing her. But I lost that argument.
Speaking of sex, which is all Mr. Skin does, you have also published a novella called "Jodi K" in Susie Bright's anthology Three Kinds of Asking for It. The story, told in the voice of a teenage girl about her affair with her best friend's father, reads almost as a fictional autobiography. So, well, did you lose your virginity to your best friend's father?
No. Sorry. Parts of Jodi are me, but parts aren't. Jodi was a suburbanite and I was a city girl. I did have a crush on my best friend's dad but he never knew a thing about it--'twas all in my head.
At the beginning of your memoir you somewhat facetiously write that you're "done writing about sex." But are you, really? Is there going to be more erotica or dirty TV scripts and movies, etc.?
I think writing about sex from an authentic female point of view--writing about LIFE from an authentic female point of view--will always be my goal. I've written a movie I hope to direct as well as a TV pilot, and always, because it's me, the intersection of love, sex, plus a little bit of God and pop culture will be explored.
Now you're beginning to see that this interview isn't like, say, "A Night Out With" column in The New York Times Sunday Style Section, which you were featured in. Were you familiar with Mr. Skin prior to this interview?
I heard about him on Howard Stern.
The editorial director at Mr. Skin, Mike McPadden, a.k.a. Selwyn Harris, says he knows you. Is there any truth to this, or is he just glomming on to your celebrity?
I think I met him once, through the cartoonist Tony Millionaire's wife, Becky Thyre. She's an actress and good friend of mine. I remember him being shy.
A boilerplate Mr. Skin question is this: Do you recall the first time you saw nudity in a mainstream movie?
The Blue Lagoon (Picture: 1 - 2). There's a section in "Jodi K" about them going to see that movie that pretty accurately describes how I felt. Feel free to put that paragraph in here.
Another is to ask which actresses you think are hot, and this can be past or present.
Natalie Portman. Rachel Weisz. She's not an actress but a cooking show maven--Nigella Lawson. I pick Jewish women or women who look like Jews who I wish I looked like. I guess it's a pretty obvious form of narcissism.
Finally, any plans to write Mr. Skin into one of your upcoming projects?
Not that I know of. But I'll peruse the website more closely and see what inspires me.
She hit Hollywood riding a wave of publicity for her live-action theatrical presentation of The Real Live Brady Bunch. It was only fitting that she soon landed writing gigs on such sitcoms as the animated comedy The Oblongs.
But bigger and better things were to come when she was snatched from the anonymity of syndicated television writing pools to the taste-making and barrier-breaking environs of HBO thanks to Alan Ball. That may sound like the pseudonym for a gay porn star, but it is in fact the name of the creator of Six Feet Under, and Soloway is almost single-handedly responsible for making it the salacious hit that Mr. Skin affectionately refers to as Sex Feet Under.
There is, however, so much more to Soloway than her success as a boob-tube scribe. She hosts a regular Hollywood be-in called Sit 'n' Spin, in which famous writers finally get to bask in the spotlight as they perform embarrassingly funny first-person narratives. Soloway is a natural and warm performer, even when confessing her lifelong hatred of dogs.
That humorous essay is one of many rants and raves making up Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, a memoir recently published by Free Press. Also found at a bookstore near you is Three Kinds of Asking for It (Touchstone), a collection of erotica edited by Susie Bright.
Just because Six Feet Under has run its course doesn't mean Soloway is taking it easy. She's in the midst of a national book tour but was more than happy to take a break and chat with Mr. Skin about sex addiction, The Blue Lagoon, and her ban on further writings about sex. To keep up with all things Soloway, log onto her website, www.jillsoloway.com.
In your new memoir, Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, you bemoan the "pornoization of America," but do you feel any responsibility for this prurient downward cycle, what with your early theater productions such as The Miss Vagina Pageant and Not without My Nipples?
I just named shows those names because I knew it would help them get more of an audience. And it always worked!
You also talk a lot about your seemingly contrary stance on feminism, advocating a separatist nation called "Lesbo Island" while obsessed with a beauty magazine's view of good looks. How do these disparate opinions keep peace in your head?
They don't. It's a big mess in there. Second wave feminism, third wave feminism, a love of reality TV and Jessica Simpson and Andrea Dworkin. Writing the book is a way of sorting out the ambivalence. Writing in general is. But I still haven't come to any big place of answers.
You were a writer on HBO's recently defunct hit Six Feet Under. Is it accurate to say that you generated the story line regarding Rachel Griffiths's character's sex addiction? And would you have ended that narrative with her in recovery if you were the show's creator?
Wow! Good question. You have the inside scoop somehow. Did we have a conversation about this? I did lead a debate in the writer's room trying to get away from the sex-addict-recovery storyline. Sadly I did not win. I find 12 Steps pretty boring as a TV plot. We've all seen those meetings. And politically I felt it would be bold to allow a woman to venture into wild sexual activities without pathologizing her. But I lost that argument.
Speaking of sex, which is all Mr. Skin does, you have also published a novella called "Jodi K" in Susie Bright's anthology Three Kinds of Asking for It. The story, told in the voice of a teenage girl about her affair with her best friend's father, reads almost as a fictional autobiography. So, well, did you lose your virginity to your best friend's father?
No. Sorry. Parts of Jodi are me, but parts aren't. Jodi was a suburbanite and I was a city girl. I did have a crush on my best friend's dad but he never knew a thing about it--'twas all in my head.
At the beginning of your memoir you somewhat facetiously write that you're "done writing about sex." But are you, really? Is there going to be more erotica or dirty TV scripts and movies, etc.?
I think writing about sex from an authentic female point of view--writing about LIFE from an authentic female point of view--will always be my goal. I've written a movie I hope to direct as well as a TV pilot, and always, because it's me, the intersection of love, sex, plus a little bit of God and pop culture will be explored.
Now you're beginning to see that this interview isn't like, say, "A Night Out With" column in The New York Times Sunday Style Section, which you were featured in. Were you familiar with Mr. Skin prior to this interview?
I heard about him on Howard Stern.
The editorial director at Mr. Skin, Mike McPadden, a.k.a. Selwyn Harris, says he knows you. Is there any truth to this, or is he just glomming on to your celebrity?
I think I met him once, through the cartoonist Tony Millionaire's wife, Becky Thyre. She's an actress and good friend of mine. I remember him being shy.
A boilerplate Mr. Skin question is this: Do you recall the first time you saw nudity in a mainstream movie?
The Blue Lagoon (Picture: 1 - 2). There's a section in "Jodi K" about them going to see that movie that pretty accurately describes how I felt. Feel free to put that paragraph in here.
Another is to ask which actresses you think are hot, and this can be past or present.
Natalie Portman. Rachel Weisz. She's not an actress but a cooking show maven--Nigella Lawson. I pick Jewish women or women who look like Jews who I wish I looked like. I guess it's a pretty obvious form of narcissism.
Finally, any plans to write Mr. Skin into one of your upcoming projects?
Not that I know of. But I'll peruse the website more closely and see what inspires me.
