Cintra Wilson is an American writer. She frequently contributes to Salon.com and numerous other publications, including the New York Times, for its Critical Shopper series. She is best known for her commentary on popular culture which is often humorous and sarcastic in tone. Her books include A Massive Swelling; Colors Insulting to Nature, and Caligula for President. She wrote a bi-weekly column called The Dregulator, which critiqued the tabloid culture and was syndicated in a number of alternative weeklies.
Wilson grew up in Marin County, California and attended Tamalpais High School. After dropping out of high school, Wilson went to San Francisco State University. She was an avant-garde playwright in San Francisco, as well as a contributor to Frisko magazine and the San Francisco Examiner, where she wrote a weekly advice column called "Cintra Wilson Feels Your Pain." Her first play, "Juvee," based on her experiences in juvenile hall, was produced when she was 19. She lived in Los Angeles (where she was engaged to Kevin Gilbert at the time of his death), and now lives in New York City. She has authored numerous columns for Salon.com chronicling, among other subjects, the worst of celebrity tabloid news and has provided frequent commentary on various award presentations, most notably the Oscars. Wilson is also the creator and voice of Winter Steele, which was a puppet television series on MTV's Liquid Television in the early 1990's.
On September 10, 2008, at the height of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Salon published a commentary piece by Wilson on then Republican Party candidate for Vice President, Sarah Palin. Describing Palin as "...a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP", Wilson proceeded to give her views on Palin in a relentlessly scornful manner:
"As a woman who does not believe what Palin believes, the thought of such an opportunistic anti-female in the White House -- in the Cheney chair, no less -- is akin to ideological brain rape. What this Republican blowup doll does with her own insides in accord with her own faith is her business. But, like the worst and most terrifying of religious extremists, she seems very comfortable with the idea of imposing her own views on everyone else."
She went on to describe Palin as: "...the White House bunny -- the most nauseating novelty confection of the evangelical mind-set since Southern "chastity balls," wherein teen girls pledge abstinence from premarital sex by ceremonially faux-marrying their own fathers."
The comments on Palin received much discussion, and heavy criticism from American conservatives, among them talk show host Rush Limbaugh. During a broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh described Wilson as "one of these just over-the-top feminist babes".
J.C. Penney controversy
Wilson's writing style later became a subject of controversy once again in parts of the blogosphere and fashion press for a store review which was published in the August 13, 2009 New York Times (where she was a contributor to a weekly series of columns about shopping in New York City called Critical Shopper). Wilson scathingly criticized JCPenney's new effort to open a new two-floor store in the Manhattan Mall, asking:
"Why would this dowdy Middle American entity waddle into Midtown in its big old shorts and flip-flops without even bothering to update its ancient Helvetica Light logo, which for anyone who grew up with the company is encrusted with decades of boring, even traumatically parental, associations?"
She also wrote: "A good 96 percent of the Penney’s inventory is made of polyester. The few clothing items that are made of cotton make a sincere point of being cotton and tell you earnestly about their 100-percent cottonness with faux-hand-scribbled labels so obviously on the Green bandwagon they practically spit pine cones." Citing J.C. Penney's strategy of competing with nearby Macy's by offering clothing to "people of all sizes", Wilson wrote: "[J.C. Penney] has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen." .
J.C. Penney stated that they found the review "offensive" to their customer base, and after heavy criticism from fashion press, advocates for the fat acceptance movement and elsewhere , Wilson issued three apologies through her blog, after the first two were criticized for insincerity (the first posted apology being removed entirely), , with the third having an even and more sober tone, although the ironic title "Once More With Feeling" suggested a continuing ironic resistance to sincerity. Moreover, in her typical sarcastic style, Wilson could not resist crediting her "personal beliefs as a Buddhist" in giving what otherwise was written in the form of a sincere apology, stating that "...the extent to which my article exacerbated these feelings is a very real failure on my end for which I sincerely apologize." (As of January 31, 2010, all reference to the controversy is unavailable on the writer's official website, though links to the original article remain.)
On August 23, 2009, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt devoted his entire weekly Op-Ed column to Wilson's J.C. Penney review. He largely wrote in an opinion sympathetic to J.C. Penney and those readers who complained, stating, "Although Trip Gabriel, the Styles editor, said the lines can be blurry, it seems to me that they were crossed and left far behind in this case. Wilson’s editors should have saved her, themselves and the paper from the reaction they got from readers, who concluded that the humor was at their expense, not for their benefit."
