Cybill Disobedience by Cybill Shepherd and Aimee Lee Ball

I'd initially given this a pass because I'd heard that it was largely a "tell all" filled with sex scandals, but was later recced it on the basis of the focus of image and Hollywood's sexual politics.

It's pretty much both. Shepherd spends a lot of time of her love life, presumably because she knows it's what most people are getting this type of book for. Some parts of that are interesting, other parts seem to be there because she knows people want to know if this rumor or that rumor are true, others seem to be there specifically as a commentary on Hollywood's sexual culture. I admit, I skimmed some of the parts about her various lovers u less there was something interesting going on with it. (Judging by Amazon reviews, a number of people seem to have read it just to have an excuse to indulge in slutshaming. Moving on.)

There's definitely a narcissistic bent to it, though I suspect a fair share of that has to do with a lot of the book addressing her reputation for being "difficult." I'm sure she is difficult in many ways (if the majority of people who work with you and have commented about the experience say something about your personality, there's probably some basis for it) but (based not only on the book, but also other things I've read about her over the years) I get the feeling that a lot of that reputation comes form a propensity to speak her mind (rather like how Kristen Stewart is often criticized for what amounts to not performing the way people think a star should in interviews and public appearances, and instead just being her normal self and not wanting to share her private life) and to argue in favor of things others will let slide.

While I have no doubts that her portrayal of various professional dynamics and events is definitely skewed in her favor, I tend to believe that the actual details (wanting to be able to refer to female genitalia and body cycles on screen, objecting to blackface and "female genitalia=extreme circumcision" as jokes, not wanting her character to marry a man she's known for 5 minutes or to throw a tantrum and be horrible to everyone over a "dull" date, etc.) are probably accurate. When I rewatched the first few seasons of Moonlighting a while back, I could actually see the extreme shift in focus and sympathies away from Maddie, whose POV by the third season only really got to show up when she had to learn to be nicer and more understanding and appreciate people more. (Mostly appreciate ever-so-poor, unappreciated David, of course, who never had to learn not to be chauvinistic or that it was OK that she didn't always share his values and POV.) It also made me wish I'd seen more than a handful of episodes of Cybill. (I'd also be interested in reading Christine Baranski's version of events. The impression I get is that they were a pair of talented comediennes, both with diva tendencies, working in an environment that encouraged them to view each other as rivals and with multiple third parties trying to push them into those roles.)

I would have happily traded a lot of the stories about her various lovers for more information about her personal politics and activism, but appreciated her views on Hollywood and the media's beauty standards and expectations, and attitudes towards women in general, but particularly actresses largely viewed as a pretty face. For a closing note on that, I also find it very interesting that while Shepherd makes a number of references to what people have said about her looks-both to her and about her-she never actually refers to herself directly as attractive or calls herself beautiful. (Of course, by the time she wrote this she was probably a few decades past accepting that if she had it she should use if if it was what people were looking for anyway. There's both bitterness there and acknowledgement that her looks were pretty useful in her career.)