To put it lightly, this has been a rough time for feminists.
Yes, we have made significant progress since the Mad Men Era (aka the 1960s, when people still legitimately believed
that schizophrenia
and autism were caused by negligent parenting), but misogyny remains sadly
prevalent in our allegedly post-feminist society, as evidenced by various
recent events. First, there was the Sandra
Fluke-Rush Limbaugh controversy, which really hasn’t gotten any less
infuriating over time. Then, we had the even more B.S. “legitimate
rape” comments from (ex-)Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin and this
quote from author Bret Easton Ellis, among various other sexism-related
controversies. And just last week, the Oscars were greeted with outrage
over host Seth MacFarlane’s intentionally provocative “We Saw Your Boobs” bit,
in which an all-gay male choir sang about female nudity in movies.
I could
fill a novella with my feelings about the reaction to MacFarlane’s joke, which,
in all honesty, bothered me infinitely more than the joke itself. Don’t get me
wrong: “We Saw Your Boobs” is of questionable taste at best, and if anything,
the response to it shows that it failed to get across whatever satirical point
MacFarlane was trying to make. But maybe because I’ve watched way too many talk
shows (where this brand of comedy is more or less the norm) or maybe because,
even though I don’t care for his work in general, I genuinely wanted MacFarlane
to succeed as Oscar host (partly since everyone else, for whatever reason,
wanted him to fail), I can’t force myself to share the sense of moral
indignation that lit up the Internet after the ceremony. Were some of the jokes
offensive? Probably. Did all of them land? Definitely not. Worst Oscar host
ever? Do you even remember James
Franco and Anne Hathaway? This is a textbook example of the penchant for
hyperbole that characterizes the Internet Age – everything is either the best
thing ever or a crime against humanity, and everyone is either a “perfect human
being” or an insufferable dickwad. Although I would never deny anyone’s right
to be offended, at a certain point, I feel like you have to be able to say,
“That was distasteful” and move on - or at least provide some insightful, introspective commentary to go along with your self-righteous moralizing. Personally, I would rather spend my
time ranting about the aforementioned Sandra Fluke episode or even the ludicrous
comments
that have been made about Best Actress nominee Quvanzhané Wallis (one of which
was, to be fair, followed up by a rare public
apology that actually seems sincere), but then again, I'm not going to stop people from expressing their own thoughts and opinions.
Suffice to say that regardless
of how you felt about the overall quality of this year’s Oscars, they accomplished
something that no awards show has done in as long as I can remember: they made
people talk. And not just in a casual “Did you see what she was wearing?” kind of way. If you search beneath all
the impulsive cries of “how disgusting!” and “what an asshole!” that dominated the
initial reaction, you’d find that the controversy has actually resulted in some
reasonable
critical
discussion
over important and relevant issues. What more could we ask for from an awards
show (also, you have to admit this
was pretty clever, as was this)?
To me, the whole scandal reeks of holier-than-thou hypocrisy because, among
other reasons I won’t get into now, the most talked-about moment of the
ceremony other than “We Saw Your Boobs” was Jennifer Lawrence’s acceptance
speech. Oh wait, never mind, it wasn’t the speech itself that people were
fascinated by; it was the fact that she fell while walking up to the
stage to receive her award for Best Actress. You heard that right:
apparently, if you’re a female celebrity and you commit a normal, everyday
blunder like tripping over your dress, you will become the topic of a nation-wide
conversation.
Oh yeah, she also won a freaking Oscar.
There are so many things wrong with
this that I’m not even sure where to begin. According to an EW.com poll voted
on by readers (which, unfortunately, has disappeared from the site by now),
Jennifer Lawrence tripping was the best moment of the Oscars. Granted, the
available choices weren’t exactly the most inspiring (as happy as I am for
Christoph Waltz, who received his second Oscar in three years, I don’t remember
anything particularly great about his speech), but how people could think that
Lawrence behaving like an ordinary person is more special than Ben Affleck
completing his years-in-the-making comeback by collecting the Best Picture
Oscar for Argo and delivering
a gracious, funny, uplifting and utterly cathartic speech in the process is
beyond me. Hell, even Daniel Day-Lewis showed off his heretofore
undiscovered comedic side (or was even that
the real him? I just don’t know anymore…). My point being, the obsession with
Lawrence’s fall is downright absurd, especially since that wasn’t even the
most winning part of her speech.
Lawrence has acquired a substantial, almost rabid following on the Internet, thanks to her consistently humorous and down-to-earth media interviews. There isn’t anything fundamentally disconcerting about this; she does exude a certain charisma that is rare to see in actors of such a young age, and her spontaneity and candor feel like a breath of fresh air in an era when many celebrities are groomed so thoroughly by agents, publicists and studios that they start to feel more like products than actual people. But it’s gotten to the point where the public’s admiration of her personality threatens to overshadow her acting ability. If you don’t believe me, then check out this article from EW.com, which, as far as I can tell, only passingly mentions the fact that Lawrence has shown herself to be among the most promising actors of her generation. Also: more hypocrisy, this time brought to you by Indiewire.com (a website that I generally hold in high regard), which condemned the treatment of women at this year's Oscar ceremony while simultaneously applauding this moment between Jennifer Lawrence and Jack Nicholson that we're supposed to find hilarious and "cute" but is mostly just creepy.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, since actresses, to a greater degree than their male counterparts, have always been judged just as much (if not more) for their off-screen personas – and, of course, their physical appearance – than for their work. Marilyn Monroe could have been the greatest actress ever to walk the face of this earth, but history would still remember her primarily for her blond hair and sultry demeanor. And Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts have each been labeled “America’s sweetheart”, until the former had an extramarital affair with her costar, revealing that (shocker!) she wasn’t a sweet, innocent ingénue who could do no harm, and the latter fell out of public favor because… no reason, really (I guess she got older?). How else could you explain the irrational hatred of Anne Hathaway, which appears to have resurfaced during her Oscar campaign this year? It has nothing to do with her acting ability, though people still seem bizarrely reluctant to acknowledge that maybe she can act after all, and everything to do with her reputation as an overly earnest, wholesome goody-two-shoes, which somehow lingers even after her terrific, very unwholesome turns in the likes of Rachel Getting Married and The Dark Knight Rises. It would be fine if people criticized her for her actual performance in Les Miserables, which was by far the best in the movie albeit maybe not substantial enough of a role to merit an Oscar, but to the contrary, most of the bile stems from either her sincere yet unexceptional awards acceptance speeches or the dress she wore to the ceremony. To put it bluntly, neither of these complaints are in any way justifiable. Sure, her Oscar speech was rather bland, but it wasn’t worse than any of the dozens of other unmemorable speeches given that night. And putting aside the fact that the intense scrutiny of actresses and their fashion choices on the red carpet is superficial BS, it’s worth noting that Hathaway’s dress was a last-minute pick. The criticism is so overblown and baseless that Anderson Cooper spent a good three-plus minutes on his Friday morning show fervently defending the actress, and to that, I say, “Bravo.”
Remember when everyone gave Kristen Stewart the
Anna Karenina treatment when we
found out that she isn’t like Bella Swan?
But back to Jennifer Lawrence. If
you were to look on the Internet, you would think that her brief display of
clumsiness was the. most. adorable thing ever to happen to anyone. What’s lost
in all the “aww”ing is the fact that this recalls an age-old (or maybe just
decade-old) trope of romantic comedies that I previously believed we’d long
since retired. I’m talking about the good ol’ “adorable
klutz” cliché – you know, the gorgeous heroine who can’t walk down the
street without bumping into a stop sign or toppling over a curb. And we’re supposed
to find it endearing because it means (breaking!) the woman is just like us!
You know, just in case you weren’t aware that having a vagina automatically turns
you into an inanimate humanoid. This cliché has appeared in virtually every
modern rom-com, from perfectly respectable ones like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Hitch
to less respectable ones like Bridget
Jones’s Diary 2 and… hell, just watch this YouTube montage. In
terms of rom-com stereotypes that need to die, “adorable klutz” ranks right up
there along with “uptight
career woman who just needs to, like, chill the fuck out” and “dorky girl who magically
transforms into a sex goddess by taking off her glasses”.
If Batman can fly between buildings, Catwoman can
fight in stilettoes. Deal with it.
And then there are the gifs
of Hugh Jackman and Bradley Cooper rushing to help Lawrence get up after her
fall that have been making their way around Tumblr. These are often accompanied
by tags like, “step up your taking help game, woman” or “when Hugh and Bradley
try to help you, you let them help you” because apparently, Internet bloggers
are on a first-name basis with A-list movie stars, and an act of common
courtesy is enough to earn you “Prince Charming” status.
You commonly hear characters in books and movies lamenting the “death of chivalry,” always as though this is a bad thing, when in reality, the medieval-era concept of courtly love and the white knight in shining armor is still very much alive. Case in point: the wildly popular 2010 movie Easy A. Olive Pendergast, the heroine played with gusto by Emma Stone, is portrayed as a self-conscious loner whom Google Earth couldn’t find if she was dressed up as a 10-story building, which hard to believe since she is pretty, smart, charismatic and played by Emma fucking Stone. Anyway, at one point during the movie, Olive says that all she wants is for her life to play out like an ‘80s teen romance directed by John Hughes, the kind of movie in which men woo women by serenading them with boom boxes and passing off mundane activities such as lawn mower-riding as swooningly romantic. This isn’t my idea of love, but I’m not offended by it; whatever floats your boat, I guess. Then, I saw Friends with Benefits, which is director Will Gluck’s follow-up to Easy A, and what do you know? Jaime Rellis, the pretty, smart, charismatic heroine played by Mila Kunis (so good in Black Swan), also wishes her life was like a romantic comedy. In essence, according to Gluck, all women want is to be adored by a cute (always “cute”) guy.
You commonly hear characters in books and movies lamenting the “death of chivalry,” always as though this is a bad thing, when in reality, the medieval-era concept of courtly love and the white knight in shining armor is still very much alive. Case in point: the wildly popular 2010 movie Easy A. Olive Pendergast, the heroine played with gusto by Emma Stone, is portrayed as a self-conscious loner whom Google Earth couldn’t find if she was dressed up as a 10-story building, which hard to believe since she is pretty, smart, charismatic and played by Emma fucking Stone. Anyway, at one point during the movie, Olive says that all she wants is for her life to play out like an ‘80s teen romance directed by John Hughes, the kind of movie in which men woo women by serenading them with boom boxes and passing off mundane activities such as lawn mower-riding as swooningly romantic. This isn’t my idea of love, but I’m not offended by it; whatever floats your boat, I guess. Then, I saw Friends with Benefits, which is director Will Gluck’s follow-up to Easy A, and what do you know? Jaime Rellis, the pretty, smart, charismatic heroine played by Mila Kunis (so good in Black Swan), also wishes her life was like a romantic comedy. In essence, according to Gluck, all women want is to be adored by a cute (always “cute”) guy.
This is
what social psychologists call benevolent sexism. On
the surface, it can seem empowering (after all, the Western concept of a
marriage proposal stems from a Victorian era ritual in which the man was
required to show his deference for the woman by kneeling in front of her;
needless to say, this power dynamic dissipated the instant she said “yes”). Yet
in truth, it reinforces traditional stereotypes of women as fragile,
weak-willed creatures in need of a male protector. In contrast to hostile
sexism, which reflects overtly negative beliefs about women and their alleged
inferiority to men, benevolent sexism demeans women by placing them on a
pedestal, essentially turning them into objects of male worship. It is just as
patronizing as hostile sexism, if not more so due to the fact that it can
easily be disguised as complimentary and is therefore much more difficult to
detect. The entire modern-day courtship process revolves around this notion,
from the proposal to the fact that men are supposed to ask women out (not the
other way around) and the ideal of a “gentleman” as someone who pays for dinner
and holds the car door open for his date. In addition, we still appear
reluctant to allow women their sexual freedom, as we constantly judge women for
wearing revealing clothes (see: rape culture, “side-boob”)
and squirm at the mention of the word “boobs” or “vagina”.
Believe it or not, this is supposed to be a compliment.
In effect, women don’t want to be
viewed as subordinate to men, but neither is it desirable to be seen as
flawless, because either way, men hold the power. So
rather than heaping all the blame on one person (admittedly, MacFarlane is an
easy scapegoat), it would be more helpful to take this opportunity to examine
the sexism that remains entrenched in not only Hollywood but also the media,
which routinely promotes gender equality alongside articles speculating
about intimate details of celebrities’ sex lives and mocking
actresses for their fashion choices, and society as a whole. As James Dean
said in his classic film, Rebel Without a
Cause, we are all involved.
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