From the trailer, I never would have guessed Tyler Perry’s Temptation was a veritable hotbed of sex (and STIs), race and gender politics in the worst way. This article comes with a massive spoiler alert, but it made me want to see the movie so much more, if only to be completely horrified by it. [Jezebel]
So misogyny may be running wild in the real world, but on TV, girls are calling the shots. We’ve had a bevvy of shows with “girl/s” both in the title and the storylines this year, with 2 Broke Girls and New Girl carrying their success over from 2011. While a lot of the subject matter is problematic, both shows have women carrying the comedy. Which brings us to just plain Girls, which is the brainchild of actor, writer and director Lena Dunham. Girls is not without its problems, either, but its portrayal of young urban women is almost faultless. Rounding out the representation of leading ladies in 2012 we have Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23, Homeland, Revenge, The Mindy Project, Are You There, Chelsea?, Smash, GCB (farewell!), Scandal, Nurse Jackie, Veep, Emily Owens, M.D., Whitney, The Good Wife and Hart of Dixie.
“Call Me Maybe”.
Until “Gangnam Style” came along, the YouTube Zeitgeist was dominated by one runaway success: Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. Justin Bieber’s protégé came out of nowhere with the catchiest song of the year, which was subsequently covered by the guys from Harvard’s baseball team, Barack Obama and the Cookie Monster! Talk about diversity!
2012: Apocalypse Now.
2012 was the year of the apocalypse, with the 21st of December long determined by the Mayans (or Mayan conspiracy theorists) as the day the world ends. You know, until the 7th of December tried to steal its thunder as the apparent recalculated date. Apart from the natural disasters, warfare and massacres, the 21st passed without a nuclear bombing, ice age or attitudinal shift, putting rest to the apocalypse panic. Until the next rapture, anyway…
Shit ___ Say.
It started with a sexist albeit funny YouTube video of a guy in a wig quoting “Shit Girls [Apparently] Say”, which snowballed into “Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls”, “Shit New Yorkers Say”, “Shit Christians Say to Jews” and “Shit Nobody Says”. Cue offence.
Snow White.
Snow White was everywhere this year: Mirror Mirror, Snow White & the Hunstman, Once Upon a Time… Note: overexposure isn’t necessarily a good thing. In fact, I hated Mirror Mirror and Once Upon a Time, and Snow White & the Huntsman was such a snooze-fest I can barely remember what happened (not including Kristen Stewart’s affair with director Rupert Sanders).
50 Shades of Grey.
On the one hand, E.L. James’ 50 Shades of Grey has singlehandedly revived the flailing publishing industry, so that’s a good thing. But on the other, it has falsely lulled its legions of (mostly female) fans into a state of apparent sexual empowerment: it’s a book about sex targeted towards women, so that means we’re empowered and we don’t need feminism anymore, right?
The Macarena of the 21st century, Psy’s horse dance took the world by storm, being performed in conjunction with Mel B on The X Factor, with Hugh Jackman in his Wolverine gloves, on Glee and at many a wedding, 21st birthday and Christmas party.
Misogyny.
Misogyny has long been the focus of feminists, but the word and its meaning really reached fever pitch this year.
After Julia Gillard’s scathing Question Time takedown of Tony Abbott and his sexist ways, people everywhere were quick to voice their opinion on her courage and/or hypocrisy. At one end of the spectrum, it could be said that Gillard finally had enough of the insidious sexist bullshit so many women in the workforce face on a daily basis and decided to say something about it, while at the other, many argued that the Labor party were crying sexism in a bid to smooth over the Peter Slipper slip up.
“Her electric speech on misogyny in parliament went beyond the sordid political context to firmly press a button on the chest of any woman who has been patronised, sidelined, dismissed or abused. It crackled across oceans, and, astonishingly, her standing went up in the polls, defying political wisdom that no woman would benefit from publicly slamming sexism.”
The viral doco that had millions of people rushing to plaster their neighbourhood in “Kony 2012” posters on 20th of April to little effect (the campaign’s goal was to catch Joseph Kony by years end) illustrated our obsession with social media, armchair activism and supporting the “cool” charities, not the thousands of worthy charities out there who could actually use donations to help their cause, not to produce YouTube videos and work the press circuit.
I’m Not a Feminist, But…
While Tony Abbott is clamouring to call himself a feminist to gain electoral favour despite the abovementioned misogyny saga, it seems famous women can’t declare their anti-feminism fast enough.
First we had new mother and Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer jumping at the chance to shun feminism despite the fact that without it she wouldn’t be where she is today. My favourite anti-feminist campaigner Taylor Swift said she doesn’t think of herself as a feminist because she “was raised by parents who brought me up to think if you work as hard as guys, you can go far in life.” Um, Tay? That’s what feminism is, love.
The cronies from Sutherland Shire were all over our boxes, primarily on Channel Ten, this year. There was the widely panned Being Lara Bingle, the even worse Shire, and the quintessential Aussie drama set in the ’70s, Puberty Blues.
While these shows assisted in shedding a different light on the suburb now synonymous with race riots, it’s not necessarily a positive one, with The Shire being cancelled and Being Lara Bingle hanging in the balance.
“Top 10 Most Obvious Halloween Costumes”, with a special mention to option number two, which inevitably has an outing every year. But here’s an idea: how about combining Presidential politics and dogs in costumes to create Mitt Romney strapped into a cage on top of your canine? Already been done by the marvelous minds that enter the annual Tomkins Square Park Halloween dog parade, but nevermind: I’m still dressing my dog up as this! [TheVine, HuffPo]
“I don’t really think about things as guys versus girls. I never have. I was raised by parents who brought me up to think if you work as hard as guys, you can go far in life.”
As the article points out, not only does she not know what feminism is, but her music is purely about guys versus girls and how poor little innocent Taylor had her heart broken by a big bad boy. You know, when she’s not slut-shaming and perpetuating a heteronormative Romeo-chases-Juliet-in-a-castle ideal of relationships. [Jezebel]
I’ve always been a fierce Megan Fox fan so, when it was revealed that Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley would replace her in the third Transformers movie, Dark of the Moon, I was livid.
While no one could accuse Fox of having irreplaceable acting chops, Huntington-Whiteley’s only credited “acting” role prior to Carly Spencer, Shia LaBeouf’s girlfriend in the film, was as a Victoria’s Secret Angel in their fashion shows, catalogues and videos.
To begin with, I couldn’t stand her. How dare she muscle in on Fox’s role as LabBeouf’s girlfriend, with her pouty lips and Jason Statham by her side?
But then I saw an interview with her on Ellen and I didn’t hate her. In fact, I quite liked her. Her accent, her personality and, yes, those lips.
So in preparation for writing this post, I watched Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Now, that’s two and a half hours of my life I’ll never get back, and Michael Bay’s continued objectification of his female lead was sickening. When Patrick Dempsey’s character introduces Sam Witwicky to a vintage sports car, describing how it was designed to mimic the curves of a woman’s body as the camera pans Huntington-Whiteley’s equally impressive body, it made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
Rosie’s probably no different than any other good looking female action star who’s graduated from modeling, but there’s something about her that doesn’t make me hate her.
“‘Well, it’s employing those women… But women’s bodies are not just ornaments, they’re instruments… Walk around the street and look at real people. That’s much more helpful than those ads.’ Does she think average women wear sexy lingerie? ‘You know, somebody must be buying it in the stores, but I don’t think they’re wearing wings.’”
“The disappearing bush is a burning issue”: “Just like the rain forest and the ozone layer, pubic hair has been disappearing on young, fertile, desired and desiring bodies…” Must read.
“… Extroverts are more likely than introverts to be hospitalized as a result of an injury, have affairs (men) and change relationships (women). One study of bus drivers even found that accidents are more likely to occur when extroverts are at the wheel… [Introverts are] more likely to wear ponytails and glasses and be the subject of a bet featuring Freddie Prinze Junior as the Popular Guy trying to ask her to prom…”
“[Feminist author and blogger Jessica Valenti ponders the] … impact Bristol’s story will have on the thousands of young women who read her memoir: ‘Not calling it assault—and blaming herself, as she does in the book—sends a dangerous message to young women who may have similar experiences.’ She writes that Bristol’s sense that she had ‘sinned’ and ‘had’ to marry [Levi] Johnston ‘broke [her] heart a bit’. Mine too.
“But I actually wonder if Bristol’s story, with all its heartache and ambiguity, might actually serve as a bit of entry level feminism for her readers. What transpired between Bristol and Levi, after all, was not remotely uncommon, and nor was Bristol’s reaction…”
My two criticisms of this theory are 1) um, when did the popular consensus lean toward “Weiner is hot”? and 2) Paul Newman. One of the best-looking men who ever lived, and faithful to his wife til the end.
Furthermore, what about that study that said relationships where the man is better looking than the woman last longer because the women puts in more effort to keep him?
Julia Gillard and Tim Mathieson’s 60 Minutes interview was a few weeks ago now, but Annabel Crabb’s commentary on the topic of our lack of respect for the Prime Minister is timeless:
“Surely she has earned the right not to endure infantilising questions about whether she really loves her boyfriend. And as for the awful matter of the First Nuptials (a grim sequence concluded the interview, with much chummy speculation from Wooley on who would be the ‘popper’ and ‘poppee’ of the marriage question, and more nervous giggling from the PM)—well, it’s fairly rude to ask, even without a national audience watching.
“Why do people feel they can take such liberties with this prime minister?”
Naww, this makes me want a dog even more. Even a blind, mangy, abused one. It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. And it’s better for an animal to feel love before loss.
A few weeks ago I caught a snippet from a Shia LaBeouf interview in the back pages of Famous, claiming that “Megan [Fox] developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael [Bay] who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women,” but wasn’t able to locate it again til this week.
Love her or hate her (personally, I lurrrrve her!), you’ve got to admire Fox for her outspokenness and, if that means, in this day and age, that she’s “Spice Girl”-esque, then so be it.
It’s kind of sad, actually, that to stand up to a cretinous misogynist and say “actually, no, I don’t want to be involved in a film where all my character does is lay about on a motorcycle while you direct the cameraman to get up-skirt shots of me” equates to being a caricature of pop-feminism from fifteen years ago.
I think LaBeouf was trying to remain loyal to both sides of the coin, but he has been critical of Transformers director Bay in the past. It’s just that he’s a guy and the star of the film, so they look the other way, whereas Fox is an apparently replaceable sex object who’ll never work in this town Hollywood again.
At least, that’s according to this week’s Famous, which has a somewhat-outdated story on Fox’s firing from the franchise, her replacement with Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and her allegedly anti-Semitic remarks against Bay. The article references a 2009 interview with Wonderland magazine, and an open anonymous letter posted on Bay’s website, which was written at least a year ago.
When talking about the release of the latest Transformers flick with a male friend, he said Fox was an idiot for trash-talking Bay and expecting not to get fired for it. (There is no evidence to suggest Fox did think that, FYI.) I wondered why Fox is the scapegoat to illustrate not biting the hand that feeds you in standing up for herself and refusing to be objectified in such a “way that appeals to a 16-year-old’s sexuality”, while Bay is lauded for his special effects and partnership with Steven Spielberg. He said he didn’t care; having a car with a button that you could press which turns it into your very own gigantic friend was cooler. Right: who cares how horrible the people making movies are, as long as the end product is good fulfills some boyish childhood fantasy, right?
Androgynous Aussie male model Andrej Pejic has been named FHM’s 98th hottest woman. What’s wrong with this picture?
I’ve been getting the feeling lately that the world is regressing: reproductive, gay, animal and human rights have been called into question of late (although props to the government for suspending live export to Indonesia in the wake of Four Corners’ expose on the country’s treatment of cattle), illicit behaviour by some of the world’s highest powered men seems to be the norm, and the carbon tax/climate change debate is still raging.
This notion is surely cemented by Pejic’s inclusion on the list.
Don’t get me wrong: I think Pejic is a great model, has a gorgeous face, I fully support him in the Dossier cover scandal, and I am proud of him as a home-grown talent. But I don’t agree with him being named a hot “woman”, nor with his modeling of female clothes.
The modeling industry is a female-dominated one, granted, but almost every other industry in the world isn’t, and women could stand to get a leg up wherever they can. This means leaving modeling clothes to fit the female form to those possessing the, erm, female form.
Male fashion designers have been accused (Karl Lagerfeld, I’m looking at you) of wanting to streamline the curve of a woman’s body, and what better way to do that than to have an androgynous man, with narrow hips and no “lady lumps” to speak of, modelling the clothes?
What’s even more worrisome is the magazine’s commentary on Pejic on their website, which has since been deleted by FHM:
“Although his sexual identity is ambiguous, designers are hailing him as the next big thing. We think ‘thing’ is quite accurate. Tall, skinny, and flat-chested, Andrej is considered in couture circles as the ‘perfect coat-hanger’ for high fashion garments, moving the industry on from hot girls who look dangerously boyish to just boys who look like girls. Having managed to get away with it in campaigns for Marc Jacobs and Jean Paul Gaultier, the blonde gender-bender has jumped the gun in hoping he might one day be signed as a Victoria’s Secret model (Pass the sick bucket). Well, he might have a hard time keeping it a secret then.”
“Holding tight to a mission statement that stands first and foremost to ‘empower women,’ and a slogan stating the brand is one to ‘Inspire, Empower and Indulge,’ the company ‘helps customers to feel sexy, bold and powerful.’
“Where once sexualized representations of women in the media presented them as passive, mute objects of an assumed male gaze, today women are presented as active, desiring sexual subjects who choose to present themselves in an objectified manner because it suits their ‘liberated’ interests to do so.
“Not only are women objectified as they have been, but through sexual subjectification, they must also now understand their own objectification as pleasurable and self-chosen.”
“I’m trying to say that our First Lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, or of a woman Alex Rodriguez might date every six months or what have you. I mean, women are under constant pressure to look lithe, and Michelle My Belle is out there saying if you eat the roots and tree bark and the berries and all this cardboard stuff you will live longer, be healthier and you won’t be obese. Okay, fine, show us.”
