Flicking through the newspapers yesterday I was stopped in my tracks by an image of the new Vanity Fair cover. This shows Nicole Kidman - two-time Oscar nominee, one-time winner - with a military cap on her head and an open-mouthed expression. Said expression is, I guess, supposed to be a Monroe-esque pout, but just makes her look (though it pains me to say it) completely bloody vacant. Beneath this vacuous visage, for no apparent reason, she is holding her shirt open to expose her white, bra-clad breasts. There is something strangely passionless and perfunctory about the pose - as though, off camera, a doctor has just shown up and told her it's time for an impromptu mammary examination. (Or, indeed, the magazine editor has just told her she is off the cover unless she gets on with it and gets 'em out.) "Nicole Kidman Bares All" screams the coverline.
And this image arrives just a few days after the release of photographs from the new Agent Provocateur advertising campaign, featuring another highly lauded actor mugging shamelessly in her scanties: indie favourite and two-time Golden Globe nominee, Maggie Gyllenhaal. The full series of pictures are due online this Friday as part of a book of "adventures" called, very cheesily, Lessons in Lingerie, in which Gyllenhaal stars as a character called Miss AP. Those released so far show Gyllenhaal, variously: reclining in a basic black push-up bra and pants; gazing coquettishly over her shoulder in lacy knickers and a pair of stockings; cavorting in a bubble bath in a striped one-piece (so heavily styled and made up that she resembles another young actor, Brittany Murphy, far more than herself); her breasts pushed up in a tight pink corset, looking as awkward and unhappy as Kidman; and, in the most provocative shot, trussed to a strange wooden chair, legs spread wide, in just her bra and knickers.
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The general take on the Gyllenhaal pictures so far has been that they are fabulously sexy (indeed, the Sunday Times's Style magazine used them as a peg for a piece about "girl crushes"). So why did I find them - and the Kidman shot - so supremely depressing? It can't just be because they feature women as sex objects. After all, there's a constant parade of woman-flesh on the newsstands each day, and while I find the half-clad photos of Hollyoaks stars and Big Brother contestants depressing, too, they don't have the power to surprise these days.
But photographs of genuinely acclaimed actors in their underwear affront me every time, whether it's Angelina Jolie draped in a silk sheet for US Esquire, or her great rival, Jennifer Aniston, baring her breasts for US GQ. There seemed something sad to me about the controversial GQ cover of Kate Winslet a few years ago, not because of her legs being digitally lengthened, but because I couldn't understand why the youngest woman to receive five Oscar nominations had to be togged up in a basque. And as for the Vanity Fair cover of Teri Hatcher, in which the story of her childhood sexual abuse was illustrated with a just-out-of-bed shot of her in nothing but a white top and white knickers, well ... words fail me.
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I think what I find so incredibly discomfiting about these pictures is their suggestion that, no matter how talented a woman is, how many plaudits she has received, how intelligent her reputation, how garlanded she has been for depicting one of the most talented writers of the last century while sporting a huge prosthetic conk on her noggin, at the end of the day, if she wants to stay in the public eye, if she wants the magazine covers and the leading roles, she has to be willing to reduce herself to ti.ts and arse.
One of the most blatant demonstrations of this came last year, when Vanity Fair (them again) published their Hollywood issue. Put together by the fashion designer, Tom Ford, the cover featured Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley, two talented young actors, completely naked. Rather bizarrely, Knightley was being sniffed by a fully-clad Ford. Inside, it was explained that Ford's appearance had been a last-minute addition and that a "certain young actress" had been slated to appear as part of a "gorgeous female threesome", but hadn't understood the nudity requirement and "bowed out when the clothes started coming off". Said actor was Rachel McAdams, who, at that junction last spring seemed on the brink of stratospheric fame. She had appeared in three successful films in 2005 - Wedding Crashers, Red Eye, The Family Stone - and, some might have argued, was worthy of a fully clad Vanity Fair cover. Since declining to bare all, McAdams' career has gone strangely quiet (she has apparently turned down some offers of sidekick roles), while the fame of Knightley and Johansson has soared. Coincidence? Well, maybe.
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That example suggests that it is a simple equation - get your clothes off, see your career rocket - but, of course, it is not. It is a hugely risky business to disrobe (the same people who laud your sexiness will think much less of your talent), and it is a risky business to leave them on (see McAdams, and, no doubt, many other aspiring, principled actors throughout the decades). Actors such as Kidman and Gyllenhaal must recognise this edge of risk, which brings me to another depressing spectre. For many women, it seems, no matter how successful they are, the need to be pleasing to men, to say, "However powerful and clever I might seem, I'm just a playful, bra-baring bunny underneath," trumps everything. Excuse me while I wipe the tears off my keyboard ...
but really it all comes down to us women ourselves. there goes the women rights movemnt thrown out the window. so in the end what really did we fight for? out of the aprons just to strap on sex gear.
women in hollywood are nothing more than sperm receptacles who suck and **** their way to fame. what...you just learned this? this is a recent developement? in order for them to make it as actors they have to be willing to be softcore pornstars on demand. thats the way its always been. thats what sells. sluts.
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"Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here."
Sex sells... but is that really so awful? Let me tell you, if men were considered sex symbols that just had to expose some rippling abs to get girls jilling off to their photos with great vigor, we wouldn't be posting threads like this. We'd be too busy reaping the benefits of being the symbol of beauty, again (as we were back in early Greece).
However, I understand where you're coming from. More power to you.
It just is. I think a lot of women misplace their anger or unease with the way female careers are, they aim it at men, because it's aimed at us. It's not our fault, these women want to do it, and if they don't then they have no right to complain, cos they're doing it for money anyway.
Blame them. Not us. If they're willing to get their clothes off, I'm willing to enjoy it.
Let's not overlook the fact that half those actresses probably wouldn't be anywhere without posing for magazines. Natalie Portman has a decent movie career and she has never had to get naked because she actually has the talent.
It's like fat women who blame men for liking "Sticks". No, we just don't necessarily find obesity or being overweight to be attractive, and if you bothered to ask, most would say anorexia isn't too hot either. Anything gets the point of the finger besides those responsible or to blame.
Err, what? Wasn't the whole point of the women's rights movement to gain equal rights and the ability to chose to do what you want?
So how does actresses choosing to pose half-naked go against this? No one is making them do it. They decide to do it, and if they don't want to they don't have to.
I thought it was the dyslexic sacrilegious pervert who pronounces the name Raymond in a manner that sounds offhand poetic and has billboard appeal, but is ultimately meaningless.
I haven't read the article but I will however say this much. I am as well against the whole entire: show some flesh for the sake of publicity. I simply find it all to be simply a whole bunch of bullocks but unfortunately thats just how it goes. As the priest at my church has said (who has worked in business before becoming a priest) there are two rules that they teach you right away in marketing:
1. Sex sells.
2. Feed on Greed.
The two actually go hand in hand, what with the first one acting as a catalyst for the second rule with the audience wanting more and more of the sexual images. Plain and simple, its derogatory and unnecessary. But surely if i think this then why don't I just simply ignore this. After all ignorance is bliss right? Wrong again, in this world the frequency of which I even run into this stuff (which infects every font of multimedia) makes it damn hard to ignore since they shove this stuff into your face making such a thing as ignorance damn near irrelevant. By damn do i hate objectifying.
Gender: Female Location: Somewhere over the rainbow...
You are so right!! *O* seems like all pretty famous girls are reducing themselfs to this kinda stuff, so sad :l and the sadest part of it is that the world is filled with pervy people now! >.< why else would they do this? 0.o They already have tons of money but no-ooo... they have to go and be all slutish to get attention =P Bleh.
I don't know if I disagree or I agree. Because, while I don't particularly like to see successful women degrade themselves on the covers of magazines, I have to say more power to them for doing what they want and exercising their freedom to do it.
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TOO much to bare.
so in the end what really did we fight for? out of the aprons just to strap on sex gear.
Sep 9th, 2007 10:20 PM
