Are Half-Naked Pop Stars Too Pornographic? This Celeb Thinks So
Actress Rashida Jones' exasperation over the near total ubiquity of exposed flesh among today's reigning pop princesses is clear in that tweet—and even clearer was the firestorm sparked by those 140-ish characters. In addition to 2,226 retweets, the missive earned a slew of blog responses that accused the Parks & Recreation star of "slut-shaming" and being a bad feminist, among other things.
To be sure, that language is tough to defend, but that's what Jones is doing in an essay she penned for Glamour magazine’s January issue.
In it, the Harvard graduate makes some real points about, to quote the article’s title, “the pornification of everything,” attempting to get beyond the convenient either/or labels and into the murkier truths:
“I am not a prude. I love sex; I am comfortable with my sexuality.… I also grew up on a healthy balance of sexuality in pop stars. Yes, we had Madonna testing the boundaries of appropriateness, but we also had…women who played with sexuality but didn’t make it their calling card.… Twenty years later, all the images seem homogeneous. Every star interprets ‘sexy’ the same way: lots of skin, lots of licking of teeth, lots of bending over. I find this oddly…boring.… When it comes to porn imagery and pop culture, we have a tonnage issue.”
And the “tonnage” does something to counter a common argument. After all, how does doing the same thing—flashing as much skin as possible—as everyone else demonstrate one’s self-confidence? Is it even sexy?
Charlotta Kratz, a lecturer at Santa Clara University who teaches Diversity in the Media, thinks not.
“To me, that much skin is just boring. My students may think of it as sexy, but to me it isn't. [It’s] too impersonal, too guarded, too formulaic,” Kratz said.
Shira Tarrant, author and associate professor of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies at California State University, Long Beach, agrees: “This is not creativity. This is a narrow little box that tells women and girls—and men and boys—that being female is primarily about being sexually available for other people.”
As Jones writes, no matter how much one might call it empowerment, “the poles, the pasties, the gyrating: This isn’t showing female sexuality; this is showing what it looks like when women sell sex. (...And so much of it feels staged for men, not for our own pleasure.)”
Little wonder: There aren't many women in the industry who run the show, according to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, director of the 2011 film Miss Representation and CEO-founder of the Representation Project, which aims to address and counter gender stereotypes.
“While some female pop stars benefit momentarily from this system—and may even contribute to it—it’s important to remember they aren’t the ones who created it, or the ones who are truly in charge," said Newsom.
Women are less than 15 percent of producers, engineers, and songwriters, not to mention a tiny percentage of record label executives, she added.
Given those numbers, it’s not surprising media looks the way it does, said Kratz. She also faults a successful hegemony that is in place, whereby oversexualizing women has "come to be viewed as neutral, or normal," but it's up to viewers to continue to question what is shown.
“That’s exactly what we're seeing here. And those who have bought the ‘neutral/normal’ argument will criticize anyone who points out that the emperor is, in fact, naked,” Kratz said.
Case in point, Jones’ tweets were immediately dismissed by many as “slut-shaming” and misogynistic.
Granted, her use of the word “whores” was neither nuanced nor particularly helpful.
But it all begs a question about the level of discourse in conversations about women and sex, the name-calling and knee-jerk reactions, the lack of middle ground.
Women know our choices extend beyond twerking in a too-small bikini or the convent. But when it comes to public, rapid-fire controversies like this, it can seem that the only evolution that’s taken place in terms of the age-old Madonna/whore dichotomy is that today each is preceded by a hashtag.
Which is why more thoughtful essays like Jones’ appearing in mainstream women’s magazines like Glamour are important.
“Ms. Jones’ overall perspective—as someone familiar with the industry—can contribute to a necessary conversation that will shift consciousness, change behavior, and ultimately transform culture for all of us," Newsom said.
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Original article from TakePart
