Jessica Simpson and Tyra Have it all Wrong: The Beauty Myth Updated

I miss the old Tyra; yes the one that told American beauty standards to kiss her fat ass.

Now, she is on a diet and extolling the virtues of not eating pasta for the last two months. What happened to her? On her talk show, she says that she realized that she was getting too big/fat. Then she started doing a workout regime while watching DVDs of "Sex in the City." The symbolism is hard to deny. Tyra who was attempting to do some good work around opening up beauty standards, succumbed to the Beauty Myth once again. The Beauty Myth is the title of a book by Naomi Wolf that was published in 1991. In this book, Wolf outlines that "The Beauty Myth" is a form of political backlash against the gains that women have made since the 1960s. Wolf writes, "this counterforce is operating to checkmate the inheritance of feminism on every level in the lives of Western women."  So the more political, social and economic power that we gain, the more heavily society weighs on us to be beautiful. She writes that after "the sexual revolution promoted the discovery of female sexuality; "beauty pornography" which..links a commodified  'beauty' directly and explicitly to sexuality--invaded mainstream to undermine women's new and vulnerable sense of self-worth."

On a micro-level, but played out in front of thousands of viewers, Tyra succumbed to "The Beauty Myth." The papparazzi called her fat, she went off on them, then she went on a diet. When she went off on the papparazzi and the print media that carried the photographs I was proud of her. Women and girls all over the country were proud of her owning her body, cellulite and all, telling the world to kiss her ass. Tyra was more than a budding feminist that day. Today, you turn to her show and she a shadow of her former self. Small, hollow-eyed, non-existent. Some might say that I should not have hoped to find feminism in a former-supermodel, but I hoped that she could stand up with other women and for young women, who dare to say that they are more than their measurements. She could have continued to create a space where women are thought of as people who have something to contribute to society and are deserving of respect no matter how they look. Well, that did not happen.

Jessica Simpson has had a rough couple of years. A divorce, the mom jeans incident, and John Mayer. Now she has a new show entitled "The Price of Beauty." She claims that the premise of the show is autobiographically motivated because she has been critiqued for being "fat." So now, Jessica is going on a search to find 'beauty' all around the world and to colonize practices of people from non-Western countries. I hate the whole idea of the show. The first reason I don't like the show is because she is taking her hairdresser and friend, who has had more plastic in his face than Barbie. The second reason is that instead of critiquing the idea of beauty, Jessica goes out to colonize beauty practices of non-Westerners. Basically, she is going on a colonizing mission to find out how the 'natives' live. Bad idea. Third, Jessica Simpson should be telling the media to kiss her fat ass like Tyra did. Jessica has a beautiful voice and is a talented singer. Now, I will admit that because she is not the smartest person in the world her music is not great because their is little feeling or intelligence behind her words. But there is a market for pop princesses like her, so why is she doing reality television? She should be focused on sharing her voice with the world. But, I digress.

As Naomi Wolf argues, beauty is tool used by a patriarchal society to discipline women by making them feel personally inadequate. She writes, "The beauty myth tells a story: The quality called "beauty" objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it. This embodiment is an imperative for women and not for men....None of this is true. "Beauty" is a currency system...Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact." This system leaves women "to unnaturally compete for the resources that men have appropriated for themselves."

What this boils down to, is that Jessica and Tyra are sadly misguided because it is not that beauty standards need to be more accepting, in actuality, women should refute and rebuke beauty as a standard by which to measure a person's worth in the beginning. The focus should be on what young girls add to our society in terms of politics, social relations, and community, rather than making them feel beautiful. Beauty should be one of the last things a girl worries about in the US because we face a crumbling economy, rampant acts of violence directed against women, and an eco-system that will expire if we continue to consume at this rate. How is beauty going to solve any of these problems. Moreover, how does beauty enable a woman to get the skills that she needs to survive in this world? As a a black woman, I would love to re-write the black female body as beautiful in this racist society, I would rather go to bed knowing that all black children in the US are going to bed with a full stomach and a warm place to lay their heads.

So, Jessica and Tyra both miss the mark. Some will say, Miss Lady, why are you going in on two women about a beauty culture that is patriarchal in nature. Isn't that just another form of bashing women? To that I say, Tyra and Jessica have an opportunity at the big microphone (mainstream popular culture), to actually reach millions of women, and instead of offering something revolutionary they just recycle and sell the beauty myth from a new angle and call it empowerment. Furthermore, in this day and age it seems that they would have some contact with feminist critiques of beauty--don't they research these topics. They must have one intern that is capable of doing a google search on feminism and beauty. Basically, there is no excuse for them to be manipulating young women into thinking that they are just one-step away from achieving beauty.

For now, I will just turn-off the television, catch a break from the beauty industry, and continue to work for social justice.

Reality Television: Fetishization & Women’s Representation

I have grown bored with Reality Television writ large; however, I am enjoying the reality television that is video-blogging (VLoggin). As a person who watched the first season of the MTV’s Real World, I have given reality television more than a chance. But with the advent of the sensational coverage of Jon & Kate Gosselin’s marriage woes, and the fake drama of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, I have reached my limit. I am no longer entertained by this type of media that allows for a voyeuristic pleasure of the viewer and the tyranny of the visual to destroy familial relationships.

As a feminist, I am especially worried about the continued fetishization of the female body that occurs on these types of programs. Although this fetishization of the female body occurs across all media outlets, it is one thing when dominant groups produce images of women that adhere to archaic gender codes, it is yet another to create an environment where women are asked and prodded by producers to contort themselves into these positions for the pleasure of the viewer.

A prime example is the fetishization of the female body is The Girls Next Door. On this show, Hef’s three girlfriends (and I use the term girlfriend loosely), are all young, platinum blonde, thin, and white. None of them work, unless you count being Hef’s girlfriend, and yet the producers seem to be able to piece together a 30 minute show every week that features their activities and thoughts, ‘confessions.’ Clearly, the emphasis of the show is to feature their bodies, which are always scantily clothed and their materialism.

Each girlfriend claims to love Heffner, despite the fact that he will just replace her with another blonde clone, when she decides to leave or grows ‘too old’ to be his girlfriend. The problem with this show is that women are objectified and hegemonic masculinity is revered, even if it is creepy. Although the women are the feature of the show they are not the star. The star of the show is the phallus. Hugh Heffner’s penis, masculinity, wealth, and heterosexuality are the stars of the show. I do think that Heffner exists on the margins of heteronormativity because of his polygamist ways.

But what do we make of our society that says it is illegal to have more that one marital partner, but allows, even applauds, and gives a half-hour of cable television time to men who maintain multiple partners outside of marriage? Ask yourself, how long would a show with a woman who maintains three boyfriends stay on the air. Sure Tiffany (New York) did it, but she lasted three television seasons, while Heffner has been applauded for this behavior since the 70s. Tila Tequila had a bisexual harem for two seasons, but was recently (11/2/09) lamented en masse on twitter for being a “loose” woman.

The sexual double standard still exists and reality television shows exploit it for ratings. The lucky woman is able to turn that exploitation on its head and create a place for complex representations of the female body and subjectivity in the media. Alas, more often than not, by the time the women wise up to confining representational space they are allowed, they are tossed to the side for the next unsuspecting victim.

Some of you are probably thinking that women are not unsuspecting victims in the reality tv show game. I agree with you, to an extent. As reality television proliferates, the women who inhabit the genre become more sophisticated. For example, this year on the Real House Wives of Atlanta there is a pair of friends, Nene and Kim, that have gotten into numerous fights and then miraculously reconciled. When I began to watch the show their friendship seemed to be the most genuine on the show. As the show progressed, they seemed to be at each other’s throats. Now they are friends again, after supposedly getting into a physical altercation at a mall (which was not caught by the cameras). I am starting to think that these two friends are falsifying dramatic situations in order to remain on the show. They are aware that the good girl of season 1, Deshawn, was cut from the show’s line-up because she did not add enough drama to the storyline. I believe that they are falsifying dramatic storylines in order to stay on the show.

Instead of women manipulating money, beauty, and drama to maintain the spotlight, I would love to see women on television that are smart, funny, and talented. There is an audience for smart women lead characters, if only television would allow more on the air.