As friend on my facebook feed recently posted this commentary picture https://www.facebook.com/1013TheBrew/photos/a.195619466488.123649.110527966488/10153289475976489/?type=1
(For those that can not open it, it is a picture of three actresses at the AVN (Adult Video Awards) and four Holliwood actresses on the red carpet at "The Met Gala", with the caption of "On the left PORN stars at the 2014 AVN porn awards, and on the Right : Influencial People at the Met gala..". The porn stars are dressed in a modest manner as you might see a young woman dressed at a formal social occassion with on in a knee-length frilly white strapless dress, one in a floor-length black dress with straps and a bodice coming to a few inches above the sternum, and one "pushing the limits" in a polka-dot dress with a slit on the side to mid-thigh, and a bodice that emphasizes her breasts but would not be out of the ordinary for a large breasted women at a formal event in your own city.) On the right the "Influencial People" : the middle two have sheer shoulder to floor dresses with strategically placed accents to provide a minimal level of coverage covering vulva and nipples in one case (Beyonce?), and obscuring things in the other (Kim Kardashian). The one on the far left has cutouts on the side and back such that the side of the dress from the top of the pelvis hipbone to about 3" below the ball of the thigh hipbone is exposed (From the CNN labels, this is probably Jennifer Lopez). In the case of these three they are clearly not wearing underwear. The far right has a comparatively modest neck to floor green gown with a cutout on the side from underarm to top of pelvis exposing side-boob, but otherwise is fairly standard. Matching to CNN this is Kendall Jenner.) The point is that Holliwood has surpassed porn stars in the extent to which they are willing to dress racy for their events.
Various commentors posted, reproduced below my piece, and their comments prompted this blog post:
So here is a tangential thought about appropriate places: Movie stars sometimes are asked to be naked in films that a private industry association decides are targeted to a certain audience. Periodically they are invited to public events, and this provides them the opportunity to do advertising of their brand to potential customers. The red carpet provides them the opportunity to present the image "this is what I could look like with preparation" compared to the poparazzi shots on the street. Therefore in this context it makes sense for someone in this specialized industry to advertise how effectively they have sculpted and maintained their body, revealing what features their product has in order for customers to select the best one for their particular project. This means that the men are not wearing revealing enough clothing, and should at a minimum be encouraged to make their costumes less uniform. Now, if you are not willing to do nude scenes, then clearly you include this feature in your advertising, by wearing modest clothing that is as revealing as you are willing for your movie costume to be. (Carrying the thought to as an extreme conclusion I can get to, I guess this means that given the current guidelines of the MPAA, the women should be showing their vulvas, but the men should be covering their penises?)
(I admit my whole thesis is blown by how the porn stars are dressed. Though I could try for a token thing about the work being so extreme that it would like asking why a carpenter does not wear coveralls and bring a hammer to the builders' awards, or go for a transform based on my second-to-last paragraph that the customers they are selling to is not producers/directors but the general public, and AVN stars have a more limited audience that does not attend the awards show, so they can dress for any formal event rather than advertising their product.)
The challenge is in disambiguating between those who are doing this type of advertising, and those who just have a personal style that does not accommodate this style in their private lives even if they are willing to play a character with a different personal style. Potentially you could dress in the style for the types of roles you are currently looking for right now. However, how does one determine when someone is living their private life visiting parties in their social set, and when they are doing their job interview/cover letter. Industry awards shows and movie openings are clear opportunities to do this for business networking purposes, but Met Gala theoretically should be a private party thing. On the other hand, there must be sufficient awards shows (once a year), film openings (concentrated in a particular season), and film festivals to afford them the opportunity to do the advertising year-round. It might be that the Met Gala falls at a lull in the industry-specific events, and so is a good opportunity to hijack this public appearance for professional advertising rather than dressing their own personal style. Then also, there is the question of whether we are more offended by our perception of Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Madonna as a canny business women who make carefully planned decisions to push the limits in furtherance of shaping their personal product regardless of the impact on wider society, or the standard actress dressing a la mode who does not think through the implications of the current fashion and does not have the courage to push against the standard script for their costume, and the implications of their disempoweredness. (Given the other narratives about Beyonce, I actually think it would be inappropriate to make the above characterization of pushing her empire reckless of the impact on society, and would characterize it more as an internal argument in the feminist movements about being free to act as you please is an expression of empowerment as Beyonce would assert, or that this is lipstick feminism (using objectification as a commodity to trade for advantage or power) as some young self-described second wavers asserted to me a while ago.)
Returning to the original thread. So having laid the groundwork for the thesis that the actresses are culture workers, we have a question about their role: (1) are the culture drivers producers and directors that write to this culture model, and the actresses are advertising their product to these potential employers, as I am asserting, (2) are the actresses driving the culture as is implicit in many of the above comments, or (3) are we driving the culture preferencialy purchasing this type of product and the first two candidate groups are simply delivering the product demanded? (And if we are unhappy with last option, whose behavior should we be shaping: those who do not offer alternative products that do conform to our personal preferences, those who supply the objectionable product, or those who buy the objectionable product?)
Finally, an interesting side-note: this is a very appropriate conversation as was pointed out by one of the commenters on the original post. Apparently Met Gala is an annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute. Given this, commenting on their costumes (though I am a little vague on how any of the dresses embody "China: Through the Looking Glass"), what they mean, what they say about Society, and such does actually make a lot of sense.
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Here is the comment thread that prompted this in case context is needed. Reproduced without permission, but I have obscured the names in case people were not intending to post publically attached to their identity:
[OP] Seriously. Hollywood has gotten insane. I will never let my daughter idolize people like Beyoncé who make being nearly naked cool and stylish.
[JW] My thoughts also! Like why can't you just wear a nice dress? Why do I have to almost see your vagina? I don't get it
[ET] Beyoncé
is a brilliant business woman. She's got a child, a husband, her net
worth is $450 million, she's won countless awards for her music and is
one of the top female musicians in the world. She's a brilliant role
model and the fact that she felt like wearing a revealing dress doesn't
negate that. It's 2015.
[OP] Personally
it bothers me that she's worth that much and she does so by exposing
her body. I want to teach my daughter that what's in her brain is what
matters and that your body is not for everyone. What's next? It's OK to
have your vagina exposed? Sure
she's a brilliant business woman, she's giving Hollywood what they
want: more skin, more sex, more images and discussion about her body and
less about anything of value. It's sending feminism backwards in my
opinion.
[ET] There's
absolutely nothing wrong with a grown woman showing off as much of her
body as she wants. That doesn't mean that I can't teach my daughter that
it's okay to be smart and independent and to value intelligence AND
that she can be into caring about
her appearance. Bodies are bodies. We all have them. It's okay to show
them off, if it's your choice. It doesn't make you any less of a
feminist. And in the case of Beyonce, regardless of her manner of dress,
she's still a phenomenal artist. Her last album was almost universally
critically acclaimed. She's been nominated for 53 Grammy awards and won
20 of them. To make the inane assumption that Beyonce has only reached
the level of success she has because of her sexualized public image is
nothing more than internalized misogyny.
Also, you wouldn't be able to see her vagina unless you had a speculum. Vaginas are on the inside.
[OP] Haha,
I correct that statement then, we shouldn't walk around with exposed
labia. And you may teach your daughter that, it's totally your right.
However I will teach my daughter that she can flaunt her body by wearing
flattering things that still cover
her body. Because, in my opinion, it shows self respect and pride in
the fact that she doesn't need to show excessive amounts of skin to be
beautiful, or even sexy if that's how she wants to look.
[TW] ET, if you would actually allow a young impressionable person near anyone
who was near nude or nude for the sake of "progressive thinking" you
are the problem. Yes within the right context these gowns are fine but
dont tell me they are appropriate for children.
[ET] I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where the Met Gala was an event directed at children!
- [TW] As to the met gala point you are right though
[TW] That being said I find the most problematic thing in this picture the shaming of adult actors as if they were expecting them to be dressed "sluttily" or however you want to put it. These people work really hard (AB) and when they get to wear something nice people arent pointing out how nice they look and how beautiful their clothes are they are using them as a comparison to some unrelated gala.
[ET] I, personally, do not think Beyonce's style of dress doesn't really have any weight in the discussion of whether or not she is a good role model. I don't believe that bodies, nude or otherwise, are something to be feared. Literally every human being has a body. Female bodies, specifically, have been historically subjected to so much fear and girls are taught from a young age that the way we dress directly affects what kind of person we are, when the two have nothing to do with each other.
I do agree with you though that shaming the adult film stars in the picture is problematic. It's sad that they're being compared to a completely unrelated event and the focus is not being put on the awards they've earned.
[EP] I dunno, people shouldn't be ashamed of their bodies no matter how covered they are
[OP] Not ashamed, it's just not something to be shared. I don't cover my nipples because I'm ashamed of them, I cover them because they aren't something to be shared with the world. My body is my business.
[EP] I ran on the beach in Jamaica a few weeks ago with no shirt, so i guess it's just women's nipples then? I like that line though, "my body my business." now where have I heard that before....it sounds familiar
[AC] It's hard for men to be slutty because thier bodies are gross and hideous.
[OP] Really? Are we going to say men's and women's nipples are the same? And when I think of my body being my business to me that means that each individual's body is their business, not something to be shared. It's like everyone has sex, but it's not appropriate to do in public. That's a private thing, as is your body. Private, not for public display non stop. There are times and places. The beach for example.
[KA] My body, my business doesn't mean a body is necessarily private, though OP. You may feel like your body is only for private display, and so you choose not to expose certain parts of yourself in public. Someone else may feel comfortable (or happy or whatever term you'd like to use) having more of their body on display publicly. It doesn't make either choice more or less valid; it is just personal preference.
[OP] I can certainly see that side of it KA, and I certainly wouldn't confront anyone on the street who I thought was wearing too little. However I think that the personal preference of being exposed to nudity should be allowed too. We blur out private parts of the body on TV and movies with nudity are age restricted. At work we are all expected to cover a certain amount of our bodies to be professional. I don't think once we're not in a professional environment that should go out the window and it's appropriate to wear next to nothing. But there is no way to draw the line other than when peoples genitalia is not covered.
But I agree that people are allowed their preference.
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