I’m a movie nerd. I admit as much. As part of my daily routine, I surf the various movie news websites to get the scoop on the newest of Hollywood news. One such site I regularly attend, joblo.com, had an interesting tidbit of information: Anne Hathaway, the good-girl star of kiddie flicks “The Princess Diaries” and “Ella Enchanted,” reportedly has a sexual graphic, full-nudity requiring role in an upcoming indie called “Havoc.” The piece said that she took the role to break away from the goodie-two-shoes image she has built for herself since the short-lived television family drama “Get Real.”
All I thought was “another one bites the dust.”
As an aspiring actor myself, I can understand Hathaway’s need to stretch beyond the confines she’s been trapped in. No actor wants to do the same roles over and over again, and when you get typecast into family flicks than it’s a natural desire to get some respect and take on an adult challenge.
But nowadays, way two many young actresses and singers have confused growing up with going bad. Call it the “skankization” of young Hollywood.
It’s become apparent that being a good girl is out; prostitution and porn is now in. With the limelight so focused on the barely clothed ilk of Britney and Christina, is it any wonder that desperate starlets are grabbing at the media by disrobing for the cameras themselves?
Talent is no longer a commodity that hopefuls trade in for fame; it’s sex. Michelle Branch is no longer the sweet, guitar-slinging folkie that she began her career has – she’s a topless sex kitten on the cover of Maxim. She was once a girl who didn’t need to trade in on her body to be famous and respected. But now here she is, wearing a handcloth and nothing else and talking dirty to her interviewers.
It’s a disheartening sight to behold. Branch has betrayed herself and her audience by letting herself be exploited by handlers under the guise of female empowerment and embracing her sexuality.
Honestly, is it really empowerment to pose like a Barbie doll on a cheap, inconsequential magazine “read” by 14-year-old boys who aren’t interested in studying the articles? I’ve read a couple of these interviews and they aren’t exactly deep – they are often piffle that seem overly concerned with the ladies’ sex lives than their movies or music. So you got these lovely young ladies, brimming with ambition and talent, and what are they reduced to: porn stars providing sexualized soundbites for horny male interviewers.
And that’s the problem: the so-called empowerment is really these ladies pandering to the lowest common denominator audience (in other words, frat boys). Respect is thrown out the window (along with intelligence, talent, and anything else that doesn’t involve bikinis) in favor of naked or near-naked breasts. The girls are reduced to flesh, pretty faces to be ogled, used and replaced with the next pretty face. The Paris Hiltons, Jamie-Lynn DiScalas, Anne Hathaways – they blur into one another, like some generic wide-eyed pop tart harping on about her “embrace of her sexuality.” (When did embracing your sexuality mean dressing like a member of the Pussycat Dolls?)
The sad thing is that a double standard has been floating around these career moves that no one has bothered mentioning. When male actors decide to go for the glory and demand respect as thespians do they have to parade half naked on magazines and in movies? No. Not unless they really, really want. Josh Hartnett doesn’t have to do a full frontal nude scene to prove he’s a grown-up actor. Why does Anne Hathaway? Justin Timberlake got respect and platinum sales when he delivered “Justified” to stores and he didn’t have to pull out his penis to do it. Janet Jackson, in the era of Paris and her sex tape, decided that the best way to promote her new “Damita Jo” was to flash a breast.
And that’s what’s demanded of our female celebrities nowadays. It isn’t an explicit demand, but it’s there, in the proliferation of men’s magazines, in the abundant (and unnecessary) media coverage of Britney and Christina’s antics, in the misogynistic vocabulary of hip-hop music. It isn’t enough to be good at what you do; you have to be naked while you do it (even if it’s done badly). These women allow themselves to be exploited to “further” their careers, but at least half these D-lists starlets disappear into the sands of time. So much for their plans to get ahead.
The only thing that these career moves help perpetuate is the idea that the only way for a girl to grow up and get respect is to lose their clothes, while men don’t. They say sex sells – but only if women are the products.
Johnny Donaldson is a Collegian columnist.
