Female celebrities during award season: Keeping it (too?) real
I’m all for celebs getting real about what it takes to look as good as they do. Hell, I’ve even been known to enjoy me a little of US Mag’s “They’re Just Like Us!” section because it pokes holes in the perceived perfection of A-listers.
What I don’t like, however, is Oscar nominees Octavia Spencer and Melissa McCarthy sabotaging their own moments of recognition and glory by dishing about their shapewear snafus.
It isn't terribly awful to wear Spanx, but it sure is to feel like you have to out yourself about it before somebody else does.
According to People.com (in an article that ran under the headline “Octavia Spencer Dons Triple Spanx For Red Carpet”), Spencer has “taken to reinforcing her red-carpet attire with Spanx and doesn’t always stop at one pair.” In fact, she announced to the world on the Ellen DeGeneres Show that she often “triple spanx.”
Fair or Not? The Snow White Complex
I love this documentary from filmmaker M. Hansa M. about how Eurocentric standards of beauty have become prominent across the globe, and how those beauty standards promote and exacerbate sexism and racism. In just eleven minutes, “Fair or Not?” addresses the many connections between racism, sexism, colonialism and exoticism, painting a clear and troubling picture of the issues facing all women, but especially women of color, in westernized cultures.
The film features young women who have found themselves at the center of racist, sexist expectations of beauty, and discusses how the media reinforces internalized racism and sexism, leading to low self-esteem. In one featured discussion, a young woman sums up her struggles as such: “‘Exotic’ means from a faraway place, somewhere unfamiliar. If we’re exotic to ourselves, then whose voices are we speaking from?”
This film is short, poignant, and incredibly important. Please do yourself a favor by watching and sharing.
–Melissa
“Elle” makes a mockery of Gabourey Sidibe’s cover girl moment
Gabby's "Elle" cover faces off with red carpet Gabby. Notice anything different?
What do you call a top fashion magazine that features a plus-sized African American actress on its cover? Progressive? Revolutionary?
If you’ve read recent Internet reports of Gabourey Sidibe’s October Elle cover, you might call it “racist,” “offensive,” or, as Salon puts it, “a weird fetishization that borders on patronizing.”
Allow me to explain. In honor of Elle’s 25th anniversary, the magazine is featuring a photo portfolio on “a new generation of smart, talented, game-changing artists, filmmakers, actresses, and activists.” Four of these lucky ladies landed a coveted spot on Elle’s special series of covers: Amanda Seyfried (Caucasian, thin), Lauren Conrad (Caucasian, thin), Megan Fox (Caucasian, thin), and Gabby (none of the above).
While the inclusion of a dark-skinned, big-bodied actress sounds like one giant leap for womankind, Gabby’s cover portrait frankly makes it hard to tell that she’s either one of those things. Illuminated from every angle and cropped just below her chest, she’s almost unrecognizable.
By the time I received my issue in the mail (hey, it’s considered About-Face “research”), I had already heard the hubbub surrounding Gabby’s Elle controversy. But my expectations for fashion magazines are never very high to begin with (though Glamour has been full of nice, body-positive surprises lately), so I wasn’t entirely shocked by the ultra-altered picture. I was more appalled by Elle’s lame excuses for the photo fiasco. Continue reading
Gallery of Winners: “America the Beautiful” exposes some ugly truths.
Produced by: Sensory Overload Productions
DVD available in Fall 2009. See the film’s web site for more details.
Questions to Consider:
* Is America obsessed with beauty?
* Do the beauty and fashion industries need to promote the thin body ideal to be successful?
* What are some mixed messages that girls get about their appearance and sexuality?
* Who decides what is beautiful?
What We Think:
In this award-winning documentary, filmmaker Darryl Roberts critically and light-heartedly tries to answer the question, “Is America obsessed with beauty?” He follows aspiring young models (and watches one crumble under the industry’s pressure). He interviews fashion magazine editors, celebrities, plastic surgeons, and everyday men and women. It’s a candid and enlightening movie that will make you feel more empowered and more aware, wondering, “Who decides what’s beautiful, anyway?” (by Kate Elston)
See more about America the Beautiful in our blog entry “America the Beautiful”: Why beauty is out of control.
Take Action! Contact:
E-mail the filmmaker, Darryl Roberts, your thoughts on the movie.
American Apparel’s Classy-Vintage-Chic-Late ’80s-Early ’90s-Racist-Sexist-High end brand
What appears to be AA's only model of color shows off her "trashy" and "classy" poses.
We’ve talked about American Apparel before. You all know how we feel about the company’s creeptacular history and about how AA ads constantly and consistently make women’s bodies into objects for public consumption.
Just when I thought they couldn’t get worse, something new and insidious surfaced.
Gawker wrote recently about AA’s looks-based hiring policies, leaking internal documents that discuss AA’s “New Standard”: “Classy-Vintage-Chic-Late 80s-Early 90s- Ralph Lauren-Vogue-Nautical-High end brand.” Their employees are the front line of the brand’s new image, and should represent the company 
accordingly.
So who are they looking for to help represent the new look? The more important question is (and always should be in cases like this), who aren’t they looking for?
“None of those trashy [black girls],” said one e-mail from corporate. “We’re not trying to sell our clothes to them. Try to find some of those classy black girls, with the nice hair, you know?”
Let me just repeat that for you for a second: “some of those classy black girls with the nice hair.”
Women of color have long been victims of a white beauty standard that others them. Black women in particular are generally represented as animalistic and hypersexualized. AA’s policy plays directly into those stereotypes, defining black women as either “trashy” (good) or “classy” (bad) based on outer appearance, as though a woman’s hair reveals all about her personality, politics, and ability to be a fashionable employee. Continue reading
Playing Housewife: Beyoncé in “Why Don’t You Love Me?”
Beyoncé’s new video for her track, “Why Don’t You Love Me?” has been a hot topic of debate recently on a bunch of blogs we read.
The clip features Beyoncé as “BB Homemaker,” a character that pokes fun at stereotypical depictions of both the pin-up model and the seemingly-happy-but-secretly-unhappy 1950s/1960s housewife.
“Why Don’t You Love Me” – Beyoncé on Vimeo.
Beyoncé prances around in the video doing all the activities a housewife or pin-up model might do. Except, as a housewife she is quite inept. At one point she is doing some dusting in a sexy dress, but when you look closer, you realize she is dusting off a row of gleaming Grammy Awards. Then she’s trying to bake some cookies, but she’s actually just throwing flour around in her underwear. She also burns some kind of roast she’s cooking. And gardening seems to be more about looking fabulous than anything else.
It’s hard to criticize this video. My first instinct is to just enjoy and not analyze. But there are a few interesting issues that arise, whether Beyoncé intended to address them or not. Continue reading
“When your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed.”: “Good Hair” and the black community
A few months ago, comedian Chris Rock released a documentary that investigates the fanatical preoccupation with “good hair” in the black community. It’s a film that takes the viewers from neighborhood salons in Atlanta to rural villages of India, investigating the multibillion-dollar haircare industry. I’m a big fan of any documentary that examines the media and its influence on young women, and “Good Hair” was insightful, provocative and entertaining.
Just as Darryl Roberts’ documentary “America the Beautiful” comically tackled America’s obsession with bodily perfection, Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” comically tackles the black community’s obsession with impeccable locks. Rock talks to a wide variety of people, from celebrities like Raven Symone and Maya Angelou to everyday men, women, and high schoolers—none of whom think twice about getting a thousand-dollar weave or using relaxer in their hair. According to the documentary, worrying incessantly to make your ‘do “less black” is not just common in contemporary African-American culture—it’s expected.
The film focuses its attention on relaxer, the chemical used to make curly hair flawlessly straight. Celebs, like rap duo Salt ‘n Pepa and even the Reverend Al Sharpton, openly admit to using it. Relaxer has so much sodium hydroxide in it that it could potentially burn through one’s scalp, yet people continue to use it to achieve stick-straight hair. The documentary also explores the industry of weaves—wigs made of real hair that cost upwards of several thousands of dollars. These hair pieces, as the film points out, overwhelmingly come from Indian women who sacrifice their hair for religious purposes. The women who admit to wearing weaves show no shame around spending a month’s paycheck (or more) on a vanity item. Continue reading
“Slip of the Tongue”: Questioning ethnic make-up
A frame from the short film "Slip of the tongue"
I stumbled across the Media That Matters Film Festival web site while randomly searching for documentaries online. After browsing through the taglines of numerous films on the site, one description immediately intrigued me:
“What’s your ethnic make-up?” A young man makes a pass at a beautiful stranger and gets an eye-opening schooling on race and gender.
What is Real Beauty? Photographer Jodi Bieber shares her vision.
"Michele" by Jodi Bieber
What words have we been programmed to use when defining beauty? How about flawless, skinny, model, glamorous, celebrity, or perfection? How about painful? Well, I’m rebelling.
I have a word I would like to include my in my definition of beauty; that word is “real”. “Real” as in something we all possess. “Real” as in every woman in her own uniqueness. “Real” as in the stunning photographs by acclaimed South African photographer Jodi Bieber.
The Boob Tube: The problematic new ad from Rethink Breast Cancer
A frame from the new Rethink Breast Cancer commercial (full video is on the jump)
Rethink Breast Cancer has released a new ad that they hope will catch the attention of heterosexual men and increase awareness of breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in young women ages 20 to 59. But though they may have the best of intentions, this ad is liable to do more harm than good. Continue reading