"Only one thing was clear: There was no right way to be a girl."
May 31, 2021 12:36 PM Subscribe
Vox is examining how the last 30 years of public misogyny affected, and is still affecting, the teen girls of the 90s and beyond. Their new series, "The Purity Chronicles", leads off with a look back at Paris Hilton.
In my close circle of friends there are 4 women, ages 50-something to 70-something, who have raised children and had careers and continue to either work or support community in a number of ways. I'd call them community builders. Whatever the future looks like, I hope it looks like them. One common denominator: either the man was never really part of the picture, or he was a part of the picture till the picture was so much improved by his absence that the marriage ended.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:00 PM on May 31, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 2:00 PM on May 31, 2021 [5 favorites]
Let's all turn 35 and INTROSPECT SOME SHIT.
posted by Hypatia at 4:47 PM on May 31, 2021 [33 favorites]
posted by Hypatia at 4:47 PM on May 31, 2021 [33 favorites]
Look the Farther Past used to be misogynistic in its own way, but, for example, no one stuck a microphone in Judy Garland’s face and asked if she was a virgin. No one non-consensually released a tape of Elizabeth Taylor having sex. Paparazzi did not stick their cameras under Mia Farrow’s skirt. There was not a public countdown of days till Shirley Temple turned 18. People in the Celebrity Culture did all these things to women our age, and they did it in public, and the public was expected to think it was OK and love it. And women my age — girls at the time — were told that we should aspire to be these women, but also mock them for being vapid and shallow and for being victimized in the first place.
I am not saying that the stars I mentioned above were not deeply damaged by the misogyny and celebrity culture of their era. But it is relevant to my generation and it’s relevant to cultural history. We didn’t have to deal with some stuff your generation did; you escaped a lot of things inflicted on us.
posted by Hypatia at 5:22 PM on May 31, 2021 [65 favorites]
I am not saying that the stars I mentioned above were not deeply damaged by the misogyny and celebrity culture of their era. But it is relevant to my generation and it’s relevant to cultural history. We didn’t have to deal with some stuff your generation did; you escaped a lot of things inflicted on us.
posted by Hypatia at 5:22 PM on May 31, 2021 [65 favorites]
The one I remember most vividly was the countdown to Mary Kate & Ashley Olson's 18th. They are two years older than me and my dad was weirdly invested because they were hot and almost legal. Then they turned 18 and suddenly they were washed up ugly has-beens. Not my favorite memory.
posted by coldbabyshrimp at 5:27 PM on May 31, 2021 [27 favorites]
posted by coldbabyshrimp at 5:27 PM on May 31, 2021 [27 favorites]
Jesus, reading that Paris Hilton article is a real punch in the gut. When the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke to barely-teenage me Lewinsky seemed like a full adult. When Hilton's sex tape was released, I was only slightly younger than her and thought she was also a wholly mature and fully-realized and totally self-assured adult. Now in my thirties I have an appreciation for how goddamn young they were. It ignites my absolute fury at the those so-called "journalists" and media personalities and famous people who back then were as old as I am now or older and must have known how immature and self-conscious and undeveloped you still are at that age and they dragged those girls through the mud anyway.
I have a lot of feelings bubbling up about how that background radiation of misogyny affected my view of my own womanhood, my value as a person, and how I should be. For example, it took years to get rid of the "them vs. us" attitude that poisoned my ability to empathize with any woman that got sexualized by the media. In my bad brain logic being feminine = being anti-feminist, and sexualization wasn't something that happened to a woman, it was something she did to herself via her performance of femininity*. We were all in charge of our own sexuality now, right? So if it gets out of hand, we're the ones at fault!
*At the same time, I absorbed the lesson that the #1 source of value in a woman was her physical attractiveness . . . As that first article says, "There was no right way to be a girl. There were only different ways to fail."
I'm not buying it. The world has grown more girl-positive in my lifetime. I was born in the 50's for god's sake, when women were assumed to be helpless outside the kitchen. Girls today have the whole world in front of them. And who is Paris Hilton, but the name of some hotel?
What are you not buying? Did you read either of the articles? Do you think that misogyny does not play a part then or now in how women are treated in the media?
posted by Anonymous at 5:27 PM on May 31, 2021
I have a lot of feelings bubbling up about how that background radiation of misogyny affected my view of my own womanhood, my value as a person, and how I should be. For example, it took years to get rid of the "them vs. us" attitude that poisoned my ability to empathize with any woman that got sexualized by the media. In my bad brain logic being feminine = being anti-feminist, and sexualization wasn't something that happened to a woman, it was something she did to herself via her performance of femininity*. We were all in charge of our own sexuality now, right? So if it gets out of hand, we're the ones at fault!
*At the same time, I absorbed the lesson that the #1 source of value in a woman was her physical attractiveness . . . As that first article says, "There was no right way to be a girl. There were only different ways to fail."
I'm not buying it. The world has grown more girl-positive in my lifetime. I was born in the 50's for god's sake, when women were assumed to be helpless outside the kitchen. Girls today have the whole world in front of them. And who is Paris Hilton, but the name of some hotel?
What are you not buying? Did you read either of the articles? Do you think that misogyny does not play a part then or now in how women are treated in the media?
posted by Anonymous at 5:27 PM on May 31, 2021
The one I remember most vividly was the countdown to Mary Kate & Ashley Olson's 18th.
That's one of those things that was horrifying to me when it was happening and gets more horrifying the older I am. I cannot imagine what it would be like to watch your father participate in it. I'm sorry.
posted by Anonymous at 5:32 PM on May 31, 2021
That's one of those things that was horrifying to me when it was happening and gets more horrifying the older I am. I cannot imagine what it would be like to watch your father participate in it. I'm sorry.
posted by Anonymous at 5:32 PM on May 31, 2021
regarding Misogyny and culture I recommend Red Comet the short life of Sylvia Plath Yes its a long read but what a document of the life of a woman, the 1950's, and beyond
posted by robbyrobs at 5:35 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by robbyrobs at 5:35 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
Back in that era, Boomer men were the target market for every young woman who was subjected to this kind of sleazy, Nabakovian hymen-fetishization. They built this damn empire with their easy Boomer-man money and their obsession with youth and their appetite for control. They bought the damn Girls Gone Wild DVDs and bragged without irony that their own daughters would never.
I will be damned if Boomer men get to rule on whether sexism has existed in the last 70 years. Especially if they can’t be arsed to RTFA.
posted by armeowda at 5:43 PM on May 31, 2021 [58 favorites]
I will be damned if Boomer men get to rule on whether sexism has existed in the last 70 years. Especially if they can’t be arsed to RTFA.
posted by armeowda at 5:43 PM on May 31, 2021 [58 favorites]
I glumly suspect that you can make an anti-misogynist pop article the same way you can make an anti-war movie, to quote someone. Never for everybody, and maybe not at all. And I enjoyed Bust back in the day and would probably enjoy Vox’s take on it, but as pop, not as politics.
posted by clew at 6:43 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 6:43 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mod note: A few deleted. We really don't need "not all men" in this thread.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:09 PM on May 31, 2021 [57 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:09 PM on May 31, 2021 [57 favorites]
Armeowda, NLOG is an interesting trend. At first when it emerged I found it interesting and empowering, but now I’m seeing it weaponised against young women. Make the mistake of saying you don’t like makeup? Did he pick you, Sis? I wish we could have a trend of young women just being nice to each other.
posted by frumiousb at 7:50 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by frumiousb at 7:50 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
Look the Farther Past used to be misogynistic in its own way, but, for example, no one stuck a microphone in Judy Garland’s face and asked if she was a virgin. No one non-consensually released a tape of Elizabeth Taylor having sex
Nah, I don't buy this line of reasoning. Remember that these were women whose husbands were permitted by law to rape them. Am I supposed to somehow feel greater outrage about nonconsensual release of sex tapes being merely de facto (not de jure) legal, than about nonconsensual sex being de facto as well as de jure legal?
It's not "different but equal" misogyny through the ages. Shit has been getting objectively better. I hope we can speak of the raw horrors of our present times and those of the recent past without minimizing objectively greater horrors of the distant past -- even if minimizing them is easy and tempting given the genteel iron-enforced silence that hid most of them.
posted by MiraK at 7:58 PM on May 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
Nah, I don't buy this line of reasoning. Remember that these were women whose husbands were permitted by law to rape them. Am I supposed to somehow feel greater outrage about nonconsensual release of sex tapes being merely de facto (not de jure) legal, than about nonconsensual sex being de facto as well as de jure legal?
It's not "different but equal" misogyny through the ages. Shit has been getting objectively better. I hope we can speak of the raw horrors of our present times and those of the recent past without minimizing objectively greater horrors of the distant past -- even if minimizing them is easy and tempting given the genteel iron-enforced silence that hid most of them.
posted by MiraK at 7:58 PM on May 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
I don't think it's reasonable to demand that we address current sexism to your personal satisfaction before we can discuss the mind-fucks of the 00s?
That Paris Hilton article is everything I have always wanted to articulate about my teenage years and young adulthood, but never could marshall all the arguments and citations for. So grateful to read it here. It feels like being un-gaslit for the first time in twenty years because of how relentlessly we were all told that none of it was sexism, that sexism was dead, that feminism was rah rah, and forever and ever amen.
posted by MiraK at 8:17 PM on May 31, 2021 [10 favorites]
That Paris Hilton article is everything I have always wanted to articulate about my teenage years and young adulthood, but never could marshall all the arguments and citations for. So grateful to read it here. It feels like being un-gaslit for the first time in twenty years because of how relentlessly we were all told that none of it was sexism, that sexism was dead, that feminism was rah rah, and forever and ever amen.
posted by MiraK at 8:17 PM on May 31, 2021 [10 favorites]
The Paris Hilton article is devastating. I'm a thirtysomething woman so I was a teen during that time and I feel like it lifted a veil from my eyes about the messages I was getting. I thought I was a woke young person, critical of the media, and yet even I had no defenses against that kind of onslaught of messaging. The derogatory quotes from other women I admired, like Tina Fey, make it hurt so much worse. Glad Vox is publishing this series.
posted by Emily's Fist at 8:24 PM on May 31, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by Emily's Fist at 8:24 PM on May 31, 2021 [13 favorites]
Mod note: happyroach, if you want to have a conversation about sexism on MetaFilter, the appropriate venue would be MetaTalk. We are not going to forbid women in particular from talking about sexism in the 90s, or derail it into talking about MetaFilter in the present, just because MetaFilter, like the rest of society, continues to be imperfect.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:33 PM on May 31, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:33 PM on May 31, 2021 [11 favorites]
..whoa, Tina Fey.
Drawn to the article by the curiosity of the Fey quote. ..I like Tina Fey, a lot, but, wow.
"I don’t go to clubs,” Blake Lively told Seventeen magazine in 2008, responding to charges that she and Hilton were similar, “I don’t party, I don’t dance on tables, and I don’t like sex tapes.” Three years later, Lively’s nudes would be posted online without her permission."
Is it possible to ask for more posts about women's imagery or image used no consensually. I'd love to find different or better ways to think of it or approach the cultural rift and concept. It's mortifying and in some perspectives, insanely common.
Where is the middle line between wanting people to have access to erotica and pornography, but not being down with nonconsensual release and misrepresentation.
And yes, unfortunately a large number of these women look at this experience as a psychosomatic rape. This is the most extreme perspective (or one of them - Paris referenced this point, btw, not surfacing the point without prompt), but people are essentially shellshocked by a raw level of information then made widely accessible to people some of these women would likely barely interact with (who then, very possibly, treat or approach them differently). It can cause an incredibly difficult paradigm shift that takes a significant amount of work to undo.
I hope they have/had support.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:42 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
Drawn to the article by the curiosity of the Fey quote. ..I like Tina Fey, a lot, but, wow.
"I don’t go to clubs,” Blake Lively told Seventeen magazine in 2008, responding to charges that she and Hilton were similar, “I don’t party, I don’t dance on tables, and I don’t like sex tapes.” Three years later, Lively’s nudes would be posted online without her permission."
Is it possible to ask for more posts about women's imagery or image used no consensually. I'd love to find different or better ways to think of it or approach the cultural rift and concept. It's mortifying and in some perspectives, insanely common.
Where is the middle line between wanting people to have access to erotica and pornography, but not being down with nonconsensual release and misrepresentation.
And yes, unfortunately a large number of these women look at this experience as a psychosomatic rape. This is the most extreme perspective (or one of them - Paris referenced this point, btw, not surfacing the point without prompt), but people are essentially shellshocked by a raw level of information then made widely accessible to people some of these women would likely barely interact with (who then, very possibly, treat or approach them differently). It can cause an incredibly difficult paradigm shift that takes a significant amount of work to undo.
I hope they have/had support.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:42 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
I stopped watching TV in the 1980s, and stopped reading anything unless it was work (law/finance) related at that time, so the whole 1990s thing looked like a trainwreck from my perspective.
I did not know what to think about the young girls and women who were being devoured by media, but I was not going to spend a penny or a minute of attention to support the intrusions. As a new mother of young daughters, I couldn't understand why these girls in the media were so unmoored, with no parental or family support.
When I read these articles now, that is what remains with me, that my role as a parent is to be there, not just at the beginning, but through all the messiness of life. I intend that if, god forbid, one of my children is put through scrutiny like Lewinsky, I would be sitting right beside her, ready to rip these people a new one.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 8:45 PM on May 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
I did not know what to think about the young girls and women who were being devoured by media, but I was not going to spend a penny or a minute of attention to support the intrusions. As a new mother of young daughters, I couldn't understand why these girls in the media were so unmoored, with no parental or family support.
When I read these articles now, that is what remains with me, that my role as a parent is to be there, not just at the beginning, but through all the messiness of life. I intend that if, god forbid, one of my children is put through scrutiny like Lewinsky, I would be sitting right beside her, ready to rip these people a new one.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 8:45 PM on May 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
"I intend that if, god forbid, one of my children is put through scrutiny like Lewinsky, I would be sitting right beside her, ready to rip these people a new one.*
I am not a mom, but thank you so much for recognizing one of your daughters could experience something similar to Lewinsky, and not believing they magically rest on a pedestal of status/exception/etc.
One of the more unfortunate perspectives in this occurs as a sort of denial of susceptibility for some women/mothers/fathers/whatever.
It's unnecessary.
(*Nonconsensually, the post before)
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:49 PM on May 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
I am not a mom, but thank you so much for recognizing one of your daughters could experience something similar to Lewinsky, and not believing they magically rest on a pedestal of status/exception/etc.
One of the more unfortunate perspectives in this occurs as a sort of denial of susceptibility for some women/mothers/fathers/whatever.
It's unnecessary.
(*Nonconsensually, the post before)
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:49 PM on May 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
I super remember all of this stuff feeling horrible & unsavory because I was specifically paying attention to culture for instructions about what the fuck I was expected to even do so it definitely felt like all of these messages were personally directed at me and I didn't like it. Because the message was "this is what a Girl is: ____ if you are not ____ then You are not Girl because you're not Girl Enough and sorry but there is no way for you to be Girl and no use for you." If you weren't picking this up then congrats you weren't the target. But that doesn't mean it wasn't happening.
It's really something now for everyone to be suddenly saying "Oh yeah that was obviously really bad & damaging" & it's just too bad there was no one saying that at the time who had any power to change it. Of course not bc they were getting rich off it.
The new steaming sitcom Girls5Eva portrays these issues in a really frank & cathartic way I thought.
posted by bleep at 8:49 PM on May 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
It's really something now for everyone to be suddenly saying "Oh yeah that was obviously really bad & damaging" & it's just too bad there was no one saying that at the time who had any power to change it. Of course not bc they were getting rich off it.
The new steaming sitcom Girls5Eva portrays these issues in a really frank & cathartic way I thought.
posted by bleep at 8:49 PM on May 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
"Fey’s beef with Hilton at the time was that Hilton had refused to perform a sketch that would have gently poked fun at her sex tape. This refusal, in Fey’s joking riff, became linked to the idea of Hilton’s alleged stupidity: Only someone unbelievably dumb would let a sex tape get out and then refuse to make fun of it. “She was awful,” Fey said. “People never come in and say, ‘I’m not doing that.’”
.. actually, if it cost Paris a metric ton of resources or friendships, she probably thought, "ah, no. We're not giving this more attention.." I don't know Paris Hilton, but some of the context here is genuinely difficult. Fairly Britney Spears'y (though I'll argue the Spears concerns were more intricate). Some transphobia, too. Bummer.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:54 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
.. actually, if it cost Paris a metric ton of resources or friendships, she probably thought, "ah, no. We're not giving this more attention.." I don't know Paris Hilton, but some of the context here is genuinely difficult. Fairly Britney Spears'y (though I'll argue the Spears concerns were more intricate). Some transphobia, too. Bummer.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:54 PM on May 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
Some of this context relates directly to denial of susceptibility or many women or men's perspectives of these situations "not being possible."
I appreciate the articles willingness to convey the idea it's not only possible, but it may statistically happen to many. It's helpful to bring people closer to understanding the 1 and 6 statistic, that's valuable.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:58 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
I appreciate the articles willingness to convey the idea it's not only possible, but it may statistically happen to many. It's helpful to bring people closer to understanding the 1 and 6 statistic, that's valuable.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:58 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
Where is the middle line between wanting people to have access to erotica and pornography, but not being down with nonconsensual release and misrepresentation.
On this small note - in Canada we do have a law about this.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:02 PM on May 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
On this small note - in Canada we do have a law about this.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:02 PM on May 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
Leave it to Canada to approach the matter with more eloquence. Also way prefer 'sexually exciting' to 'arousing,' which has always felt a dash more David Attenborough than practical. "She is aroused.. and a marmot."
US has a law as well, dubbed the 'revenge porn' law. They seriously need to change it to 'non consensual image law' or something similar.
The situation is already typically inherently humiliating, what's with the usage, USA? Why use terminology that will undoubtedly worsen the situation? .. just.. smh.
posted by firstdaffodils at 9:12 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
US has a law as well, dubbed the 'revenge porn' law. They seriously need to change it to 'non consensual image law' or something similar.
The situation is already typically inherently humiliating, what's with the usage, USA? Why use terminology that will undoubtedly worsen the situation? .. just.. smh.
posted by firstdaffodils at 9:12 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
US has a law as well, dubbed the 'revenge porn' law. They seriously need to change it to 'non consensual image law' or something similar.
It’s state-by-state in the US, but I don’t think “revenge porn” is a formal legal term in any of them. In California, it’s wrapped into the invasion of privacy section of the disorderly conduct statute. “Revenge porn” is pretty commonly used as an informal term across English-speaking countries.
The Hilton piece is bracing and revelatory. Grady’s writing at once manages to be analytical (almost academic) and visceral.
I bet if you dug into my 20-year Metafilter posting history, you could find at least a couple of comments shitting on Paris Hilton. It was a cultural given, and I didn’t realize until today how thoroughly toxic it was.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:39 PM on May 31, 2021 [16 favorites]
It’s state-by-state in the US, but I don’t think “revenge porn” is a formal legal term in any of them. In California, it’s wrapped into the invasion of privacy section of the disorderly conduct statute. “Revenge porn” is pretty commonly used as an informal term across English-speaking countries.
The Hilton piece is bracing and revelatory. Grady’s writing at once manages to be analytical (almost academic) and visceral.
I bet if you dug into my 20-year Metafilter posting history, you could find at least a couple of comments shitting on Paris Hilton. It was a cultural given, and I didn’t realize until today how thoroughly toxic it was.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:39 PM on May 31, 2021 [16 favorites]
Who in their right mind wants to be excused for acting unkindly because somebody in the past did something worse? Who wants to be patted on the head and told "Hey, you're treating women pretty good compared with rapists!"
I hope it doesn't take another 30 years to recognize how we could be treating people better right now.
posted by straight at 9:46 PM on May 31, 2021 [15 favorites]
I hope it doesn't take another 30 years to recognize how we could be treating people better right now.
posted by straight at 9:46 PM on May 31, 2021 [15 favorites]
Mr. Roboto, correct! I'd been conflating some terminology seen in articles. At one point I believe it was officially referenced, or had some sort of official recognition in a certain state, but no, it isn't legal terminology. I'm revisiting info now.
It's still disgraceful/awkward official terminology. I feel like it just lends to the behavior of those interested in causing harm.
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:02 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's still disgraceful/awkward official terminology. I feel like it just lends to the behavior of those interested in causing harm.
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:02 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
This right here is the pith of it for me:
"Paris Hilton was a good symbol of what girls were taught they were supposed to be like in 2006. And as “Stupid Girls” shows, she was also a good symbol of what girls were taught they were supposed to hate.
Those two ideas sound antithetical, but they’re not. They’re easily reconciled as long as you understand that in American pop culture, girls are supposed to hate themselves."
One of the things I appreciate about this article is the way it argues that one need not be likeable or of good character to be worthy of basic human respect. I have a really low opinion of Paris Hilton (she physically and verbally abused some friends of mine who were working at a party she attended) but that kind of thing doesn't justify her sexuality being used as a weapon against her and also against women everywhere. This is an important reckoning.
posted by Leeway at 10:07 PM on May 31, 2021 [53 favorites]
"Paris Hilton was a good symbol of what girls were taught they were supposed to be like in 2006. And as “Stupid Girls” shows, she was also a good symbol of what girls were taught they were supposed to hate.
Those two ideas sound antithetical, but they’re not. They’re easily reconciled as long as you understand that in American pop culture, girls are supposed to hate themselves."
One of the things I appreciate about this article is the way it argues that one need not be likeable or of good character to be worthy of basic human respect. I have a really low opinion of Paris Hilton (she physically and verbally abused some friends of mine who were working at a party she attended) but that kind of thing doesn't justify her sexuality being used as a weapon against her and also against women everywhere. This is an important reckoning.
posted by Leeway at 10:07 PM on May 31, 2021 [53 favorites]
Sara Marshall deserves credit (together with Michael Hobbes) for cementing the You're Wrong About angle as an efficient method for revisiting these cultural complexes; happy to see it attempted on the Paris Hilton singularity here.
posted by progosk at 1:07 AM on June 1, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by progosk at 1:07 AM on June 1, 2021 [12 favorites]
“Are you good in bed?” Piers Morgan asked Hilton for GQ in 2006, before adding, “I guess it’s a rhetorical question because I watched the video this morning for research purposes and the answer is clearly affirmative.”
Even with the benefit of 15 years of additional evidence that Piers Morgan is a complete douchebag, still... WTF!?!?
posted by duoshao at 4:56 AM on June 1, 2021 [38 favorites]
Even with the benefit of 15 years of additional evidence that Piers Morgan is a complete douchebag, still... WTF!?!?
posted by duoshao at 4:56 AM on June 1, 2021 [38 favorites]
I'm sorry, but as important as the subject of misogyny is and how prevalent it was in the early 2000s, this article doesn't do a very good job of looking at that time in depth particularly in regards to why so many women who considered themselves feminists reacted the way they did to Hilton.
Before the sex tape was released, or mooted as possibly being so, Hilton was barely known, a socialite with a seeming drive for trying to get noticed by going to parties and big events, like Cannes Film Festival and engaging with the paparazzi, while in the few interviews she gave to magazines like People, she talked about her desire to become famous. The sex tape coincided with her getting a "reality tv" gig and raised suspicions that it was an attempt to draw attention to that show. Here's an article on the tape from The Guardian at the time that says as much and gets a bit at why there was such distrust around her claims that followed based on Hilton instantly becoming one of the most famous people in the country because of it.
If you take it as given that she was absolutely victimized by the release of the tape, the feelings many held at the time are unkind and wrong in the scope of their assumptions, but those that didn't hold to that belief had reason in their doubts, coming as it did at a time, post Madonna and her Sex Book and post-Britney, when there was a shift in emphasis on how sex was packaged and sold, both with women taking more control in some instances, and of course where they were used, then things like Paris doing things like partying with the Girls Gone Wild guy reads a bit differently. A lot of women believed that Hilton used sex for a short cut to fame, and among some that rankled for seeming like a subversion of feminist ideals by playing along with the patriarchy to jump ahead of those who were trying to get their through work.
That doesn't make them right and I have no idea at all of what Hilton did or didn't know, plan, hope for or anything else other than what is reported, so make no claims other than saying without fully contextualizing the time and Hilton's rise to near household name, the article isn't really looking deeply enough at the time, instead deciding that those back then were just wrong and should be judged as such today, as if that explains the misogyny adequately. I suggest it doesn't and as much duplicates the same pattern of assuming their read is obviously the right one.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:18 AM on June 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
Before the sex tape was released, or mooted as possibly being so, Hilton was barely known, a socialite with a seeming drive for trying to get noticed by going to parties and big events, like Cannes Film Festival and engaging with the paparazzi, while in the few interviews she gave to magazines like People, she talked about her desire to become famous. The sex tape coincided with her getting a "reality tv" gig and raised suspicions that it was an attempt to draw attention to that show. Here's an article on the tape from The Guardian at the time that says as much and gets a bit at why there was such distrust around her claims that followed based on Hilton instantly becoming one of the most famous people in the country because of it.
If you take it as given that she was absolutely victimized by the release of the tape, the feelings many held at the time are unkind and wrong in the scope of their assumptions, but those that didn't hold to that belief had reason in their doubts, coming as it did at a time, post Madonna and her Sex Book and post-Britney, when there was a shift in emphasis on how sex was packaged and sold, both with women taking more control in some instances, and of course where they were used, then things like Paris doing things like partying with the Girls Gone Wild guy reads a bit differently. A lot of women believed that Hilton used sex for a short cut to fame, and among some that rankled for seeming like a subversion of feminist ideals by playing along with the patriarchy to jump ahead of those who were trying to get their through work.
That doesn't make them right and I have no idea at all of what Hilton did or didn't know, plan, hope for or anything else other than what is reported, so make no claims other than saying without fully contextualizing the time and Hilton's rise to near household name, the article isn't really looking deeply enough at the time, instead deciding that those back then were just wrong and should be judged as such today, as if that explains the misogyny adequately. I suggest it doesn't and as much duplicates the same pattern of assuming their read is obviously the right one.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:18 AM on June 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
A lot of women believed that Hilton used sex for a short cut to fame
This is like when people say things like "she slept her way to the top", implying that it's shameful for women to trade sex for promotions, when in reality what's shameful is men sexually exploiting their female employees and men trading promotions in exchange for coerced sex rather than merit.
Here the misogyny lies in the fact that you're insinuating that it's somehow shameful for Hilton to have used a sex tape to become famous, when in reality what's shameful is (a) men's predatory and voracious appetite for leaked sex tapes and (b) that our culture confers notoriety on women whose sex tapes have been leaked.
Even if this was a calculated ploy by Hilton, she did nothing wrong. The people who watched her sex tape did. The people who made her famous for it did.
The issue is also, of course, that women are never believed when they allege sexual misconduct by men. Shame on anyone who still asserts that Paris Hilton was lying after reading this article. It's not that this article proved she was telling the truth as much as this article proves what misogynistic pieces of shit we are and always have been where Hilton is concerned so it behooves us to STFU and reflect on our misbehavior rather than doubling down on the same old misogynistic finger pointing.
posted by MiraK at 5:38 AM on June 1, 2021 [47 favorites]
This is like when people say things like "she slept her way to the top", implying that it's shameful for women to trade sex for promotions, when in reality what's shameful is men sexually exploiting their female employees and men trading promotions in exchange for coerced sex rather than merit.
Here the misogyny lies in the fact that you're insinuating that it's somehow shameful for Hilton to have used a sex tape to become famous, when in reality what's shameful is (a) men's predatory and voracious appetite for leaked sex tapes and (b) that our culture confers notoriety on women whose sex tapes have been leaked.
Even if this was a calculated ploy by Hilton, she did nothing wrong. The people who watched her sex tape did. The people who made her famous for it did.
The issue is also, of course, that women are never believed when they allege sexual misconduct by men. Shame on anyone who still asserts that Paris Hilton was lying after reading this article. It's not that this article proved she was telling the truth as much as this article proves what misogynistic pieces of shit we are and always have been where Hilton is concerned so it behooves us to STFU and reflect on our misbehavior rather than doubling down on the same old misogynistic finger pointing.
posted by MiraK at 5:38 AM on June 1, 2021 [47 favorites]
But that is the point, that double edged sword cuts both ways. Accepting that having to sell yourself sexually to succeed was exactly what was being objected to by the women I was talking to back in the day, they resented that they felt like they needed to be "sexy" to get ahead and resented the celebrities that helped inculcate that idea by playing the innocent and sexual in a way that limited female autonomy and fed male desire as the currency. If you want to talk about the time when the Hilton tape was released and her fame, then you need to address the entirety of the issues that were around in that era and not just take the judgement of the "now" as gospel.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:57 AM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by gusottertrout at 5:57 AM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
...resented the celebrities that helped inculcate that idea by playing the innocent and sexual in a way that limited female autonomy and fed male desire as the currency
Yes but why the emphasis on resenting sexy female celebrities?
I mean, I was there and participated in those kinds of discussions. Part of it was really just snobbery around popular culture and part of it was...a complicated tendency to blame women.
I can honour the person I was then --
day one of university university staff explaining which dorms not to go to at night because the young men there had a tendency to drug and rape, just rape, women rather than, you know, stopping them, what can you do, boys will be boys?
learning girls can do anything from professors and teachers who presented only male-written works, slept with their students, and openly mused that women weren't great scholars
-- and still acknowledge that it was whack to go after Paris Hilton as if she were the cause and not the result. To blame Monica Lewinsky for putting progress back. Etc.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:15 AM on June 1, 2021 [24 favorites]
Yes but why the emphasis on resenting sexy female celebrities?
I mean, I was there and participated in those kinds of discussions. Part of it was really just snobbery around popular culture and part of it was...a complicated tendency to blame women.
I can honour the person I was then --
day one of university university staff explaining which dorms not to go to at night because the young men there had a tendency to drug and rape, just rape, women rather than, you know, stopping them, what can you do, boys will be boys?
learning girls can do anything from professors and teachers who presented only male-written works, slept with their students, and openly mused that women weren't great scholars
-- and still acknowledge that it was whack to go after Paris Hilton as if she were the cause and not the result. To blame Monica Lewinsky for putting progress back. Etc.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:15 AM on June 1, 2021 [24 favorites]
The judgment of the now is gospel. For now. Until we know better. And at that later point when we know better than we know now, we will hopefully have enough integrity to simply admit we were wrong back in the now, and stop insisting we had good enough excuse for our wrongness. Everyone always has a good enough excuse to be wrong. Few people go around being wrong deliberately despite knowing better and being capable of better.
It's not so hard to say that the way Paris Hilton's saga unfolded was misogynistic towards her. Forget the excuses. It *was*. If we don't admit it and examine it through the lens of misogyny (not through the lens of how good our excuses were), we will never learn to be better.
posted by MiraK at 6:29 AM on June 1, 2021 [13 favorites]
It's not so hard to say that the way Paris Hilton's saga unfolded was misogynistic towards her. Forget the excuses. It *was*. If we don't admit it and examine it through the lens of misogyny (not through the lens of how good our excuses were), we will never learn to be better.
posted by MiraK at 6:29 AM on June 1, 2021 [13 favorites]
["revenge porn" is] still disgraceful/awkward official terminology. I feel like it just lends to the behavior of those interested in causing harm.
Just wanting to amplify this. Add "telling" to the "disgraceful/awkward", for sure. "Revenge" implies the act of ensuring a lifelong violation of trust and consent (it's done with knowing that 'the internet is forever' for such things) is the response to a wronging. Cultural stories are all about revenge as a thing itself often being excessive and harmful (when the stories aren't just outright Hurray Revenge! Give It To Em!), sure, buuuut understandable.
Somewhat strained comparison, but drawing from the same misogynistic deep structures, is the similar observation that it's always been very very telling that "lolita" entered popular cultural language as a sexed-up girl, but somehow "humbert" never entered anywhere near the same level of signifier as "horrific predatory asshole."
posted by Drastic at 6:35 AM on June 1, 2021 [14 favorites]
Just wanting to amplify this. Add "telling" to the "disgraceful/awkward", for sure. "Revenge" implies the act of ensuring a lifelong violation of trust and consent (it's done with knowing that 'the internet is forever' for such things) is the response to a wronging. Cultural stories are all about revenge as a thing itself often being excessive and harmful (when the stories aren't just outright Hurray Revenge! Give It To Em!), sure, buuuut understandable.
Somewhat strained comparison, but drawing from the same misogynistic deep structures, is the similar observation that it's always been very very telling that "lolita" entered popular cultural language as a sexed-up girl, but somehow "humbert" never entered anywhere near the same level of signifier as "horrific predatory asshole."
posted by Drastic at 6:35 AM on June 1, 2021 [14 favorites]
I think Hilton and Lewinsky and now the whole Kardashian/Jenner clan are living embodiment of the rot at the heart of our culture around women. They live the damage and disease and it’s proper to be revulsed by this and can be difficult to actually extend compassion toward them. I honestly find Khloe’s look these days (popping up on Hulu all the time for those of us still watching ads) to trigger a lot of these old feelings and fears and horrors about what women are supposed to be. Now with the intense pressures of high definition media and face and body tuning! It’s knee jerk to reject the person, the embodiment of the sickness. It’s harder to strike back at the amorphous, cultural, patriarchal mass that is the true beast. I’m sure Khloe in her heart a good person but she still is out there being a profitable and famous example of feminine success, shilling scam weight loss shakes and lip fillers. She is a legacy of the same thread of culture misogyny that delighted in trying to rip Hilton to shreds.
posted by amanda at 6:40 AM on June 1, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by amanda at 6:40 AM on June 1, 2021 [8 favorites]
This thread has led me to a new regard for Paris Hilton. I made her the object of my anger towards privileged women. But she's an actual person, not a symbol for me to love or hate. She's thought-provoking. I will keep her in my mind.
posted by SPrintF at 6:59 AM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 6:59 AM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
It’s knee jerk to reject the person, the embodiment of the sickness.
Thank you. Yes.
I am truly trying but having major trouble feeling sympathy for Paris Hilton, someone who I view as talentless and vapid, and who has been handed everything in life with no effort. But I realized that really, what I have the most problem with is whom our society chooses to hold up as admirable or worthy. And I have a problem with people who talk about celebrities as if they know them, and seem to think about them more than they do the people actually in their life. There are tons of vapid unexceptional young women who don't grate on me like Paris does, because they have not been shoved in my face over and over.
Nobody deserves to have a sex tape publicized without their permission.
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 7:05 AM on June 1, 2021 [10 favorites]
Thank you. Yes.
I am truly trying but having major trouble feeling sympathy for Paris Hilton, someone who I view as talentless and vapid, and who has been handed everything in life with no effort. But I realized that really, what I have the most problem with is whom our society chooses to hold up as admirable or worthy. And I have a problem with people who talk about celebrities as if they know them, and seem to think about them more than they do the people actually in their life. There are tons of vapid unexceptional young women who don't grate on me like Paris does, because they have not been shoved in my face over and over.
Nobody deserves to have a sex tape publicized without their permission.
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 7:05 AM on June 1, 2021 [10 favorites]
Of course I would resent the idea of Paris Hilton as a role model for me. But it's not Paris who'd expect me to model myself after her, is it? She'd probably reject the assignment; she might be selling something sure - but not exactly herself as a role model, no? She might say, if you need a role model, just pick someone else.
And there are so many other women to pick from that suit me much better! But I've heard about a lot of them only too recently, and I would have liked to hear more about them sooner, and that's absolutely something to resent. But it's not exactly something to put on Paris, I think.
Maybe attention is a zero sum game. I'm not sure, but maybe. So maybe the attention given to Paris is attention missing for other women. Still, I don't think that's on her. She can't force people to pay attention to her. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
I admit, I have a kneejerk distaste for the idea of erotic capital. Partly, surely, because I myself don't have any. Mostly though, I think, because I've always seen it as such a consolation price - especially since people keep constantly reminding you how fast it's supposed to depreciate for a woman. So of course I found the Nineties over-emphasis on weaponized feminity etc. rather alienating.
But as a tool among others, erotic capital has its uses, no point in denying that. Men often use it to their advantage - sleeping your way to to the top has always been a popular strategy at any court, not just for the ladies; queens too had their favourites; not everyone was always so terribly heterosexual. I'm against limiting tools for women that are available to men. Of course it undermines the idea of a meritocracy, but I'm not at all convinced there's much to undermine here.
The meritocracy is a scam; before people can be evaluated on actual outcomes, they often need to be given opportunities, to prove themselves, to fail and learn from it, they need to get their foot into the door. And people get their foot into the door for all kinds of reasons completely unrelated to past performance. The right family connections, the right schools, joining the right clubs, Sunday golf, yucking it up with the bros.... these are all strategies not necessarily available to everyone that will give you opportunities regardless of actual competence. I just don't think sleeping our way to the top is the biggest issue here.
Such a transactional view of desire and desirability can be appalling, but would anyone be so profoundly bothered if they didn't, deep down share it? I suspect some resentment for Paris and Co. is not so much about _using_ erotic capital, but about selling it too cheaply (for money and attention instead of love and commitment?), not demanding enough interest, and thus maybe devaluing the entire currency? I sometimes feel they're also seen as some sort of strike-breakers in an unspoken Lysistrata- gambit, weakening the collective bargaining power.
But if there's a one thing I find more fake empowering the weaponized feminity, it's that Lysistrata-bullshit, which is obviously just the other side of the coin anyway. It plays into the idea that women don't have any sexual needs on their own, requires denying them at least; it's a textbook case of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I don't want to use sex for anything other than sex, not by promising, not by withholding. I hold no stocks in erotic capital whatsover, I couldn't care less what anyone else does with it.
posted by sohalt at 8:10 AM on June 1, 2021 [13 favorites]
And there are so many other women to pick from that suit me much better! But I've heard about a lot of them only too recently, and I would have liked to hear more about them sooner, and that's absolutely something to resent. But it's not exactly something to put on Paris, I think.
Maybe attention is a zero sum game. I'm not sure, but maybe. So maybe the attention given to Paris is attention missing for other women. Still, I don't think that's on her. She can't force people to pay attention to her. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
I admit, I have a kneejerk distaste for the idea of erotic capital. Partly, surely, because I myself don't have any. Mostly though, I think, because I've always seen it as such a consolation price - especially since people keep constantly reminding you how fast it's supposed to depreciate for a woman. So of course I found the Nineties over-emphasis on weaponized feminity etc. rather alienating.
But as a tool among others, erotic capital has its uses, no point in denying that. Men often use it to their advantage - sleeping your way to to the top has always been a popular strategy at any court, not just for the ladies; queens too had their favourites; not everyone was always so terribly heterosexual. I'm against limiting tools for women that are available to men. Of course it undermines the idea of a meritocracy, but I'm not at all convinced there's much to undermine here.
The meritocracy is a scam; before people can be evaluated on actual outcomes, they often need to be given opportunities, to prove themselves, to fail and learn from it, they need to get their foot into the door. And people get their foot into the door for all kinds of reasons completely unrelated to past performance. The right family connections, the right schools, joining the right clubs, Sunday golf, yucking it up with the bros.... these are all strategies not necessarily available to everyone that will give you opportunities regardless of actual competence. I just don't think sleeping our way to the top is the biggest issue here.
Such a transactional view of desire and desirability can be appalling, but would anyone be so profoundly bothered if they didn't, deep down share it? I suspect some resentment for Paris and Co. is not so much about _using_ erotic capital, but about selling it too cheaply (for money and attention instead of love and commitment?), not demanding enough interest, and thus maybe devaluing the entire currency? I sometimes feel they're also seen as some sort of strike-breakers in an unspoken Lysistrata- gambit, weakening the collective bargaining power.
But if there's a one thing I find more fake empowering the weaponized feminity, it's that Lysistrata-bullshit, which is obviously just the other side of the coin anyway. It plays into the idea that women don't have any sexual needs on their own, requires denying them at least; it's a textbook case of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I don't want to use sex for anything other than sex, not by promising, not by withholding. I hold no stocks in erotic capital whatsover, I couldn't care less what anyone else does with it.
posted by sohalt at 8:10 AM on June 1, 2021 [13 favorites]
I mean, I was there and participated in those kinds of discussions. Part of it was really just snobbery around popular culture and part of it was...a complicated tendency to blame women.
I can honour the person I was then --
That is really the essence of my problem with the article, it doesn't do enough to honour the women that were there then in how they responded to the issues of the day, with Hilton just being a single, albeit oversized, example.
Griselda Pollock, the immensely important feminist art historian recently posted a video on Revisiting Feminism where she looks at the question of how the history feminism is collectively held or understood in mind. Is it a bad memory, a trauma, or can it provide a path forward. Her questions are around how in each wave of feminism there is a marked tendency for the daughters to feel the need to negate the mothers, perhaps, for their failure to have left the world in better order and the manner in which feminist thought is so defined by the moment it is recognized by each succeeding wave. To my eyes, this article, and many other like it, that tendency to want to negate the "mother's" influence and show them as flawed or to be ignored becomes the more important subtext to the piece than Hilton herself.
Their "wrongness" in response is the hook on which the misjudgement of Hilton serves as evidence that allows those who were responding in the time to be invalidated. The feminists of the day are placed below Hilton in importance in large part because Hilton is the more foundational figure for younger generations than most or all feminists of that era because the culture placed her at its fore. This is roughly the same thing that happens over and over again, helping deny a sense of continuity of thought and deny achievement of a stronger feminist cultural tradition.
It places the current sets of cultural reference points ahead of the work, arguments, and lives of those who fought to change things but couldn't get the same cultural foothold for not fitting the male dominated cultural value set that keeps providing the next group of victims to be angered about. There needs to be more effort put in to gaining a sense of the history and continuity of feminist thought as it played out, even when there is good reason for it to have shifted in later years.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:19 AM on June 1, 2021 [10 favorites]
I can honour the person I was then --
That is really the essence of my problem with the article, it doesn't do enough to honour the women that were there then in how they responded to the issues of the day, with Hilton just being a single, albeit oversized, example.
Griselda Pollock, the immensely important feminist art historian recently posted a video on Revisiting Feminism where she looks at the question of how the history feminism is collectively held or understood in mind. Is it a bad memory, a trauma, or can it provide a path forward. Her questions are around how in each wave of feminism there is a marked tendency for the daughters to feel the need to negate the mothers, perhaps, for their failure to have left the world in better order and the manner in which feminist thought is so defined by the moment it is recognized by each succeeding wave. To my eyes, this article, and many other like it, that tendency to want to negate the "mother's" influence and show them as flawed or to be ignored becomes the more important subtext to the piece than Hilton herself.
Their "wrongness" in response is the hook on which the misjudgement of Hilton serves as evidence that allows those who were responding in the time to be invalidated. The feminists of the day are placed below Hilton in importance in large part because Hilton is the more foundational figure for younger generations than most or all feminists of that era because the culture placed her at its fore. This is roughly the same thing that happens over and over again, helping deny a sense of continuity of thought and deny achievement of a stronger feminist cultural tradition.
It places the current sets of cultural reference points ahead of the work, arguments, and lives of those who fought to change things but couldn't get the same cultural foothold for not fitting the male dominated cultural value set that keeps providing the next group of victims to be angered about. There needs to be more effort put in to gaining a sense of the history and continuity of feminist thought as it played out, even when there is good reason for it to have shifted in later years.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:19 AM on June 1, 2021 [10 favorites]
> To my eyes, this article, and many other like it, that tendency to want to negate the "mother's" influence and show them as flawed or to be ignored becomes the more important subtext to the piece than Hilton herself.
Good point. I can see that thread running through this article - it's anticipating our modern understanding of things to lay the blame at Pink and her "Stupid Girls" lyrics, for instance. Does this add up to "placing feminists of the day below Hilton in importance", though? I don't think so, mostly because the article is quite clear about Paris's genuine flaws and about defending her not because she's worthy but because she doesn't need to be worthy to deserve this type of defense.
But yeah, you make a really good point about how harsh we are on the mistakes made by previous generations of feminists. It's yet another manifestation of our predisposition to being extra hard on women.
posted by MiraK at 8:45 AM on June 1, 2021 [5 favorites]
Good point. I can see that thread running through this article - it's anticipating our modern understanding of things to lay the blame at Pink and her "Stupid Girls" lyrics, for instance. Does this add up to "placing feminists of the day below Hilton in importance", though? I don't think so, mostly because the article is quite clear about Paris's genuine flaws and about defending her not because she's worthy but because she doesn't need to be worthy to deserve this type of defense.
But yeah, you make a really good point about how harsh we are on the mistakes made by previous generations of feminists. It's yet another manifestation of our predisposition to being extra hard on women.
posted by MiraK at 8:45 AM on June 1, 2021 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I should have been clearer from the start, I wasn't so much interested in Hilton herself as the way the article covered the history. Like it would have been so much better if they had talked to Pink or some others who had less than kind comments about Hilton back then what they were thinking and how they feel now or anything to move away a bit from the narrowish perspective they went with. I guess that must follow the "You're Wrong" template or something?
posted by gusottertrout at 8:54 AM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by gusottertrout at 8:54 AM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
I can see that thread running through this article - it's anticipating our modern understanding of things to lay the blame at Pink and her "Stupid Girls" lyrics, for instance.
I do remember being bothered by Pink's "Stupid Girls" as a teenager at that time, but probably for the wrong reasons. I liked Pink well enough, mostly, but I clearly remember thinking "Come on, you're perfectly conventionally attractive yourself, you're not exactly breaking the rules either". "I'm so glad I'll never fit in" seemed a bit like stolen valor to me, coming from Pink. Later I also very much resented Taylor Swift's "She's a chearleader/I'm in the bleachers"-line for the same reasons. It's quite possible that I would have bought into the sentiment if expressed by someone less conventionally palatable.
It would have still been a crappy sentiment though! And that awareness does seem to me like a newer trend.
posted by sohalt at 9:14 AM on June 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
I do remember being bothered by Pink's "Stupid Girls" as a teenager at that time, but probably for the wrong reasons. I liked Pink well enough, mostly, but I clearly remember thinking "Come on, you're perfectly conventionally attractive yourself, you're not exactly breaking the rules either". "I'm so glad I'll never fit in" seemed a bit like stolen valor to me, coming from Pink. Later I also very much resented Taylor Swift's "She's a chearleader/I'm in the bleachers"-line for the same reasons. It's quite possible that I would have bought into the sentiment if expressed by someone less conventionally palatable.
It would have still been a crappy sentiment though! And that awareness does seem to me like a newer trend.
posted by sohalt at 9:14 AM on June 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
I remember when JK Rowling wrote this glowing review of Stupid Girls on her website/blog and that was the first time I'd heard of the song... and I remember thinking, "Can you please not say 'stupid' because it's ableist and can you please not say 'girl president' because to be president you need to be a woman," stuff like that, and the overall misogyny simply flew right over my head. It's so weird what we were attuned to and what we were oblivious to!
posted by MiraK at 9:18 AM on June 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 9:18 AM on June 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
It might have been metafilter where I first saw the joke, or elsewhere, but I love (sometimes with varying amounts of air quotes) it more every year it seems:
One fish says to the other in passing, "How's the water?" The second fish looks at the first, completely baffled, and says "What the fuck is water?"
posted by Drastic at 9:55 AM on June 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
One fish says to the other in passing, "How's the water?" The second fish looks at the first, completely baffled, and says "What the fuck is water?"
posted by Drastic at 9:55 AM on June 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, etc were slotted into a very familiar media narrative of the "fall" of a promising starlet. The media scrutiny might have been more intense (internet, cable tv, and tabloid press) compared to the women who previously went through this, but I think it was a difference in degree not kind. The striking thing about Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, etc. is that they were introduced as objects of scorn. Even on a child star's worst days, people could say something nice about their career if they wanted to. The reality star celebrity existed to be reviled. If someone is "famous for being famous" and everyone hates them, well, I guess they have it coming? That was definitely the attitude I remember.
I also remember watching that episode of South Park, and not finding it very funny, but laughing a bit to signal that I, too, thought it was bad for women to be dumb whores. Like a lot of South Park episodes, it's a strange mix of topical filler, crudeness, and cultural prudery. At some point, it occurred to me that the endless cycles of "famous twentysomething woman to hate" said something worse about the culture than the culture's latest punching bag. That South Park clip is the "something worse" -- it's truly striking how not funny it is. When I was a kid, I felt like these widely-loathed famous women made other women look bad. The revelation was understanding that misogyny was the industry, not celebrity. These women weren't just famous for being famous; they were famous for being hated. If they got their lives together, they would be replaced with a new object of revulsion and desire.
Occasionally, I will find that someone famous annoys the hell out of me. To my shame, that person is always female. I cope with this by trying not to pay any attention to the famous stranger until the emotion fades. It works great.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:12 AM on June 1, 2021 [14 favorites]
I also remember watching that episode of South Park, and not finding it very funny, but laughing a bit to signal that I, too, thought it was bad for women to be dumb whores. Like a lot of South Park episodes, it's a strange mix of topical filler, crudeness, and cultural prudery. At some point, it occurred to me that the endless cycles of "famous twentysomething woman to hate" said something worse about the culture than the culture's latest punching bag. That South Park clip is the "something worse" -- it's truly striking how not funny it is. When I was a kid, I felt like these widely-loathed famous women made other women look bad. The revelation was understanding that misogyny was the industry, not celebrity. These women weren't just famous for being famous; they were famous for being hated. If they got their lives together, they would be replaced with a new object of revulsion and desire.
Occasionally, I will find that someone famous annoys the hell out of me. To my shame, that person is always female. I cope with this by trying not to pay any attention to the famous stranger until the emotion fades. It works great.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:12 AM on June 1, 2021 [14 favorites]
FREE BRITNEY
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:26 AM on June 1, 2021
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:26 AM on June 1, 2021
I'm not sure if this is a derail, but there's something deeply weird about sex videos being used to shame the women in them.
Women are supposed to be sexy and to put almost all of their bodies on display. Everything but the primary and secondary sexual characteristics.
It seems to me that women are supposed to be in the closet about actually having sex and about having complete bodies.
Thoughts about this? Any analysis to recommend?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:43 AM on June 1, 2021
Women are supposed to be sexy and to put almost all of their bodies on display. Everything but the primary and secondary sexual characteristics.
It seems to me that women are supposed to be in the closet about actually having sex and about having complete bodies.
Thoughts about this? Any analysis to recommend?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:43 AM on June 1, 2021
This is interesting to me. I'll say that for whatever reason I never participated in the Paris Hilton is dumb, Kim Kardashian is a slut type discussions, and would generally speak up for them. This was a long time ago, when they were first introduced to society, so to speak. Interesting to see other people come around to my point of view.
posted by peacheater at 12:01 PM on June 1, 2021
posted by peacheater at 12:01 PM on June 1, 2021
I was listening to a John Waters interview from earlier this year on Mark Maron's WTF podcast and there was a bit that seemed kind of relevant to this discussion and relevant (maybe) to the question above.... Basically, Waters is an anti-prude and a total poke-at-the-eye type of guy going after dominant cultural hierarchy and he talked about how prude and censored everything was and how the history of coming out of that started with showing women's butts. Something like (very paraphrased), "First we got women's bare behinds, then we got breasts, then bush and then men's behinds and then male full frontal." Waters complained that he had to see "thousands of bouncing women's breasts during volleyball games before he got a glimpse of one male butt." It struck me as both funny and just like spot on in terms of how we use and abuse the female form. It's abuse because it's not equal and it has contributed to dehumanization. We were and are allowed access to every part of the female form far ahead of anything to do with men and the standards for a nude man are, like, all over the map. The standards for male representation are still quite wide open.
Secondarily, since there's so much talk about sex tapes in this thread... The previous sex tape scandal was Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. We think that she's tougher about this stuff because she was in and around the adult film industry and styled herself in that way commercially for a long time. But that was still insane bullshit and shouldn't have happened. I've seen that one and I decided that I'd never watch (knowingly) another leaked sex tape again. I thought it was going to be something campy, I didn't really get what was happening. What was happening was private and uncomfortably intimate and how the hell was any of that okay? It was way out of line and there was nothing in our system to protect a hot, young woman who in other contexts was fine with showing her body and, in fact, she took a ton of punishment over it and some of that came from all our avenues of supposed protection. There is literally no stigma or long lasting association that sticks to these men. None.
And thirdly.... A couple years ago, I was working my way through the Rashida Jones' produced/directed Hot Girls Wanted - Turned On on Netflix and I had to stop because it was so damn depressing. What really struck me is how the porn industry really is a race to the bottom. It's not so much, what do people like? It's just as much, if not more so, what have people never seen? And, sorry, but shit that you've never seen? You probably don't want to see it. And seeing it done to a woman, in my opinion, both warps one's sense of "what people find sexy" and therefore can inform you, erroneously, about your partner's desires as well as just warps your sense of values. If a woman is shown "turned on" but some insane, stupid sh*t, you probably are going to start to wonder, "Are women even real?" We've had a lot of trouble over history with "what are women?" But, it's hard not to become a feminist killjoy when one points out how much casual advertising and imagery is just plastered with digitized hot young women who are gagging for it. And with the male dominated nature of porn production, a lot of these guys are just trying to top the competition. It's men using women to out-porn other men. I digress....
posted by amanda at 12:04 PM on June 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
Secondarily, since there's so much talk about sex tapes in this thread... The previous sex tape scandal was Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. We think that she's tougher about this stuff because she was in and around the adult film industry and styled herself in that way commercially for a long time. But that was still insane bullshit and shouldn't have happened. I've seen that one and I decided that I'd never watch (knowingly) another leaked sex tape again. I thought it was going to be something campy, I didn't really get what was happening. What was happening was private and uncomfortably intimate and how the hell was any of that okay? It was way out of line and there was nothing in our system to protect a hot, young woman who in other contexts was fine with showing her body and, in fact, she took a ton of punishment over it and some of that came from all our avenues of supposed protection. There is literally no stigma or long lasting association that sticks to these men. None.
And thirdly.... A couple years ago, I was working my way through the Rashida Jones' produced/directed Hot Girls Wanted - Turned On on Netflix and I had to stop because it was so damn depressing. What really struck me is how the porn industry really is a race to the bottom. It's not so much, what do people like? It's just as much, if not more so, what have people never seen? And, sorry, but shit that you've never seen? You probably don't want to see it. And seeing it done to a woman, in my opinion, both warps one's sense of "what people find sexy" and therefore can inform you, erroneously, about your partner's desires as well as just warps your sense of values. If a woman is shown "turned on" but some insane, stupid sh*t, you probably are going to start to wonder, "Are women even real?" We've had a lot of trouble over history with "what are women?" But, it's hard not to become a feminist killjoy when one points out how much casual advertising and imagery is just plastered with digitized hot young women who are gagging for it. And with the male dominated nature of porn production, a lot of these guys are just trying to top the competition. It's men using women to out-porn other men. I digress....
posted by amanda at 12:04 PM on June 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
Thoughts about this? Any analysis to recommend?
Look up articles on the Madonna/Whore dynamic, it's been around for thousands of years.
posted by Anonymous at 12:32 PM on June 1, 2021
Look up articles on the Madonna/Whore dynamic, it's been around for thousands of years.
posted by Anonymous at 12:32 PM on June 1, 2021
Later I also very much resented Taylor Swift's "She's a chearleader/I'm in the bleachers"-line for the same reasons. It's quite possible that I would have bought into the sentiment if expressed by someone less conventionally palatable.
I always figured this was meant to resonate with women and girls who see themselves as being less conventionally palatable, rather than be taken as Swift's own personal sentiments. Granted it would be nice if this had been performed by someone that matched the tone of the song, but that's not how the music industry works. So in summary, Not All Conventionally Attractive People.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:09 PM on June 1, 2021
I always figured this was meant to resonate with women and girls who see themselves as being less conventionally palatable, rather than be taken as Swift's own personal sentiments. Granted it would be nice if this had been performed by someone that matched the tone of the song, but that's not how the music industry works. So in summary, Not All Conventionally Attractive People.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:09 PM on June 1, 2021
I was reading this from Lyz Lenz, relatedly: "It just reminded me that we raise girls to be limitless, but make it hard as hell for grown-ass women to do anything."
posted by rewil at 1:52 PM on June 2, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by rewil at 1:52 PM on June 2, 2021 [5 favorites]
(CW for talk of body image.)
Hello, I am a millennial woman whose teenagerhood took place entirely in the 2000s. After living through the last decade's 90s revival and reading all the Gen X think pieces that deconstructed things like grunge, riot girls, and Lilith Fair feminism, I guess it's my generation's turn. I'm really, really interested in this whole series and happen to have just spent a couple weeks in a rabbit hole reliving how we thought about women's bodies in the 2000s, thanks to Anne Helen Petersen's recent work on the subject and the surrounding Twitter conversation. That also led me to go back and listen to all the You're Wrong About episodes on Jessica Simpson, and I highly recommend that too.
I skipped over a lot of the Paris Hilton sex-tape discourse (or at least only passively absorbed it), but I was fully attuned to the body types on display that I was meant to achieve. Paris Hilton was just one of many of these bodies, and I remember how horrible the press was about comparing Nicole Richie unfavorably to the skinnier Hilton until Richie and Lindsay Lohan shrunk themselves to absurdly tiny proportions in the mid-aughts Rachel Zoe era. (I was also pretty oblivious about how much drugs had to have played a part, and used to swallow all the magazine BS about how everyone could achieve that by just doing pilates and eating a Mediterranean diet.) At the same time, the tabloids were fascinated with how big JLo's butt was (and in retrospect it's an extremely normal butt compared to the body types we idealize and get butt implants for now), but it felt exoticizing and creepy and not really an acceptable shape for a white girl like me, even one with a natural pear shape and short waist. I envied Paris Hilton and celebrities like her with their long slim legs and torsos, shown off with the low-slung pants and handkerchief tops.
I spent years sucking in my stomach and scrutinizing all the "problem areas" on my body. Never mind that low pants will always create a "muffin top" when you sit at a desk at school all day, cellulite is a genetic thing that 90% of teenage girls will just have no matter how skinny they are, and even if you don't have fat on your stomach, your abs will not be flat once you eat a reasonable meal. I understand all this now, but like others I'm also watching low-rise jeans and abs-forward Y2K looks come back with some trepidation. The tabloids and paparazzi were brutal in the 2000s, but at least I didn't also have social media and a photo-taking device on hand at all times until I was out of the pressure cooker of high school. Facetune and the idea of personal brands were also after my young heyday. The toxicity was in magazines and our pop culture, yes, but at least my friends didn't look airbrushed and perfect in TikTok dance videos. So Gen Z will have their own challenges too.
Anyway, thanks for posting this here and the interesting dissection of the Not-Like-Other-Girls girls and backlash, and inherent paradoxes therein (recovered NLOG here, because those messages about Other Girls are so horrible and they're so shat on by society that who wants to be that? My god, that South Park episode alone!). I'm both excited and anxious about what repressed memories the next installments of this series will dig up.
posted by j.r at 4:21 PM on June 2, 2021 [10 favorites]
Hello, I am a millennial woman whose teenagerhood took place entirely in the 2000s. After living through the last decade's 90s revival and reading all the Gen X think pieces that deconstructed things like grunge, riot girls, and Lilith Fair feminism, I guess it's my generation's turn. I'm really, really interested in this whole series and happen to have just spent a couple weeks in a rabbit hole reliving how we thought about women's bodies in the 2000s, thanks to Anne Helen Petersen's recent work on the subject and the surrounding Twitter conversation. That also led me to go back and listen to all the You're Wrong About episodes on Jessica Simpson, and I highly recommend that too.
I skipped over a lot of the Paris Hilton sex-tape discourse (or at least only passively absorbed it), but I was fully attuned to the body types on display that I was meant to achieve. Paris Hilton was just one of many of these bodies, and I remember how horrible the press was about comparing Nicole Richie unfavorably to the skinnier Hilton until Richie and Lindsay Lohan shrunk themselves to absurdly tiny proportions in the mid-aughts Rachel Zoe era. (I was also pretty oblivious about how much drugs had to have played a part, and used to swallow all the magazine BS about how everyone could achieve that by just doing pilates and eating a Mediterranean diet.) At the same time, the tabloids were fascinated with how big JLo's butt was (and in retrospect it's an extremely normal butt compared to the body types we idealize and get butt implants for now), but it felt exoticizing and creepy and not really an acceptable shape for a white girl like me, even one with a natural pear shape and short waist. I envied Paris Hilton and celebrities like her with their long slim legs and torsos, shown off with the low-slung pants and handkerchief tops.
I spent years sucking in my stomach and scrutinizing all the "problem areas" on my body. Never mind that low pants will always create a "muffin top" when you sit at a desk at school all day, cellulite is a genetic thing that 90% of teenage girls will just have no matter how skinny they are, and even if you don't have fat on your stomach, your abs will not be flat once you eat a reasonable meal. I understand all this now, but like others I'm also watching low-rise jeans and abs-forward Y2K looks come back with some trepidation. The tabloids and paparazzi were brutal in the 2000s, but at least I didn't also have social media and a photo-taking device on hand at all times until I was out of the pressure cooker of high school. Facetune and the idea of personal brands were also after my young heyday. The toxicity was in magazines and our pop culture, yes, but at least my friends didn't look airbrushed and perfect in TikTok dance videos. So Gen Z will have their own challenges too.
Anyway, thanks for posting this here and the interesting dissection of the Not-Like-Other-Girls girls and backlash, and inherent paradoxes therein (recovered NLOG here, because those messages about Other Girls are so horrible and they're so shat on by society that who wants to be that? My god, that South Park episode alone!). I'm both excited and anxious about what repressed memories the next installments of this series will dig up.
posted by j.r at 4:21 PM on June 2, 2021 [10 favorites]
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It’s funny, how we thought we could get “promoted” to something “better” than a woman (though of course never quite as “good” as a boy or man) by throwing other girls/women under the bus, in as performative a fashion as possible.
We still see it now, of course, with just one more level of self-awareness. Now we have memes mocking the “I’m not like other girls” brand, and we have Facebook tag groups for the express purpose of retorting, “But did you get picked, sis?”
I wonder if another twenty years on we’ll be mocking the women for mocking the women they mocked in the first place. Always, still, mocking women for woman-ing insufficiently. And as the OP notes, that’s the only option, because the double standard keeps redoubling somehow.
I can’t ignore how, even here, the focus is on how famous “feminist” women of the day were as cruel to Hilton as twice-as-famous, twice-as-compensated, half-as-talented male entertainers. The subtext then was that we couldn’t expect better from men, let alone demand it. (The subtext now is that maybe if every single woman shows perfect “respect” for herself and for every other woman in the world, we will finally have “earned” the first glimmers of any male respect at all.)
This is unpleasant and important, and I’m so glad you shared it. I look forward to following the series.
posted by armeowda at 1:28 PM on May 31, 2021 [67 favorites]