Monday, February 11, 2013

The Trouble with Female Celebrity Profiles and the Men Who Write Them


The Walrus discusses it.

From the piece...

In the first three paragraphs of Thomas B. Morgan’s 1960 Look profile of Brigitte Bardot, the writer refers to the actor’s “magpie hairdo,” her “girl-woman earthiness,” her rich father, her promiscuity (his inference, not hers), and her refusal to embrace a traditional motherhood role. He calls her “the sassy kitten,” puts her in a category alongside French wine and small cars, and resents her for being so wildly popular. One rather important detail is missing from this heap of vitriol: her name.

Fifty-three years later, in an Esquire profile of Megan Fox, Stephen Marche (a Walrus contributor who once wrote a piece—for Esquire—about “the rise of men and the whining of girls“) calls the actor “a screen saver on a teenage boy’s laptop, a middle-aged lawyer’s shower fantasy,” and “a sexual prop used to sell movies and jeans.”

How far we’ve come.

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