Out of touch, eh?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

It's curious how Meryl Streep's speech (a giant in the profession of acting), which mostly dealt with not-so-overtly political issues, as much as it was calling for empathy and civic vigilance in the upcoming Trump era, was massively denounced (because, you see, an actress has dared to speak of something beyond the latest Gucci outfit, the pearl necklaces of the celebrities, Kim's fake ass, or on some rare occasions, the creative process in cinema in the best case)... And Leo DiCaprio (admittedly an underrated actor, but hardly of Mrs Streep's caliber even in the best case estimations) receives emphatic pats on the back and massive admiration merely for making 40 years of age and having assumed the role of some sort of Al Gore v.2.0? Am I the only one to sense double standard here?

The way I'm reading this, because Leo has a penis this gives him much greater leeway; hell, Robert DeNiro had a boorish statement about Trump, and he wasn't scolded even remotely as harshly as Madonna was. In 2003, Sean Penn gave a rambling speech about the fake WMDs at the Oscars, but again no one decided an actor has no right to use that tribune to flount their political biases. But when an actual actress even hints at a political commentary - Vanessa Redgrave for instance - everyone instantly dogpiles her, hastening to point a finger and put her in her place.

Because, you see, Leo DiCaprio who's been waving his beer belly flanked by an entourage of 18 y.o. wannabe starlets, cannot be declared out-of-touch, but Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon and Vanessa Redgrave suddenly live in their "Hollywood bubble" and don't know shit about the problems of the regular Joe from Iowa? Please.

On a side note:
2012 Trump: Meryl Streep is one of my favorite actresses!
2017 Trump: Meryl Streep is one of the most overrated actresses!

Sounds just like,
2012 Trump: The Electoral College is a disaster for democracy!
2017 Trump: I won so big OMG LOL!

Comments

(frozen) (no subject)

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I think this is a bit of a strawman. It assumes that their vote was based on Trump "degrading the image of women in society," when it's far more likely that their vote was based on the possible harmful policies that Trump is likely to initiate.

It also assumes that what they are doing is "degrading" the image of women in society. That's an opinion, perhaps a widely held one, but only an opinion. Many believe that what they have done (reclaiming sexuality as something in a woman's control, rather than controlled by a father and then later a husband) has only enhanced the "image" of women in society.

Really, the image is about stoking a puritanical outrage that never really died in America in order to downplay the real concerns of words and policies that are potentially ruinous, especially to women. Trump's signing of an anti-abortion executive order almost immediately after assuming the office lends some credence to such concerns, and Madonna's parading her own sexuality (for whatever reason) doesn't mean she isn't allowed to be concerned about that.

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Or even just allowing folk the choice to be sexually overt or even explicit in a context of their choice, rather than at the small hands of someone who thinks it is ok to assault women when the inclination comes upon him regardless of the other persons opinion or bodily integrity.

Basically female lewdness is worse than male sexual assault.

Everyone who believes that needs a bit of a horsewhipping. In public.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

The question is not about which is worse. The question here is, does it grant the moral high ground that these women have assumed.

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course it does. You have already admitted that the two cases aren't equivalent. Ergo, any comparison will necessarily give one a moral advantage.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

How?

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

"You have already admitted that the two cases aren't equivalent"

I must have done that right after you promised to stop lying about what other people have said. Right?

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

"The question is not about which is worse" has implicit meaning as well as an explicit one.

It assumes one must be worse, for starters, unless you are positing an equivalence beteeen female lewdness and male sexual assault.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

You're using equivocation here to avoid addressing my point, aren't you? I'd be grateful if you refrain from ascribing "implicit" meaning to my words. It betrays a certain amount of ill intent in approaching debate.

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

No it doesn't. Corollaries have to be lived with.
The debate, couched in your terms, has been engaged in. I have asked you to define what you mean by slut, you have done so, and been found wanting. Because you are, from your original comment, making the equivalence between female lewdness and male sexual assault. I am pointing out where it falls down.
If anything you are engaging here, not in debate, but in obfuscation. To what purpose I cannot say.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

"Likely", "possibly" and "is going to". Those are a lot of if-s.

How has behaving like a slut "enhanced" the image of women in society, pray tell?

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Please explain your notion of behaving like a slut.

And please give context. Who decides what is appropriate for women? Other women? Other involved women? Priests? Men?

I mean one could argue that all of these women are reclaiming sexuality from patriarchal, reductive, and polarised stereotypes of women as either madonna or whore, an either/or scenario that forces many women into conforming to some essentially demeaning roles; each subservient to male (or couched in newspeak family) needs. Which is what Madge traded on even in her early incarnations. Even her name speaks of the textual ambiguity of her breaking free of the roles imposed by patriarchy.

I guess it's why Mary Magdalene has been sidelined for so long. A bit difficult to deal with the fact that Jesus's closest non-male companion was a whore.

Any prostitute or working women still has the right not to be raped, groped, or assaulted. And to sleep with only those they care to, no matter the financial arrangements involved.

Gods, given men, and the way they are, why aren't all women gay?

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

"Please explain your notion of behaving like a slut."

Look at the pictures. I understand your desire to find excuses for them, I really do. Doesn't mean it's not sexual self-objectification.

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And again you miss the point.

Yes, it is sexual self-objectification. The operative word here is "self".

Trump grabbing women by the pussy is not equivalent in any way, because it imposes his objectification on others. Simples, unless of course you have a different axe to grind.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Your personal (and rather tasteless) insinuations about me notwithstanding, the key word here is "objectification". You lose the moral high ground to criticize objectification if you're doing it yourself.

(frozen) (no subject)

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

May I suggest that both sides take a step back here before this has gone out of hand?

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Whatever.

(frozen) (no subject)

[garote]

That, my friend, is the great thing about art. It gives you a chance to assess things you may never have thought of before.

Take a good look at the pictures you posted.

Madonna and Lady Gaga are wearing outfits that would not be out of place in a fashion-forward yoga class. Madonna isn't even posed provocatively - she's just sitting there.

You're going to have to do some work here to define exactly what makes these women "sluts" and what that means. It's not a freebie.

Is it because they're wearing black, and that's evocative of walking the streets at night?
Many of my goth friends in high school wore all black, all the time. I assume you just didn't get the same normalizing experience I did from hanging around them.

In the photo, Miley Cyrus is wearing an outfit that's still perfectly respectable for a day out at the beach, or at a public pool. It's just got extra dangly bits on it, to look more interesting as it moves. I do believe that's Robin Thicke behind her, with one hand holding her head in place.

Why aren't you calling Robin Thicke a slut?

Take the opportunity offered by these performers to think about clothes and your own biases. Or, just enjoy the performance. Or don't. But whatever you do, don't just bring your own biases to the table and apply them without examination. That's just a waste of time.

(frozen) (no subject)

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Same suggestion to you (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/2174851.html?thread=152319619#t152319619). I'd hate to have to intervene more into this, but I can sense you guys are losing it.

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Hang on old thing, some statements have to be justified: for example "you lose the high ground to criticise objectification if you do it yourself" is frankly cretinous if it doesn't take into account who or to whom the objectification is directed.

Also, the false equivalence made between outright sexual assault and public displays or lewdness is frankly straight out of the handbook for this sort of stuff.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

"Likely" was me being nice. How about "already in the process of." It's not like Trump and his Cabinet haven't made their intentions perfectly clear. He has already signed executive orders to that effect.
---
Re: your question: see, we need to define "slut." The very word implies a value judgement couched in ancient social mores. The entire purpose of the sexual revolution was to turn such expectations on their heads: to say, in effect: "no, there is nothing morally wrong with open expression of female sexuality, or even promiscuity. The only moral evil is in the denial of consent." I reject your fundamental premise: that there is anything objectively wrong with being a "slut."

One would have to establish that being a "slut" is harmful to a woman or to society at large, understanding, of course, that artistic expressions such of those done by Madonna, Cyrus, or Gaga are obviously meant to further the above revolution and statement. They're not out there "slutting" for the sake of "slutting." They're making a point. (Of course, that point is that even if they were out there "slutting" for the sake of it, that is their right, because outdated mores based upon Victorian ideals are nothing worth basing morality upon.)

The point is that what you are calling "self-objectification" is not wrong. The moral evil here has to do entirely with consent. People have their right to the sanctity of their own bodies: that means not being objectified or assaulted against their will. If one chooses to use their body in a way that seems "objectifying," that is their right. It has never been the "objectification" that was wrong: it was the insistence that men (or society at large) have a right to perform that objectification without the consent of the woman - that a woman's body is not her own, but the property of society, to admire or to demand be covered at its whim.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

A lot of words to essentially say that the objectification of women is a-OK, as long as it's consentual.

And here's where we disagree.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I considered writing this above, but decided to not go off on a tangent. I see now that I should have.

Our disconnect is not that "I think objectification is OK and you don't." It's that I disagree fundamentally with the classification of what they are doing as "objectification."

Objectification, in its very meaning, implies a lack of agency. The women are "objects," and all decisions are made on their behalf because they are considered objects, and therefore not human beings with their own agency.

What Madonna, Gaga, and Cyrus are doing here is the exact opposite of that. By asserting their right to make their own decisions with respect to sexual expression, they are rejecting classification as an object. What they are doing cannot be called "self-objectification" by any understanding of what that word means. Their act is one of personification, of humanization, of self-actualization. It is the opposite of objectification - and thus, if objectification really is what we are so concerned about, their expression ought not bother us in the slightest.

I reject your judgement that what they are doing is objectifying, and what I am, in fact, saying, is that self-expression is "a-OK," even if that expression seems "icky" in light of outdated Victorian mores - as long as it's consensual.

That is where we disagree.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Nice goalpost-moving there.

Look, I'll be maximum blunt here. Miley Cyrus giving her ass to be "fucked" by a guy on stage is not too different from the prostitutes lining up behind glass screens on the Red Lights Lane in Amsterdam, offering their genitalia to passers-by for cash. That you prefer to interpret this as "self-actualization", is entirely your prerogative. I just think she's treating HERSELF as an object - consentually.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

No goal-post moving. As I said, I realized while writing the post that there was a disconnect on what "objectification" actually means. I thought about talking about it, decided against it, went to edit my post to include it - and found out you had already replied so had to put it below.

The long and short of it is: you think there's something "wrong" with what Cyrus is doing. I do not yet see anything that you have provided to show why this actually in any way is harmful, is immoral or unethical (you above mention their unsuitability to teach morality or ethics, so this implies that you find their behavior immoral or unethical) or in any way inappropriate.

In the past, when I've drilled down into the meat of the matter with people who have strong objections to Cyrus' kind of expression, I have often found that they are concerned less with objectification and more with a traditional adherence to Victorianism. They were raised to think that sex is inherently "dirty," and thus any open, public expression of it is unhealthy. They, of course, realize at some level that this is moral policing, and a somewhat indefensible position, so they latch onto feminist-sounding ideals like "objectification" without really considering what objectification actually means. Hint: it has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with consent and free-agency.

I believe I have made my point: if objectification really is the concern, then we have little cause for objection, since in many ways this could be seen as the opposite of objectification. If the cause is other (dealing with ethics or morality) than the burden of proof is on the one making the objection to show why what is occurring is immoral, unethical, or even harmful in any way.

(frozen) (no subject)

[garote]

Treating herself as an object...
Dang, I guess I'm gonna have to bow out of all political statements forever then, given my masturbation habit. ;)