It's no secret my job makes me crazy. Even if my supervisor hadn't recently enacted a de facto prohibition on taking advantage of the best benefit ever (paid time off), I would find my job demoralizing. Daily, I spend 9+ hours contributing to the bastard baby of the American educational system--testing. Teachers hate us for crippling their creative impulse within the classroom. Parents hate us because, sometimes, their kids wind up on the downside of that age-old parabola known as the bell curve. Kids hate us because we wield both the whips and the chains of the 9-month school year. And President Bush loves us because he thinks what we do actually measures something-- and that something is actually something possible to measure in the first place.
So, I'm beginning to entertain the idea of pursuing yet another degree-that-will-not-ever-ever-lead-to-gainful-employment. It's really such a shame that my motivations so rarely stem from the desire to support myself. I've got two books already half-written in my head-- one would require an anthropology doctorate and would result in a cookbook that might resemble the creative lovechild of culinary anthropologist/English professor Jessica B. Harris (author of my beloved Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim) and Al Gore in his documentarian incarnation. And the other? Well? I think I might have to invent my own inter-disciplinary field so that I can learn all the critical tricks of the trade so as to formally discuss softcore porn films and the joys of being a sexpotty-mouth (ahem, I meant third-wave feminist) in a scholarly fashion. Critical film studies? Gender studies? Sociology? Creative non-fiction? Regardless, neither of these books would grant me the cache it takes to procure a more satisfying J-O-B than my current one. I may, eventually, have to resort to teaching after all. Man, I hope my advisory committee doesn't make me give up swearing when I write my dissertation. Fuck, no! I won't do it!
Beyond my usual working-girl malaise, I've recently become bombarded with little tidbits of media that make me feel as though we sexpotty-mouths need some pretty serious defending in a greater social context. But firstly, I must delineate my argument. Last week, I found this article. And I found it kinda ridiculous. The idea that the American Pin-up is the poster girl of female empowerment and sexual liberation? Come on, now! She's an apple-cheeked farm girl or a bubble-headed Farrah Fawcett. She's cute and I don't mind looking at her, but Rosie the Riveter is certainly the exception to the rule in her pedigree. She's entirely sexualized and her sexuality is necessarily associated with selling stuff, rather than being for her own pleasure. While she may reflect assorted changing mores about female roles in our cultural landscape, really, what is she beyond the ultimate subject for that old hobgoblin-ish male gaze? Calling her "subversive" and "self-aware" is a stretch, for me, when all she's really doing is riding the fence between wholesomeness and titillation. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but what's representative of the forward motion of the female in that? I mean, looking for the sweet spot on that very fence has been the primary goal of every commercial image since the dawn of capitalism. I just find Buszek's argument to be so far-fetched!
She goes on to amorphously describe the "pin-up's legacy" on third-wave feminists. She says this: "Today, the subject of sexuality is being proposed as reason for and a way toward a thoughtful, plural feminist culture, and at least one generation of young feminists has come of age to internalize and apply this idea as a matter of course, rather than a point of violent debate." And I don't really have too much of a clue as to what that means. As she doesn't offer a working definition of "plural feminism, " the best I can estimate is that she's arguing that the modern-day pin-up represents, as do women of my generation and younger (who steadfastly and promisingly refuse to concede that the word "feminist" has been abused by the Limbaughs of the world to the point that it has come to be synonymous with that vomitious coinage "feminazi"), the idea that any one of many diverse notions of girl-power can lead one to the golden water trough of female empowerment. And this, my friends, is a load of crap. To be clear, I do agree that there are many paths that could potentially lead a girl to take control of her life. You could label any one or all of those paths "feminism," if you please. But this is not the legacy of the pin-up!
That actual legacy of this pin-up, well, we know them well, don't we? Let's just say her name starts with a "P", an "L" or a "B" and ends with an "aris", an "indsay" or a "ritney." These beautiful, decadent trainwreck girls are the product of several generations of the commodification of female sexuality. On one hand, they're brazen and unabashed about the splendor of their bodies (pre-baby-ruination, in poor Britney's case, anyway-- her little bloated face just breaks my heart!) But they seem ill-equipped in terms of real empowerment to deal with the fact, once you submit to the world's ravenous appetite for the pin-up, the world has a hard time shifting gears so as to allow the pin-up her humanity.
As we watch each of these girls fall deeper into her own abyss of drugs, jail time, and demoralization, I find my own sense of camaraderie with them expanding exponentially. I suppose that's a strange thing to say. And I don't mean to imply a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I sentiment here. But when I look at the real-world consequences of these girls' attempts to own (and, I guess I must concede, make a profit from) their sexiness, I'm wholly disheartened. In actuality, I don't have much of an opinion about how they choose to lead their lives. I think it's unfortunate that their every little folly becomes grist for petty misogynists and camera-happy raptors, but who am I to have any particularly strong conviction about the lifestyle choices of some perfect stranger? I'm no one, that's who.
Still, it rankles (a friend recently made fun of me for using this word in an email. People say "rankle," right?) me a little when I hear someone call Paris, Britney or Lindsay a "slut," for example. I've been called a "slut" plenty. Often, I've had the privilege of being present to defend myself (which these girls, being merely figuratively ubiquitous, usually do not). But even if I weren't, I'm pretty much okay with the moniker-- for one, it implies I'm getting a lot more ass than, in reality, I am, and for another, I find the "monogamy model" of relationships to be a VERY sketchy concept, and so, if sluttery is my only option, I guess I'll own it. But these pretty and famous girls? In the public discourse, they're equated with prostitutes, despite the fact that a very small number of us actually have access to knowledge of their sex-lives. How dare we judge them when we just don't, and can't, actually know anything truly substantive about them? Are we not, in fact, judging them for their public images? The very same images for which we begged them? And paid them?
Does the selling of a pretty picture, alone, now constitute whoring oneself? Okay, for the sake of argument, let's say that it does. If we're paying for that picture, thus providing the demand for the supply (see, Joe, I understand the laws of supply-and-demand just fine!), how're we not implicating ourselves in a warped system that worships and then ravages pretty, young starlets? And how is our purchase of the wares of these so-called "sluts" not all the more repugnant?
And now, let's throw into this particular nausea-inducing little economy the fact that the selling of those images comes at great personal cost to these girls. Yes, they've got all the money in the world--and, one could argue, enough cultural capital to constitute "power"-- but Lindsay Lohan was, what? nine years old? when she started making movies? Now, I think, of the three I've called by name in this post, I think she's both the most talented and the downright sexiest, but there's no doubt this poor child was never given an opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to manage her life, not to mention her effulgent sexuality (some girls just can't help it-- they're born with that with which they are born!). And Britney? You can't seriously tell me you didn't think those big brown eyes were cute as buttons when she was 15. Can we take a moment to mourn the fall of one of greatest fin de siecle sexpots? Are the effects of mundane human weakness and the effects of being eaten alive by the media monster, combined, not wholly tragic? And Paris. Once a girl who was guilty of no more than having celluloid evidence that she enjoys being penetrated (and, well, not having need for gainful employment) is now a blubbering, tearful ex-con. Personally, of the three, I think Paris is most likely to right herself and live out a long, well-photographed, skinny, blond life. But I suppose it's equally plausible that she, too, will slide down rabbit hole of celebrity. And wouldn't we miss her if she did?
So, I guess the real moral of the pin-up's story is that, if you are sexy and refuse to apologize for it, and perhaps even attempt to profit from it, the world will idolize you and then the world will get sick of you and then the world will deride you and eventually, the world will cannibalize you. Gee, that just makes me feel right cheerful! And subversive! And full of third-wave pride! Gimme a break, Ms. Buszek.
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