It is an easy and perhaps trite exercise to observe the media’s complicity in objectifying women. We airbrush and photoshop them on magazines, making them look unlike themselves while we pose them like iconic cheesecake photos of yet other women entirely. We demand that they make kissy faces or act like avatars of oversexualized teen girlhood.
All of that is exploitive and superficial and kind of gross to witness, especially when we are the slightest bit aroused by it and realize that our own base desires fuel this machine. But that is, frankly, old news. It is admirable that women and men have the energy to rage against this, and we should thank God that they will never give up, because most of us want to. The first and most natural response when you’re beating your head against a wall is to finally stop. It’s easy to feel weary and not want to listen when someone brings up, “Wow, that lady is really being objectified.”
Which is why it usually takes something pretty bizarre to break through those jaded layers. Like the E! red carpet show showing what Tina Fey was wearing by taking a still of her and then panning in 360º over and over, while the image judders around and around, like frames have been cut out of the film, like we’re ratcheting around her.
And you know exactly what it looks like. It looks like when you select your character in a video game.
PICK YOUR FIGHTER:
TINA FEY: Snark, author, show creator, actor, glasses, blue dress, mouth scar, birthing hips.
READY. FIGHT.
