This is the weekly Amplify newsletter, where you’ll be inspired and challenged by the voices, opinions and insights of women from The Globe and Mail.
This week’s newsletter was written by rebecca tuckerDeputy Arts Editor of the Globe and Mail.
While listening to comedian Jo Koy’s harrowing soliloquy as he hosted the Golden Globes last month, I was surprised that my brain had even bothered to catalog 2013’s Seth MacFarlane. I found myself thinking about the Oscar host.
Memories came back when Koi reduced Greta Gerwig’s death. barbie – Feminist Honest Movies – to a movie about “plastic dolls with big boobs.” Then I remembered that 11 years ago, MacFarlane opened the Academy Awards with a song-and-dance number listing actresses who had gone topless in movies.That song was called I saw your boobs.
plus sa changeIn other words.
The fact that Coy’s joke was more widely and instantly maligned than MacFarlane’s jingle can be read as follows. In the era of #MeToo, punchy boob jokes have proven to carry little weight. By extension, this may also be evidence that a kind of rehabilitation has taken place, and that the kinds of jokes that were once easily, easily, and openly made at the expense of women are now prohibited. unknown. But I don’t really understand.
I’ve been thinking about this while reading Canadian journalist and editor Lisa Whittington Hill’s excellent book. girl, interrupted. Her book makes the same argument I am making here. Pop culture has not only failed women, it continues to fail women.
For example, consider the following: the woman in me, Britney Spears’ 2023 memoir. While Spears almost certainly wrote this book to set the record straight on the media’s appalling mistreatment, the coverage of her memoir reflects the misogynistic eating frenzy that dogged her in the early 2000s. Ta. Most headlines focused on salacious reveals and “bombshells” and clickable information, once again denying Spears the chance to control her own narrative. Just last week, Spears appeared to apologize for revealing that she had an abortion during her pregnancy, saying she was “deeply sorry” if she had caused any offense regarding her relationship with Justin Timberlake. She stated how much she enjoyed Timberlake’s new music.
And what about Timberlake? During a performance a few days later, he seemed to respond when he seized the opportunity to apologize to “absolutely” anyone on stage.
Last year was a golden year for female celebrity memoirs. In addition to Spears, the autobiographies of Pamela Anderson, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Paris Hilton were published, and most of the time, these memoirs were reported on — with the aim of setting the record straight. Instead, they took the opportunity to focus on their past failures, primarily related to relationships with men.
in girl, interruptedWhittington Hill writes how Demi Moore’s memoir was written inside outElton John’s 2019 release was met with a similar reaction to Spears’ autobiography, but Elton John’s autobiography, released a few weeks later, contained explicit admissions of bad behavior. However, it has been reconsidered with a more forgiving critical lens. “When examining the media’s response to memoirs by female celebrities, it becomes painfully clear that this story of redemption is only for boys,” Whittington-Hill writes.
Traditionally, the first few months of the year are not when publishers release their hottest titles, so memoirs written by female celebrities won’t be on the calendar in the coming weeks. But what’s on the record is the Super Bowl. While most sports fans’ attention will be on the game itself, many others will be watching Taylor Swift’s game from the sidelines to cheer on her boyfriend, Travis Kelce. right.
I would also like to pay attention to the headlines regarding this event. Unless you ask some NFL fans, Swift can date anyone, but they think Swift’s sudden involvement in the game through her boyfriend is, at best, a distraction, and at worst, an attempt to bring more women into the sport. They see it as a ploy to attract them. And the critics who are wringing their hands over Swift’s invitation to her Super Bowl party are the same ones who were appalled that Swift didn’t thank Kelce during her Grammy speech last week. I can’t help but wonder if it is.
In other words, women still can’t win. But there are also small moments of hope. And yes, there are moments of real redemption too.Singer Annie Lennox performed at this year’s Grammy Awards. Sinead O’Connor song Nothing compares to 2 U During the program’s memorial segment. O’Connor famously lost office and had his career thwarted after he spoke out against the Catholic Church. saturday night live After O’Connor’s death last July, Whittington-Hill wrote in the Globe: O’Connor refused to play her polite female singer role and she only performed silently, so she was punished. Her anger scared people, as women’s anger often does. ”
At the end of the performance, Lennox made a phone call. Toward a ceasefire in the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war. Lennox was one of more than 300 artists who released a letter in October to Congress and President Joe Biden calling for an immediate cease-fire, a gesture that to me also read as an expression of posthumous solidarity with O’Connor. Ta. Show courage in public without fear of reprisal. As long as women make an effort to support each other, I think the tide will continue to change.
Other thoughts:
new Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a stylish update to the 2005 Brangelina film of the same name. But while that movie was all about glitz, glitz and behind-the-scenes drama, the Prime Video version is directed by Maya Erskine and Donald, who co-created the series with Atlanta co-creator Francesca Sloan. Starring Glover, it’s a sophisticated, understated meditation. (As writer Aparita Bhandari wrote in her series review for the Globe) What is true intimacy?
marianne
Marianne Kushmanik writes for the Globe and Mail
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