So I did watch The Oscars until 10 pm last night (but then I was tired and went to sleep), so I saw a lot of what people all over have been up in arms about regarding Seth McFarlane’s performance as the host (in particular the “Boobs” opening number), and I’ve been thinking a lot about the reaction, both in the context of conversations about gender in popular culture and media and in the context of the people that I know, who objected.
Here’s the thing: I read the number (in the moment, when I actually watched it) both in terms of its irony and the whole “meta-ness” of it. In terms of the irony, what I saw was this: A woman has to show her boobs (generally) in order to win an Oscar and to be taken “seriously.” It’s all very Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality Volume I, in its taking pleasure in transgression, isn’t it? It’s all so much more “serious” if one violates the “conventions.” Speaking the unspeakable, violating the norms of femininity by asserting one’s sexuality, blah. Is that Seth McFarlane being a misogynist for pointing that out? I don’t think so. I think that women actors going topless in films is the equivalent of the disability narrative for male stars – Forrest Gump, Rain Man, Sling Blade, etc – basically, if you play a “retard” you are an Oscar contender, if you are a D00d. Except you can’t sing a song about disabled D00ds, because it’s wrong to make fun of disabilities. In that regard, the number was sexist/misogynist, as it is ok to sing about boobs and it’s not ok to sing about “retards.” So, ok, I get the charges against McFarlane (and the producers of the show) there.
But then there is the “meta” quality of what that number was. The number pointed out the ways in which such a number was “wrong,” while at the same time it pointed out that women in Hollywood, by Hollywood’s standards – not by the standards of McFarlane or the Oscars or the producers – must agree to be objects first in order to gain recognition. Play a rape victim, play a hooker, play an abused woman, play a nazi, but you’d better play them naked, or you don’t get the Oscar – unless, of course, you’re Jennifer Lawrence, because Jennifer Lawrence is cool and “post”boobs (much like Obama is post-racial). Basically, the “academy” appears to agree, that the “brave” role for an actress is to show her tits, and it’s not exactly the case that a guy has to (or even should – see Michael Fassbender last year) show his junk (with the exception of Harvey Keitel) in order to prove that he is worthy of recognition.
The question is, does irony and metacritical comedy save the day? I don’t know. But perhaps what those of us who watched saw wasn’t, actually, ham-fisted misogyny. Perhaps it has a lot more in common with the postfeminist Girls – which makes many of us uncomfortable, but which people recognize, in spite of that, as “smart.”
I’m willing to acknowledge that (maybe) there is a problem with a guy (McFarlane) using that kind of irony, as opposed to a woman using it (Dunham, but also, let’s note, Tina Fey or Amy Poehler, too, for those ladies aren’t strangers to sexist jokes). Beyond the individual celebrity personalities, I’m willing to acknowledge that the “post” tendency to supplant politics with irony as if the two are the same is problematic. I’ve read my Frederic Jameson. But.
When I watched that “boobs” number, or when I watched McFarlane take that shot at George Clooney for dating young women, I didn’t see those moments as (primarily) misogynistic. I saw those moments as McFarlane biting the hand that fed him – as calling out Hollywood on its inherent misogyny, on the misogyny that rules the movie industry, and on calling out the d00ds (like Clooney) on their fucked up privilege. Seriously: explain to me why it’s “brave” for a woman to show her tits in a film, why that is “Oscar-worthy,” while it’s “beefcake” and “cheap” for Channing Tatum or Matthew McConaughey to play male strippers? Is it really more feminist not to point out the boobs and how women actors are valued more when they show them than when they don’t?
Note: I’m not saying that McFarlane’s oeuvre is not misogynistic or sexist or at the very least offensive.
But. I do think that it might be worse that a woman has to show her tits to be taken “seriously” as an actor. I do think that it might be worse that the attacks on McFarlane seem not to recognize the ways in which the film industry values tits and ass, even when it comes to “serious” roles for women, as if those are the most “courageous” roles that women can play.
I’m not saying I’m not uncomfortable with the current discourse about the potential roles for women right now. I am. And of course misogyny is a problem for me, as I’m a woman, and I don’t like a culture of hating women. But is Seth McFarlane a devil to me? No.
I think all the punts you have made are valid – except that I didn’t thnk it was clear that tat was the intent. During the number, my friend watching the oscars kept looking at each other and saying “What’s the point of this number?” We eventually posited all the ideas you mentioned but it was hard work to get there and we wernt entirely sure that WAS the intent. It really felt more like a 14 year old boys reaction to…well going to a movie and seeing some boobs.
This is why I don’t watch television and only watch movies on the plane and even then they are usually non-American ones.
I actually wasn’t particularly bothered by the “boobs” number. It was the casual, relentless misogyny in the rest of MacFarlane’s act that did it for me. Like his description of “Zero Dark Thirty” as testimony to women’s ability “to never, ever let anything go.” Like his saying that it didn’t matter if we can understand a word Salma Hayek or Penelope Cruz say, because they’re great to look at. And on, and on.
If it had just been the boobs number, I’d be willing to read it as you do, or just to see it as a slightly tasteless misfire. It was everything else that made me read him as a retrograde dick, and deeply unfunny to boot.
I don’t buy this argument (though I didn’t watch the Oscars). See, when the male stars go full retard they are playing against type and their usual roles of being smart and heroic, so it becomes a demonstration of their Great Acting! to show that they can find pathos within disability. It’s not like women are *only* baring their breasts in “serious movies” —- they have to get fully naked in Transformers and Battleship and every single crap popular movie that’s out there, so they *aren’t* playing against “type” and the idea of woman as more than just a body.
My friend has an article all about Cameron Diaz and ugliness (I think it’s Diaz?), which I think is much more compelling as an explanation of transgression against Hollywood standards.
Sis, what I’d say, though, is that the trope in Hollywood remains that “respectable” or “talented” women won’t show their bodies – that they are “above” the t&a required of starlets – and so then when they do show some skin for their “craft” they are taking a big “risk” because, you know, they are brave enough to put the art before their image as “respectable” or “professional” women. In that regard, I think it is actually a fair parallel to narratives of disability for male actors, because when Tom Hanks does it he’s “risking” his image as a competent, masculine, authoritative figure, whereas when Adam Sandler plays his usual sort of roles, he’s just confirming that he’s not an A-list actor. And this is what I meant by bringing up Foucault: his point is that there isn’t really any transgression in play – that the narrative of transgression or the discourse of it in fact authorizes the very norms that it purports to undercut. Ultimately, from that perspective, there is no way to rebel against Hollywood’s norms for gender because those norms are really just the norms of culture. Any transgressions ultimately serve to reinforce the norms, and operate in an economy of power that is closed – there is no “outside” to which to retreat.
And so, while I don’t think that McFarlane was a laugh riot, and I am deeply suspicious of the way that irony is used as an alibi for sexism these days, I didn’t find him demonstrably more offensive than most of the pop culture that I encounter on a daily basis.
I didn’t read most of the poor reviews of McFarlane’s performance as being so much about him (and the question of his misogyny, because really, who cares?) as about what you’re talking about, Dr. Crazy, namely that as Sisyphus says, this is how Hollywood in particular and the culture writ large view women. Some of the reviews were about him–the ones that complained that he just wasn’t funny–but I don’t think the feminist critics are pissed because he’s the only a$$hole in Hollywood and darn it, he jacked the Oscars. I think they’re pissed because they didn’t see him standing outside it to create an incisive ironic commentary on Hollywood’s contempt for women. To the contrary, he gleefully embodied and relished Hollywood’s contempt for women.
FWIW, I only read about it. I didn’t see the live performance, and I don’t think I’ll ever bother.
Folks, this is the new humor. This is Internet age humor. Extremely sarcastic, edgy, snarky, irreverent, in your face and if you don’t like it then YOU are the dick. Get used to it.
Smalltownprof:
Oh, MacFarlane ain’t edgy. My brother-in-law is a professional stand-up comic and comedy writer, and he hosts open-mike nights. I know “internet age humor.” MacFarlane (whatever his skills as a comedy writer) wasn’t good enough to be edgy.
Here’s an assessment of his performance as a performance.
My problem wasn’t the subject of boobs itself, but that two of the women mentioned in the song are being raped at the time their boobs are being seen. And the message sounded like, “Yea! I got to see Jodie Foster’s boobs when she’s getting raped!” And that angered me enough to turn it off.
And then I read the next day that Mark Wahlberg, in a bit written by McFarlane, made a joke about an orgy at Jack Nicholson’s place, referencing Polanski’s rape of a child forty years ago.
Maybe because I’m male–and a gay male who doesn’t care about seeing boobs, at that–but the jokes about rape were the ones that have been upsetting me all week, especially the fact that the jokes went from representations of rape to actual rapes. Samantha Geimer, forty years after the fact, had to hear a joke about when she was raped at thirteen years old. I have a real problem with THAT.
And I just found this on Facebook.
“We Saw Your Boobs” celebrates rape on film
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/we_saw_your_boobs_is_a_celebration_of_rape_on_film/
[…] True story Topic 2: Boobs. #1: so who do you agree with re: boobgate, Historiann or Dr. Crazy? #2: I haven’t read dr crazy yet. I did read historiann and mildly agree with her. […]