Girls Gone Wild
For a trucker hat. Seriously?
So I poked around a little. What makes a young woman in graduate school lift her shirt for a trucker hat? A lot of them believe they are feminists. They are taking back images that were once viewed as oppressive to women. They wear “Porn Star” t-shirts. They get boob jobs. They wear the Playboy logo with pride. They are reclaiming their sexuality in much the same way that some homosexuals and African-Americans reclaim derogatory names.
Really?
I have to disagree.
For one thing, their reclamations are making someone a lot of money. And it isn’t them. Guy that owns GGW brings in at least five million dollars a year. This is the same guy who made his first million on snuff films. Real class act he is.
And I don’t really buy that “if you can’t fight them, join them” is really taking anything back. I do understand the need to be rebellious and a little wild. And the need to show society that you are not your mom. And to own your sexuality.
But for a trucker hat?
Good post...I think it's important for people to consider the issues you've raised about this. How is it reclaiming something when the only benefit you're getting is a stupid trucker hat?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in law school, they did a GGW at that university. And VH1 did a "inside GGW" expose focusing on that school. Needless to say, I made sure to stress that I was in the "law school" there...not some random 20-year-old chick pulling up her shirt on camera.
ReplyDeleteI have no problems with girls going wild and pulling up their shirts. BUT, do it because you want to do it, not because some leech is offering you a hat and promising to make you a 6 second star. Honey, I promise, nobody is seeing your face. you will not be remembered, but your 'girls' will...
ReplyDeleteI just keep thinking how mortifying it would ne to have your dad see you in an ifomercial.
ReplyDeleteI've never had a problem getting beads on Bourbon St. while keeping my shirt ON.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't wear a trucker hat for $1000, forget showing the girls for one.
Whenever I see those things I think to myself "your Grampa Harvey just saw you flash your bubbies on tv and had a heart attack." Or worse, "your mom was in line at the check out and Father Cunningham said he needed to speak with her about her daughter's late-night tv appearance."
ReplyDeleteI can only HOPE these girls really are too drunk to know any better, but then... they're THAT drunk in a crappy hotel on a beach full of strangers with cameras and very bad intentions.
*sigh*
Do you guys think it is a feminist action? To "take back" our sexuality? I just don't see it. It is like they are saying "we aren't being exploited because we are inviting the exploitation" but I still see the word EXPLOITED.
ReplyDeleteI think they just make themselves look dumb. They're not getting any glory out of it. The producer's the one making the money.
ReplyDeleteThat's not feminism. Those are very, very immature girls on the loose for the first time making incredibly bad decisions.
ReplyDeleteI can even see the young women who pose nude for Playboy, get a VERY large sum of money, and claim that it was liberating. I bet it can be.
But getting drunk and allowing your immaturity and foolishness to make a dirtbag rich?
Not so much.
That is what I thought, too. Then I realized that money and payment skew things, don't they?
ReplyDeleteGGW=trucker hat=exploition
Playboy=monetary compensation=okay
Porn stars get money too. Where is the line?
My extremely well-educated and intelligent financial analyst friend posed for Playboy when she was in college. She's proud of it, too.
ReplyDeleteBut that was her choice. She was compensated nicely for it, and she said it was liberating.
But I couldn't in a million years see her picking up her shirt for a GGW video. Not her style.
I think the difference is in choice.
It's like prostitution. I say to legalize it and regulate the heck out of it. I don't have a problem with it on a morality standpoint. What I do have a major problem with is the exploitation involved. But take out the exploitive aspect of it and it becomes a different situation when it's a woman making her own conscience decision to reclaim her right to make her own choices as to how to use her body.
But when she's doing it because she's strung out on crack or living on the streets or bullied into it by a pimp...completely different.