ugh

[lirazel]

So remember a couple of weeks ago when those cringe-inducing pictures of Allison Brie and Gillian Jacobs in lingerie paddling each other with ping-pong paddles that were like the absolute definitions of "male gaze" were making the rounds on tumblr?

Apparently the entire photoshoot is now appearing on GQ's site (and hence ALL OVER THE INTERNET EVEN VIDEOGUM), and I refuse to link to them. I feel like I should have some deep insightful thing to say about the fact that there's this whole "women in comedy" thing where supposedly we're giving women all these opporunities in comedy now but really whenever we talk about women in comedy we end up talking about how attractive they are (I still can't bring myself to watch 30 Rock because I find the premise that Tina Faye is unattractive so very ludicrous that I don't think I can take the show seriously) or how they're in competition with other women in comedy (I wish I had a link to that youtube video that shows Amy Poehler getting interviewed and SHUTTING THE GUY DOWN when he tried to make it a competition between her and Tina and she was all "Tina is my BFF. I want her to succeed. There is no cattiness here." And I fell even more in love with Amy Poehler).

Yes, I should have some deep insightful thing to say about that, but instead I just feel tired. Just tiredtiredtired of living in such a sexist, misogynist rape culture where even though women can technically enter just about any profession we choose, we still know that what really matters to people is the way that we look and where we're expected to be in constant competition with other women instead of having supportive relationships with each other. Where a woman who's just as funny as Gillian Jacobs and Allison Brie (Yvette Nicole Brown) doesn't even get invited to the photoshoot because she doesn't fit a certain image and where women who are as dazzlingly talented as Gillian Jacobs and Allison Brie are instead reduced to playing up faux lesbianism in order to titilate men instead of, you know, letting them show off their excellent senses of humor.

I just want to go take a nap (after having taken a nice long shower to wash the grossness away) and wake up in a world where this isn't the case.

Comments

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

Yeah. This makes me feel like this:

[streussal.livejournal.com]

supposedly we're giving women all these opporunities in comedy now but really whenever we talk about women in comedy we end up talking about how attractive they are

Yep. ...and I don't even find the pictures funny? Like, if it's supposed be about funny women, you think there would have been an attempt to at have some humour in with the male-gaze.

(I still can't bring myself to watch 30 Rock because I find the premise that Tina Faye is unattractive so very ludicrous that I don't think I can take the show seriously)

To be fair, I think that's part of the joke of the show? Like OF COURSE it's ridiculous that Tina Fey would be considered so unattractive. Apparently it was lampshaded in an episode where she visited a non-showbiz city, and everyone kept asking her is she was a model. ...then again, they might have only lampshaded it because everyone who writes about the show mentions how ridiculous it is that Tina Fey would not be considered attractive.

"Hollywood Homely" is such a widespread thing though, so I might just have low standards. I mean, AUDREY HEPBURN has been portrayed as unattractive. Leelee Sobieski, Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet, Mandy Moore (so yeah I started looking at TVTropes). ...Jennifer's Body did a good job with this, since Needy (Amanda Seyfried) was told not to dress cute enough to show up Jennifer. And Jennifer getting "ugly" from not feeding on boys was "ugly for her" - meaning she looked a little tired.

[lutamira]

To chime in in defense of 30 Rock (and YMMV on this) I never got the impression that the text of the show was ever that Tina Fey was unattractive, exactly. What happens is that Jack (the corporate, republican representation of everything that is patriarchal) criticizes her for acting in ways which deviate from the 'I am an attractive successful woman' norm he wishes to see and cultivate in the women who inhabit his world. Liz Lemon dresses sloppily instead of in corporate drag, she eats junk food, messily sometimes, she is willing to look undignified to get what she wants. And so Jack criticizes her for not being attractive, because she isn't immaculately groomed, wearing a suit and stilettos and subsisting on 1200 calories a day. BUT that always felt like part of the feminist message of the show to me, as Tina Fey's character doesn't allow his criticism to change her or really affect how she operates. I dunno, I haven't read anything at all, meta or otherwise about the show - I've just been a viewer, so there are probably all kinds of levels I haven't explored.

Also: *shares in your general growliness about above photo spread and shit cultural norms*

[zombie_boogie.livejournal.com]

I can't really add anything else to this fine post (except that I love Tina Fey and enjoy 30 Rock even though a) the show is past its prime and b) it has a problematic relationship with feminism - WHY CAN'T LIZ BE HAPPY OR HAVE STRONG RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER WOMEN SHOW? I love Liz and I love the show but I think they could learn a thing or two from how Parks and Rec writes Leslie and relationships between women).

Amy Poehler is flawless. FLAWLESS.

[shamoogity.livejournal.com]

HEAR FUCKING HEAR! I hate this photoshoot so much. And the accompanying interview is pretty much entirely about how hot it would be if they made out.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

I love you. Those pictures disturbed me in their cheesecake male gazyness, and I refused to reblog them. Your post is excellent, and it's exactly what needed to be said about that photoshoot, which I think is even worse than that Glee photoshoot that looked like kiddie porn that went around a while ago.

[dollsome.livejournal.com]

AGREED. I came across a picture from this earlier, and the description before the lj cut had me kind of intrigued because I have fanfic-inspired fondness for the idea of Annie/Britta!, and then when I saw it I was just like, '... oh but why.'

All shows need to take awesome lady lessons from Parks & Rec. The world in general needs to take awesome lady lessons from Parks & Rec.

[molly_may]

I love Google Books because it allows me to link to this anecdote from Tina Fey's book that illustrates Amy Poehler being awesome, and which also includes Fey's response to men who say that women aren't funny (for the record, I don't completely agree with what she says about it being a waste of time to try and change people's opinions, if only because I think sometimes it is worth it to try. But her overall point about "Do your thing and don't care if they like it", I love).

Anyway, that photoshoot is gross and unnecessary and does nothing to illustrate how funny and talented those two actresses are, and if that is the only way that the men running that magazine could think of to illustrate women in comedy, then I feel sorry for their poor, humor-deprived brains.

[molly_may]

That is brilliant, and something I will think about next time I watch 30 Rock.

[pocochina.livejournal.com]

I feel like 30 Rock tries to have it both ways on this (well, feminist issues generally), because totally, the idea that Tina Fey is unattractive is ridiculed, but I also think the LIZ LEMON SO UGLY blah blah whatever is there because seeing women be put down makes people laugh, and it does start to wear me down, as much as I still love the show.

I also wonder sometimes how much of it is 30 Rock meta-ness, what with Tina Fey having been denied on-screen work for so long herself because she (though still gorgeous because she Tina) not as thin as she is now, and so I wonder how much of it is that we're seeing those insecurities still with her. And that's an uncomfortable phenomenon for me, if a real person feels the need to self-flagellate in public like that, no matter how entertaining.

I mean, I totally agree with your read on it. There are just other things I'm ambivalent about, if that makes sense.

[next_to_normal]

Ha! We must've seen the same post, because I had the same reaction. I just assumed it was fic... but no.

Ugh.

[lutamira]

I'm totally with you on the ambivalence bit. I think that especially because 30 Rock is a comedy it ends up with multiple messages since sometimes the cheap or mainstream joke stays in and gets the laugh even when it ends up subverting the more feminist messages that are also present.

I also wonder sometimes how much of it is 30 Rock meta-ness + that's an uncomfortable phenomenon for me, if a real person feels the need to self-flagellate in public like that, no matter how entertaining.

I get the impression that the show is mostly meta, or at least, the premise is highly autobiographical and some of the later seasons have, by necessity, strayed from that. And I understand what you mean about the uncomfortableness of watching someone say about themselves the same mean things other people have said about them. However, I wonder how much this has to do with comedy as a genre. I mean, when I look at comedy, and comedians in particular, it seems like what they do, what they are good at, its taking the painful parts of their life and putting them out in in public for people to laugh at. And of course that has the potential be massively maladaptive, right? I mean how many SNL alumni have died of drug overdoses at this point? (I am reading death-by-overdose as coping mechanism gone awry.) Did I have a point here? I'm not sure... :)