Should women always have to choose beautiful?

In 2004, toiletry giant Dove launched its breakthrough “Real Beauty” campaign which famously displayed *real* women in their underwear. As we all well know, “real” is marketing speak for “size four and above.” But cynicism aside, the ad made an impact. Seeing full figured women looking happy, radiant, and comfortable in their own skin was such a refreshing break from the scowls and thigh gaps of the fashion world that you almost forgot the whole thing was a ploy to sell soap.

Recent contributions to Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign are more elaborate than just a curvy beauty in her skivvies. The company’s body-positive message has veered into Psych 101 territory, exploring women’s deeply engrained instinct to put themselves down.

In the ad “Dove Real Beauty Sketches” women are asked to describe themselves to a forensic artist, who then draws them based on that description. They are then asked to describe each other to the same artist. The final images are shown side by side, revealing that in every case, women’s self-perceptions were far less conventionally pretty.

It’s a powerful ad with a clear message: you’ve been taught to invent and fixate on imperfections. Now that you see how warped your perspective is you can start appreciating your looks, and finally feel beautiful.

Dove conducts another “experiment” in their latest ad, called “Dove Chooses Beautiful”. In this one, women are given a choice between two doorways, one marked “beautiful” and the other “average”. You see where this is going. At first most of the women walk through the average one. But by the end of it, they come to their senses and switch. Because all women, once again, are beautiful.

Dove has been praised for its “Real Beauty” platform for years. But does all this body-positive thinking need a second look? On April 8 BuzzFeed published a lengthy critique of the ad suggesting just that.

In the article (which the site later removed, then restored) beauty editor Arabelle Sicardi points out that Dove sells beauty products and is very much part of the female-insecurity-fueled industry it criticizes. She also took issue with the requirement that all women think of themselves as “beautiful”. And while “feeling beautiful” could mean a lot of different things, it still keeps the emphasis on looks. After all, no one sees the need to comfort men that they are “handsome just the way there.” But women must find a way to identify as beautiful (even if it’s not really a priority for them).

Sicardi notes that the women in the ad might have described themselves as smart, funny, or otherwise above average. But these were the two options they were given. We support Dove for bringing some diversity of female beauty to the advertising landscape. But it’s important to consider what we’re saying when we say that all women should feel beautiful. 

The 21st Century Rebirth of True Crime

I started watching the Jinx because, like many others, I needed some true crime methadone to Serial’s heroin. I ended up getting pulled in, but not for the same reasons. Serial was engrossing because the people tangled up in its Dickensian yarn were likeable. Sarah Koenig is a smart, funny, relatable reporter who you can imagine being friends with. Adnan is easily sympathetic and even Jay –an early candidate for the villain of the story – comes across as a reasonable person when he finally shows up. The lack of obvious bad guy actually raises the stakes. Because someone has to be lying, but the more we know the harder it is to believe that any of the principle characters would mislead us. And the fact that (I’m assuming) the majority of listeners were rooting for Adnan the whole time gives this eerie undertone to everything. Was the case mishandled? Definitely. But he still might have done it. We all might be rooting for a murderer.

Fiction is storytelling without responsibility to facts. And facts have no responsibility to the conventions of fiction. In the case of Serial, the facts didn’t arrange themselves into a satisfying ending the way they would in a fictional crime series. Although an intriguing coda was added IRL when it was announced that Adnan had been granted another appeal, partly due to evidence that Koenig herself dug up. We’ll see what happens there.

In the meantime, Serial’s anticlimax left us salivating for more true crime, and HBO obliged with the docu-series “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.”

The Jinx is different from Serial in a few important ways. Most obviously, it’s video not audio. Which is a different kind of storytelling. The images that we had to use our imaginations for in Serial are in the Jinx reenacted in ghostly, slow-motion heightened reality sequences accompanied by the requisite photographs and talking heads.

The backbone is the same. A storyteller (not a cop, a detective, or anyone involved in criminal justice of any kind) is given access to the primary suspect in a murder case, the details of which remain murky. The two players aren’t likeable the way their radio counterparts were. Director Andrew Jarecki comes across as a goateed Hollywood type because that’s what he is. And Robert Durst, with his nasal monotone and sunken black eyes, barely registers as human let alone sympathetic.

It’s easy to say that the circumstances of Robert Durst’s life are stranger than fiction. But somewhat more amazingly, they’re exactly as strange as fiction. Every detail of his story seems cribbed off of John Grisham. An eccentric, alienated man from a family of New York Billionaires. An unsolved disappearance of a beautiful young woman. Another woman with mob connections executed in her own home. Cross dressing. Dismemberment. All the lurid details that people expect from any paperback potboiler. Right down to the satisfying ending.

This is another place where the Jinx differs from Serial. It has an ending. A piece of evidence linking Durst to a killing for which he was previously acquitted surfaces, and Jarecki confronts him about it on camera. Durst denies everything and then proceeds to go to the bathroom WHILE STILL WEARING HIS MIC and mumble what sounds a whole lot like a confession to himself while taking a piss.

I watched the final episode the night that it aired. And like most television viewers I did so while also looking at other things on other screens. Before I made it to that crazy final scene, I saw that the top story on NYTimes.com was that Durst had confessed during the finale. This came several days after the news that he had been arrested in New Orleans for murder based (once again) on evidence discovered not by professional detectives but by filmmakers.  

The narrative arc of Serial bends in Adnan’s favor. Koenig and her colleagues are journalists, and they attempt objectivity. They make compelling arguments against him. But really it’s clear that she thinks/hopes he’s innocent and we do too. Now he’s getting another appeal. Similarly, you don’t have to watch more than the opening credits of the Jinx to know that in spite of the apparent chumminess between Jarecki and Durst, the producers of the show are pretty fucking sure he’s guilty. Now he’s behind bars again.

“True Crime” as a genre has been around for hundreds of years, and it’s easy to see the appeal. The whodunit/police procedural is a foolproof storytelling mechanism, and if it actually happened – if these rapists and murderers and dismembering billionaires actually walk among us – that just adds spice. It makes us feel a little more in danger, which we like. But this genre means something different in the internet age. Citizens are becoming citizen journalists and journalists are acting like detectives, so it’s only natural that the world of Twitter/Reddit/et al be overrun with budding citizen detectives. We saw it after the Boston bombings. We saw it while Serial was still unfolding. It’s going to keep happening as the news becomes more and more immersive. This will help some innocent people, hurt some innocent people, help some guilty people, and hurt some guilty people. If the fad passes, we can all tally up the results and argue over whether it was a good or a bad thing overall. 

Is Elizabeth Wurtzel the Ghost of Lena Dunham Future?

Lena Dunham has a new book out. A collection of essays called Not That Kind of Girl describing her charmingly rocky road to adulthood. It’s a road we’ve been down before, via her first feature film Tiny Furniture her hit HBO show Girls and in the odd New Yorker article. As Alice Jones writes in her review of the book for The Independent: “Her life is her art. Always has been. Everything that happens to her is near instantly processed as fodder for a story.” Lots of people find themselves fascinating. The millennial generation is full of over-privileged naval-gazers with creative aspirations. Not That Kind Of Girl is surely far from the only memoir of its kind. It is, however, the only one that received a $3.7 million advance from Random House.

Part of the magic of Lena Dunham is how she refuses to spare herself. She’s been subject to some vicious critiques – entitled, narcissistic, not pretty enough - but they all fall flat because she’s already incorporated them into her act. On TV, the character she plays is a walking exploration of everything that can and has been said about the actress that plays her. She also lets herself be filmed naked on the toilet. Not even “lets” – insists. It’s her show, she’s the one making these choices. And it works. We are as transfixed by her compulsive honesty as we are by her wit.

If she were a hack, I would dismiss her as a novelty. A by-product of a generation raised on voyeurism and nurtured by (false) assurances that they are uniquely magnificent. But she’s not a hack, she’s talented. Which makes me excited to see where her career will go, and more than a little bit worried as well.

I worry because I don’t know if obsessive self-examination is enough to sustain an entire career. I do think it’s worthwhile. As they say “write what you know” and it’s arguably impossible for a writer to write well about any other subject until she truly understands herself. That said, I think that early success as a memoirist can stunt the growth of a young writer. Case in point: Elizabeth Wurtzel.

Elizabeth Wurtzel published “Prozac Nation” in 1994 when she was 26-years old. The parallels between Wurtzel and Dunham are significant: the New York upbringing, the frankness bordering on exhibitionism, the struggle with mental illness. Both women, in their time, have been crowned the “voice of a generation.” In Wurtzel’s case, it was Generation X.  Her memoir about depression and self-destructive behavior struck a chord with America’s gloomy youth when they were reeling from the suicide of their idol Kurt Cobain. Suddenly she was living every young writer’s dream. By her own account, she celebrated by getting heavily into drugs and sleeping with a different man every night. Which was her prerogative. But the trouble is, she never quite pulled off the same trick again – of cataloguing her own experiences in a way that resonated widely with her peers.

Fran Lebowitz has said that while experience is essential to being a writer, some writers can only write about being young. “Once they’re no longer young, they can’t do it anymore”. Elizabeth Wurtzel made a name for herself writing about what it was like to be “young and depressed in America.” She has stayed true to her self-as-subject ever since, with ever diminishing returns. She has described the indignities of aging, the burden of being conventionally pretty, the thrill of sleeping with married men. In January 2013, New York Magazine published her piece “Elizabeth Wurtzel Confronts her One Night Stand of a Life,” a periphrastic whine/brag about how the writer managed to reach her 40s without accumulating any of the conventional trappings of adulthood. Now, at 47, she has found love at last. The world knows this now, because of her essay in this Sunday’s New York Times entitled “Getting Married Is Easy” where she announces her engagement by describing what a disaster her dating life was for decades before meeting her now-fiance. Wurtzel is still dealing with themes that people can emotionally connect with, but it’s almost irrelevant because she has so thoroughly cordoned herself off from any audience she may still have.

Swimming against the tide of social expectation isn’t easy. It’s understandable that twenty years of it has given Wurtzel a “me against the world” mentality. But I think her writing suffers from it. When she briefly turns her focus towards the people around her, she tends to make sweeping generalizations that don’t always ring true. Observations along the lines of “everyone else is doing this” or “most people feel this way” are seldom substantiated, and it often feels like she’s only interested in the general population insofar as it proves how removed she is from it. A harsh critic of her times, she revels in her status as outcast. Because if society is so debased, then there is a kind of purity in failing to conform, right? “In a world gone wrong, a pure heart is dangerous” she writes with zero irony. The reader is then antagonized by default. You may feel like an outcast, or a failure, or a “difficult personality” but you’re not Elizabeth Wurtzel. Therefore, you can’t relate to what she’s going through. You can only stupidly think that you do.

It’s a shame really, because she’s not a hack either. She’s probably almost as smart as she thinks she is, which is impressive. But she crossed a threshold somewhere. Self-scrutiny is a window into the outside world. But taken too far it can also become a dark, locked room.  

I don’t believe that Wurtzel is the Ghost of Lena Dunham future. For some reason, I see the latter staying grounded and adaptable where her predecessor spiraled off into self-aggrandized oblivion. Why would that be?

An article on the blog The Pessimist called “Ugly: The Problem with Elizabeth Wurtzel” suggests that the memoirist’s career was doomed by her, well, hotness. This may be partly true, but only because she insisted on making such a big damn deal about it. It’s hard to be on board with anyone who waxes poetic about their own beauty. Conversely, Lena Dunham has probably benefitted from the accessibility of her looks. She’s extremely cute, she’s got a rock star boyfriend, and she’s been on the cover of Vogue. But in the Twilight Zone of Hollywood, she does stand out for looking a bit more like the rest of us. Her arrival on the scene was heralded as “refreshing” and “real” which helped fuel her meteoric rise. Will it help her career in the long run, in the same way that being moviestar gorgeous hurt Wurtzel? Maybe. But I think that Dunham’s salvation will be more a matter of intellect than looks.

I was introduced to Dunham (like many people) through Tiny Furniture. That movie was the story of her fictionalized self, but the other characters were fully realized as well. The same applies to her costars on Girls. I think that her talent is strongest in her dialogue, which bodes well. Because writing dialogue forces you to step out of your own perspective and inhabit someone else’s. You don’t have the option of relating to the whole world as a monolithic foe (the way Wurtzel so often does) when you’re writing a screenplay. So the fact that Dunham has such a knack for that particular art form gives me hope that her work will continue to resonate even when she and her cohort are no longer young.   

Rejected Princesses is My New Favorite Tumblr

Sorry, Kittenstache.

Former DreamWorks animator Jason Porath has a new Tumblr dedicated to some of the baddest bitches of all time. He presents the weird, wild, and often horrifying facts (taken directly from history and myth) about these women’s lives, alongside cartoon renderings of them in the familiar Disney style.

I love this idea because it draws attention to two important facts: 1) The stories that Disney tells about women are consistently disappointing, and 2) history is full of amazing stories about women that barely get told at all.

Consider the classic trifecta of Disney princesses: Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White. All three are borrowed from traditional fairy tales, and afforded basically zero personality or autonomy. They’re just pretty, and in a terrible situation because some older woman is jealous of how pretty they are. They yearn to be rescued (see: Snow White’s signature ballad “Some Day My Prince Will Come”) and after some series of events totally outside of their control, their handsome saviors show up and rescue them by turning them into wives. Cringe. Yawn.

Then Disney evolved a little bit, and started giving us heroines with a little moxy: Belle was a bookworm, Ariel was adventurous, Pocahontas was strong-willed, Jasmine was disobedient. All of these women started out feeling restless, eager to discover the world outside of the confines of their sheltered lives. But every damn one of them finds her destiny in some man. Every one of them ventures just far enough to discover her soulmate and then settles back in, satisfied that her love story (and therefore her entire story) has reached its happy ending.

Which is the first reason why Porath’s Tumblr is so awesome. I can’t think of a pop culture trope I am more eager to see turned on its ear.

The second reason is that it reminds readers of some amazing people who should never have been forgotten in the first place. Some of them are admirable, some controversial, some downright sinister. But all of them are complex and powerful, and all of them serve as a reminder that the so-called “fairer sex” is a whole lot more interesting than history has given it credit for.

Reading this Tumblr, I was happy to learn a lot of new names, and to see some familiar ones that I do not see very often. Here are a few personal favorites:

Ida B. Wells: Journalist, activist, and early hero of the civil rights movement, Ida B. Wells is an all-around inspiration. She dedicated (and often risked) her life for the cause of spreading truth as an instrument of social justice. At a time when the horrific practice of lynching was common and widely misunderstood, she wrote about its brutal reality in works like her book Southern Horrors.

Pasiphae: Although she is totally fictional, I loved seeing Pasiphae on there because the story of the Minotaur is my number one favorite story of all time. I just love the characters, including the Minotaur’s mother Pasiphae, who is often omitted when people tell the tale of this famous hybrid monster.

Wu Zeitan: While studying Chinese history in college, I remember reading Wu Zeitan’s story and wondering if she was a full blown psychopath or just a product of her times. She was the only female emperor ever to rule in China. Remember that speech in Macbeth where Lady Macbeth vows that she would kill her own baby if it secured her in a position of power? Yeah, Wu Zeitan actually did that. But it begs the question of whether a woman who was anything short of a cold blooded child killer could have done what she did, given the attitude of the time.

Elisabeth Bathory: History’s most prolific serial killer. With a title as incendiary as that, you’d think she’d be more widely known. Twilight brought pop culture’s love affair with vampires to new extremes. But even that couldn’t raise this “Blood Countess” (whose story served as inspiration for the original Dracula myth) from the coffin of history.

Even though these are some of the most impactful women (and/or intriguing stories) of all time, none of them are household names. Sure, they’re documented, and some people know about them. But if you mentioned any of them at a party it would never get the same reaction as mentioning, say….Benjamin Franklin. Or Napoleon. Or Alexander the Great.

Why is that? Maybe it’s because they’re hard to like. The three dudes mentioned above were all profoundly flawed, but we would never let those flaws overshadow their historical significance. With women, if we can’t root for them every step of the way, we can’t handle them. 

A Disney princess may be sulky or stubborn or mischievous, but beyond that she’s utterly unobjectionable. Just like she always has Barbie-esque proportions to match her perfectly symmetrical face. Mulan is something of an exception to the mold outlined above. But for all her genderbending badassery, her character presents no challenge to the viewer. She is consummately virtuous. She never does anything that might complicate how we feel about her.

Not so with most of the women on Porath’s list.

We’ve all heard Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s charming adage that “well behaved women seldom make history”. This is true, but even badly behaved women struggle to make the cut. A lot of people, when confronted with a difficult woman, will awkwardly avoid her. Historically, we tend to put them off to the side where we don’t have to deal.

That’s why it’s so important to pay tribute to the outliers, who managed to write their names in ink (or blood) in a world that didn’t expect them to make an impact. And if we can do that while making fun of a cultural powerhouse that promotes antiquated gender stereotypes, so much the better! 

What can we learn from the "Fappening"?

Jennifer Lawrence is a victim. All of the women included in the recent mass celebrity nude photo leak are victims, just like someone whose house is robbed is a victim of robbery. Outside of the statements released by various PR and legal teams, that word “victim” hasn’t come up much. Partly because it is sympathetic, and a lot of people decline to sympathize with rich celebrities as a matter of principle. But also because it is exculpatory. Much of the coverage of what the internet has saucily dubbed “the Fappening” has been laced with judgment. Judgment that a bunch of public figures were foolish enough to store their naughty pics online. And more than that, judgment that they took the naughty pics in the first place.  

The iCloud leak should definitely serve as a cautionary tale, but the celebrities’ actions are far from unusual. All over the world, millions of people use the internet every single day. Many do so with a false sense of security, assuming that their passwords and “friends-only” filters are sufficiently protecting their private information from malefactors and thieves. The rest of us, to varying degrees, are gambling. We know that should some hacker somewhere decide to access say, our social security numbers, bank statements, addresses, phone numbers, and any personal photos that may be floating around, they would be able to do so quite easily. We knew the risks involved when we made that information available online. We decided it was worth it, given the remarkable convenience we enjoyed as a result. In much of America, to opt out of such risks is downright eccentric, perhaps even impossible. The moment we fill out the paperwork necessary to open a bank account, or start a new job, it will be archived in an online database and vulnerable to hacks.

This is all to say that anyone criticizing these women on the grounds of technical naivete is probably a damn hypocrite.

Some have made the argument that they should have been more careful, given their celebrity status. To that, I would like to point out how obnoxious it is when a celebrity acknowledges her fame, and how refreshing it is when she carries on as though she were an ordinary schmo. Like when an actress is photographed leaving the gym looking a sweaty mess because she can’t quite believe that a bunch of paparazzi would actually be interested in documenting her workout routine. Furthermore, many of the pictures are several years old, and pre-date big time fame.  

But this isn’t really about hating on someone for not understanding the Cloud. As Jason Segel says in “Sex Tape” (or at least in the trailer for Sex Tape, I didn’t watch that mess) “No one understands the Cloud. It’s a fucking mystery”. This is about punishing famous women for exploring their sexuality and having the gall not to share it with us.

We feel like these actresses transgressed, and as a result we are now entitled to these images whether they want us to see them or not. It’s the same principle as revenge porn. Revenge porn is a serious problem which is being addressed somewhat but not nearly as actively as it should, because of the same biases affecting the victims of the leak. We are still a long way from living in what Dan Savage would call a “sex-positive” society, and as a result, we can’t quite rally around a woman who displays her naked body in that way. We waver on the line, saying “yeah, it was shitty that her ex-boyfriend exposed her like that, but what was she doing taking those pictures in the first place?”

What she was doing was appreciating her body. She was seeing her naked self in the mirror, liking the way it looked, and capturing the moment on film.

A lot of people have taken naked selfies. A lot of people have sent those naked selfies to a significant other using a technology that would make it possible for an obsessive creep to intercept them. And I would wager that a lot of the people who so proudly haven’t might just change their tune if they woke up tomorrow morning looking like Jennifer Lawrence.

These pictures were taken privately, and saved, which means that in a lot of cases they probably had a positive association for these women. They were reminders of a moment of self-esteem, or of feeling sexy and desired by someone they liked. Like all pictures they preserved a memory, in this case a memory characterized by confidence, arousal, fun, and trust. The leak took all of that and turned it into something that they needed to be ashamed of. That’s a fucking bummer.

I think that we can all learn from this incident in the sense that we all learned from the Snowden leaks: information that is saved or shared digitally is never really secure. But there is another important lesson here, and I fear that the puritanical coverage of the event will serve only to obscure it: just because a woman is comfortable with her sexuality does not mean that her sexuality belongs to anyone who wants it. A woman’s sexuality belongs to herself, and whoever she consents to share it with. When these women took these pictures, they did not consent for them to be publicly available. The fact that they took naked pictures in the first place does not count as consent, nor does it deprive them of the right to make that choice. These are simple ideas, which we ignored the moment the pictures became available, because we are a society that still believes that a woman’s body (especially when she has the audacity to appreciate it on her own terms) belongs to us. Let’s all take a moment to reflect on how fucked up that is and try to keep it in mind the next time a bunch of private photos get hacked.

The Dangers of Humor in a Pre-Post-Sexism World

I’d like to propose a new expression. This expression refers to the phenomenon wherein someone makes a joke based on the assumption that we live in a post-sexism world, and ends up pissing everybody off because we do not actually live in a post-sexism world. Such a misstep shall heretofore be called: a Spinning Vergara.

Example: “At the Christmas party, Dan pulled a Spinning Vergara when he attempted to guess Michelle’s bra size. He argued that since he was only kidding and truly respects her as a coworker and an equal, that it wasn’t really sexist.”

I am talking, of course, about the much pilloried skit at this year’s Emmys where Sofia Vergara was displayed on a spinning platform as a sexy adornment to some executive’s speech about how far television has come in terms of gender and racial diversity. It was meant to be ironic; the Television Academy congratulating themselves on their progressiveness while displaying a woman of color like a brainless prize. More than that, it was supposed to be amusing. The public (as embodied by the Twitterverse/blogosphere/mainstream media in that order) was not amused. People were shocked and appalled by what they perceived as a tasteless, sexist, disgusting stunt.

I am constantly mystified by the choices made by the entertainment industry. Rarely do I watch an awards show without asking myself “oh God, what were they thinking?” several times. Strangely enough though, this was not one of those times. I’m not saying it was a great bit. But I can kind of see what they were going for. I can see why they thought it would be funny to jazz up a boring speech with some good-natured T&A. I can see how the repeated instances of the term “platform” in the speech led to the idea of using an actual platform. I can see how they discussed who could sell the bit best, settling on the one woman who had the measurements of Christina Hendricks, the hammy comedic chops of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and was a past Emmy winner to boot. I can totally imagine how they came up with this idea, and I also can see how they hedged their bets and concluded that most people would appreciate the humor. After all, it’s an overt send up of sexism. That’s why it’s not sexist. Right?

                For whatever reason, I feel the need to play devil’s advocate on this one. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because the subtext of the skit (“Hey! Look at Sofia Vergara! She’s hot! It’s funny because she’s hot!”) is also the subtext of pretty much every scene that she’s in on Modern Family. And if there is one thing that the Emmys LOVE it is Modern Family. One way or another, Vergara’s fabulous curves are being exploited to comedic effect. And to celebrate that exploitation in one context while chastising it in another seems a mite hypocritical to me.

                I also genuinely believe that Vergara liked the idea and wanted to do it. She responded to the first round of haters, saying the skit was “the opposite” of sexism, going on to say “it just means that someone can be hot and funny and make fun of herself”. Her defense didn’t seem to change anyone’s mind, which I find kind of surprising. It’s almost like they’re suggesting that Vergara, silly naif that she is, simply failed to recognize that she’s being objectified. This is not giving her anywhere near enough credit. She is the highest paid woman on TV. More importantly, she is a 42 year old, curvaceous Latina owning an industry that is still overwhelmingly biased towards scrawny 22 year old white girls. She knows what she’s doing, and she’s totally in control of her own image. So if she’s doesn’t see a problem with it, why should we?

                I’m not saying the skit was a good idea, because it wasn’t. It grossly misinterpreted the times. It’s like when a joke is considered “too soon” except in this case it’s more like “not yet.” Hopefully there will come a time when the objectification of women of color in entertainment is such a foreign concept that a skit blatantly lampooning the practice doesn’t leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth. But we don’t live in a post-sexism world yet. At best we live in a pre-post sexism world. The goal is in site, and we’re all working towards it, but the reaction to this skit was a powerful reminder that we’re not there yet. In the meantime, many more Spinning Vergaras will occur. And when they do, we need to take them as a chance to reflect, reassess, and communicate with each other.

Feminism is finally in the spotlight - now what?

Feminism is everywhere these days. It’s become such a buzzword that one would think it had only recently appeared in the lexicon, flanked by “selfie” and “YOLO.” But of course, the word dates back to the nineteenth century, and since then many books have been written, university departments have been established, and multiple “waves” have ebbed and flowed. So why does it all of a sudden feel so fresh? So fresh that it stole the show at the trend-obsessed VMAs? 

During her performance of her hit “Flawless” Beyonce (aka Queen Bey) projected the word FEMINIST in towering lights on the screen behind her, while a monologue from author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie played in the background. Beyonce has made it clear that her identity as a Feminist (like her identity as a mother) plays a major role in her uber-brand. She’s not the only one. Taylor Swift and Katy Perry have jumped on the bandwagon, after nimbly avoiding the term for years. Joseph Gordon Levitt recently identified himself as that rare and controversial creature: the male feminist. The rapper Brooke Candy (whose music videos make 2014 Miley Cyrus look like 2008 Miley Cyrus) expressed both support and skepticism about this new trend in an interview with Bust Magazine, stating “I just wish it had happened earlier, and that they weren’t so afraid back then. I guess maybe now they’re not afraid anymore.” 

Candy doesn’t specify what “back then” refers to. But since she is 25 years old it’s likely that she’s referring to the mid-nineties to early 2000s, when millennials were first becoming aware of popular culture. “Back then” there was a sense that overt feminism could be detrimental to a female artist’s career. That it would make her seem too serious, too intense, less fuckable. And by extension, less marketable. 

Feminism “back then” had a very strong presence in the music industry, just not in the most lucrative part of it. That was the heyday of Ani DiFranco and the Lilith Fair crowd. The riot grrrl music scene – thanks to Kathleen Hanna and her contemporaries – was a dominating force in the 90s. As were musicians like Courtney Love, who allowed themselves to be loud and messy and complicated. They were opinionated in their lyrics, confrontational in their stage performances. Being a lust object for teenage boys, as often as it happened, was never the top priority.

But that was the alternative crowd, and the early 2000s were all about TRL dominating pop stars like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson. Women whose public personas were shaped by record labels, who would never ascribe to any idea system that hadn’t first been market tested and deemed acceptable.  For a female performer hoping to achieve super mega stardom in the mainstream, the term “feminist” was too heavy a load to bear. Fortunately, the industry had a solution, a phrase that was pro-female without all that icky baggage: Girl Power. 

The term “Girl Power” was originated by Bikini Kill, but passed on to the Spice Girls who turned it into Feminism’s bubbly little sister. This cute, non-threatening alternative evoked no thoughts of bra-burning or head-shaving or state-smashing whatsoever. Geri Halliwell (aka Ginger Spice) sometimes elaborated her catchphrase with “Girl power: equality between the sexes.” So really, the two terms meant exactly the same thing. Only one had intellectual, historical, and political implications, and the other could be written in sparkly letters on a tube top sold at Limited Too. The “Girl Power” trend coincided with another trend of decorating tween garments with 60s hippie iconography (flowers and peace signs, etc.) creating a weirdly neutered homage to a revolutionary time gone by. 

So maybe this was the fear that Brooke Candy referred to. This idea that in order to be desirable, bankable, and universally loved, a woman had to sugar coat her demand for equality. Now we’ve got Beyonce announcing herself as a feminist with the same showmanship she used to announce her pregnancy at the 2011 VMAs. No one is sexier than Beyonce, and no one is more of a feminist than Beyonce. There is no better way to broadcast the message that Feminism is sexy now.   

I cringe at the implication that Beyonce is more influential than her radical predecessors, but it’s hard to argue with those numbers. As Roxane Gay (author of the brilliant Bad Feminist) tweeted “What Bey just did for feminism on national television – look, for better or worse, that reach is WAY more than anything we’ve seen.” 

Fact is, militant feminists have been risking their lives and livelihood for the cause for many years, but the idea was never meant to stay on the fringes of society. It was meant to gain traction over time until it became the norm. It’s great that the superstars of today can proudly say that they support gender equality and female empowerment without having to duck behind some floral scented euphemism. 

The challenge now, is to make sure it sticks. The problem with being “of the moment” is the fact that moments pass quickly. Monster trends like metallic lipstick and partially shaved heads tend to sour and turn passe within a matter of months. This was the fate of Girl Power – it ossified as part of a moment in time, without inciting a long term paradigm shift. No name stays in bright lights forever. We need to ensure that once feminism is forced out of the spotlight it can still find a permanent – albeit less glamorous – home in our social consciousness.