Women in Media & News Quoted in the Wall Street Journal

Congratulations to my friend Jenn Pozner, director of the feminist media watchdog group, Women in Media & News [at whose blog I have been cross-posted], who was quoted in a Wall Street Journal Weekend article today.

Jenn gave a quote about Roman Polanski in a piece about the new doc on the controversial filmmaker, Wanted and Desired. Polanski has lived in exile after pleading guilty to providing drugs and alcohol to and copulating with a 13-year-old girl. He spent 42 days in a psychiatric prison as part of a plea bargain but is considered a "fugitive from justice" by the state of California and would be arrested upon stepping foot on American soil.

In a lone critical voice in the piece [the documentary is even-handed, according to the reporter], Jenn said:

When the director was honored with an Oscar in 2003 for his Holocaust film "The Pianist," some pundits spoke up in protest, including Jennifer Pozner, executive director of Women in Media & News, an advocacy and education group. She says Hollywood's support of the director reflects a "tacit approval" of Mr. Polanski's crime. "They're basically saying, "We don't care that you drugged and raped a child; we just care that you make some good films.'" Ms. Pozner says.

WSJ quote is a pretty big deal. Congratulations, Jenn!

(By the way, film sounds fascinating, can't wait to see the doc.)

I Do Have a Bachelor's Degree, Actually.

Boo, hiss. Michigan's House passed legislation that would ban late-term abortions (which are spun by the Right as "partial-birth abortions"). The type of abortion such legislation would ban, if it is not vetoed by Michigan's sensible governor as expected, if uses a specific and rare procedure which has already been banned by the federal government.

The US House passed a bill recognizing the sanctity of maternal health during pregnancy and childbirth in this thoroughly industrialized nation of ours. Over half a million women die each year while preggers or while having a baby. Shit, that's a lot.

You Call That Flab (on Princess Bea)?

Some awful lady over in England, Daily Mail columnist Allison Pearson, is picking on 19-year-old British princess, Bea, who had the audacity to romp in the surf wearing a bikini whilst not-anorexic. (Click here for a pic.) ""Can't someone buy that girl a sarong?" Wrote Pearson. "For her sake, as well as ours."" You call that flab? Princess Bea's a "healthy size 10," according to her mother, Dutchess of York Sarah Ferguson, which is exactly the size I am. That's a normal, healthy body, you nasty woman.

Gwyneth "Works Out Three Hours a Day"

I'm all about the gym. Swimming, aerobics classes, the row machine, it's all great and I really enoy working out. (I actually belong to two gyms -- but I'll explain that some other time.) But working out for "three house a day," Gwyneth? Cripes, woman. The commentors on Usmagazine.com don't seem to http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif aren't buying it, but sadly, given the wildly unrealistic body image standards of American women -- and Hollywood in particular -- I think it's probably true. Ah, the double standard of looks for men and women. (Exhibit A, of course, being disgusting Mario Batali.) Wasn't Gwyneth rushed to a NYC hospital recently (remember that video of Chris Martin going off on a camera man?) looking all sickly and the reigning gossip was that she's on some weird diet? What screwed up society is this where we bestow approval on a woman who's got a body the rest of us could only get if we had the time and money to spend three hours at the gym?

On the New York Times Magazine's Blog Article, Continued

I saw the friend that first told me about the cover of New York Times Magazine this week -- the one for a former Gawker editor's article about the consequences of writing about her personal life online -- at a party tonight and I told him I wasn't upset about the cover, like he'd expected me to be.

He said that he felt the cover was victimizing in how it depicted the author both in a vulnerable position. I said the depiction of vulnerability was tangible, but I hesitated to call the author a victim based on the article, or to say that cover photograph depicted as a victim. He asked if the article had been written by a man, if he would have been posed in such a way. I asked if the man had been posed in such a way, would he still consider the picture victimizing.

We agreed to disagree on this one. But it harkens back to a conversation yesterday with an Asian male friend:

"Are you bothered," I asked, "by fetishization of Asian women?" "Yes, it really bothers me," he replied, "but I don't want to always assume it's fetishization when I see something having to do with Asian women."

In Case You Hadn't Heard, Cynthia Nixon's a Big Lesbian

I wonder if Cynthia Nixon is tired of talking about her lesbian partner while promoting the Sex & The City movie. I know I'm a week late in critiquing this, but I was pretty annoyed that New York Times Magazine interviewer Deborah Solomon.:

#1: that she reduced Sex & the City to "about four single women devoted to designer shoes and other forms of self-gratification," and

#2: devoted five questions to asking about Nixon's lesbian partner, which is a considerable part of the interview****.

Is it knee-jerky of me to be annoyed by how tied-in to the film promotion the discussion of Nixon's partner is? All celebs' romantic lives are up for grabs, but I'm sensitive to the issues surrounding this particular type of relationship. In my New York City bubble, I want homosexuality to be a "whatever" afterthought -- not "gossip." Maybe it doesn't get to that place with out a bunch of questions in the NYT Magazine to an actress who's open to talking about it. I identify as straight, so I don't know if this is an area where I'm welcome to mouth in. But here goes anyway:

On the one hand, the media blitz of Sex & the City is a huge visibility opportunity for people in committed same-sex relationship. Nixon seems pretty clearly okay with that, because I've seen her talking about it on Oprah and now in the Times mag.

But on the other hand, Nixon's partner is really butch -- much more butch than Rosie O'Donnell or Ellen De Generes -- and America likes its lesbians through the male gaze, 17-years-old and h-o-t-t. I worry about that. Nixon offers up details about her partner freely, so she's in control of that, but at what point does a tabloid TV show spot, or a a gossip item, mentioning Nixon and her partner become gratuitous gawking?

Gratuitous gawking is part of the entertainment industry -- I realize that. A celeb's personal lives is grist for the journo-mill -- and I've written about that stuff myself. But there's this part of me that feels really protective of this actress, who I really like and admire, and don't want the increased visibility of her same-sex partnership just to be gawked at and ridiculed.

So my question is: how do we increase visibility but do it in a respectful way?

***I realize her caveat at the end of the interview -- "INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY DEBORAH SOLOMON" -- means she could have just edited the piece to break up a monologue by Nixon with five questions so the text ran more smoothly on the page, but it doesn't read that way -- it reads like this was actually their conversation.

On the New York Times Magazine's Blog Article

A few days ago when the pictures of this week's New York Times magazine cover appeared online, a friend of mine suggested I write a blog post in responose, assuming I'd be bothered by it.

I clicked over to the cover photo (article wasn't posted yet): former Gawker editor Emily Gould lying in a come-hither way on rumpled bedsheets over the title, "Blog-post Confidential: What I Gained -- and Lost -- By Revealing My Intimate Life on the Web."

I sort of rolled by eyes at the photo because it seemed like an obvious way to illustrate that story. By that I mean, I probably would have thought up with the "intimate = have her lie on her back on a bed" idea myself and I'm no NYT-caliber photographer. Composition-wise, I prefer the photograph illustrating the story inside the mag, which I read yesterday: the author lying curled up next to her Mac like the computer is her boyfriend. Or like she was so busy blogging that she conked out.

But I wasn't offended by the photo, and I say that as a female blogger who writes about her personal life to a certain degree on (a much more private) personal blog (with much smaller readership). It seems like a good, albeit unoriginal, way to illustrate that piece. I find it curious that my friend thought I'd think the image was offensive.

Compared to a lot of feminists, I am pretty liberal about use of sexualized imagery of women on shows and advertising, even though I understand how that piece fits into the puzzle of objectification of women. Generally I try to resist the Puritanism in American cultural, which I've grown uncomfortably comfortable with from my WASP upbringing in Connecticut. When I have a knee-jerk eye-rolling reaction towards a sexualized depiction of a woman, I force myself to consider why and how its damaging.

And I don't love the cover photo, but not sure it's because of anything having to do with feminism.