un articol despre prevalenta si popularitatea imaginii de “stupid girl” in pop-culture-ul curent – explicatii, implicatii:

Return of the brainless hussies

From “American Idol” to Paris Hilton to an army of jiggly video stars, vapid females seem to be everywhere these days. Have we really gone this far backward, baby?

During the last week of April, Ellen DeGeneres welcomed Paris Hilton and her four Chihuahuas to her daytime talk show, ostensibly for a special episode about dogs. Once the host had the hotel heiress sitting down, however, she pressed her on a non-canine issue, asking whether she was hurt by Pink’s video for “Stupid Girls,” which mocks Hilton and her shopping-zombie peers for their essentially somnambulant behavior, and which two weeks earlier, DeGeneres had praised on her show. “I haven’t even seen it yet,” said the hotel heiress, in her flat monotone. “But I think … it’s just a form of flattery.”

Any thinking person who has seen Pink’s video, in which she sends up Jessica Simpson’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking” video by humping a soapy car, imitates an Olsen twin in Montana-size sunglasses and Wyoming-size handbag walking straight into the plate-glass door of a boutique, and savagely mocks Hilton’s appearance in a dingy night-vision sex tape, would not confuse the clip with any known form of flattery. Especially if that thinking person heard the “Stupid Girls” lyrics, which go, in part: “They travel in packs of two or three/ With their itsy-bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees/ Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?”

But Hilton is not a thinking person. Or, if she is, she hasn’t let on.

[….] these new, varied and wildly threatening options help to explain and undergird a rejuvenated craze for dumb chic. Perhaps, as social progress propels women slowly but undeniably forward into public spheres of influence, baser human impulses — erotic desire, capitalist greed — dig in, summoning and then clinging to a dusty daydream of the fast-fading ideal woman of yesteryear.

Working on this story, I received an e-mail from a Harvard graduate student who told me that while he’d dated only smart girls, he “liked the ‘idea’ of dating a dumb girl.” The fantasy, the student explained, “is almost certainly formed for us by the media representations of … celebrities [like Hilton, Lohan, and Simpson]. Blonde dumb girls are sexy. And won’t talk back. Add in various shades of male ego/guaranteed superiority notions, and you’ve pretty much got it.” In a world in which male superiority is no longer guaranteed, it becomes a lascivious desire that can be gratified, performatively if need be, by willing women. As Pink trills, mockingly, “Maybe if I act like that/ that guy will call me back.”

But it’s time to put that transactional model for romance out of its misery, and make room in the pop firmament for examples that sound more like Pink’s self-assessment: “I’m so glad that I’ll never fit in/ That will never be me/ Outcasts and girls with ambition/ That’s what I wanna see.”

dupa parerea mea, analiza e rezonabila. (ma mira ca nu spune nimic despre pop-cultura (radical) feminista care exista si ea, reprezentata de le tigre si bust si stitch ‘n’ bitch si hip hop feminist si feminist-blogging si o gramada de alte chestii nu total underground printre care si ladyfest – si pentru care pink-ca-si-feminista este numai o foarte indepartata intruchipare din mainstream.) dar articolul este si mai bun citit in combinatie cu textul “I like Paris Hilton”, care explica de ce la un anumit nivel reactiile “feministe” la tipe gen paris hilton (“e curva deci e proasta si viceversa”) sint de fapt profund anti-feministe:

“More accurately perhaps, I don’t hate her.”

“I can like Paris and agree that some of what she does is Bullshit.”

“I’m not saying Paris Hilton should be the next poster girl for feminism. I am saying the reasons so many love to hate her seem steeped in sexism.”

“If I have a problem with Paris, it’s with celebrity obsession/worship in general and our ass-backwards media that force feeds them down our throat and successfully lulls so many Americans into a general lazy complacency – instead of thinking about or acting on The Real Issues.”

eu cred ca urmatorul punct este si foarte adevarat si foarte important: “attaching the ‘slut’ moniker to Hilton ultimately does feminists more harm than good. When a feminist mocks the so-called slutitude of another woman, she gives the misogynists a green light to do the same” (sau “1) much of the hatred of Paris reinforces anti-feminist norms in essentially deplorable ways, and 2) the hatred of Paris even for the better reasons is clearly over-the-top compared to other rich airheads because she’s an openly sexual young woman.”).