Emily Ratajkowski thinks Hollywood is blackballing her because she’s too sexy. But that’s like Donald Trump thinking Washington is blackballing him because he’s too smart. Both of them are as clueless as they are narcissistic.
Ratajkowski is ‘too sexy’ for acting
Ratajkowski personifies confused millennials. One day, they’re clamoring for safe spaces in public places. The next day, they’re exposing themselves on social media, too self-entitled to see the inherent contradiction.
Ratajkowski does little more these days besides posting semi-nude pictures on Instagram. And she’s still most famous for dancing semi-nude in the “Blurred Lines” music video. Yet, she whines about Hollywood not taking her seriously.
‘There’s this thing that happens to me: ‘Oh, she’s too sexy,” she told the [August 2017 issue of Harper’s BAZAAR]. ‘It’s like an anti-woman thing, that people don’t want to work with me because my boobs are too big. What’s wrong with boobs?’
(New York Post, July 3, 2017)
Of course, nobody in Hollywood has ever denied her an acting role because her boobs are too big. Not least because she might be the only person on the planet who thinks they are.
The point is that she’s always showing them off on social media. In doing so, she has typecast herself as nothing more than tits and ass. Now she’s whining about Hollywood seeing her the way she promotes herself.
Of course, Instagram has normalized this kind of socially demeaning exhibition. It’s a platform for hard-core narcissists and soft-porn exhibitionists. There, even ordinary girls share, for all the world to see, pictures that should be for their lovers’ eyes only.
Whereas in the past, only ribald newspapers traded in such titillation. Think, for example, of the topless “Page 3 Girls” The Sun made famous.
Ratajkowski is sexy but she can’t act
Hollywood turned actresses like Marilyn Monroe into bona-fide sex symbols. And it has featured many of Ratajkowski’s sexy (I dare say even sexier) peers in meaty roles. Scarlett Johansson (whose boobs are bigger – just sayin’) and Margot Robbie (who is even sexier) come to mind. The difference is, unlike Ratajkowski, they can act.
Besides, it’s not as if Hollywood is averse to making movies that exploit sexy women. I can cite Last Tango in Paris, Wild Orchard, Blue Is the Warmest Color, and even The Wolf of Wall Street.
Ratajkowski’s problem is that she can’t act. Exhibit A is her cringeworthy performance as the nubile seductress in Gone Girl. That was typecasting at its best, and she still couldn’t pull it off. I mean, she exhibited all the titillating appeal of a potted plant. By the way, if you’ve seen her in “Blurred Lines,” you know she can’t dance either.
Ratajkowski should stop flaunting her body for a second and look at Bo Derek’s body of work. Because, like her, Derek was more interested in photo spreads than acting creds. And Derek’s IDMb filmography reflects this.
You might say the same about Kim Kardashian. But at least she’s smart enough to exploit her physical assets. This, without wondering why nobody considers her reality TV exhibition Oscar-worthy. Kim is all about making lemonade out of her lemons. Even Beyoncé has nothing on her.
More femme fatale than feminists
Feminist ingénues like Ratajkowski are mainstreaming the (sexual) objectification of women. Feminist doyennes like Gloria Steinem should be dismayed.
Yes, they fought for women’s liberation. But liberated women are now objectifying themselves the way men once did. I doubt this is what pioneering feminists fought for.
Mind you, I have no issue with women expressing their sexual liberation however they please. And women’s rights are not just about the right to equal pay and abortion. They are also about the right to cosmetic surgery and prostitution.
Progressive magazines used to criticize women who sell their bodies on the streets. But now they’re celebrating women who sell their bodies on social media. Never mind that their bodies are often fake or photo-shopped.
Ratajkowski’s idea of women’s liberation is publishing soft-porn images of herself. Fine. But why is Harper’s BAZAAR gushing over her like a teenage girl gushing over Justin Bieber? And it does not matter that Harper’s is only a glossy fashion magazine. Nobody should confuse it with Harper’s Magazine, its intellectual sister.
Millions of impressionable teenage girls follow Ratajkowski. This coverage of her was a lost opportunity to educate them, and her. Women’s liberation entitles her to flaunt her body all over social media. But it does not entitle her to acting roles in Hollywood. Especially in roles for which tits are not essential to the plot.
Still, there’s no denying the Kardashianization of feminism. And I, for one, appreciate that it champions negroid features and Lachaisian shapes.
But it speaks volumes that celebrated feminists like Naomi Wolf are hailing exhibitionists like Ratajkowski. Wolf interviewed her for the August 2016 issue of Harper’s BAZAAR. And, sure enough, Ratajkowski came across like a newly converted Catholic lecturing the pope on Catholicism. And Wolf came across like the pope nodding with enlightenment after every sentence.
God help feminism.