Rarely do I comment on things such as this, but I have to put something out there into the universal web.
I was reading USA Today yesterday (isn't that an interesting sentence?!) and there was an article in the Life section (the only section worth reading if you ask me) on Jenifer Aniston being given the honor of being named the first GQ woman of the year. There she is on the cover, in cut off jean shorts, and nothing else.
Now, before you label me a raging neo-feminist or man hater, please read on. I love Jenifer Aniston and think she is a fabulous actress, highly underrated in her serious roles, and well-deserving of acclaim and praise. I am troubled, however, by what is being glorified about her. Hundred of actresses have done amazing work AND would have looked great on their cover, I'm thinking Jodie Foster, I'm thinking Halle Berry, I'm thinking that woman who played the star in Monster.......but there is little Jenifer.
So, why do I care, well for one the way she is shown, almost completely naked and so damn skinny. Remember her early Friends days when she looked like a real curvy woman, before she starved herself to conform to the Hollywood ideal? There she is, a waif, looking like a 12-year old girl, vulnerable, exposed, you name it, and that is what troubles me. What is being glorified about her, rewarded in fact, is her succumbing to powerlessness, and not her talents, depth, and true charm.
I know, it's GQ, and the other award winners were 50 cents (everyone's role model) and that guy who starred in The Wedding Crashers.....need I say more? But, it just hurts to see these images staring back at me......reinforcing the current paradigm of density, adoration and yearning for the impossible, and shallowness. The truth is that these are exactly the qualities that are being reinforced in order for us to be blind to the reality of who we are, what we can be, and where we are allowing ourselves to be led.
