The article I used for this discussion of beauty
norms is titled: "Hoffman, a 'model' for discussing beauty norms"
written by Julie Zellinger a feminist blogger and author. This article goes
very well with the discussion of the two articles we read by Brumberg and
Davis.
The main argument that was developed in Zellinger's
article is about the speech given by Dustin Hoffman, the actor, about his role
in the movie Tootsie. In this film he dressed as a woman to land a role in a
soap opera. He wanted his character to look better, and they said that was as
good as he would look. He says the way he looked, as a girl, wouldn't be the
kind of girl he would want to get to know. It hurt him to think that there are
so many women that he could meet, but society has regarded these women as not
the ideal look. Society brainwashed him into missing out on so many awesome
woman and he realized this based on this film. I felt that his reaction to his
film was a turning point for this oppression.
This video of Hoffman’s opinion was all over the
news and got a great amount of attention because it wasn't the "man-hating
feminist" point of view. A man actually owned up to his mistakes. I was
surprised by his reaction to his previous role because I didn’t realize that this
oppression affected men negatively too. This created a much larger issue
because this man was now getting all this attention and being viewed as a hero.
This white, middle class man brought up this “beauty norm” problem, and now,
all of a sudden, it deserves attention. This is obviously unfair but in a way,
the choice to finally contribute to this systemic problem is beneficial for
both groups. The men owning up to mistakes are better than them denying that
they have participated in this sexism against women. This can be a start to men
and women allying to end this problem, but it seems to me that it’s going to be
very difficult.
In class the main focus was why do women feel that
they need to look a certain way? In the article Designer Vaginas the quote that
relates to this article is: “ In America, women pay the money that is theirs
and no one else’s to go to a doctor who cuts them up so they can create or
sustain an image men want” (273). The fact that men are the oppressors is a
huge issue and hurts woman, but again, there is a bigger problem. I’ve realized
from both of these articles that maybe men don’t always realize what they are
doing to women. I know for most of my friends they dress to impress, but what
if we could all just be ourselves. Women go out of their way to fix themselves
up for men, but maybe there is a way to stop this. If society stopped
brainwashing men to look for “beauty norms” then maybe women would stop trying
to be a certain way.
This is the link to the article:
This is the video of Dustin Hoffman speaking about his
character in Tootsie:
I definitely agree with your point that it is a good thing for men to realize when they are perpetuating oppressive beauty standards for women, and that the men themselves should not be criticized for vocalizing their realizations. That is the only way we'll ever make any progress towards lessening the impact of and/or doing away with oppressive beauty standards. However, I think one of the bigger points of the article you posted was that this whole case with Dustin Hoffman shows another problem in our society: that the only time the issue of beauty standards is brought into the limelight is when a man talks about it. Women are complaining about these issues everyday, but the only time is gets any media attention is when a man voices his opinion on it. The author of the article quotes “When men come to great conclusions about how sexism exists (usually too late and with great amounts of self-satisfaction), they’re granted hero status; when a woman does it, she’s bitter, sensitive, angry, man-hating, etc.” Hoffman himself should not be criticized for this, our whole system should be criticized for it.
ReplyDeleteThis whole situation is reminiscent of the criticism that Macklemore has received for "Same Love." The main criticism he seems to be getting is that people think he was the first to talk about marriage equality through rap, and he is idolized for it. He was definitely not the first to do this, but he was the first to receive media attention for it. It is a case of the efforts of allies eclipsing the efforts of those that are discriminated against. When lgbt/female/poc artists talk about these issues, they receive no attention, but when a straight, white, cis male talks about it, he is hailed as the messiah.
Lastly, this whole issue reminds me of this Simpsons moment. http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4600808/Simpsons+tells+it+how+it+is
-Dustin Roth