Why?

We're never escaping the patriarchy.

Why do you all feel so entitled over women’s bodies?

I lead with a question that has perplexed me greatly. Of course, this has always been an issue - every year, every month, every week, every day, really - since time has existed. However, it has become a prevailing theme throughout the full of 2024. We’ve touched on this before… a few times. Problem is, you all keep pissing me off!

PART I: The Wickedness of it all

There’s a movie that’s out right now. It’s called Wicked. Perhaps you’ve heard a thing or two about it. The press tour for it has been… weird from very early on, and when I say that I mean that with no fault directed towards Ariana Grande-Butera or Cynthia Erivo in this specific instance. It’s all of you!

The conversation is just a never-ending circle. Someone posts a recent photo or video - edited or real - of Ariana Grande, which leads to discourse taking over in all directions. Every bit of discourse becomes countless nasty, negative comments directed at how Ariana looks coming from all sides.

There’s been more about this press tour to discuss - Cynthia Erivo’s concerns over being erased resulting in widespread mockery just for her to be majorly overlooked on several occasions. People making fun of these two women for being emotional after investing years of their life into this project; a project they’ve been working tirelessly to get for years beforehand, no less. Set drama. Whether or not the movie is well made... However, none of that is the conversation for today, that is just a disclaimer.

What’s important to remember is that Ariana Grande herself has said, time and time again, she doesn’t like when people comment on her body. Every time she says this, there’s an immediate pushback claiming that nobody - not one person - is harassing her. Actually, everyone commenting on her body is just out of concern. If we take their word for it, every comment is being done with the best of intentions... and that is what we a call a bold-faced lie! Even if I were to be as generous as possible and say that some of it comes in good faith from people who have struggled with eating disorders themselves, there is no way you could ever convince me that the mockery that I’ve seen online is just from people who are oh so concerned about Ariana Grande. And, let me not be generous for a second… Now that you have pointed out that you believe Ariana Grande has an eating disorder, something she has denied and said she hates the implication of… what comes next? What now? When you’re contributing to a discourse that has negatively impacted someone, it’s impossible to tell the harassment apart from genuine concern. If you think you have so much impact by tweeting to the void, the most you’ve possibly done is make her feel worse about herself…. Good job?

For the sake of fairness, there are people who claim they are not commenting on her body for her, rather for people who are looking at her and think that’s how bodies should look, because she is EVERYWHERE right now. This is one of the most highly publicized films of the year. This leads to claims that she is “promoting” eating disorders. To be clear, I don’t think anybody should be using Ariana’s body as inspo. Bodies are a complex issue, and not every body type is the same. There shouldn’t be a standard for what a body should look like. I say that to say, I think you all are acting ridiculous for fixating on her body so much. What do you want her to do? Hide in a dungeon, refusing to show her face? Speaking of which, there’s also a fixation on dissecting celebrities supposed plastic surgeries, which Ariana is a huge talking point for as well, but that’s… a whole other discussion, entirely, and also really fucking weird. Let’s leave the TikTok Plastic Surgery Analysis phase in 2024.

PART II: This is also about Sydney Sweeney

Ariana is just the beginning, though. She certainly didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. I wouldn’t even call this past year particularly egregious. For example: for as long as Lizzo has been famous, she has been consistently harassed due to her weight. Every conversation she’s ever been part of, there’s a layer of fatphobia. No matter the news story, or severity of the backlash, it all comes with the baggage that people hate her for existing in her body. Whether she gained or lost weight, people have felt compelled to say the most negative thing they can think of.

There are masses of people who feel ownership over women’s bodies and how they’re “marketed” as if they’re a product that should and shouldn’t look a specific way. When Chloe Bailey started breaking out, she was receiving widespread praised for the same thing that caused people to completely turn on her and bully her later within the same exact year. You can try to fit into that box as much as you’d like, but there will still be masses of people - experts without expertise - who will feel a certain type of way about whatever you are doing, and they will certainly vocalize as such. If you are a public figure, there is no way to avoid this — and those hiding behind their keyboards will act as though they are being virtuous for doing as such.

Which brings us to Sydney Sweeney. Do you all think you’re being kind to Sydney Sweeney? Sydney Sweeney gets sexually harassed in her comments just about every day. She’s made jokes about how she’s attracted a largely straight male audience before, and when she did SNL, she leaned into the typecast of Hot Girl. It has been perceived as though she is very comfortable with the audience that she’s cultivated. Anyways, last week she posted a clip to Instagram of several horrible comments. How ugly she is, many comments body shaming her as well - then she cut to footage of her doing boxing training. Very IDGAF war veteran of her. However, the response was not all the way positive! This actually received some backlash from people who don’t feel very empathetic towards her, almost entirely due to the audience she’s been “pandering” to being famously very misogynistic. After all, she is NOT the first celebrity to have started out being beloved by this demographic of men just for them to turn around and throw her to the wolves. When Zendaya started dating Tom Holland, this same exact shift occurred.

I’ve done an entire issue about Sydney Sweeney before, so I won’t stay here too much longer. In my opinion, the mentality that “she had it coming” is just a very cruel sentiment to feel towards someone who has been victim to widespread misogyny for years now, even if you don’t like how she’s navigated stardom. I’ve witnessed the rise of Sydney Sweeney. Just by the nature of how she looks, that audience found her - at a very young age for that matter. Claiming she’s “pandering” for that audience, and especially that she “deserves” the harassment she gets as a result of that is…. cruel? Regardless of how you feel about her or her public image.

PART III: I guess I have to talk about intimacy coordinators now…

A few things have happened while I was actively in the process of editing this piece. I don’t love how the intimacy coordinator conversation has progressed. Mikey Madison said in an interview with Pamela Anderson that she did not have an intimacy coordinator on the set of Anora. She said that it was offered to her and her leading co-star, but they said no - implying concern over being an inconvenience for production. Now, I have many minds of this discourse:

• I don’t think the backlash being placed on Mikey is fair. She just answered a question that Pamela asked in no uncertain terms. Pamela literally asked, “did you have an intimacy coordinator?” so being upset on Pamela’s behalf when she herself seemed…. perfectly fine…? is weird to me! I could go deeper into how you lot love infantilizing any women who have had wrong done to them in the past but that is just not the topic for this day.

• I don’t think implying Mikey was manipulated into not wanting an intimacy coordinator is productive either, because… she has not said that! I do have my suspicions in how the topic was presented to her, given how her reasoning cited wanting to make production go as smoothly as possible… that shouldn’t have been a concern for her, whatsoever! Still, ultimately, we can only go based on what she has said.

• Intimacy coordinators should not be a topic of debate, particularly in the way they are on Twitter. The discourse is almost entirely a result of a conservative anti-woke, anti-MeToo backlash.

At risk of being the friend who is too woke, what concerns me is how people have turned intimacy coordinators into a big joke or meme. Not only are they just a normal, if not essential, part of film productions and important for safety reasons… these jokes don’t land for me, because they’re inherently making light of sexual harassment on film sets. ESPECIALLY when you consider WHAT ELSE has just unfolded as I’m editing this.

If intimacy coordinators don’t exist, who protects the casts and crew from directors of the likes of Justin Baldoni? You all attacked Blake Lively for a solid month in the name of poor ole innocent little Justin Baldoni, and now you’re forced to confront the fact that maybe… you lot were just loud and wrong. This is largely because Blake Lively isn’t necessarily the easiest unproblematic celebrity to take the side of in the entire world. The lack of a “perfect victim” is why there are comments with 10s of thousands of likes under Justin Baldoni’s posts calling Blake a liar. Even more comments on TikTok. Articles doubting her integrity. It all falls under the Johnny Depp PR campaign blueprint. Give the public a woman enemy, social media will do the rest of the work for you. You only need to give them a bone, they will run with it.

What’s the takeaway? I don’t think there’s a solution. I can yell from rooftops, “please, just be normal!!!!!!!!” That doesn’t mean a single person will listen. I keep saying, “gee! I hope we left this energy in the 1600s!” And you all prove me so very wrong every time… well! Here’s for leaving this energy in 2024.

Happy Holidays!