Can Hollywood Be Feminist?

Hollywood is the land of archetypes. Everyone in the entertainment business fits inside a box and those celebrities have been looked at as role models for years. Because we live in a system where the highest form of success is getting a lot of money, it’s only natural we’d strive to be like them. Objectively, they’re doing pretty well for themselves. And because they know we’re listening, they’ll use their voice to pass on their tips to success as well.

Women in entertainment have always had to be more vocal, which can be traced to centuries ago when they weren’t allowed to be on stage — the only women who “performed” in public were prostitutes.

In the past month, there’s been a resurgence of female empowerment messages among big-time entertainers such as Beyoncé (who sang about how girls run the world), Rihanna (who played a victim murdering her rapist) and Reese Witherspoon (who called for a return to  “good girls” and her vision of sexual integrity). But are these messages moving feminism forward at all?

If you dig in a little bit to what these three women are saying, they’re all contradicting each other in some way. Beyoncé has never made a sex tape (that we know of) but her new bird-flipping persona in the “Run the World” isn’t entirely in line with Witherspoon’s “good girl” ideal. On top of that, Beyoncé’s greatest asset, other than her singing, is her booty and how she shakes it. This reliance on sex appeal to succeed (over talent) is what Witherspoon was trying to discourage.

On the other hand, Rihanna’s “Man Down” video shows that girls don’t rule the world. Otherwise, she would have a less destructive recourse than murder to get over her trauma. And of course, “good girls” can’t be criminals.

But even more problematic than the contradictions are the implications of their overly simplified messages. If all girls used their sex appeal the way Beyoncé does to get ahead in a typical office setting, they would probably not gain the respect needed to get promoted to run the company.

And although sexual assault must be extremely distressing, choosing murder over legal action doesn’t help better the perception of victims who all too often are ignored when they accuse someone of abusing them. Finally, separating good girls and bad girls is pointless; not only does it promote a sex-shaming attitude, it also puts women against women when unity and collaboration are at the core of the feminist movement.

Obviously not all feminist discourse is the same and different approaches are necessary to help it succeed. The civil rights movement gained from having both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. But these three performers’ empowering messages ring hollow because they’re only scratching at the surface of problems that affect all women. Perhaps this is because Hollywood has a hard time dealing with subtlety. It’s all about marketing slogans, scandals and shock value.

Is all of this bringing the feminist movement backwards? Probably not. But they’re not empowering us either. Their messages are not grounded in any sort of reality and don’t call for any tangible action.

The only hope we can have is that what these women say will push other to learn more about feminism on their own. But that raises another question: When was the last time E! ran a special on the top feminists in Hollywood?

Contact the author here: sedera@morningquickie.com