Not So Glamorous

TW: Discussion of sexual exploitation Written by Rachel Hale, Culture Editor Graphic by Mac Gale, Staff Graphic Artist

With her sun-kissed legs, bleach-blonde locks and sumptuous curves, Evelyn Hugo, the protagonist of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” is a bombshell. Throughout Reid’s bestselling novel, the actress capitalizes on her good looks and charisma to climb from poverty to Hollywood success, stopping at nothing to accomplish her goals—even when that means relying on her sexual appeal. Hugo isn’t the only prominent depiction of the use of sex as a means of gaining something. From Lana Del Rey’s “Fucked My Way Up To The Top” to Diana Payne of “Gossip Girl” sleeping with Nate Archibald to gain scoop for her blog, the level of truth to Reid’s fictional realm begs the question: is exploiting our sexuality worth it? Let’s be clear. Sex—or the idea of sex— sells. Think of Marilyn Monroe’s helpful marketing when she told a 1952 interviewer that she wore “five drops of Chanel No. 5”1 and nothing else to bed, or the double entendre of Calvin Klein’s 1980 campaign, where 15-yearold Brooke Shields told the camera, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”2 These campaigns might be advertising a product, but what they’re really selling is sex. Viewing the female stars of these campaigns, one can’t help but wonder if there’s some gain to be had in taking advantage of gender constructs when women are punished by the paradoxical nature of sexism one way or another. As Andrea Bartz said in her 2019 “Sometimes I Exploit My Sexuality and I’m Not Sorry” piece for Marie Claire, “We live in a sexist world where sexi-

¹ Libby Banks, “Marilyn Monroe Chanel No. 5 Perfume Advert,” Refinery29, Oct. 17, 2013. ² Emily Kirkpatrick, “Brooke Shields Says She Was ‘Naive’ Not to Think Her ‘80s Calvin Klein Commercial ‘Was Sexual in Nature,’” Vanity Fair, Oct. 29, 2021. ness can be an asset, and it’s fine for women to wield it to get what they want.”3 But when it comes to profiting off of one’s body, it’s not a fair bargain for women. A 2018 analysis of 1,100 popular films found that over 25% of women involved in filming had nude scenes, in contrast to under 10% of men,4 and a 2019 study found female characters in leadership roles were four times as likely to be shown nude in movies as their male counterparts.5 In the novel, Hugo’s filming of a sex scene kickstarts a second wind into her career, but at the cost of causing personal turmoil with her partner. The fame female stars experience as a result of these scenes or advertisements is contingent on their nudity, not necessarily on their acting or modeling abilities, and often puts them in a box for the rest of their careers. Reflecting on the aforementioned Calvin Klein campaign, Shields said she was too young to realize the connotation of what she was saying, and was shocked when critics berated her for doing the ad. Years after dancing naked in the 2013 “Blurred Lines” music video that skyrocketed her to fame, Emily Ratajkowski wrote in her book “My Body” that Robin Thicke groped her without consent during filming. Discussing the contradictions of a career that made her feel empowered one moment and frustrated for not being taken seriously beyond her body the next,6 she writes that she “so desperately craved men’s validation” that she accepted it “even when it came wrapped in disrespect.”7

³ Andrea Bartz, “Sometimes I Exploit My Sexuality and I’m Not Sorry,” Marie Claire Magazine, Feb. 26, 2019. ⁴ Stacy L. Smith et al., “Inequality in 1100 Popular Films,” USC Annenberg, July 2018. ⁵ Liesl Goecker, “On Screen, Women in Leadership Roles Are Four Times as Likely as Men to Be Shown Nude, Finds New Report,” The Swaddle, Oct. 4, 2019 ⁶ Carrie Battan, “Emily Ratajkowski and the Burden of Being Perfect-Looking,” The New Yorker, Nov. 9, 2021. ⁷ Ibid. In an increasingly pornified culture, the line between sexual objectification and empowerment is often blurred, but editors at Everyday Feminism bring up a simple mechanism for distinguishing between the two: asking who has power in the situation, the person being viewed (such as a model, actress or saleswoman) or the person overseeing the situation (a director, casting agent or upper-level boss)?8 Women have their own agency to choose which jobs to accept and how they earn an interview in the first place, but the unequal level of female and male nudity in media suggests a lot about the underlying gender roles that dictate opportunity. We can fight the stigma against women who use their bodies for work while also acknowledging that the industries in which they do so are exploitative by design. Reid writes Hugo’s character to help readers recognize these boxes and to realize that while Hugo isn’t always moral, she likely wouldn’t have made the same choices if she had the same opportunities as her male counterparts in the first place. ■

⁸ Ronnie Ritchie, “How Can You Tell If You’re Being Sexually Empowered or Objectified? Ask Yourself This Simple Question,” Everyday Feminism, Aug. 13, 2020.