Ashley "Puffy" Judd - "The insanity has to stop"

commandlinegamer

Philosopher
commandlinegamer
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Responds after media criticism about her appearance, specifically her face and whether she has had plastic surgery.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl.../articles+(The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles)

I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle...

That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.
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The media attacks on her are a pretty poor show, but they're hardly unusual.
This is par for the course.

How could it be otherwise when you have whole industries dedicated to telling women (and to a lesser extent, men) how ugly they are, and if only they wear Product X, or use Diet Y, they'll be beautiful.

But can we blame the media, if we ourselves do it in everyday life, if we are complicit in being mean toward our friends, family or acquaintances?
 
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I like her. But she wouldn't be a Hollywood star, with its attendant millions of dollars, if it weren't for her looks, regardless of talent (and that ignores the patriarchy that set up the freedom-based capitalism that generates such income.) Discussing it is fair play.

And she's right about that which she talks.
 
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commandlinegamer said:
But can we blame the media, if we ourselves do it in everyday life, if we are complicit in being mean toward our friends, family or acquaintances?
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We can if the media is to whatever degree responsible for modeling this behavior for us from infancy. I mean, why do we do this? Where did we likely learn it?

Of course I know we are responsible for our own behavior. But several branches of science (behavioral sciences, biology, genetics, etc.) have been generating some interesting talk that we may be hard-wired to form social in-groups, and to distance ourselves from the out-groups, as a matter of survival. If a specific out-group becomes more socially active with our group, if we get to know them and calm our fears, and see our mutual points of commonality, we may eventually accept them within the in-group. Like the Irish in America, for instance.

So we probably see this in-group, out-group modeling from a very early age, and when we combine it with our natural proclivity to group up in the first place, well, it kind of seems to follow we'd emulate it, doesn't it?
 
slingblade said:
We can if the media is to whatever degree responsible for modeling this behavior for us from infancy. I mean, why do we do this? Where did we likely learn it?

Of course I know we are responsible for our own behavior. But several branches of science (behavioral sciences, biology, genetics, etc.) have been generating some interesting talk that we may be hard-wired to form social in-groups, and to distance ourselves from the out-groups, as a matter of survival. If a specific out-group becomes more socially active with our group, if we get to know them and calm our fears, and see our mutual points of commonality, we may eventually accept them within the in-group. Like the Irish in America, for instance.

So we probably see this in-group, out-group modeling from a very early age, and when we combine it with our natural proclivity to group up in the first place, well, it kind of seems to follow we'd emulate it, doesn't it?
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I agree. I see it as an "art imitating life imitating art" kind of scenario.
 
I think it's horrendous the way the media pours over any female celebrity who gains some weight, or is photographed in an unflattering way, and openly insults them. It's a messed up thing to do, and it's messed up that people want to read about it.
 
I guess she's taken some courses in Women's Studies. It reads like something written by an academic to impress other academics. "Inter alia"? Had to look that one up.
 
Seismosaurus said:
I think it's horrendous the way the media pours over any female celebrity who gains some weight, or is photographed in an unflattering way, and openly insults them. It's a messed up thing to do, and it's messed up that people want to read about it.
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I hardly feel sorry for them, they get paid plenty of money to have those horrible gay celeb internet drama queens criticizing every move they make.
 
In the long term...

...I believe in the power of the dialectic.

Keep hammering home the shallow nature of our expectations of beauty. We will get there. It's just going to take some time.
 
Puppycow said:
I guess she's taken some courses in Women's Studies. It reads like something written by an academic to impress other academics. "Inter alia"? Had to look that one up.
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She has a Master Of Public Administration degree from Harvard and a Bachelor degree in French from Kentucky University.
 
HAHA, yeah, it's straight men hounding women through the media about their looks.

She needs to look to other women and a bunch of powerful gay men for the source of the 'misogyny' that is hounding her.
 
Jekyll's Guest said:
HAHA, yeah, it's straight men hounding women through the media about their looks.

She needs to look to other women and a bunch of powerful gay men for the source of the 'misogyny' that is hounding her.
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Um, I think that was her point :confused: .
 
I wonder if "they" are calling Leo "puffy":

454px-Leonardo_DiCaprio_2010.jpg


He's 6 years younger, but dude... his head is like twice as wide as it used to be. Same thing with John Travolta and Alex Baldwin.
 
Macgyver1968 said:
I wonder if "they" are calling Leo "puffy":

[qimg]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46946106/454px-Leonardo_DiCaprio_2010.jpg[/qimg]

He's 6 years younger, but dude... his head is like twice as wide as it used to be. Same thing with John Travolta and Alex Baldwin.
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The dude isn't 'puffy', he just looks like any guy who's getting older.

Fat faced.
 
Jekyll's Guest said:
The dude isn't 'puffy', he just looks like any guy who's getting older.

Fat faced.
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You're right...it happens to all of us. I used to weight a buck and a quarter, and now at 44, I'm pushing 180. I was just trying to point out that men in Hollywood seem to be judged by a different standard than women.
 
Macgyver1968 said:
You're right...it happens to all of us. I used to weight a buck and a quarter, and now at 44, I'm pushing 180. I was just trying to point out that men in Hollywood seem to be judged by a different standard than women.
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Do you think Ryan Renolds is going to get many parts when he lets his six pack go and gets wrinkles?
 
Jekyll's Guest said:
HAHA, yeah, it's straight men hounding women through the media about their looks.

She needs to look to other women and a bunch of powerful gay men for the source of the 'misogyny' that is hounding her.
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Can anyone find a link to one or more of the articles critical of her looks to which she was responding?

I'd like to see if we can verify that it's really "women and gay men" that are responsible for all the catty comments.
 
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