Wait, what?
I’ve bounced back and forth over this one. And this is going to annoy some of you because, well, I just don’t do feminism very well. It’s not for lack of trying, mind you. It’s just that, even when I try not to, I end up being an asshole anyway.
Still, you gotta’ try, right?
So.
On one side you have people who argue that by showing the voluptuous, zaftig Hendricks/Holloway as so unabashedly sexy – so remarkably in control of her sexuality – Mad Men challenges contemporary notions of attractiveness that idealise thinness. In fetishising both the fashion of the 60s and Joan Holloway’s decidedly ‘not-skinny’ body, Mad Men projects a differing model of the female desirability. Similar attempts to portray a more inclusive visions of (it must be said, white, typically attractive) women can feel so counter to the norm, that it makes some women want ‘to shout from the rooftops’.
On the other, you have people who argue that in presenting a specific ‘feminine ideal’ through the lens of the male gaze – the idea that representations of women always conform to the whims of an implied straight male viewer – isn’t a helpful move at all, but instead is simply a repetition of the objectification of women. In fact, even worse is that by explicitly making Joan an object of male desire, the show fetishises the act of fetishisation itself: it makes a hot woman being gawked at seem like an act of empowerment. And like Marilyn Monroe before her, Hendricks is ‘blessed’ with almost cartoonish hourglass proportions. It’s an expansion of an ideal only if you too can look like a skinny woman hiding two well-placed tires under her dress. (Look, I told you this was going to be bad.)
I haven’t really linked to any other opinions above, so what’s clear is that there are a lot of people with opinions floating around in my head - one of whom is probably a bit of a misogynist twit who likes to say stupid things like “man, Joan Holloway is really fucking hot”, particularly after a couple of G&T’s.
But as I roamed the streets late at night a couple of days ago, thinking – this is just something I do – what bothered me about the latter option is that it relies on the possibility of an alternative. It suggests there’s a better way to do things. And in an abstract sense there is. But when you consider audiences and economics and the entrenchment of gender norms – is there?
See, trouble is, we get mired in the same never-ending questions that have plagued feminism for decades: can you broadly change the idea of attractiveness without presenting a new vision of attractiveness in the public space?; is there any way to re-frame notions of attractiveness without asking individuals to aspire to some kind of ideal?; and is the entire notion of visually recognisable attractiveness that is about body types – rather than the things that bodies do – tenable from a feminist perspective?
These questions are too hard. For me, anyway. So let’s go to a better one.
Does seeing Hendricks/Holloway on screen make people feel better – especially women? My anecdotal evidence – based on a large, representative sampling of 2 or 3 women who, for reasons unknown, are still willing to speak to me – says yes.
But like I said, I do feminism badly.
So whaddya’ think?
#1 by Julie on September 30, 2009 - 8:44 am
Well I do feminism badly too, but I’d say yes. (By the way, I think she’s hot too) .
#2 by Melissa on September 30, 2009 - 8:42 pm
Joan is ridiculously hot, as is Hendricks. Although it annoys me that at the Emmys, fashion reporters had to comment that her dress was custom: a.k.a. she’s not a sample size, a.k.a. she’s fat.
Maybe another question would be, “Is Peggy Olson’s body a feminist act?” Or Peggy Olson’s face, really. While Peggy doesn’t get fetishized the way Joan does, she gets her share of action (see Sunday’s episode), and men who desire her do so not only for her body, but also for her smarts and talent. All this, despite not being conventionally attractive, and spending much of Season 1 explicitly unattractive. Sounds pretty empowering to me.
#3 by Nav on October 1, 2009 - 4:23 pm
Ooh, that’s smart Melissa. I like that idea – that Peggy takes charge of her life (and desire) while not being objectified. I guess that’s what I meant by this idea of ‘what bodies do’ rather than what they look like. That’s simplistic, obviously, but I guess this another thing I’ve wondered about recently: how and why did sexuality become so focused on the visual?
Sorta’ related: that line where Peggy said to Don “You have everything. And you have so much of it” was so great.
#4 by Melissa on October 1, 2009 - 7:19 pm
If you watch the early episodes, Peggy seems to be, whether consciously or unconsciously, trying to make remove herself from the possibility of objectification; by Sterling Cooper standards, that means wearing long skirts and having a bad haircut. I think it’s significant that the person to make her pretty (with the new hair) was gay; seemed to be suggesting that it’s okay to work on your attractiveness, but not to get male attention. Makes sense then that Joan is unhappy in love–she’s doing it for the boys, not for her.
As for sex = visual: isn’t that a male thing? I hate to be reductionist, but I think that genetically men are more attuned to visual stimulation, or so I’ve read. As for why men’s preferences have come to trump women’s, je ne sais pas. Too many factors to count.
Love that line. Hate that he blew up at her on Sunday. Hope Betty gets some action on the fainting couch, and not with Don. And when did Duck get the throw down?
#5 by mir on October 9, 2009 - 5:13 pm
Huh,
I have a way different take on Peggy. I think she is constantly off-kilter when issues of attractiveness arise. For one thing, (and this is also about my insane desire to second guess the writers of Mad Men), I think we all know Duck Phillips is like an older (only slightly) smarter version of Pete Campbell (who already screwed darling Peggy). She is getting more of the same treatment and may well be getting set up as a corporate spy as well. At least that’s what I see coming down the pipe. Peggy is not in control when men seduce her, her expression is always “why do you think I’m attractive” which leaves her subject to their whims. Juxtapose that with Joan and Betty who are all “why would you not?” Generally speaking (except in matters of rape) they are picking and choosing. Unfortunately for them the options they have still suck. Which leads me to my next point.
None of the main women in the show are in control of their lives, (Except for Peggy who is not in control of her sexuality ironically, and this may have helped her take control of her life because what other options did she have. Ie; was Peggy an ugly duckling first and then got ambitious or was she an ambitious ugly duckling?), and that is because of their relationships. Joan is presently screwed because her dingbat of a husband can’t get his fat fingers to do anything except push his wife around. Betty is basically phoning in her marriage in from the fainting couch. But both of those women have masterful control of their sexuality. Relationships and sexuality are not in my head at least, the same thing. I think these days in the first world women have a huge amount of control over their lives and their relationship choices but some of us are more like Peggy, uncomfortable around questions of attractiveness and sexuality because it seems wrong to be “trying” to get stared at.
In the “old days” a woman could really only control her sexuality. Being confident in their attractiveness was a tactical advantage, not a liberating thing.
I think now we (including feminists) need to figure out how sexual attractiveness can be experienced as liberating and not manipulative or competitive. We need to do this because it is wonderful to stare at and moon over hot, stifled Joan, sweet, cunning Peggy, and cool, sad Betty.
At least I think it’s wonderful.
#6 by Nav on October 11, 2009 - 11:47 am
Thanks for the great comment Mir.
That’s interesting – I wonder now to what extent my own reaction was somehow about my own ‘straight male desire’ – i.e. me entirely giving in to the ‘why would you not?’ approach to things.
What you said about sexuality/attractiveness and control is very smart. I hadn’t been able to figure that out, but that notion of attractiveness as a tactical advantage (and yet, personal limitation in a patriarchal system) is one of the things that the show does well.
As for sexual attractiveness becoming liberating – that’s a tough one. If it’s visual, under capitalism it’s hard to imagine how it could be anything but a commodity, or another tactical advantage.
Where I started, I guess, was basically whether the idolisation of Christina Hendricks’ body-type could be read as liberating, even though traditionally, most feminists wouldn’t. I think I’m now leaning towards no… but am not 100% clear why. Somehow it just feels wrong. Thoughts?
#7 by mir on October 12, 2009 - 10:41 am
Well, last nights episode totally launched a whole new sexuality as weapon trajectory. Poor Sal, if you haven’t seen it yet I’ll try not to give it away, but poor Sal.
I think idolizing curves, (okay, confession, I am curvy so I may not be 100% objective) is actually liberating. But that is because I live in a culture where being a size 2 is considered awesome and being a size 12 borders on the despicable. Anytime someone argues for the underdog that can be seen as reactive ‘against” in this case a hegemonic standard of beauty. Hence loving Joan is okay, but loving Betty less so. That’s simplistic though, and I think being appreciative of women’s bods can be liberating under capitalism without necessarily being reactive. Or as we(intellectuals) tend to fall into, “I have to love what others consider ugly, because if I love what is stereotypically considered beautiful without irony then I am implicitly creating the ugly/ beauty dichotomy in myself, and becoming trapped”.
I was getting a pedicure yesterday and also got an eyeful of women’s magazines. There were two articles that I read in their entirety, one was about how young girls in mauritania get sent to fat camps to gain weight, making them candidates for earlier marriage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/world/africa/03iht-mauritania.4.6472166.html
The other was about a young working class Chinese woman who is a mail order bride for a Chinese-Canadian lawyer who cautions her not to gain weight before their wedding.
In reading both these articles I realized that what was at issue was that the male gaze here was being used to enforce or demand body modifications and thus entrapment.
Having a lustful ‘gaze’ (for both sexes BTW…) is pretty hardwired, but to use the usually more powerful male gaze to demand submission, to try to change someones experience of their own physical reality I find appalling.
To enjoy† beauty, to love a person’s body for what it is, to accept a level of perfection or a perfect match to your desires, or take pleasure in someone else’s skin on yours, I refuse to accept that this is a part of a capitalist plot. As long as you know you are being subjective to your own desire, and allow that you love the other person as they are. Then how can that be as bad as the above two examples?
I would have a much harder time being shaped the way I was if i hadn’t received meaningful and loving appreciation, so don’t stop loving curvy women just because there is also the possibility that someone else is being a jerk and trying to tell that women how she should look.
Sorry this is something I have talked about a lot with friends so if I sound soap-boxy I probably am.
Okay I have to run out and pick up my vintage cocktail dress for the Madmen party now.
For more wordy meditations on beauty and justice read: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6675.html
Though she is writing about aesthetics, not feminism and not specifically about desire.
#8 by Nav on October 13, 2009 - 12:26 pm
Thanks again for a great comment.
Sorry if I did the ‘it’s all a capitalist plot!’ thing. I sorta’ hate that. What I meant was the confluence of economics and media always means sexuality can become mediated (or dominated) by the visual, by an economy of desire with no release. That’s what troubles me about idolisation. It’s not that it prevents one from enjoying the feeling of skin-on-skin. Rather, it’s that it constructs desire in a manner such that you only want certain skin attached to certain bodies.
Is desiring Joan wrong? I dunno. Sometimes, I feel pretty fucking guilty about it for precisely the reasons you’ve outlined – it feels like I’m giving into ‘hegemony’ or whatever one wants to call it. Even more so with Betty. And really, it’s the same thing walking around a university campus full of twenty-somethings. There are constant visual gestures towards something called sexuality, but I guess lately I’ve been wondering why there’s so much distance between the sight of taut, tanned bodies and the feeling of squishy curves (okay, now this is getting really fucking weird. It’s hard writing about these things as a straight guy!)
So, while I agree with your very well thought-out points, I guess my issue is that though the public representation of ‘curvy women’ can be great, it can also be just as frustratingly aspirational. Christina Hendricks, Beyonce… these are only ‘regular women’ in that more women are a size 8 or a size 12 than are a size 2. So it’s better, but still feels off. But then, I also get to think about this in a far more abstract manner, so maybe I should shut up. I dunno’.
Anyway, really appreciate the very smart comments.
#9 by mir on October 15, 2009 - 12:41 pm
Hmmm. I like the dichotomy between the ‘squishy real’, and the ‘taut visual’. I think your conflicted (ahem) lustiness sums up what makes post-modern critical theory meaningful for so many people. The plus side of this totally awkward conversation is that we go there without being mind-numbingly verbose and dry as dirt !
I used to get really frustrated when theorists described the spectacle and simulacrum etc.. All these ideas around the non-real in everyday life, and it’s impact on people’s ability to feel connected or grounded in their world, then the weird leap to capitalism. I didn’t get it so I was put-off.
I think I get it now though, through Joan, who is a non-real real. Her body is unreal, her experience is similarly unreal to the the viewer, because she is living in a time and through a circumstance that not many people I know could share.
But her body is also super-real because it is all soft and squishy, and stuck in these unsubtle 60′s clothes that actually make it seem more vulnerable by binding it up like a fortress. (The fortress/clothes are I think metaphors for capitalist hegemony) Her vulnerability causes the audience to empathize with her character which in turn means they become uncomfortable with their desire for her unreality, her ‘sex objecthood’. Her sex objecthood is not because she is vulnerable and curvy and soft, but because she is all the above + protected/displayed by the fortress clothes. I think the term for this is co-produced. Desire/discomfort is co-produced by the capitalist hegemony.
phewf I think I am over-thinking.
#10 by Rosie on October 19, 2009 - 8:59 pm
“I have a way different take on Peggy. I think she is constantly off-kilter when issues of attractiveness arise. For one thing, (and this is also about my insane desire to second guess the writers of Mad Men), I think we all know Duck Phillips is like an older (only slightly) smarter version of Pete Campbell (who already screwed darling Peggy).”
Other than the fact that both men have had sex with Peggy and both are accounts men, I see NO resemblance between Duck Phillips and Pete Campbell.
#11 by mir on October 20, 2009 - 8:08 am
Really??
They are both slimeballs, they both manipulate people, they both are out for self in an obvious way. They both have a moral compass that doesn’t seem to steer them in the right direction.
The only difference is that Duck has a drinking problem, and Pete Campbell is a bit of a wimp.
Duck is like Pete’s future, and that is why Pete is so antsy around him.
#12 by A. Arvelo McQuaig on October 27, 2009 - 3:55 pm
I feel like there is a big problem with Joan’s hyper-sexual depiction in Mad Men (as with many [if not most] depictions of females in popular culture). I don’t think that her voluptuous figure changes much; though it’s perhaps a little less of an outlandishly unhealthful physical ideal for the show to be promoting, it seems equally unattainable, as you mentioned (at least without some kind of crazy plastic surgery or something).
I suppose what I’m saying is fairly predictable and superfluous, but when I watch the show, Peggy is definitely more of a “subject,” while Joan more of an “object.” Surely this is partly due to differences between their characters’ respective roles in the show and not purely inherent to the characters, but I feel I can relate with Peggy much more than with Joan largely because the latter’s body is so ostentatiously sexualised, while Peggy has (especially initially) been presented through less of a sexual lens (wearing less revealing clothing, etc.). I mean, when Joan is on screen I can hardly even hear what she’s saying. This is probably because I’m a heterosexual male with an undeniable interest in such voluptuous figures, but yeah, I guess for this reason, I feel like Joan’s body, as presented in Mad Men, is, if anything, “anti-feminist” if you will.
#13 by Ruby N. Esque on January 14, 2010 - 10:29 pm
First — I have to admit that I stumbled onto this page after Google Alerts turned it up as it related to the name “Christina Hendricks.”
I am an avid Man Man follower and a Christina Hendricks fan. I have to thank the author of this article because the majority of my Google Alerts focus on tits. I have yet to see an intriguing discussion of character and feminism, at least not this season. I’ve seen some posts but none have elicited the responses like I’ve read thus far.
I think we have to separate Joan Holloway from her body, and also from Christina’s body and personality before we can dig into this conversation. I think by today’s standards, Joan Holloway’s attire is sexy and provocative. It is what my husband would call, “Casual slutty,” meaning that the attire is office-like but boarderline inappropriate for its suggestive nature.
However for the time period it is not uncommon. A woman in the workplace – apart from a factory somewhere – was expected to be pretty, primped, useful, and unobstructive. Is her attire so different than Besty Draper?
My husband’s grandmother wore a girdle all the time unless she was sleeping. Women also frequently did chores wearing only a bra as a matter of comfort and protecting clothes. I’ve heard stories about a great-aunt who mowed the lawn and hung laundry while wearing only her bra. My grandmother has closets full of beautifully matched dresses, shoes, coats, handbags, scarves, and hats from that precise time period. Women went to the hairdresser, they permed and colored each others’ hair at home, they took pains to put their hair in curlers many nights, and they wouldn’t dream of leaving their houses without lipstick any more than we would leave without our cell phones. This wasn’t limited to professional women, it was a norm for the many of women – or at least recollection would have us believe as much. Rich, poor, working, or running errands, women looked “finished.” They wouldn’t go to the grocery store in pajamas. It was a different time.
I would argue that what is sexy about Joan [apart from those endowments that surely have their own gravitational pull] is the way she carries herself. Not unlike Peggy, she too is respected for her smarts. People are lured in by her figure but shocked by her wit. (I wonder if our society is still unable to believe a person who is beautiful or sexy can also be intelligent.) Roger Sterling doesn’t call her in the middle of the night solely because he misses putting his old man hands all over her skin, but because she is wise, empathetic, take-charge, willing to do anything, and is gifted with the rare ability to say or do the perfect thing when it’s most needed. She is unbelievably forgiving and tolerant. Joan wasn’t taken along to the new company for her ass, they took her because she was the only one smart enough to keep it all together for them.
But back to the way she carries herself. She walks in a way that lets people know she is quite aware of the ways their attention is focused on her – and not in a work-related way. She speaks and behaves in a way that communicates her outspokenness has been hard-won; the chauvenism that she endures gives her license to behave the ways she does.
What I find entertaining about the attention Joan has drawn to Christina is that people have seemingly lost their ability to carry on intelligent conversation with or about her. By comparison, Christina’s personality is much more bubbly and less measured and cunning than the character she portrays in Joan. Her wardrobe is at times considerably more revealing and yet in stark difference to Joan, is not neccesarily screaming sex. Joan’s wardrobe accentuates her body but it is Joan’s attitude that shrieks sexuality. Christina’s wardrobe is revealing and yet her attitude downplays the sexual nature of her uncommon curves. I recall one clip of an awards show where a slender black tv personality (I regret I can’t recollect her name) stares Christina up and down and stammers, “YOUR BODY IS SLAMMIN’!”
Apparently few can interview her without a veiled reference to how the viewership has reacted to “Joan” while they pretend Christina isn’t wearing the exact same boobs that Joan sports.
What I wonder is this: was Joan’s description written as follows: “Tall, giant-titted, sassy redhead who makes Jessica Rabbit look anorexic and flat-chested.” I doubt it. I think with a different actress, say January Jones, playing the role of Joan the audience would still be shocked by the audacity of a woman to realize that she is sexy, talented, useful, intelligent, and able to command some kind of respect and attention from her coworkers and superiors both in and outside of the workplace.
I apologize this has taken on the length of a novel. I wish I could comment more on others replies, but alas my comment shouldn’t be longer than this well-written article. I hope you hang around for season 4!
#14 by Ktrig on October 29, 2010 - 1:16 am
To the guy who thought that men are more visual than woman –
I hate to disappoint you, but women are equally visual. I focus on a man’s looks just as much as his intellect, character and personality. If a man dresses like a slob and looks bad, I won’t pay attention to him, especially if he expects me to be attractive. (BTW, I am considered very good looking.) Smart men know that women are visual. And if we women ever get the political clout that we deserve, we will admit that we want good-looking men. Period.
#15 by Rain on December 19, 2011 - 2:15 am
So… what happens when a girl is all three?
Cool Betty
Sweet Peggy
and overtly sensual Joan?