The Sex And The City backlash was to be expected, but what I found interesting is how the criticisms of Sarah Jessica Parker and the other SATC stars have now gone beyond the played out "horse-face" or "old-hag" insults. Within the last month, someone has essentially "decapitated" Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and The City movie poster in London and New York Time Out magazine featured the four stars of SATC with duct tape over their mouths.
However, New York Press magazine's latest cover takes the cake: All four women are dumped in trash bins with only their stilettoed legs visible - jutting out the tops of the bins like four bouquets of horribly arranged, wilted flowers.
What bothers me about all this, is that instead of journalists writing seething articles tearing apart the quality of the screenplay or Kim Cattrall's acting skills, they're simply attacking the way the women of the film look, and spit on all the silly women who are stupid enough to idolize them. What bothers me even more is that they don't just leave it at that. They now have to use images of what are essentially scenes of violence against women as a way of selling these magazines.
When the press hate something a man is doing, the occasional journo will occasionally throw out the words "fat" or "unattractive", yet they seem to focus on tearing apart a man's opinions, political views, or ability to do their job. What they don't do, is have someone photo shop an image of the man under scrutiny with duct tape across his mouth, or shove him in a trash can with only his legs sticking out. Where are all the images of male celebrities with their heads cut off?
Men are trashed differently than women in the press, this is not a new revelation. We've all been aware of this for a painfully long time. Yet it says something disturbing about our society that when four women become too famous or too popular, our immediate reaction is to shut them up by any means possible. Tape their mouths shut, shove them in the trash, and chop off their pretty little heads; it doesn't matter as long as they've been silenced and are kept out of site. It used to be that little girls were to be seen and not heard, but it seems as though when they tire of seeing us, that we should vanish....out of sight, out of mind, and back in the kitchen where we belong.
**UPDATE** I am aware of the fact that the "beheaded" image of Carrie Bradshaw was from The Decapitator. I'm also aware of the fact that he/she does this to men, as well. However, if you look at the link that Kate provided us in the below comment, there are many more beheaded females than men, with the only prominent male celebrity being David Beckham.
Cate Sevilla is the Editor of Dollymix until the end of today.
