"Time and time again in Hollywood we see women get ripped to shreds based on clothing choices, who they’re dating, how mean they were in an interview."-- Maya Mastropasqua, 8th grade
Time and time again in Hollywood we see women get ripped to shreds based on clothing choices, who they’re dating, how mean they were in an interview. More often than not , successful actresses who work their way up to “it girl” status suffer a devastating downfall for “offenses” we wouldn’t deign on actors of their same caliber.
A prime example of the downfall of a successful woman in Hollywood is Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence skyrocketed to fame when she starred as Katnis Everdeen in The Hunger Games. From 2013-2016 she appeared in the Time’s Most Influential People List and The Celebrity 100 List. She was the world’s highest paid actress in 2015 and 2016 – grossing over 6 billion dollars worldwide.
From her first press tour, Lawrence was widely considered a “cool girl.” The Buzzfeed News article, Public Scrutiny Destroyed Jennifer Lawrence. Now She Wants to Win Us Back, describes the cool girl persona, “She’s open about sex. She doesn’t have the body hang-ups of other women, and will happily devour cheeseburgers, fries, and pizza while also maintaining her ‘size 2’ figure.” The body image and sexuality aspect of the “cool girl” is one that the media has been obsessed with in women’s careers for a long time.
An early example of this can be seen with Marilyn Monroe. While Monroe was a talented actress, appearing in multiple critically acclaimed movies, her talent isn’t what is commonly focused on. When people think of Marilyn Monroe they think of her as a “blonde bombshell.” We think of her revealing clothing, her sultry rendition of “happy birthday” to JFK—we think of her as a sex symbol.
The Washington Post interviewed Prof. Lucy Bolton (guest editor of the “#Marilyneveryday: The Persistence of Marilyn Monroe as a Cultural Icon” essay), says Monroe has “come to stand for the very essence of glamor and beauty.” She also attributes her fame to her tragic background, “She’s got a victim narrative, which, like Judy Garland or Princess Diana, has its own aura of tragedy. And people are attracted to that.”
More recent examples of this are with celebrities like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. The Britanica page on Britney Spears puts her rise to fame in 1998 when her hit single, “...Baby One More Time” was released. There was some initial controversy regarding the lyrics, and Spears’—who was 16 at the time—provocative appearance in the music video. The attention only helped the song, and set in stone her “naughty sex girl persona” that was so exciting and attractive to people. The album topped the charts and sold over $10 million copies in the US. Spears' image coincided with the “Lolita” fantasy of a sexual, provocative young girl. This can be very clearly seen in her 1999 Rolling Stones cover she did at 17, lying on a bed, holding a teletubby stuffed animal in a bra and underwear.
In 2007, Spears underwent a divorce to Kevin Federline, mental health struggles, and relentless paparazzi—all leading to her infamous “breakdown.” The media was absolutely ruthless. Tabloids were hashing out her every move and judging her harshly, with magazine titles like “Britney Is Put In a Mental Hospital” and “Meltdown: Britney Explodes With Rage.”
A prime example of the downfall of a successful woman in Hollywood is Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence skyrocketed to fame when she starred as Katnis Everdeen in The Hunger Games. From 2013-2016 she appeared in the Time’s Most Influential People List and The Celebrity 100 List. She was the world’s highest paid actress in 2015 and 2016 – grossing over 6 billion dollars worldwide.
From her first press tour, Lawrence was widely considered a “cool girl.” The Buzzfeed News article, Public Scrutiny Destroyed Jennifer Lawrence. Now She Wants to Win Us Back, describes the cool girl persona, “She’s open about sex. She doesn’t have the body hang-ups of other women, and will happily devour cheeseburgers, fries, and pizza while also maintaining her ‘size 2’ figure.” The body image and sexuality aspect of the “cool girl” is one that the media has been obsessed with in women’s careers for a long time.
An early example of this can be seen with Marilyn Monroe. While Monroe was a talented actress, appearing in multiple critically acclaimed movies, her talent isn’t what is commonly focused on. When people think of Marilyn Monroe they think of her as a “blonde bombshell.” We think of her revealing clothing, her sultry rendition of “happy birthday” to JFK—we think of her as a sex symbol.
The Washington Post interviewed Prof. Lucy Bolton (guest editor of the “#Marilyneveryday: The Persistence of Marilyn Monroe as a Cultural Icon” essay), says Monroe has “come to stand for the very essence of glamor and beauty.” She also attributes her fame to her tragic background, “She’s got a victim narrative, which, like Judy Garland or Princess Diana, has its own aura of tragedy. And people are attracted to that.”
More recent examples of this are with celebrities like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. The Britanica page on Britney Spears puts her rise to fame in 1998 when her hit single, “...Baby One More Time” was released. There was some initial controversy regarding the lyrics, and Spears’—who was 16 at the time—provocative appearance in the music video. The attention only helped the song, and set in stone her “naughty sex girl persona” that was so exciting and attractive to people. The album topped the charts and sold over $10 million copies in the US. Spears' image coincided with the “Lolita” fantasy of a sexual, provocative young girl. This can be very clearly seen in her 1999 Rolling Stones cover she did at 17, lying on a bed, holding a teletubby stuffed animal in a bra and underwear.
In 2007, Spears underwent a divorce to Kevin Federline, mental health struggles, and relentless paparazzi—all leading to her infamous “breakdown.” The media was absolutely ruthless. Tabloids were hashing out her every move and judging her harshly, with magazine titles like “Britney Is Put In a Mental Hospital” and “Meltdown: Britney Explodes With Rage.”
Similarly, Simpson started her career as a pop star, having released a few albums in the late 90s and early 2000s before she skyrocketed to fame through her marriage to fellow pop star, Nick Lashay. Her persona is what got her the public’s attention, but also led to a lot of criticism. “She and her then-boyfriend Nick Lashay were invasively asked about their sex life, or lack thereof, at every public appearance,” the Harper’s Bazaar article 10 Women Who Were Brutally Destroyed By The Press says. “Marketed as a 'sexy virgin' by her management, Simpson was forced to deal with the contradictions and pressure that came with her very controlled, misogynistic image.”
However, in Lawrence’s case, the “cool girl” persona was more of a “guy’s girl” who rejected most types of femininity and was unapologetically relatable.
Unfortunately for her, during the peak of her career, people started rejecting that persona and labeling it “pick me.” Buzzfeed News defines it as similar to the “cool girl,” “but outwardly denounces typically feminine behaviors in an attempt to prove that she’s ‘not like other girls.’” Both the “cool girl” and “pick me girl” come from women competing with each other for the approval of men. Except, the public had a much more negative response to the “pick me girl,” which the article states, “Exposes how little tolerance society has for any woman who is transparently trying.”
However, in Lawrence’s case, the “cool girl” persona was more of a “guy’s girl” who rejected most types of femininity and was unapologetically relatable.
Unfortunately for her, during the peak of her career, people started rejecting that persona and labeling it “pick me.” Buzzfeed News defines it as similar to the “cool girl,” “but outwardly denounces typically feminine behaviors in an attempt to prove that she’s ‘not like other girls.’” Both the “cool girl” and “pick me girl” come from women competing with each other for the approval of men. Except, the public had a much more negative response to the “pick me girl,” which the article states, “Exposes how little tolerance society has for any woman who is transparently trying.”
“Nowadays, a celebrity joking about how much they love chicken nuggets or pizza seems like peak cringe “I’m not like other girls” humor. But this was a different time,” Tiktoker, superkeara, says in her video detailing Lawrence’s downfall, “This was a time not only with zero body diversity but when every single star of every single show was not just skinny but really skinny.”
Superkeara pinpoints her downfall as starting in 2016. This is also when the “pick me girl” criticism started, with people on Twitter posting under the hashtag #tweetlikeapickme. Then, in December of 2016, she was seriously criticized for an insensitive interview she did on The Graham Norton Show. Lawrence told a story from her time filming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in Hawaii. “There were … sacred … rocks — I dunno, they were ancestors, who knows — they were sacred,” she says in the interview. “And you’re not supposed to sit on them, because you’re not supposed to expose your genitalia to them. I, however, was in a wetsuit for this whole shoot – oh my god, they were so good for butt itching! And all the Hawaiians were like: ‘Oh my god, it’s the curse!’” she said, imitating shaking her fist at the sky. “And I’m in the corner going, I’m your curse. I wedged it loose with my ass.”
Backlash followed a few days later for Lawrence’s wilful and ignorant regard for sacred customs.
“She 100% deserved that backlash,” Superkeara says in her video, “But I want to point out that wasn’t the reason necessarily, that people started disliking her. People started disliking her before that. So basically she just goes underground, stops appearing in stuff.”
In another video, the creator uses Lawrence’s career in relation to other celebrities. She details “The Jennifer Lawrence Pipeline,” when a widely beloved actress loses her support. She believes the main reason that men don’t fall down this pipeline as much is because, “with male actors, their lovable, relatable persona comes largely from what characters they play on screen.” But because for a woman, her success depends on her off screen persona, it’s more likely for them to have a fall from grace. “We form our opinions of them, not based on their acting work but them as human beings,” she says.
An iconic example of a woman being judged based not at all on her work is the backlash Janet Jackson got after the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.
Before the halftime show, Jackson’s career was spectacular. According to the “Janet Jackson” Britannica page, she “rose to a level of stardom that rivaled that of Michael Jackson, the most famous of her brothers.” Her breakthrough album, Control, featured five songs that topped the rhythm and blues charts, as well as two top ten hits. She received critical acclaim on all three of her 90s albums and early 2000s album before the infamous superbowl performance. At the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show, Jackson performed alongside Justin Timberlabke. The Harper’s Bazaar article recaps the incident. “Justin Timberlake was performing with Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl when he ripped off part of her bra mid-song, exposing her breast to the 143.6 million viewers for about a half-second.” The media shamed Jackson and completely blamed her for it. The Grammys banned her from performing and MTV blacklisted her.
Clearly, the majority of the women who experience the “Jennifer Lawrence Pipeline” are white women. Superkeara attributes this to the lack of diversity in Hollywood, especially for women of color. “The creator Kiera Breaugh pointed out when she stitched my video,” she says, “that black women can’t reach this status and women of color in Hollywood can’t reach this status because they are always going to be perceived as outside of the norm.” The Hollywood reporter shares a study by Neilson, on BIPOC representation on TV. The study found that “White characters of any gender have an 81 percent Share of Screen across all platforms, the study found, while making up only 60.5 percent of the population as a whole.” Women of color are less likely to have a fall from grace from being an “it girl” because it’s harder for them to reach that status in the first place.
While celebrities should of course be held accountable for insensitive actions or promoting unhealthy behaviors, it’s important to remember that they’re people too and that their “image” doesn’t really mean anything.
Superkeara pinpoints her downfall as starting in 2016. This is also when the “pick me girl” criticism started, with people on Twitter posting under the hashtag #tweetlikeapickme. Then, in December of 2016, she was seriously criticized for an insensitive interview she did on The Graham Norton Show. Lawrence told a story from her time filming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in Hawaii. “There were … sacred … rocks — I dunno, they were ancestors, who knows — they were sacred,” she says in the interview. “And you’re not supposed to sit on them, because you’re not supposed to expose your genitalia to them. I, however, was in a wetsuit for this whole shoot – oh my god, they were so good for butt itching! And all the Hawaiians were like: ‘Oh my god, it’s the curse!’” she said, imitating shaking her fist at the sky. “And I’m in the corner going, I’m your curse. I wedged it loose with my ass.”
Backlash followed a few days later for Lawrence’s wilful and ignorant regard for sacred customs.
“She 100% deserved that backlash,” Superkeara says in her video, “But I want to point out that wasn’t the reason necessarily, that people started disliking her. People started disliking her before that. So basically she just goes underground, stops appearing in stuff.”
In another video, the creator uses Lawrence’s career in relation to other celebrities. She details “The Jennifer Lawrence Pipeline,” when a widely beloved actress loses her support. She believes the main reason that men don’t fall down this pipeline as much is because, “with male actors, their lovable, relatable persona comes largely from what characters they play on screen.” But because for a woman, her success depends on her off screen persona, it’s more likely for them to have a fall from grace. “We form our opinions of them, not based on their acting work but them as human beings,” she says.
An iconic example of a woman being judged based not at all on her work is the backlash Janet Jackson got after the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.
Before the halftime show, Jackson’s career was spectacular. According to the “Janet Jackson” Britannica page, she “rose to a level of stardom that rivaled that of Michael Jackson, the most famous of her brothers.” Her breakthrough album, Control, featured five songs that topped the rhythm and blues charts, as well as two top ten hits. She received critical acclaim on all three of her 90s albums and early 2000s album before the infamous superbowl performance. At the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show, Jackson performed alongside Justin Timberlabke. The Harper’s Bazaar article recaps the incident. “Justin Timberlake was performing with Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl when he ripped off part of her bra mid-song, exposing her breast to the 143.6 million viewers for about a half-second.” The media shamed Jackson and completely blamed her for it. The Grammys banned her from performing and MTV blacklisted her.
Clearly, the majority of the women who experience the “Jennifer Lawrence Pipeline” are white women. Superkeara attributes this to the lack of diversity in Hollywood, especially for women of color. “The creator Kiera Breaugh pointed out when she stitched my video,” she says, “that black women can’t reach this status and women of color in Hollywood can’t reach this status because they are always going to be perceived as outside of the norm.” The Hollywood reporter shares a study by Neilson, on BIPOC representation on TV. The study found that “White characters of any gender have an 81 percent Share of Screen across all platforms, the study found, while making up only 60.5 percent of the population as a whole.” Women of color are less likely to have a fall from grace from being an “it girl” because it’s harder for them to reach that status in the first place.
While celebrities should of course be held accountable for insensitive actions or promoting unhealthy behaviors, it’s important to remember that they’re people too and that their “image” doesn’t really mean anything.
