If you have watched or seen photos of an award show red carpet, you have seen that the public arena is the new casting couch. Publicity is worth more than awards.
One interesting trend that Libby Purves of The Daily Mail has noticed is that exposing sideboob and underboob and wholeboob is no longer a desperate tactic by actresses fresh off the bus, but a trend among the A-listers.
She wrote:
[M]ore dismaying is the way that senior actresses, as established and thoughtful and gifted and hard-working as any man, feel the need to show as much as possible. Can that really be Anne Hathaway, so electrifying in Les Miserables, sporting a sort of black sling arrangement with most of her right tit a-drooping from the armpit?
Is that our Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence in similar deshabille?
Classical musician Myleene Klass, whose buttocks are at their best when seated on a piano stool, waves them at the breeze in public. Jennifer Aniston, 47, one of the best screen and sitcom comediennes of her generation, with drop-dead timing and adult dignity, seems to feel that on the red carpet her crotch is the main event.
Nicole Kidman, 48, is an Oscar-winner and gave a brilliant turn as DNA scientist Rosalind Franklin on stage in the West End last year, yet get her on a red carpet and she’ll be sharing her navel and two-foot of bosom.
And, dear God, Amal Clooney, who presumably prefers the label ‘top human rights lawyer’ to ‘George’s bimbo,’ has certainly freed her upper, inner, admirable but-not-entirely-relevant thighs.
Skin exposure used to be about media exposure for the unknown. No one knew Elizabeth Hurley as anything but Hugh Grant’s arm candy before a 1994 movie premiere. She showed up wearing “that dress” with the safety pins. It’s become so famous it has its own Wikipedia page. Then Jennifer Lopez stole the 2000 Grammy spotlight in that green dress (also with its own Wikipedia page). My favorite award show moment was when Trey Parker and Matt Stone attended the 2000 Academy Awards wearing iconic “look at me” dresses.
You can at least respect those who are honest about their hunger for the spotlight. Now, we have established actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow who present themselves as lifestyle gurus, insisting they be taken seriously while parading around in a negligee. Last year, they cried sexism because so many red carpet conversations focused on what women were wearing. I’m sorry; isn’t that the point of pretty people parading down what amounts to a runway? Their complaints birthed the hashtag #AskHerMore. How about #CoverHerMore?
Make no mistake: this isn’t just an overreaction by prudish right-wingers. Popular fashion bloggers Tom and Lorenzo have noticed singers and actresses’ penchant for wearing bedroom attire in public. These catty gays aren’t prudes; they’re just bored with the nude fashion moment. Their response to Madonna’s over the top, cheeky (not in the British way) outfit at the 2016 Met Gala was priceless.
WHAT IS THE POINT?
Seriously, back in the day, we could at least count on her to justify not her love so much as her need to be shocking. We could all convince ourselves that she was flashing her bum and pulling her top down as a way to own her sexual self and send a message about how she wouldn’t allow herself to be yet another generic pop tart spit out by a machine who stamps them out by the hour. Now it just feels like she shows us her ass because she’s afraid we wouldn’t recognize her otherwise.
Madge, your ass is fine – and right where you left it. No need to concern yourself – or us – with it.
When I saw Madonna’s outfit, I didn’t think “Fabulous at Fifty.” I thought, “Oh yeah, remember Fartman?”
A-Listers turn up their perfectly sculpted noses at reality stars like the Kardashians, insist they be taken seriously, and whine about the paparazzi. The truth is that in the crowded entertainment news space, their self-important hobbies and fake relationships are becoming stale. Enter: Sideboob. Spare me their complaints about the Kardashian culture when they play by the Kardashian rules.
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