Another pregnant celebrity and another magazine cover where she appears nude, leg raised and cupping her breasts—this time it’s Serena Williams in Vanity Fair.
Apparently, it is a forgone conclusion in the world of liberal magazines that featuring a pregnant celebrity in the nude for a cover shot somehow equals “female empowerment.”
Williams is one of the world’s top female tennis players and is also about seven months pregnant, and Vanity Fair chose her for a cover story while gushing that she is the “world’s best athlete,” no less.
“V.F. cover star @SerenaWilliams—world’s best athlete (plus, mom and wife-to-be)—still has her eyes on the prize,” the magazine tweeted this month:
It is easy to dispute that Williams is “the world’s best athlete,” but there is no disputing that she is about to become a mother. There she stands in yet another “look at me” Vanity Fair cover wearing only an earring, a delicate belly chain, and a nude colored thong.
It was enough to make Robin Givhan shake her head in disgust in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
Givhan admitted that the image was tastefully done, but on the other hand, she seems to be about done with these things:
But really, it would have been fine to skip this strange celebrity ritual, this complicated stew of personal indulgence, brand tending, and sociopolitical me-too-ism. Yes, pregnancy is beautiful and powerful and worthy of celebration. You are womanly. You are phenomenal. God bless. But it has become virtually impossible for a celebrity to go through a pregnancy without getting naked for the cameras, her fans and—presumably—herself.
Givhan goes on to say how tired she is of celebrities making their pregnancies into “another Instagrammable moment” that must be sold to the public “with the help of a professional stylist, designer clothing and a top-notch hair wrangler.”
“Like so much else in life today, pregnancy must be performed,” Givhan groused before adding, “This Vanity Fair cover is about voyeurism.”
Givhan also notes that the whole pregnant, nude cover photo is becoming passé after having become a staple of stapled papers since a naked, pregnant Demi Moore appeared on a Vanity Fair cover way back in 1991. Since then a long list of A and B-list celebrities have shown off their altogether plus baby on board on glossy paper stock.
“Since then, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Rowland, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Ciara and a host of others have all posed in the nude—or near nude—while pregnant,” Givhan wrote.
Givhan’s disinterest in further pregnant, nude celebs is interesting, too, for its somewhat dismissive treatment of pregnancy. It isn’t supposed to be a public thing, Givhan says.
But it is a good question. How did pregnant, nude photos become such a symbol of “female empowerment”? Especially because feminists have spent decades telling women that getting pregnant was a mark of sexual slavery, even evidence of rape?
So, the feminist left is sending us mixed messages, at the very least. Is pregnancy wonderful, or a result of rape?
Whatever the “message” is, pregnancy is absolutely a beautiful thing. But perhaps the Washington Post’s Givhan is right. Dear, dear celebrities, enjoy your pregnancy. But, keep it to yourself, won’t you?
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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