Women and Celebrity
Perhaps a more fitting title for this post would be Starf—ers versus Serious Performers.
For some reason or another, I was thinking about how I like to view this blog as a descendant of Daria’s Local Entertainment Guide. Daria is a local personality who is close to my age and has had a long-running feature on her various radio stations where she relates some real and some fictional childhood memories that sometimes tenuously relate to a local happening or place. Daria is a very funny woman, and I like to think that I am smart and funny like her. (Diablo Cody’s essays for Entertainment Weekly are a good print analog to the local entertainment guides.)
In the midst of a little web search about Daria, I came across the Janeane Forums. In September, someone posted that they were pretty sure Janeane was doing the voice work for Weight Watchers’ new campaign. I had that same thought a few days ago when I saw a WW commercial. As I was watching the commercial, I had a flashback from one of Janeane’s televised stand-up routines in which she said she could never get voice work because she sounds too sarcastic, as if she really doesn’t like the product. Personally, I think that’s a shame, because I would at least seriously consider buying a product from a company wise enough to hire such a talented lady as its spokesperson–and, yes, I did think about taking WW up on their offer of free goodies for joining their program after hearing the ad.
So I started looking for independent confirmation that Janeane had broken the voice work barrier. But, she doesn’t have her own website, or at least not one that shows up in the first few pages of a Google search. It seems in character for her, though. She is no Courtney Love, to be called a starf—er by Tori Amos in a song. She performs because she enjoys it and she can make a living doing it, but she doesn’t cling to any semblance of fame just for he sake of fame.
But she does get called upon to comment on the state of women in Hollywood, to serve as a feminist icon and rabble-rouser. One interviewer asked if she and Margaret Cho would ever work together, headline a “surly diva” show. Janeane called the interviewer out for that comment, but the comment really got me thinking.
Janeane is one of the funniest and most talented comedians I have had the pleasure of seeing in person and on-screen, and I have never figured out why she is not more famous, why everyone in the world does not agree that she is awesome. Part of it is that she doesn’t want to be–she doesn’t play the game. But it also seems to be because Hollywood only likes a certain type of woman, one who can be easily molded into a bony picture of idealized beauty. The ones who look like normal women and the ones who put their intellect before their looks are relegated to the wacky friend roles.
I’m not saying that the women who have made it big are not smart–you have to be smart to be able to play the game and position yourself for success. I don’t judge them because they have capitalized on what they have been given or because they have played by the rules to achieve the success they have achieved.
Instead I judge the system for putting the unrealistic expectations on young women who are then cast off the second they gain too much weight or, god forbid, age.
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Tags: gender
Uncategorized | thejen | 
January 27, 2009 11:00 am | 
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