[lbo-talk] Contemporary forms of female self-objectification

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Doug:
> So what do you make of what Levy calls the "raunch culture" - women
> flashing their tits for Girls Gone Wild, the popularization of porn
> stars and strippers as role models for women, the sexualization of
> 11-year-old girls, etc. Does it exist? Does it matter? Should we care?
> 
> When I interviewed her, I asked her if she thought it was yet another
> version of that old American pairing of puritanism and prurience - we
> veer from extreme to extreme, Billy Graham/Hugh Hefner, Pat
> Robertson/Jenna Jameson. She agreed.

It is all about showmanship, Doug.  America is the land of appearances and
illusions - everything must look super-hyper on the surface, eve if there is
little substance. Women must look like super-sex models even if they are
prudes inside, or act like Mother Theresas even if they are whores inside.
Ditto for everything else - US males who are tough looking and tough talking
wimps, spectacular Mac - mansions built of plywood and plastic, SUVs tough
looking but having shitty, accident prone design, the military - tough
talking guys but unable to control a third rate third world country, and so
on.  It is a big Potemkin village, showbiz with little substance beneath.

Wojtek