Even as Celebrities, Women Face a Double Standard
Posted on July 11, 2008
Filed Under Entertainment, Media, Women | Comments Off on Even as Celebrities, Women Face a Double Standard
By Vanessa Richmond via Alternet
The tabloids paint Britney Spears’ as a neglectful, deranged, drug-addicted mother who frequently neglects and even endangers her children, and whose partying ways are responsible for her demise. The video and images of Amy Winehouse smoking crack cocaine have been widely circulated, along with a flurry of recent articles alleging that her frequent drug use is to blame for the decline of her health — including emphysema and her stark emaciation.
But a video of Heath Ledger hanging out at a drug-fueled party before his death didn’t make it to air on Entertainment Tonight, nor appear elsewhere. New York coroners ruled that Ledger’s recent death was due to an accidental overdose of prescription medication, with few media outlets even casting other aspersions. And when Owen Wilson was hospitalized last year after an apparent suicide attempt, not only did his plight inspire only one cover story in US Weekly, but news coverage was almost entirely sympathetic and respectful, often citing psychiatrists’ explanations of the intricacies of mental illness and depression.
Sure, plenty of male stars get excoriated by the media — Mel Gibson to name one. But overwhelmingly, as a recent New York Times article alleges, “Men who fall from grace are treated with gravity and distance, while women in similar circumstances are objects of derision, titillation and black comedy.”
Diane Negra, a professor of film and television studies at the host university, said the coverage of women is definitely more judgmental than the coverage of men. And that while a media story about a drug-addicted man is likely to focus on or even celebrate his expected return (as with Robert Downey Jr.’s recent Iron Man performance) coverage of female celebs is more likely to focus on their (self-inflicted) demise and act as “cautionary tales.”
“We seem to have a lot more fixed ideas about what women’s lives should be like than we do of men,” she said.
