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.
Air America’s Sweetheart
Posted on July 10, 2008
Filed Under Gay/Lesbian, Media, NYC, Politics | Comments Off on Air America’s Sweetheart
Since Rachel Maddow hit airwaves with her eponymous show on Air America in 2004, the former Rhodes Scholar has become one busy politico. Listeners can hear the 35-year-old California native play part logician and part devil’s advocate in the plum listening hours of 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. every Monday through Friday on XM Satellite Radio. Rachel is also a political analyst for MSNBC.
The Advocate recently phoned Maddow, who now lives with her partner, artist Susan Mikula, in New York City and Massachusetts, to get the newswoman’s take on the recent spate of gay headlines. Read more
American Gored In Pamplona Bull Run
Posted on July 9, 2008
Filed Under Events, International, News, Travel | Comments Off on American Gored In Pamplona Bull Run
Every July, there’s a story in the media describing how some drunken fool got trampled or gored while running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. This week, an American male tourist got gored in the buttocks and had to run to surgery. Yes, it’s no fun to get stomped or skewered on vacation, but these men at least have a choice. The bulls, on the other hand, are prodded into running, panicked, through a gauntlet of crazy, screaming people who get a kick out of taking a swing at them as they go hurtling by. You can’t blame the bulls for trampling and goring. I’d be freaked out too! Many bulls are injured during the run when they fall on the pavement or crash into walls. And they all are tortured and killed with swords by matadors in the bullfighting ring later that evening. Most tourists have no idea that the bulls stampeded through the streets during the day are slaughtered in the ring at night.
Last year, women in Pamplona, demanded their own version of the run complete with cows instead of bulls. Women have been allowed to take part in the San Fermin bull-running for some years but they still represent a tiny minority. Why would anyone want to do this anyway?
Since 2002, people have come together from all over the world to protest the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. According to a Gallup poll conducted in October 2006, 72 percent of Spaniards show no interest in bullfights – up from 54 percent in the 1980s. It is tourists who are keeping this cruel tradition alive.
