I can't get over the weirdness of this Globe and Mail article(reg.req.) entitled "Bombshell with Brains." It features -- sort of -- Candian-born crime-fiction author Tara Moss, who's currently promoting her second novel Split. Alexandra Gill, the Globe journalist reporting the story, fixates on Moss' former model status, along with a host of other stereotypes, and the side panel reproduces an enormous photo of Moss. Gill goes into great depth about how "the statuesque blond author and former fashion model confidently strides into the lobby bar at Vancouver's Pan Pacific Hotel, men (and several women) swivel to take a second look at this mysterious, long-legged creature." abouthalfwaydownittalksaboutMoss'story. The article takes its potshots at chauvanistic boys who question Moss's ability to write novels, but simultaneously offers up all of these ingratiating gestures to the gazing gods of glamour.
Perhaps the whole thing is meant to reproduce a person's reaction to Moss, to work its way down through the surface, which may be kind of clever, but the way that the story is capped with these ridiculously uncritical pro-feminist stereotypes (which are really antifeminist) hurts its credibility: all this
and brains too! (but the "all this" comes first and foremost.) In comparison, yesterday I featured an article about the
top Canadian editor, who also happens to be a woman, but when I searched I couldn't find a single picture of her to grace my post. Other than a single comment on her "broad smile" the article makes no mention of her appearance. Instead it focuses on the way that, "When she talks, two brains are at work." Comparing the two articles it's as if Ellen Seligman is a brain in a jar and Tara Moss is a beautiful doll body that was freakishly graced with a head. I'm not saying that a story can't take a certain focus, but if you're going to take the horribly clichéd "brains and beauty" tack, then at least be aware that that's what you're doing.
I'm elbeato, and if you listen to anything I say, you're making a big mistake.
# posted by Lintropy @ 2:45 PM
