#popcritique

Women being valued for their beauty is not a new idea, nor is the ageism against female actors in Hollywood. An actress might have a harder time finding satisfying roles as she embraces her age, grey hair or less than supple skin. Meryl Streep, one of a handful of popular actresses over 60 that have continued to appear in movies, is now 67, but thought her career would be over at 40 (as cited in Mic.com) after she was offered role after role as a witch, she knew that Hollywood has certain ideas about when one starts being considered ‘getting up there’ in years, what kind of capabilities older women have as actors, and what kinds of roles are suitable for them (which, if their sexuality is not the main focus, are more ‘grotesque’ like a witch. 

Going through the research and other non-academic sources, I didn’t really see until now the prevalence of the age gaps among genders in Hollywood. Now I see it everywhere. I see that older men are able to take advantage of their wrinkles and grey hair because we as a society have interpreted that as related to being sexy and distinguished and wise. Women, on the other hand, are not shown as capable with age, or with increased knowledge, and their sexiness or comfort in their skin is not made automatically apparent like it is with male actors. Younger and younger actresses are being cast to play the love interests of men that are only getting older. It’s interesting that older women can be the protagonists of movies if romance or sexuality is the defining plot line. It seems women have to constantly balance their sex appeal and wanting to be continuously working as respectable actors. These posts were not focused on how ageism in Hollywood affects audiences of these films, but the experiences are not unrelated. Ageism AND gender are important to look at when it comes to income disparities. Hollywood movies are telling us a lot of things about how we perceive aging and how it affects individuals and society as a whole. 

Photo: moviepilot.com

The issue of cultural appropriation in fashion is a complicated on because it is so much based on circumstance and opinion. Most designers do not see the use of foreign cultures as wrong or disrespectful, because they have been trained to constantly look for new and unique ideas. At the same time, there is a distinct lack of both models and designers of color, making it nearly impossible for there to be any real conversations about what needs to be done for the use of different cultures to be respectful.

The fashion industry, like many other pop culture industries, faces deep issues when looking at this problem, because for so long, this was simply how it was done. While that is not an excuse, it does put into context why so many designers seem shocked when their designs are critiqued. It is an industry that is built on creativity from any source, even when those sources are from a world that isn’t yours. This is a problem that is just starting to gain traction, so we should also look at it with an understanding eye and know that it will take time for changes to be made.   

This is a difficult topic for me to write about, because I think I’m still too close to it. Drag Race is by and large my favorite thing on TV and it has been for years now, so it’s hard for me to step back and take a look at it through a sociological lens. Drag Race is first a foremost a TV show. It is there to entertain its audience. However, what the show has come to represent to the viewers is impossible to really fathom, because so many of the fans 9myself included) have a deeply personal relationship with the show. 

I think it’s not too much of a stretch to say that Drag Race is the only show centered mostly around gay men that has had staying power in the public eye while also not relying on tired stereotypes of queer men (I’m talking about Queer As Folk). For the most part the queens on the show are fully rounded and realized human beings and not two dimensional characters. The audience gets to know them, and comes to love them for that. Along with the fully-realized personalities come traits that could not otherwise be represented. Every season we have plus-sized queens on the show who don’t feel like they *need* to lose weight to be beautiful (Latrice Royale and  Jaidynn Diore Firece for instance). There are queens like Trinity K. Bonet who are openly living with HIV without it ruining their lives. We have the former weird kids like Sharon Needles and Tammie Brown who proudly march to the beat of their own drum. There are even several queens (Jiggly Caliente, Kenya Michaels, Carmen Carrera, Monica Beverly Hillz, and several others) who have out some point come out as transgender, and while they all struggle with it to some degree it never came to define them. The show also showcases so many different types of drag, pageant girls, comedy queens, “fishy” queens who are very feminine, and everything in between.