Do women really hate Megan Fox? After this story, we just might.
The New York Times Magazine, a publication that usually tackles hefty issues like the war in Afghanistan and the healthcare crisis, devotes its cover this week to the rise of 23-year-old actress Megan Fox. It's an interesting choice for a serious magazine to grant many, many pages to a subject who seems so thoroughly unaccomplished (and, frankly, undeserving). It's perhaps even more interesting for Megan Fox's handlers, who allowed their client to participate in an article where she comes across, more often than not, as bratty, ungrateful, and utterly contrived.
The story's author, Lynn Hirschberg, begins by discussing the major Megan Fox talking points, essentially what the actress is known for up to now:
1. The "Tranformers" movies
2. The fling Fox says she had with a stripper.
3. The tattoo of her boyfriend's name, which Fox has described as being located, "next to my pie."
4. How Fox compared her "Transformers" director Michael Bay to Hitler.
"[Megan Fox] created a rebellious, frankly sexual persona and talked her way into the limelight," Hirschberg explains. In person, however, the actress is: "not warm or particularly friendly and doesn't seem at all interested in small talk...With Fox, it's not a conversation but a presentation."
And then we get to the crux of the article and perhaps the reason it was agreed to at all. Fox's vulgar, hyper-sexualized image isn't selling tickets, at least not to women. And this has Fox and her people very concerned.
Hirschberg writes:
"In the last month, Fox and her team-her agent, Chuck James, and her publicists, Leslie Sloane Zelnick and Dominique Appel-have grown increasingly nervous about her media image. The lack of success of 'Jennifer's Body' highlighted their concern: the outrageousness that made Fox an instant star was not attracting a paying audience, especially among females."
So. Why don't we ladies like Megan Fox? The actress knows why:
"'Girls think I'm a slut, and I've been in the same relationship since I was 18. The problem is, if they think you're attractive, you're either stupid or a wh*re or a dumb wh*ore. The instinct among girls is to attack the jugular.'"
No WAY. Did Megan Fox just essentially use the "they're just jealous" defense? Did she really just say that the reason millions of women aren't responding to her positively is because we're mean and we don't like pretty girls? Sigh.
How about we try out a different Megan Fox vs. the Female Audience story, the one where this particular actress seems, well, kind of disingenuous and performative and like she's just sayin' stuff about sex and strippers and Hitler so we'll talk about her? And maybe, in this story, instead of feeling like she's too pretty, women find Fox's attention-whoring (not actual whoring) boring and unappealing and an insult to our intelligence?
The truth is, women are not as easy to win over as men. We're not mesmerized by cleavage, we're not tantalized when you shoot off your mouth to every magazine about how you're like a dude trapped in a woman's body and how you want to screw all of the time. Zzzzz. This provocative behavior--Pandering to Men 101--is an old-as-time game and it's one we know how to play. It doesn't make it intriguing. It certainly doesn't make us want to run out and see your movies. And there's another problem. Despite all the hype surrounding her, Fox still hasn't proved that she's any kind of actress. So, puh-leeze, lady, let's clear things up. We are not disinterested in you because you seem like a slut, but because you seem like a fake cliché slut who stars in bad movies.*
And, two more points, while we're at it.
1. In the Times Magazine article, Megan Fox whimpers and moans about how she keeps being compared to Angelina Jolie and that these comparisons are "the bane of my existence." Really? You hate being compared to Angelina Jolie, the hottest, sexiest, Oscar-winning-est, famous-est celebrity in the world? It's the "bane of your existence"? Excuse me, while I literally Laugh Out Loud while Rolling On The Floor.
2. Then there's this quote, regarding her appearance this fall on "Saturday Night Live": "When women come on 'S.N.L.,' there are a lot of sketches dedicated to how hot they are. I'm really uncomfortable doing that."
Oh my, Megan Fox. Oh my, my my.
*P.S. When you and your people roll out your new image, the planned Megan Fox 2.0--a demure, homebody actress who loves her boyfriend of a million years and just likes to bake cookies and wear slippers or whatever the heck you guys think up--we might not buy what you're selling then, either.
Source: The Self-Manufacture of Megan Fox
