Letters to the Editor
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Why are women so sexist?
When you take this article's logic to its full conclusion, that's the real question you're leading to, isn't it?
Women buy the magazines that fuel the paparazzi machine. So, if it's evidence of sexism, it's supposedly sexism from women onto other women.
Not that I believe that either, but if you're trying to pin the blame on men, it's impossible.
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Digging too deep.
You know, sometimes a PR stunt is just a PR stunt.
Take it from someone who spent 20 years in PR.
There are no layers of mystery to be revealed. Move along, there is (literally) nothing to see here.
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Lohan Is Flailing
So Lindsay Lohan "idolizes" Marilyn Monroe. A wholly unoriginal and desperate attempt to manufacture by association an iconic aura that she so thoroughly lacks.
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From Iconic to Ironic
Wow, Lohan looks so mangy in her pictures! Even dissolute Monroe looked so much better than Lohan, whose hard-yet-blank, shallow visage and freckled limbs make her look more like a Sleestak than a sexpot, only heightening the contrast between the two. She may idolize Monroe, but she does her idol no justice with those pictures. They should have added a picture of Lohan unhinging her jaw to gobble down a pigeon.
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The New York Times has it about right:
From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/arts/21loha.html:
Regardless, she appears dramatic doing it. Ms. Lohan looks narrow-hipped and voluptuous in the pictures, taut and soft. At 21 she seems even older than Monroe, who was 36 in the originals, and hardened by her excesses. The photographs bear none of Monroe’s fragility. In the first picture — Ms. Lohan wears a platinum wig and false eyelashes for all the images, by the way — she drapes the pink chiffon across her torso diagonally, and if she looks like anyone at all, it is Madonna. Monroe looked available in her Stern photos; Ms. Lohan looks available for sale.
Ms. Lohan has spoken freely about her obsession with Monroe over the years, but it is Madonna’s strategy of managing the image of her own sexuality that perhaps Ms. Lohan hopes to reproduce. There is a chance this approach could work for her if she is willing to offer the world more than her bust line. And if, in her recreational hours, she is prepared to turn simply to yoga.
Now can we all stop blaming LiLo for being too dumb to understand the difference between exploitative sexuality and the expression of fragility through the nude body? She's an actress, not a philosopher. She's freakin' 21 years old. Tell me that any one of you would have had the gravitas to discern the difference.
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Following in MM's footsteps
I hope miss Lohan isn't telegraphing that her future is the same as MM's. I'm afraid that someday soon we'll look back on this photo spread as a foreshadowing of tragedy. Ms. Lohan needs encouragement to blaze her own path rather than following MM's life script. Break out on your own Ms. Lohan! Yes, you can!
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Who's Really Sicker ?
Lindsay Lohan or Jessica Valenti ? My vote is for the man hater.
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I don't know...
I sort of like this photo spread. LL comes off as soft, feminine and troubled just like she’s supposed to. Plus she’s really beautiful. Did you see her boobs? Lovely and, I’m willing to bet, real. You really don’t see them like that too much anymore on celebrities.
I don’t think it’s such an honor to be called out for being a pretty, young train wreck who could die at any moment - but the photos did come out nicely.
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@Slackie O
"They should have added a picture of Lohan unhinging her jaw to gobble down a pigeon."
Hahaha! Love it! Thanks for the belly laugh (more aerobics that I've gotten in a week.)
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Sexual maturity in youth is like stargazing in daylight
The thing that bothers me the most about this replication of Monroe's photo shoot is that it highlights the perception that mature women are not considered sexy by this society. Monroe was 36 at the time of the original photo shoot. Lohan is 21. Also, the original Monroe pictures show a voluptuous adult aware of and apparently enjoying the effect her that sexual magnetism was having on the observer. Lohan appears to be a child - underweight, unhappy and aping a grown up being sexy. There is a reason that mature women are innately sexier than girls - sexual power is more mental than physical and young adults just don't have the experience to exert that kind of power. To view feminism through a sexual,rather than occupational lens, these photos pinpoint precisely the feminist territory that has been lost since Monroe's death. The sexual power of mature women is more threatening now than then.
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With apologies - and acknowledgement - to Lloyd Bentsen...
I did not know Marilyn Monroe. Ms. Monroe was not a friend of mine. However, speaking on behalf of fans the world over:
Lindsay, Madonna, all of you...YOU ARE NO MARILYN MONROE!
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Yes, this type of letter is the reason I read Broadsheet
"...it highlights the perception that mature women are not considered sexy by this society."
No, it doesn't. Because Lohan happens to be 21 doesn't mean this is evidence of sexism or ageism.
Lohan appears to be a child - underweight, unhappy and aping a grown up being sexy.
She looks perfectly healthy to me. She's more full-figured then most models and celebrities.
There is a reason that mature women are innately sexier than girls - sexual power is more mental than physical and young adults just don't have the experience to exert that kind of power.
Maybe in Dr. Suess land...in reality, men find young women sexy. And mature women. Basically, any woman that's attractive. We're not that hard to understand. Sorry if that's too simple for your tortured logic.
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@Anne in NYC
I don't know if they are real now, but they weren't a few years ago when she was anorexic with two grapefruits affixed to her chest. Perhaps she had them removed, or they have had time to settle?
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Tronic
Dr. Seuss was an author grounded in reality but who simply chose to veil that reality in fantasy prose ostensibly aimed at children but really meant for adults. Too bad that you are unable to detect such subtleties because I would imagine that you would also be unaware of the differences between women who enjoyed sex and girls who like to play dress up. Men who find girls attractive are really turned on by the fantasy of exerting power over someone weaker than themselves.