How I Feel Towards Everything About This Post.
I want to talk about Kim Kardashian.
Well, sorta. I feel compelled to talk about her, having never seen her show and only knowing about her in a vague, hazy fashion. And of course all this extravagant-wedding-quickly followed-by-divorce stuff is unignorable.
Ms. K is getting seriously lady-bashed recently. I don’t really think much of her critical thinking skills, perhaps, but what I’m reading and hearing everywhere, from women and men, is soaked in misogyny: Gold-digger! Stupid whore! Slutty sex-taping, plastic, shilling, rich bitch! And her sisters are ugly/dumb/etc., and her mom is a monstrous beast with spiny, poison-dripping tentacles. And her (ex-) husband? …uhhhhhmmmm. Who was he again? Oh, that poor sap, getting sucked in by those evil wimmenz.
Not only am I hearing this from men and women, but from lefties and righties, too. Righties because KK is a sign of what horrors women, unrestrained by men, are capable of wreaking. And lefties are bashing her because the fiasco of grotesque display that was her made-for-media wedding provides a convenient pretext to attack anti-marriage-equality types. But they’re not really attacking anti-marriage-equality types, they’re attacking her. They’re saying “this idiot slagbag can get married, why not these other nice people?”
I’m not really asking you to break out your tiny violins for Kim Kardashian, or think she’s a benevolent super-genius. She might be crying all the way to the bank, but I wager she’ll be fine. My point is that the people who are slavering over KK’s shame, pain, discomfort, whatever, and beating her up for funsies, are the the same people who gobbled up her show and bought crappy cheap weeklies to gawk at her and her sisters. And fuck those people, who consume other humans, salty, bitter, or sweet, and shit all over women for their own nasty pleasure.
And at the risk of offending our readers: if you’re one of those people, fuck you, too. By participating in this crap, you are partly responsible for making things even worse than they are for women. For her, and for all the rest of us. Your hunger for this kind of exploitation, your acceptance of The Rise and Fall of Kim Kardashian as entertainment, is what makes this possible. Look at your choices.
YES!!!!
fuck those people, who consume other humans, salty, bitter, or sweet, and shit all over women for their own nasty pleasure.
YES YES YES!
(Apologies for not offering anything in the way of insight, but had to stand on the table, fists clenched in agreement with this post)
THANK YOU. I’ve been feeling this way and haven’t been able to put it into words.
I too am horrified by the misogyny being thrown at this woman. Somehow the dude in the equation is not even being discussed, because somehow weddings etc are supposed to be a lady-thing, so OBVIOUSLY this is all her fault (yes, that was sarcasm) that there was a big wedding.
In one of her interviews / comments (yes, I look at US Weekly online), she said she knew right before the wedding there were red flags, but she didn’t know how to back out and disappoint everyone. That right there is patriarchy… teaching women to please others.
The fact that she had the gumption to file for divorce so soon means she fought that feeling and went ahead with no longer pleasing others, and doing what was right for her.
Now she’s getting bashed right and left for doing both: doing something she felt was wrong to please others, AND standing up for her own needs by divorcing her husband.
Women just can’t win, can they, no matter how famous they are.
I totally agree.
What I don’t understand is the outrage that people seem to be feeling. I mean, did they expect Kim Kardashian to be a role model in terms of virtue, healthy marriage, or even common sense? No, they didn’t, otherwise they wouldn’t have any interest in watching her show. So I don’t understand why anyone would get on a high horse about it now.
Maybe she did marry for money. Maybe it was a mixture of money and love. But really – who the hell cares?
I was just saying the other day (even before the divorce) that Kim Kardashian (or the whole Kardashian family) is the new “Sex and the City”–a representation of everything that is allegedly wrong with modern women. Blerg.
I often wonder why anyone would want to be famous.
Hear hear!
I’ve watched the show from time to time, and Kim just comes across as vain, shallow, materialistic and dumb as a box of rocks. And her stage mom mother…oy vey. I keep expecting her to suddenly belt out “Rose’s Turn.” It’s every negative stereotype of women as vapid and selfish and dismissable…but don’t forget to ogle that T&A while you’re at it. UGH.
I also completely agree with Endora about being mystified why people are suddenly getting all huffy and high horse-y. It’s like someone getting outraged when they discover that pro wrestling is fake.
Here’s what it boils down to: Kim Kardashian made a mistake, the same mistake a bunch of other people have made. The only difference between her and anyone else is her fame and the price tag for her wedding. Every person snarking on her is doing it out of spite or lack of compassion. I’m pretty sure most other people wouldn’t enjoy the scrutiny that she is getting over her decision to marry.
We, as a nation, are an atrocious bunch of schadenfreude addicts and self-important, celebrity-obsessed weasels. Just my two cents.
Very soon after she filed for divorce, there was a suggestion by one of the (gazillions) of reports on it that it was her husband who was hoping to get into showbiz by marrying her. Haven’t heard that one again, now that she – who already happens to be plenty rich, what with her show and products – has been recast as a gold digger. Interesting, non?
Every person snarking on her is doing it out of spite or lack of compassion.
I would not go that far.
kim WHO?
This reminds me so much of the hate Paris Hilton receives. She’s in a lot of ways seen more like a concept to society rather than a human being–if she’s really a cruel person, I can get her getting criticism, sure, fine, except I see her receiving only criticism on her looks, her sexual behavior, the assumptions that she is a waste of space because she’s rich and blonde and thus a “bimbo.”
We really are seeing the same thing with Kim Kardashian–a woman who decides that she’s going to embrace the sex scandal instead of letting it shame her, who is ambitious, who likes to take her of her appearance however she wants to.
Yeah, again, she could actually be a not-so-nice person, but I see more attacks on her looks, hers sisters’ looks, her sexuality, her ambition, yeah…you get the picture.
Okay – so I might be coming out of left field here, but I have to defend my watching of the Kardashian empire.
First off, let me start out by saying I teach cultural anthropology. I love teaching it. I like teaching students about tolerance of other cultures and life choices and reminding them that they can judge up and down all they want but it really won’t get them anywhere.
I watch the Kardashin show as well. In fact I have found myself watching a lot of reality TV and sharing my analyses with my classes. I like to see how different aspects of American culture are highlighted in these shows and how they really, even if they are exaggerated point to how our cultural standards and norms dictate our belief system of gender roles. And for all of the crap that does get exaggerated in the Kardashian show, what is explicitly different than is expected of the patriarchy that is American society is how important the women are in that household. How much control they have, hell they are practically a matrilineal group in America! Matrilineal! The rest of our culture, although it is slowly changing now, it a patrilineal, man comes first, take the husbands name, men make the most money, crap-shoot.
We can bash the Kardashians, and bash the women who “gobble-up” the show, but maybe, just maybe if we get past the exaggerations of reality TV we can see that these women (to some extent) and showing other women that they too can be as important or more important in American households.
Maybe I am just looking at it more optimistically, and yes I agree that people should probably get lives, but I don’t think a blog post ranting about them is very useful.
Sorry this post was not useful for you, AnthroLady. Feel free to not read here. But Mama K being the manager of the family lady-business is hardly evidence of matriarchy or matrilineality, particularly when that business is trotting out an endless series of lady-bashing stereotypes. And let’s be clear: I did not bash or rant about the family. My ire is directed at those sick fucks who watch shows like theirs in order to delight in bashing them, for doing whatever they do, for well or ill.
I’m an Americanist and a scholar of popular culture, so I’m not saying “there’s nothing to learn from watching reality TV.” Au contraire, a careful reading of it reveals plenty about the gap between what we say we value and what we actually value as a culture.
Hey Dorky, in particular this:
“And fuck those people, who consume other humans, salty, bitter, or sweet, and shit all over women for their own nasty pleasure.”
I’m reminded of what my mum used to say to us, “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I think it applies to people you know, and people you know by name/reputation only.
(Just to make sure I’m clear, critical analysis and research is whole other different ball park, and not what is meant by the “nothing nice to say” statement.)
@Anthrolady: I have to agree with PhDork. I think the ‘feminist’ aspects of the Kardashian show are just your standard ‘empowerfulment’ as the Harpies have called it. Just because you have money and power does not mean you are really embracing gender equality in any broad sense. And the way the Kardashians get that is by playing to stereotypes about women – as dumb, slutty, etc. – which do womankind no favors.
Besides, I don’t think American women lack as much power in their households as you think. The problem as I see it is that women may have a lot of say in their own families’ lives (a lot of people will report that their mother ruled the roost), but when it comes to activity in the public sphere, we are massively disadvantaged.
[...] those reasons are certainly valid ones to perhaps stop watching the show and buying the gossip mags. But Kim Kardashian and her family have never been the best role models (hello, Khloe and your DUI [...]