Convenient Timing
Is Disney using sexualized interviews to plug a kids’ movie?
Much has been made in the last week of Emma Watson’s half-exposed breasts appearing in the pages of Vanity Fair magazine. Less has been made of her appearance in Vanity Fair’s “Derek Does Stuff with a Friend” videos in which, a la Lucy van Pelt from Peanuts, she gave out advice for $2 a question.
Unlike (one would hope) Lucy van Pelt, she donated the money to Planned Parenthood. Both her breasts and the Planned Parenthood donation got most of the attention.
Almost nothing has been made of the most problematic aspect of Emma Watson’s week:
All of this very adult exposure is occurring during a press junket for the soft-PG rated Disney live action fairy tale remake of Beauty at the Beast, which is aimed squarely at the family market.
Watson has made no bones about her feminism in recent years, but however she prefers to identify herself separate from her job, right now she’s acting as a surrogate for her employers and, unless I missed something, underboob and abortions (and before someone gives me a hard time about “Planned Parenthood doesn’t only do abortions,” ok, then, substitute “pap smears”) weren’t considered appropriate press junket material for a Disney family film until sometime this month.
It’s still not appropriate, no matter how much Watson and Walt Disney Pictures would like to virtue-signal their feminism and liberality to their Hollywood peers (who will applaud them) and to the general adult population (which has proven over and over that it cares not one tittle or jot what Hollywood folks think about pretty much anything). They do all of this while conflating family entertainment with sexual issues and gender politics in a way that forces Mom and Dad to discuss complex adult realities with the under-10 set. These discussions should not be forced on Mom, Dad, and the little one by an actress with an agenda while on a press junket for a family film.
It used to be that when some aspect of a celebrity’s politics or personal life did not mesh comfortably with the type of film they were promoting, they were encouraged to zip their lips about it for a while, as their job was to help the potential audience want to see the movie.
The rules of the game have changed; the picture of Emma Watson and her breasts can be accessed with one click from the Beauty and the Beast’s official Instagram page, which features an image encouraging Instagrammers to link to the Vanity Fair page. The rules are now “if you see something wildly discordant with the film you’re trying to sell, egg it on.” Because, after all, in the eyes of the people marketing this film, if a Mom has an issue with 9-year-old Sally being exposed to Hermione’s breasts and Planned Parenthood while eagerly following the publicity for Beauty and the Beast, Mom’s the problem. They’re going to expand Sally’s consciousness whether Sally is ready to for it or not, leaving Mom to clean up after the Disney Company and their star…preferably after she’s shelled out for tickets to the film.
Uncle Walt‘s head must be spinning in his cryogenic freezer.
