Stopping the Silence Around Sexualization
A look into the under-discussed issue of over-sexualization of women, especially young actresses, in Hollywood.
When an actress agrees to take on a role in a movie or tv show, they are agreeing to the task of making that character come to life. They are given a script and are expected to fill the role they are cast as and will do all in their power to give the best performance they can.
Yet, what happens when the role they have agreed to fill starts to shift into a territory where their boundaries are being pushed? What happens when the script or the producers and directors ask them to show more skin than they are comfortable with, or that they must act in scenes that they feel uncomfortable in.
In some cases it gets changed — take the recent events with Sydney Sweeney. Her character Cassie in the smash HBOMax series Euphoria is not the “most modest” on the show, and in turn, Sweeney must perform very sexually charged scenes and has begun to be sexualized. To an extent, she is alright with it, yet there recently have been instances where she had to speak up and make her uncomfortableness known. Sweeney talked about this interview with the Independent:
“There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here.’ He was like, ‘OK, we don’t need it’. I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”
But not every actress is that lucky. In other cases, these female actresses were met with their contracts being terminated.
In 2021, actress Raeden Greer came out stating that the reason she was fired from “True Detective” in 2013 was because she refused to do a topless scene, that was not in her contract after Director Cary Joji Fukunaga pressured her.
A certain quote of Greer’s from her The Daily Beast article hits this issue squarely on the head. She said:
“That was the human element that was missing that is so hurtful to me, that you could just look at somebody — a young girl who is starting out in her career who doesn’t want to show everything she’s got naked on camera spur of the moment, and you can’t understand that? He knew that he wasn’t doing [it] above board. He knew.”
This is one of the most devastating elements of the objectification actresses are faced with. No one should be pressured, point-blank, but even more so the over-sexualization that young female actresses receive is completely unacceptable and is not talked about enough. Despite more attention being placed on these issues, especially after the Me Too movement and Harvey Winestien’s horrific actions, very little has shifted and these actresses are still being forced to endure the disgusting gawking as they attempt to pursue their passion.
Just recently we saw this happen on a large scale via social media when Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown turned 18 in February. This girl, who has been growing up in the public eye due to the incredible success the Netflix series has gotten, was subject to her social media comments being flooded with explicit and sexually charged messages. No to mention, there was even a countdown started on Reddit as to when the young star would turn 18.
But again, this isn’t new. In a 2016 interview during HeForShe Arts Week, Emma Watson talked about how the biggest area of contrast she had found between her and her male costars was in the entertainment media area, and how they treated her during her transition from child actress to an adult one especially when paparazzi snapped inappropriate pictures of her leaving her own 18th birthday party.
How is this fair? How is it fair that these women and many others have to endure this blatant sexist sexualization just for “officially” becoming an adult when only a day before these same actions would be considered illegal? How is it fair that these women are served a world full of misogynistic stipulations that they either have to conform to and bite their tongue over or speak out and risk making a public spectacle?
A parallel to this is that male actors, while swooned over in many circumstances, won’t ever have to face the same degree of sexualization that their female costars will have to. During interviews about projects, the interviewers’ eyes aren’t pulled to features of their body, or comments are made about what they are wearing.
In an interview between Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner, the interviews strayed into some very uncomfortable territory questioning Johansson if she was wearing underwear under her black widow costume while in the Avengers movie. She tried to laugh it off, but the interviewer was persistent and eventually, as well as begrudgingly, she answered the question. Renner wasn’t asked about anything involving his costume, or if he had any undergarments on, and Johansson even called out the reporter asking if he had asked other actors in the franchise the same question he was asking her.
How is this unfair questioning and treatment acceptable? Why aren’t there more people calling out these interviewers, journalists, or media who continue the cycle of female-based sexualization?
Not to say that I wished that these male costars faced the same fate or treatment, nor am I ignoring the fact that many male stars are sexualized by the public and the media as well. In fact, Sweeny’s co-star Jacob Elordi has been very open with the objectification he faces because of his role as Nate and some of the out-of-line comments he has gotten from fans and fellow stars alike. But, it would be unfair to state that actors are treated the same way in the media as their female counterparts are.
This was proven in a study done by Weslyn College, where out of 1,988 advertisements from 58 popular U.S. magazines, 51.8% of advertisements that featured women portrayed them as sex objects. Pursuing this further, when women appeared in advertisements in men’s magazines, they were objectified 76% of the time.
Actresses shouldn’t be forced into situations where they have to choose between what they are comfortable with and their careers. These women work hard to provide entertainment for us via their movies and tv shows and deserve the respect their male peers get. Unless we start standing up and noting this unfair treatment, as well as start making a conscious effort to not support the companies, or projects, that impose this over-sexualization nothing will change. Hollywood needs to do better, and we need to do a better job of contributing to an environment where this over-sexualization is not allowed.
