Girls Gone Wild

Husband and I stayed up last night to watch Chris Rock on Comedy Central. The uncensored stand-up comes on at 10pm here since the cable is on Pacific Time and we're on Hawaiian Time (Why? I don't know). Then we watched Jamie Foxx's Laffapalooza (Dominique Whitten is incredibly funny by the way). Then South Park; it was the Trapper Keeper (with Akira, 2001 Space Odyssey and Terminator references) episode. All very funny. We laughed out loud and closed the screen door to shield the neighbors from the cursing and laughing.

During EVERY SINGLE commercial break from 10pm till we went to bed, there was a commercial for the Girls Gone Wild videos (note: the link is to the Wikipedia entry, not the website). After a while, a discussion ensued. I mean, you can only watch the commercial so many times before you have to move beyond the "is that Zach Braff?" question (we're pretty sure it's not).

Why do these girls do this? I mean, they're not getting paid. They get a tank top. If they were getting paid, Joe Francis (the mastermind behind this) wouldn't own his own island. How many $9.99 dvds does it take to buy an island? (yes, I did research. I wanted to confirm that the guy actually had an island, but that blog entry was all I could find in the amount of time I was willing to spend on this). Obviously these girls are drunk. (I can't call them women because seriously, how many women do you know that would do this?) And I imagine that many of them regret doing it when they sober up, but not all. Some just enjoy being "crazy." Why?

Husband says it's the exhibitionist thing. But I just don't get it. The videos (which I haven't seen) seem to rely on two ideas, college girls do stupid things when drunk and college girls experiment with lesbianism. The commercials show a range of girls flashing their breasts to having sex with other girls. Why do this on camera? And why sue the guy who filmed you? What did you think the video camera was for? (One of the earlier links talks about his legal woes). I mean, the guy's an ass, but if you're sober enough to sign a release and show you're id., don't you have some idea of what's going on? Francis's defense is that the girls sign releases and volunteer to do this; he's not forcing anyone to do anything (I guess this is true except for the ones who have accused him of rape - the guy seems to be more than just a sleaze). It's a free country and all of that. I just can't comprehend what makes a young woman decide to do this, because it is a decision. To be free, yes, I get that. To be exploited, no, I don't get that. Do they not know what Girls Gone Wild is? Do they not know why people buy these videos?

Maybe I'm just a prude. But I didn't think that feminists fought for equal rights so that 18 year old girls could flash their breasts and have sex with each other on camera.

When I was at the March for Women's Lives last April, I wasn't thinking about Girls Gone Wild. There were some young women there who marched topless. I get what they were saying with their bodies. We should be able to be seen as people not objects, regardless of what we wear. Gloria Steinem said, "Let's never again hear about how there are no young activists. It's just that some of us older folks don't recognize the form in which they protest. We thought we had to cover up our bodies. They are saying rightly that they want to be nude and safe ... They don't all sound like issues of the past and they shouldn't." (from the (religious) right is wrong, with a great photo by the way). But I don't think these young women were thinking about Girls Gone Wild either, maybe they were, but I don't think so.

How do we reconcile this - the young women who value their bodies and those who don't? Why are they different?

One interesting note is that most of the Girls Gone Wild girls look exactly the same (I'll admit, a few are brunettes) - white, thin, tall, toned, young. I know that there are "director" decisions that go into this, as well which girls are most likely to have disposable incomes and can afford to go to the filming locales, but what does this say? That minority women have more self-respect, better self-esteem, or is the Disney model of beauty so ingrained that minority women don't have equal rights to be sluts? My guess is that it's not very selective. If you're thin and lift your shirt, you get on camera.

I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. I am not my body, but it is a part of who I am. It saddens me that there so many young women who overidentify with their bodies or don't value them at all. It also saddens me that there are so many men (and women too I guess) who encourage young women to continue to be exploited by buying the videos.

There's a difference between recognizing that your body is beautiful, not being ashamed of it, and believeing that it is yours to do with as you please, and stripping for a tank top.