A Whole Lot of Naked- Naked Vs Innocent (Smooth(ie))
I’ve noticed a lot of nakedness in the sleb* world of late. I mean, I’ve literally never seen so much ‘Naked’ in all my life. Well, apart from the time I went on that popular brand of smoothie detox diet. And even then I switched half way through to ‘Innocent’. This was because I did the detox in the winter. In the winter ‘Innocent ‘ smoothies put cute little woollen bobble hats on the bottle lids and I wanted to put the hats on my cat. Where was I? Oh yeah naked celebrities……
So Miley’s getting naked. Gaga’s getting out her meat-I don’t mean the controversial dress she wore in 2011, I mean her meat, as in her ‘Jenny Taylor’. Ellie Goulding is showing her side boob at ‘The Hunger Games’ Premiere. Basically what I’m trying to say is celebrities are getting naked. More specifically female celebrities are getting naked. But I’m writing this article, not to point out how demeaning this is to women or even get all feminism on your asse, but to simply point t’it (say in northern accent) out and to analyse the cult of the naked female celebrity phenomenon. Through my astute research (Heat Magazine, Daily Mail Showbiz News, The ‘E’ Entertainment Channel –when I pay my Sky bill), I have noted that the naked celebrity can be classified into the following categories:
(clears throat-you have to before you read bullet points, its the rules)-
Category A) The ‘I need to get naked to get famous’
e.g Page Three Girl,
e.g Big Brother contestant,
e.g Helen Flanagan
e.g Jodie Marsh (she’s the one that unsuccessfully tried to steal Jordan’s career)
Category B) The ‘I need to get naked to shake off my innocent child star image’
e.g Miley Cyrus
e.g The Olsen Twins (actually they didnt get naked they just got thin, which is just as bad)
e.g Michael Jackson (again, he didnt actually get naked but he did start pelvic thrusting, moon walking and changed his skin colour, which is basically the same)
e.gCliff Richard (OK he didnt get naked either but he found Jesus and Jesus is always naked)
Category C) The ‘I need to get semi naked on the red carpet as its my dream to end up on Heats‘ Worst Dressed page
e.g Judy Finningan (don’t tell me her 2000 bra flash when accepting her NTA award was an accident)
e.g Ellie Goulding-(is she a character off The Simpsons?! -No its Side Show Boob.)
e.g Gwyneth Paltrow (See through Gothic dress 2002, Oscars),
e.g Gwyneth Paltrow (Repeat offender with a sheer patchy number, 2013, Iron Man 3 Premiere)
All of the above I don’t really care for. I find it demeaning to women and it goes against my feminist beliefs. Oh balls I said I wouldn’t do that, sorry. But there is one kind of ‘Naked ‘that does get my seal of approval and its category D:
Category D) The ‘I need to get naked to demonstrate an intellectual political and sociological point about today’s society’
e.g Lady Gaga,
e.g Russell Brand (in my dreams),
e.g Obama (still dreaming)
Maybe it’s because I went to a semi accredited and now shut down Drama School (Bretton Hall) where I studied pretentious dramatic genres including Post Modernism, Existentialism and Dadaism to name but a few. Or maybe it’s because I did a Site Specific Outdoor Theatre piece in which I was totally naked, covered in flour, rolling around in a derelict court yard (the flour symbolised my purity and my anguish towards society-I know deep right?) to a bemused and confused audience. Or maybe it’s a culmination of all these things which means I can identify with Lady Gaga and her naked political antics.
The great thing about Gaga is that when she flashes the flesh its not to attract sexual attention for personal, materialistic gain, its to draw people’s attention to a socio-political point. I mainly know this because I saw her on The Graham Norton Show on Friday night (another example of the EXTENSIVE research I do for these blogs). She said as much herself. She firstly told the show that her famous 2011 meat dress which she pointed out was beef, not pork (Muslims will be pleased, Indians not so much) was actually a protest to the American Military about Equality. It refers to a speech she made entitled ‘The Prime Rib of America’, which urged the military not to discriminate against gay men and lesbians in the army. Wow. Not so tacky, crazy or self-serving now, hey?
This is what sets Lady Gaga aside from the rest of the celebrity world. She is a genuine advocate of political causes and uses her ‘celebrity’ to make such bold statements. If Miley’s sledgehammer was a medium to speak out about the need to help DIY SOS contestants than maybe I’d have a bit of respect for her. But it wasn’t. Her video and consequential attention seeking antics is an example of sexual exploitation in the music industry. It riles me that children can turn on MTV and see her writhing and frolicking about on a ball and think this is the way women have to behave to be successful. Her video is destructive in more ways than merely demolishing a television studio in North Hollywood.
Yes Lady Gaga, like Miley also strips off but its different. The intention is not the same (and there’s no licking of Bob The Builder’s toolbox). The fact that she performed her new single ‘Do What You Want’ naked in G.A.Y last week proves that her antics are not sexually, but artistically fueled. (A Gay club is the last place I go to if I’m trying to pull).
Feminist author, Broadcaster, Times Columnist and TV Critic, Caitlin Moran recently spoke out in Stylist about the current prominent female celebrity trend to get their clothes off. She sagaciously reflects ‘The thing we need to talk about is the proportion of women making pop music who are all completely naked. Because clearly now, its a disproportionate amount. I was trying to explain to a male friend why it was so weird to me that every woman apart from Adele and Florence + The Machine has no clothes on.’
The lyrics of Gaga’s new record do bring into question, however the issues surrounding female erotic exploitation and the cult of the naked, sexually aggressive female celebrity. The lyrics to her latest single are ‘Do what you want with my body’. Interestingly, this record makes reference to the current cult of female celebrities getting their clothes off. What her lyrics are effectively saying is that the audience can ‘do what they want’ with the images of these celebrities but they can only ever have that. Purely on a basic, primal level. They cant, Gaga says have their minds or their souls.
True dat.
I still wish that Miley would put some clothes on though. Because when Miley gets naked, its sex. When Gaga does it, its art. And when Judy Finnigan gets naked its because she’s been drinking.
*’sleb’ is an abbreviation of celeb
Shortly after this Blog went to Press (Facebook) Lily Allen released the internet sensation that is ‘Hard Out Here’ advocating all of the above. Thank you Lily!!
Read the full interview and watch the video in NME magazine here:
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