Third wave feminism was bad enough with its “I’m a princess who should be spoiled rotten and pampered AND treated with full equality to men” cake and eating it too business, but now, here is Katherine Heigl… the vanguard of the Fourth Wave.
Is the level of consumerist infantilization implied in her movie posters intentional? I can’t really say; I’ve never seen any of the films. But it’s been all but impossible to avoid sweet, perky Katherine Heigl on the subway walls in my sleepy to and fro from work. She creeps in to my unconscious when my defenses are down and raises my gall to infinitely self-righteous “You’re what’s wrong with this country!” heights.
KNOCKED UP (2007)
Heigl’s big break-out hit is about an pot-addled schmo (Seth Rogen) who gets to marry a gorgeous blonde career woman (Heigl), which is nothing new except he’s not rich, a lawyer or in the entertainment business. So what’s the point? That he knocks her up and she lets her bourgeois Puritan pro-life values screw up her career-track ladder climbing? Is that the message we want disseminated to the pot-addled schmos of our age? Stoners, lend me your ears: Forget about shaving, losing weight, dressing for success or getting a real job, just poke holes in the condoms and win the girl who’d normally never look at you twice. Entrapment is the new black.
Do career-track hotties need to be lectured that all that empowerment stuff they’re into must always come second to a little bundle of half-beautiful joy? I was so mad just from the ads that I’ve never seen KNOCKED UP. I hear it’s pretty funny, but I’d rather curse the darkness than light a candle… NEXT!
27 DRESSES (2008) – Always a bridesmaid, Heigl lives out the dubious woman’s fantasy of trying on over 27 different dresses for her friends’ weddings and otherwise letting them use her to plan their weddings for them. Oh when when when will she make them go through the same humiliation?
This sounds a lot like my mid-90s Cherry Hill NJ girlfriend’s kind of movie… but despite the valuable lessons about life, family and being your own person, this seems suspiciously facile and consumerist… again, I would never see it. It’s bad enough there’s this poster, which seems to indicate that the most important thing–the ultimate signifier–in a girl’s life isn’t even a man, which would be bad enough, it’s a dress, the kind you wear once then stuff into your overstuffed closet.
THE UGLY TRUTH (2009)
The world is full of gorgeous blondes with too-high expectations and no man. All they need is a charismatic ENTOURAGE-style douchebag prick to get them to open up, and it’s preferable he have a sexy British accent. Enter Gerard Butler, who coaches Heigl’s TV talk show host on how to land some dork of a doctor who fixed her ankle in a meet-cute. Before you throw up, let’s let Roger Ebert call this one, with just a brief paragraph from his two-star review:
Thanks Roger, and now we’re up to two of the most horrible:
THE KILLERS (2010)
Notice by now the trend of showing Heigl in a form fitting dress, full body shot, probably to drag in the otherwise sulky boyfriends on chick flick night. Note that she is always placed on the left side of the frame. Not sure why, but it seems like the safer place to be. The main offense here is Heigl’s holding of her gun like it’s a dirty diaper. This gesture on her part says ‘no matter what, I’m not taking this seriously,’ and or ‘which end do you hold this from? Hee hee I’m just a girl, awww.” Ashton’s pained pleading look is like “C’mon honey, this might be a good movie if you at least try to pretend we’re actually in danger.”
The tagline “Marriage… give it your best shot” is repugnant, since neither one of these people is clearly giving the movie their best shot. Why should we listen to a word they say? The only proper response to this offensive poster is to shoot it full of holes, but they don’t let you do that in the subway any more so all you can do is wait for it to come out on netflix where you can stoically ignore it for decades to come.
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT (2010)
The offense comes full circle in this comedy “about taking it one step at a time” that’s due to be released this coming Friday. Note the positioning of the upper middle class-style full length white trim window on a slant to coincide with Heigl’s bent posture as she runs, crouched down to grab her infant. Note her guileless indulgent grin as she chases the baby and the subliminal way her hands actually seem to touch the knee of “tighty-whitys”-wearing husband Josh Duhamel.
Now, anyone knows that no real man wears briefs, especially if he wants to have a baby, since they lower your sperm count. Clearly the white tightness is there to a) draw comparison with the diaper of the child and suggest, aww the husband’s just a second baby. b) to show off Duhamel’s tight round ass.
Between the points of both (a) and (b) we can map the entire decline of the American male’s presence in the nuclear family since the 1970s. Like all the above posters, it’s the tale of how men have grown up stunted, becoming less and less the chief breadwinner and more and more the equivalent of an older sibling in the household hierarchy. Even if he doesn’t leave in a few years for a younger woman who takes him more seriously, the children will still grow up without a strong father figure, driving them into drugs, cutting, bulimia, aggravated assault, rehab, Al-Anon, and years of therapy
Most insulting of all is the look of compliant adoration on Heigl’s face as she runs to her infant, completely ignoring the husband’s presence and suggesting her own part in the destruction of the stable home environment. The whole non-du-pere arc is thrown off if a man is cockblocked by his own child. In other words, it’s a dad’s job to be a bit mysterious, scary, even a bit ogre-ish; his affection is rough and mysterious, and he inspires confidence so the child can feel secure (dad’s got it all under control); all this is lost if he’s on the bottom rung of the hierarchy. Even if the position is purely symbolic he must be the top dog, at least until the child is five years old.
But one look at the dynamic of this poster shows that the baby is really the one in charge, the mother its bitch and the father its wannabe copycat underling. This ‘cuteness uber alles‘ factor reduces men to second class citizens in their own family, forever shut out of the mother-child pair bond, a sulky older sibling who in a drastic bid to get attention reverts to infantile behavior. Thus men become jackasses, foul-mouthed stoners, douchebags and jockeys-wearing callow hipsters all to compete with their child for their wife’s attention. Women can complain about the state of men in this country all they want, but if these Heigl posters are an indication, they’re getting exactly what they ordered. So if you want to effect change, stay home and rent IN AMERICA. Stay home and rent ABOUT A BOY, or FIGHT CLUB. Stay home and rent TITANIC, or just stay home and act your age.
Now pass me that bong, beeeeeeyatch!
I recently saw the preview for ” Life as We know it” and I gathered that the Katherine Heigel character and the guy in the underwear were left the child when the parents died. They were not a couple at the beginning of the film but become one by the end as they bond over poopy diapers. ICK.
Interesting observations, Erich. There is a lot of misogynistic, infantilizing head-tilting going on in Heigl’s photos. It seems that the marketers don’t want anyone to miss the sight of the actress in her slim-fitting threads — since she’s always at left-frame, and our eyes read images from left to right (like a page), we’ll always see her first. But, at the same time, one could argue that this places the man in a better spot, since we’ll finish scanning the image by looking at him. Looks like they are selling the “chick” by making her second rate.
I’m not going to suggest Heigl’s film roles are feminist icons or anything, but if you are going to discuss anything beyond the poster, you should know what is the plot of the movie. The first commenter is right–these two unprepared adults inherit a baby. Is it still potentially a dumb plot? Sure. But don’t write about what you don’t know.
An analysis of the visual rhetoric of these images is needed. But don’t tell me you haven’t seen the movie and then try to critique the film’s content. Stick to the image. It speaks volumes all on its own.
Pretty much read my thoughts. I hate Katherine Heigel for exactly these reasons in spite all of what she might have achieved in Grey’s Anatomy (which I doubt if it was anything significant). There is a scene in The Ugly Truth and The Bounty Hunter, both starring Gerard Butler, where the male lead would be allowed to squeeze in a spank or two just for the fun of it. The women (Heigl and Aniston) would happily ignore it as something of a given. But what it is really a fulfillment of male fantasy to give these hot women a good spanking.
“here is Katherine Heigl… the vanguard of the Fourth Wave.”
You’re basing this off of five movie posters of movies you haven’t even watched? Heigl is no more the poster child of fourth wave feminism (whatever that is) than I am; the third wave isn’t done yet and it had nothing to do with princesses. The princessing of young girls, then their sexualization, then the infantilization of grown women is the product of the patriarchal backlack against third wave feminism. Try learning a little about what you write before writing.
Why on earth would I ever see these films of my own volition? Thanks for your comments Jenin of Canada and Janet. I never meant to imply I knew anything about the films beyond the posters, and my deconstructions are totally and completely based on the posters, as if they were works of art/propoganda in themselves, which I am sure you realize that as an inescapable part of the cultural landscape they were/are. It’s in the nature of criticism to associate and share one’s immediate emotional responses in the manner that I did. In the meantime, you might think a little about what you write, too, lest you confirm the commoner’s opinion that feminists have no sense of humor. May God grant you true love, as She has for me.
What are these ladies bitching about? Erich I’m glad you at least admitted up front in the first poster analysis that you haven’t seen one of these films. I think that makes it pretty clear you are writing about a collection of Heigl film posters, not a collection of Heigl films. But writing about women and infantilization is like blowing a silent whistle that only females who like trying to define feminism can hear. So enjoy it, I guess?
“May God grant you true love, as She has for me.” Damn, if even half the blogosphere had your sense of humor, it would be a much happier place. Or funnier anyway.
To add to the Heigl factor, she also has a habit of criticizing films/collaborators after the fact – she called Knocked Up sexist when it was released, and was a big player in that whole guy-getting-fired-from-Greys-Anatomy thing. Not sure what this says about anything, but I suppose it plays into your paranoia about the having-cake-eating-too thing…or something.
You are so right. I find modern-day feminism completely socially destructive. Dads should be top dog to their children. Sad when women won’t let that happen anymore. Everybody’s unhappy.