Why I Will Never Be Judged By the Content of my Character

I suppose it’s no big secret that American culture holds a double standard for men and women. I am reminded of this, depressingly, while reading the headlines of women’s magazines in line at the grocery story. “Your best summer hair EVER!” proclaims Marie Claire. “Hot Moves to Drive Him Wild” promises Cosmo. Thin and beautiful women grace their covers. Turn to Esquire, and you see, well, more thin and beautiful women. But Esquire also boasts articles about the president and the war, and cultural commentary and essays by David Sedaris and Chuck Klostermann (two of my favorite writers). Okay, there’s also articles about how to score chicks, but even these are very well-written, whereas I’m pretty sure Marie Claire just reguirgitates the same articles every month while slapping a younger, thinner model on the cover. Overall, Esquire is written for a person who is reflective and intelligent – not just about their hip size, but about the state of their world.

Let’s relate this perception of men and women to the plight of Kirstie Alley. Alley was slender in her early career – her Cheers days – but last year sometime started grabbing tabloid covers (or to be specific, enlarged photos of her hiner started grabbing said covers). Alley got a spokeswoman deal with Jenny Craig, and a TV show called Fat Actress. Very publicly, she lost 50 pounds and showed up on Oprah in a bikini.

While spending the night in a hotel a couple weeks ago, I channel flipped to Pulp Fiction on cable TV (which, in case you’re wondering, is still pretty engaging sans swearing and bloodshed). Quentin Tarantino is traditionally credited with saving John Travolta’s career by casting him in Pulp Fiction. The early 1990’s found Travolta doing dreck like Look Who’s Talking/Too/Now, co-starring Kristie Alley. In 1994’s Pulp Fiction, he played a swaggering bad-ass assassin, and won an Oscar nomination. Travolta’s career has been up and down since then. Though finding success with movies like Face/Off and Ladder 49, he was panned widely for Battlefield Earth, based on the novel of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. (Incidentally, my friend Rob is the only person I know who’s seen Battlefield Earth, and he was only able to stomach 20 minutes, which is something because I’ve seen Rob stomach mass quantities of Jager). Travolta was also criticized recently in the press for saying psychotic drugs caused the Virginia Tech shootings (cringe).

Anyway, I’m watching Pulp Fiction, and one of the commercials is for a re-run of Grease on Nick at Nite. Holy Cow! I thought, John Travolta got enormous between 1978 and 1994! See a comparison here. Then, Google as I might, I could not find a single criticism of Travolta ginormosity, save for the article above which doesn’t even actively criticize Travolta, because his wife Kelly “finds his fuller figure attractive!”

What damaged Kirstie Alley’s career? Being overweight. What revived it? Losing weight. What damaged Travolta’s career? A combination of bad movie choices and a belief in scientology. What revived it? Great acting, great movies. Alley rises and falls on her expanding and contracting waistline; Travolta falls because of his beliefs, his thoughts, his actions. What kills me about this is that Kristie Alley is a scientologist; I didn’t know this until I started researching her career for this post. Do you see women scientologists (Alley, Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston) in the news for their beliefs nearly as much as you do their male counterparts (Travolta, Tom Cruise)?

Female stars are much more likely to end up in the gossip columns for appearance – rumors of eating disorders, weight loss/gain, pregnancy, flashing nether regions, plastic surgery speculations. Male stars end up in the tabloids for what they do or say – Tom Cruise for his heinous behavior on Oprah, Danny DeVito appearing drunk on The View, Isaiah Washington using the word “faggot” on the set of Grey’s Anatomy, Mel Gibson's anti-semitic rant, the time Russell Crowe threw a phone at that bellhop. Just last night I saw Tucker Carlson laughing at presidential candidate John Edwards for this video, where he spends several minutes zhushing his hair before a TV interview. When a man is concerned about his appearance, it is an occasion for hilarity! Yet when Kristie Alley stays at home with her kids and drinks 14 bottles of grape soda per day, suddenly it’s a “health crisis” and she desperately needs help. (As far as I know, Travolta’s grape soda consumption has never been reported in a major news outlet.)

Why should I care? I’m not (yet) planning on being a movie star, but I am planning on making a career out of what I do and say. In fact, the career I’ve chosen for myself will rise and fall on teaching and publishing, and though I like to think that academia is more forgiving than Hollywood, something in me doubts that people are willing to switch gears so quickly. Part of the reason I write about pop culture despite its seeming triviality is that I honestly believe it is a reflection of society and that it has the power to influence people. Though publishing allows for physical anonymity, what I achieve as a professor will also depend on the way I appear to others: teaching, job talks, presenting at conferences, and it feels naïve to believe that people will hold me to Travolta standards instead of Alley standards. What does this double standard mean for the way women should present themselves professionally? Is the solution to embrace the beauty standard, work out and buy the latest fashions? Or do I deny the standard, let myself go, and dress ultra-conservatively? Isn’t it wildly unfair that I have to ask such questions in the first place?