Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Best and Worst Dressed from the Emmys

“Cojo’s Best and Worst Dressed Emmy Picks” http://www.etonline.com/news/2008/09/65835/

The idea of “best” and “worst” dressed is completely absurd, due in part to the fact that fashion sense is completely arbitrary, evidenced by the completely conflicting opinions of people over who was best and worst dressed at the Emmys. I looked at a couple different articles, and some of the same people who someone said was worst dressed, someone else said was best dressed. It is also almost always women who are subject this critique, because women are the ones who are supposed to have a fashion sense. Women also have more preassure on them to wear something unique and beautiful. Men are expected to wear tuxes or suits, which are extremely basic, and it is both difficult to go wrong or to be unique wearing a tux. But, women are expected to go all out. They get criticized for wearing dresses too short, too long, covering too much, not covering enough, dresses too sparkly, dresses too plain, wearing the “wrong” color…the list goes on and on. It seems almost impossible to wear an uncontroversial dress, even if someone wanted to.
In this particular critique, this man, Cojo narrated his best and worst Emmy picks. He chose 5 best dressed, and 2 worst dressed. All seven people are women, with only two are women of color, Sandra Oh, and Eva Longoria Parker.
Cojo is a very flamboyant man, and regardless of whether or not he is gay, he has the “gaze” down pat. He has a sexual comment for most of the “best dressed” women, referring to Teri Hatcher as “butter,” saying he wanted her to “melt all over” him, and complementing her on the feminineness of her dress. For Sandra Oh he calls her “smoldering,” and said that her black lace dress had a feel of “naughty underthings,” which was a completely unnecessary sexualization of her dress. Next he talks about Mariska Hargitay and how she is a “woman” who has “curves for days,” saying she turned her dress into “pure sex.” Christina Applegate and Marica Cross he did not so blatantly sexualize, saying only that Applegate looked “phenomenal,” and Cross’ dress was “so right.” Why couldn’t his other commentary been equally admiring, but without the sexualization?
Heidi Klum, one of the “worst dressed,” who went out on a limb by wearing a sleek dress with a cape, he asked “why so covered up? Why the cape? Are you auditioning for the next batman movie?” calling her outfit choice “a scandal, a shame.” He seemed especially mad because she is a model, and she was wearing something he thought was atrocious. This leaves no room for women who are trying to be totally unique in their choice of dress. For Eva Longoria Parker, the other worst dressed who was wearing fringe, he denounced her for the fringe, and said that “fringe says to me ‘do you want a lap dance?’”
This goes back to the whole idea that women can only look nice if they look sexy, if men want to have sex with them just from looking at them. There is nothing wrong with people stating their opinion about other people’s clothes, but to equate sexiness with beauty and to only judge women, and only judge them on how sexy they looked to you, is unnecessary and absurd.

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