Ashley
Judd and I have a lot in common. She’s only a few years my senior, and she grew
up about 80 miles north of my own Eastern Kentucky hometown. We were both sorority girls in Lexington and
are fanatic about the University of Kentucky’s basketball team. Our paths overlap in that “we almost know each other” way that connects many Kentuckians: her great-aunt and uncle lived next door to my own great-aunt and
uncle in a suburban Lexington neighborhood for decades, I know plenty of people
who knew her in her UK Kappa days, her hometown is quite near my beau’s, etc. I pride myself on being a Kentuckian, and
Ashley Judd is one of the Commonwealth’s most famous daughters. Needless to say, I’ve followed Ashley Judd’s
career quite closely over the years.
When
Ashley’s manifesto about women’s bodies and misogyny appeared on the Daily Beast Monday, I took
notice.It was hard not to notice, to
tell you the truth.My twitter stream
and Facebook feed were filled with female friends applauding Ms. Judd. People
forwarded me the link to the article again and again. As nearly everyone knows by now, Ashley Judd
appeared on a Canadian talk show in March and her appearance was dissected by a
number of entertainment media sources which cited her “puffy” appearance.Earlier this week, Ms. Judd took to the Daily
Beast website to discuss the societal implications of the criticism she’d
endured. Now, I read the article with trepidation, for I’ve often found her writing and socio-political stances to be a bit grating.
And, I have to say, I was exceptionally torn, both by the message she presented and by my own response.
As
I read the article, I found myself cheering Ms. Judd’s defense of herself and
her looks. It was a subject that hit
painfully close to home. A day earlier,
at Easter dinner, I’d found myself cringing as some relatives clumsily and
tactlessly “complimented” my recent weight loss. I didn’t want to explain that I am coming off
an emotionally difficult year, which had been capped off by a month-long bout
with bronchitis and a week’s worth of debilitating stomach pain. I didn’t want to acknowledge the tacit
implication that I'd needed to lose some of the weight, nor did I want to deal
with my grandmother’s admonition that I didn’t need to lose any more. I tried to graciously shrug off those
statements in the spirit of family and holiday, but they hurt my feelings. As
I read Ashley’s defense of her recent steroid treatment for a sinus infection,
I empathized deeply. Not only had I just
felt the need to defend myself against weird back-handed compliments, I had
also recently dealt with the “Wow, you look like shit” comments when receiving
a similar drug regimen. I didn’t need
the added stress of external criticism, and I could certainly understand the
points Ashley raised in her own defense.
Now, I thought that Ashley's Daily Beast article was a little formal and academic for the pages
of a political tabloid. The use of “inter
alia” is perhaps not fitted to The Daily Beast’s readership, but I’m
guilty of the same writing crimes. When
I feel defensive, or when I feel I’ve been challenged, I also tend to become
verbose. I sometimes cringe when I look
back at some of my earlier published work; I was immediately reminded of this
fact as I read Ashley’s article. This is a woman who has been hurt by her
critics in a very personal attack, I thought. She is smart and accomplished, and she wants to fire back with the tools
at hand. In her case, it’s a brand-new
MPA from the Harvard K-School. As
always, Ashley Judd presented herself as a hyper-reality version of me. It would make for a neat little story about the
sisterhood and solidarity of Kentucky women if I ended this essay here, except
for one small problem: I was one of the people who called Ashley “puffy.”
On
March 17, as most of y’all know, the UK basketball team played a tough, tight
game against Iowa State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. In a weekend fraught with upsets, the outcome
seemed fairly dubious for a moment.
Nobody wanted to look away from the game for second. And yet, there it was – a break in play
coverage to interview our Most Famous Fan.
The truth is, I didn’t care what Ashley had to say about being in the
Yum! Center, or about the team’s style of play.
I just wanted to watch the game.
As I recall, a crucial foul was not shown (y’all refresh my memory – it may
have even been a technical?) because we were cutting to an interview with
Ashley Judd. In my frustration and
anxiety about both the game itself and the manner in which it was being
broadcast, I rashly posted an ugly, petty statement to my social media accounts: “Nobody cares, Puffy Ashley.” The following Monday, Ms. Judd would go on to
the Canadian talk show appearance which sparked the controversy over her
appearance.
Now,
sports fans say a lot of ugly things in the moment. The blessing and the curse of the Facebook
Timeline format is that it easily allows you to go back and review your words. Around the time that I criticized Ms. Judd’s
appearance, I also criticized sportscaster Bobby Knight for being a notorious
blowhard with a vendetta against Kentucky; I’m sure that the General’s famous
gin blossom worked its way into the conversation at some point. It usually does. I similarly criticized Iowa
State’s star player, Royce White, who was previously thrown off Minnesota’s
team for an incident of theft and assault. As I review these statements, I’m
not altogether convinced that I criticized Ms. Judd because I am guilty of
covert misogyny, or that I was tacitly buying into the patriarchy (the
aspersions that her article casts upon women who criticize other women’s
looks). I do know, however, that I am
guilty of committing ad hominem attacks against Ms. Judd, Coach Knight, and Mr.
White. In the case of Ms. Judd and Coach
Knight, they are celebrities whose attitudes and public statements often annoy
me. In the case of Mr. White, I was
simply scared of his dominant style of play.
When
I said “Shut up, Puffy Ashley,” what I meant to say was “I don’t always enjoy
your work as an entertainer and a celebrity.
I often find you grating and preachy.
I find you to be a bit of a know-it-all.” I have long taken issue with Ms. Judd for the
fact that her political stance on the Eastern Kentucky coal industry fails to
account for the economic structure of our shared homeland. I have often disdained her status as our basketball team’s Premier Fan, because it often seems she is only there when the
cameras can focus on her the most*. What I meant to say was, “You are a beautiful
woman who is clearly having a rough day. Perhaps the camera shouldn’t rest upon
you for so long. Besides, there are tens
of thousands of other blue-clad fans who’d gladly give an interview.” But I
didn’t. Instead, I went for a personal
attack, which any first-year student of philosophy, politics, or law can point
out as a cheap and lazy rhetorical device.
My own words were reprehensible, and I thank Ms. Judd for pointing this
out to me.**
After
the Iowa State game, UK’s star forward Terrence Jones tweeted an
odd little anecdote. It seems that
Ashley Judd had been clowning around in the Locker Room with the team after the
game. Somehow, she made it out of the
gym and halfway down I-65 with Terrence’s iPhone. It seemed an odd little aside after a
hard-won game, but a small contingent of the internet portrayed this in an ugly
light. I saw more than a few wink-and-nod
tweets that asked why an older, beautiful, white woman had taken off with a
young, handsome, athletic black man’s cell phone. The implications were far-fetched and
seamy. And completely baseless. To me, this portion of Ashleygate was the real
story of objectification and misogyny.
It was barely removed from the Victorian implication that actresses were
whores. I thought of these ridiculous
stories as I read Ashley’s article, and I was forced to compare them to my own
gut reactions. My immediate
counterargument to the Daily Beast piece was that Ms. Judd has chosen a career
as a Professional Pretty Person. She
once appeared on that wildly popular UK Hockey poster wearing nothing but a
jersey. Wasn’t she inherently buying into the patriarchy through her very own
life choices, essentially objectifying herself? Or was I, in effect, blaming
the victim?
We
live in a culture which commoditizes celebrity. We pick our favorites as though
we were picking ice cream flavors. We
consider ourselves perfectly justified in critiquing the looks and lifestyle
choices of people whom we’ll never meet.
We find it perfectly acceptable to criticize celebrities whose weight falls outside proscribed norms. And, we
expect them to take it. While Ms. Judd’s
defense of herself is far from perfect – it’s a little too patronizing and
rhetoric-heavy for my tastes – it is a commendable step in starting a real
dialogue about the issue of objectification.
I
don’t find myself as moved by Ms. Judd’s missive as many of my fellow Kentucky
women. It wasn’t the “go-girl” manifesto
that many of my friends experienced. And
yet, it made me think. It made me think
about how women discuss other women. It
made me think about how men discuss women.
And it will hopefully move us all to choose our description of others’
looks a little more carefully. And for
that, I am quite grateful.
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**
I told you I get verbose when I’m defensive. Touché, Ashley.
