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Have You Heard of “Feminist Ryan Gosling”?

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My blogroll has been overflowing with gushy posts about the shockingly silly  “Feminist Ryan Gosling” tumblr.

I can get how this might be a cute idea if you are in high school, but anybody who is older than that and who has crushes on movie stars and TV actors needs to examine their maturity levels. All of this ooh-aahhs about how Ryan Gosling is “perfect” are decidedly unhealthy when adult women engage in them.

Ryan Gosling is an actor. You don’t know anything about him except the image he chooses to present to the world. And as an actor, he is kind of supposed to be good at playing different roles for the enjoyment of the viewers. You don’t even know what he really looks like. This obsession with the face and the body of a celebrity sounds extremely disturbing. The tumblr itself looks like a stalker’s wet-dream.

And besides, all those feminists who moan constantly about men and the media imposing an impossible standard of beauty on them? Good job being total hypocrites on this one! Because, you know, it’s just as impossible for a man to look like an air-brushed, photo-shopped, computer-generated photo of Ryan Gosling as it is for you to look like Shakira or Beyonce do in any of their videos. So please tell me once again how objectifying people on the basis of their physical appearance is wrong and degrading.

23 responses to “Have You Heard of “Feminist Ryan Gosling”?”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    all those feminists who moan constantly about men and the media imposing an impossible standard of beauty on them?

    Do they? I initially thought you wanted to write WOmen, instead of “men”, in the sentence. Imo, this is done to women, but not to men. In US pop movies it’s a cliche already when quite fat, below average looking man gets model level pretty girlfriend / wife. There are 1000 ads for beauty products for women, but ~ zero for men. Metrosexuals are looked on suspiciously, as with doubts on their sexuality and in general their muscularity being questioned. In Russian there is a sexist saying that a man should look a bit prettier than an ape, isn’t it like that in US culture? Aren’t women told constantly how they don’t look pretty enough and expected to take pains to be pretty (make up, heels, etc) , which men don’t get?

    So please tell me once again how objectifying people on the basis of their physical appearance is wrong and degrading

    I am all for looking (discreetly and respectfully) on beautiful people, what you call “objectifying people” in your language, which differs from most popular use of those words imo. Both genders feel lust and it’s natural & healthy. How they act on this feeling is, however, a different subject. I have heard many times how men discussed women, in which terms, and it was very different from how women did it. There are indeed dis- & respectful ways to do it. I talk about words and approach here, how people mentally see the world.

    Feminists are against men acting on their healthy lust in unhealthy or even criminal ways: catcalling, shouting obscenities on the street, or as I heard f.e. “I’ll expect my wife to give anal since after giving birth women’s vaginas become too big to be enjoyable”. I am not against individual sexual preferences, but it was said like he thought women owed him somebody, like He as a Man was naturally more important. I can’t convey his tone and the situation here, but believe me, please. I have yet to hear a woman talk with such subtext, as if men were inferior in any way OR served only to fulfill her desires. The latter, after OR part, is what women mean on feminist sites, when they talk of objectifation.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “In US pop movies it’s a cliche already when quite fat, below average looking man gets model level pretty girlfriend / wife.”

      -Seriously? You look at the Oscars’ red carpet and see all those fat, ugly Ben Afflecks, Tom Cruises, Brad Pitts, Keanu Reeves, Denzel Washingtons, etc., etc. Where is this even coming from? American male movie stars are overwhelmingly beautiful, with chiseled faces, and amazing ripped bodies.

      “There are 1000 ads for beauty products for women, but ~ zero for men. ”

      -Again, huh? Try picking up a couple of mens magazines once in a while and you will understand why such huge numbers of men drive themselves into all kinds of health issues by taking steroids.

      “Metrosexuals are looked on suspiciously, as with doubts on their sexuality and in general their muscularity being questioned.”

      -Just like non-traditionally feminine women. There is perfect equality here.

      “I have heard many times how men discussed women, in which terms, and it was very different from how women did it. ”

      -Come meet my friends. 🙂 The very first thing I always got asked after I went on a date was, “So how long is it?” The second one was, “Did he take you to an expensive place?”

      “I have yet to hear a woman talk with such subtext, as if men were inferior in any way OR served only to fulfill her desires. ”

      -My dear friend, this only has to do with your particular circle of friends. Extrapolating from it onto the entire population of the world is a little too ambitious.

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      1. anon Avatar
        anon

        Re: the fat man w/ the hot wife. Actually, yes, you do see that dynamic quite a bit on TV at least. Of the shows I watch, The Simpsons and Family Guy comes to mind, but I think that’s the idea with several other sitcoms including King of Queens (yuck) and I think also part of the dynamic in the movie Knocked Up… but I could be mistaken on the title. So yes, men who are morons, slackers, and unattractive ending up with hot and intelligent wives who stick with them for god knows what reason is a stereotype.

        Not to say that there is no social pressure for men to be attractive as well… like most gendered stereotyping, it cuts both ways, but with some differences (at least when grossly generalizing).

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          There is definitely such a trend in sitcoms. I’ve seen them and I’m disgusted with them for more reasons that I can list. In these sitcoms, the man has to be not only unattractive but, as you point out, also a loser, so that the competent wife can save him and manage his life. So the sitcoms feed the fantasies of both men (I can have a hot woman no matter how I look!) and women (I can lord it over a man and have the kind of power I’ll never get professionally, socially and politically.)

          Yuck is precisely the name for it.

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  2. Helena Suess Avatar
    Helena Suess

    Hey girl.

    Let’s light some gardenia-scented candles and we’ll get comfy on my chocolate chaise lounge. Hear that sound? That’s real imitation seal leather, softer than the delicate folds of your ladyflower, creaking under my perfect ass. You can stroke my rugged five o’clock shadow. I’ll lean forward just a little bit and part my lips, and you can close your eyes while I satisfy your dream. You will melt to hear my voice, like half a brick wrapped in velvet and thrown through the sexiest pane of glass, as I say those words you are longing to hear.

    What do you think of Butler’s theory of gender as performance? Does her Foucauldian argument that we are rather disciplined into conformity with social constructs of “man” and “woman” hold water? Or is she just guilty of an overly academic misapplication of Lacan, Wittig, and Beauvoir to J. L. Austin’s articulation of performative utterances?

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    1. el Avatar
      el

      What is your 1st paragraph about? First, I thought it was about a romantic male lover from yellow chick-lit novel? Then, wondered whether it was female-female, you & Clarissa, situation.

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      1. Helena Suess Avatar
        Helena Suess

        “Then, wondered whether it was female-female, you & Clarissa, situation.”

        Oh good gracious no. I’m just playing silly buggers with that meme where sexy sex symbol of sexy manness Ryan “Sexy” Gosling is captioned with romance/feminist-y things. That’s supposed to be Gosling saying all that junk.

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      2. Helena Suess Avatar
        Helena Suess

        And also I think the meme is just supposed to be making fun of Gosling’s sex symbol status as a PR manufacture. Like, here’s this one-dimensional persona of celebrity beefcake guy all the ladies are supposed to be drooling over, wouldn’t the ladies drool even more if he were also quipping one-dimensional feminist-souding stuff? [massive tongue-in-cheek alert]

        Not that I really know anything about this guy. I don’t watch very many movies so my only clue to who the hell this Gosling joker is are pictures of him that pop up on the internet, usually with the words “hey girl” for whatever reason. And those pictures are, admittedly, very sexy.

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    2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Butler is guilty of writing extremely convoluted impossible to understand sentences that needlessly torture the English language. But I do agree that gender is performed. It doesn’t have any other meaning that what we decide to endow it with.

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      1. Helena Suess Avatar
        Helena Suess

        She rocks a leather jacket though.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          He?

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  3. bloggerclarissa Avatar
    bloggerclarissa

    el :
    Aren’t women told constantly how they don’t look pretty enough and expected to take pains to be pretty (make up, heels, etc) , which men don’t get?

    Once again, told by whom???

    This is NOT a gender issue. This is a self-confidence and body acceptance issue. People who think they are not attractive enough and who hate their bodies do so NOT because they are male or female. This has nothing to do with gender.

    I can, of course, repeat this again. But would it work? 🙂

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  4. bloggerclarissa Avatar
    bloggerclarissa

    Helena Suess :

    And also I think the meme is just supposed to be making fun of Gosling’s sex symbol status as a PR manufacture. Like, here’s this one-dimensional persona of celebrity beefcake guy all the ladies are supposed to be drooling over, wouldn’t the ladies drool even more if he were also quipping one-dimensional feminist-souding stuff? [massive tongue-in-cheek alert]

    Not that I really know anything about this guy. I don’t watch very many movies so my only clue to who the hell this Gosling joker is are pictures of him that pop up on the internet, usually with the words “hey girl” for whatever reason. And those pictures are, admittedly, very sexy.

    The posts and articles I read about this tumblr sound like they are 100% in earnest.

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    1. Helena Suess Avatar
      Helena Suess

      Okay well I was being tongue in cheek at least. And the tumblr-er at least says she is: “Yes, the ‘hey girl,’ is pejorative.”

      Also, forget all that stuff I said about Gosling being sexy. The more pictures of him I see the more he looks like a clone of Tim Roth that got mixed up with a little of Pete Cambell’s DNA.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        🙂 🙂 🙂

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  5. Helena Suess Avatar
    Helena Suess

    bloggerclarissa :He?

    Naw. Butler.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Ah! I never met her in person but Ol. who comments on this blog often says she REALLY enacts gender in real life.

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      1. Helena Suess Avatar
        Helena Suess

        “she REALLY enacts gender in real life”

        Neat. Like how? In pictures of her I only ever see her in dapper turtlenecks with that stylin Kyle MacLachlan do of hers. She was in documentary on modern philosophy too [which also had Zizek playing around in some garbage] and she was kind of James Dean-y there.

        On a related note, Derrida had amazing hair.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Maybe Ol. will come by and tell us. To me, all he ever said was, ‘You had to be there!’

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  6. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hey, I think Feminist Ryan Gosling is fun and hilarious. When is feminism (and to my knowledge the actual Ryan Gosling has not actually said that he is a feminist, but he’s consistently pro-feminist issues and great to women in Hollywood) ever portrayed as sexy? I say we take it!

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  7. Liz P Avatar
    Liz P

    Hey! I tried to comment earlier but it started posting it before I finished writing in my email address so I don’t know if it posted… so sorry if there is a double post.

    This is Liz! (linked blog post about FRG) My interpretation of FRG is that it is fun. Because sometimes feminism is fun. And honestly, if there is such a “mainstream” movement of women (or anyone) interested in seeing feminist theory juxtaposed with pictures of Ryan Gosling usually put in People Magazine… I’m all for it.

    What I blog about primarily is pop culture and feminism because ultimately I think pop culture is a greeaat place to talk about feminism and gender and stereotypes. There’s a ton of bad stuff, but there is also good (like FRG), and as feminists, I think we should be engaging in feminism in an accessible way. I love the academic, Judith Butlerly side of feminism and that is a lot of what I am studying in college, but I also think that feminism should be accessible. And however much I love to talk about performativity or hegemony, that’s just not accessible for most people and I acknowledge that. There are other ways to get people to engage critically in feminism and gender and sexuality studies without being hugely academic.

    I don’t know how much you engage with student-aged people about feminism, but there are a lot of misconceptions about who can be a feminist and what being a feminist is, and this is a conversation I have with people my age (21) all the time. Part of it is because we have shielded ourselves behind this curtain of academia and theory and acronyms and people just don’t see that as something that they can engage in. But personally, I really really want them to engage in it!! Because once you can get people to see the connections they already have with feminism, they’re all for it! And that is so exciting! I would love it if men were more openly feminist. I don’t know if Ryan Gosling can recite Foucault off the top of his head, but I love that this tumblr about “Feminist Ryan Gosling” is a.) fun, b.)informative, and c.) makes feminism look sexy! I think a lot of feminists probably find feminist views in potential partners really attractive… why the hell not talk about it?

    And just as a personal note… I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen a Ryan Gosling movie. (“Drive” and “Ides of March” are on my list though.) I do not hold him up as a symbol of male perfection, but I like that so far he has proved himself to be a celebrity who is open about talking about sexism in Hollywood and is pretty pro-lady business. Pre-Ryan Gosling memeland he was not someone I thought about that much, but honestly I think that this proves that feminism is attractive, because every interview I’ve read about him lately and all this FRG stuff I think is really attractive. That’s my two cents, but I’m glad there is a dissenting voice in the Ryan Gosling semi-hysteria.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      It’s nice to have you here, Liz P. I’m always a dissenting voice on pretty much anything. 🙂 Otherwise, things just get too boring. Whenever I see a consensus on anything ideological, my first instinct is to disagree. Nothing is sadder than a political movement where everybody agrees and the spirit of the debate has died.

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  8. Danny Avatar
    Danny

    And besides, all those feminists who moan constantly about men and the media imposing an impossible standard of beauty on them? Good job being total hypocrites on this one! Because, you know, it’s just as impossible for a man to look like an air-brushed, photo-shopped, computer-generated photo of Ryan Gosling as it is for you to look like Shakira or Beyonce do in any of their videos.
    Oh but you see in their minds its no hypocrisy because “men are privileged” which nullifies any negativity. Or you have those who think its a come uppance.

    anon:
    Re: the fat man w/ the hot wife. Actually, yes, you do see that dynamic quite a bit on TV at least. Of the shows I watch, The Simpsons and Family Guy comes to mind, but I think that’s the idea with several other sitcoms including King of Queens (yuck) and I think also part of the dynamic in the movie Knocked Up… but I could be mistaken on the title. So yes, men who are morons, slackers, and unattractive ending up with hot and intelligent wives who stick with them for god knows what reason is a stereotype.
    And if you notice all of those examples are in the realm of comedy. The Jack Blacks and Jonah Hills are fine well and dandy as long as they know their place and don’t expect to actually be taken seriously like the Will Smiths and Denzel Washingtons. This is like saying Charlie’s Angels shows that women can be secret agents too and cut it off there with no further examination.

    And while I don’t think you are doing this I find it almost funny that people go on about how those poor “hot smart wives” are so badly harmed while there’s supposedly nothing wrong with guys being stereotyped as slackers and morons. I’m just bringing this up because I’ve had people seriously put up Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin as proof of how acceptable fat men are on tv. I can even look past the whole animated thing but seriously how acceptable are fat men on tv if your first examples are Homer and Peter? Oh and then they pull out their big guns and mention King of Queens. Call me when Omar Benson Miller wins a major award for something other than comedy.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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