PressEthic

At first I was proud that Jennifer Aniston was one of the "men" of the year, but now seeing the covers side by side my heart sinks. Besides appearing that she's selling out to the magazine she also looks like she's in a very uncomfortable position. Aniston's spokesman sounds absolutelly ridiculous in his quoted statement. I wonder if Aniston would have said the same thing if personally asked why she posed topless.

It definetly makes GQ look sexist. "Well pick a woman for man of the year, but we'll have to have her pose nude. It's a fair trade off don't you think so, American dudes?"

Martha Stewart was recently named one of the 50 most powerful women in the world by Fortune and she complained that all the women were photographed to look dowdy and masculine. I didn't actually see the pictures, but I think I like Aniston's ultra-feminine look better than a masculinated women look.

Pictures have to be interesting these days. There are so many magazine covers that look exactly the same. Beautiful women are the norm. . . this cover makes a statement. I think we need to give Aniston more credit here. If she didn’t want to pose topless, she wouldn’t have. She’s not a victim. She’s Jennifer Aniston. She doesn’t have to do anything, and I admire her for having the courage to pose topless.

Obviously, we live in a society that objectifies women. But Aniston's not an innocent, powerless victim in all this -- as one of most successful actors in the country, I'm quite confident that if she didn't want to take her shirt off for the cameraman, she wouldn't be forced to do so. Just because she's posing in a sexual way doesn't mean she's being sexually exploited.

Also, as Christie noted, you can't ignore the economic reallity in GQ's decision -- if they featured a beefcake photo of Vince Vaughn showing off his pecs, sales would go down, probably dramatically so. Conversely, a picture of Shirtless Jen is going to sell a lot more copies than Fully Clothed Jen. GQ's only going to change when men prefer looking at a clothed woman over a half-naked one. In other words, don't hold your breath.

It's not so much that there's a photo of a topless woman, though there's plenty to debate there. She got this award because of "poise and grace," right? Not quite the shot to convey such distinguished qualities.

I hear your point. But GQ's under no obligation to show their cover models in a way that reflects the reason why they gave them the award. For instance, both of the other selections for "Men of the Year," Vince Vaughn and 50 Cent, were presented in a manner consistent with GQ's sensibility, that of a men's/fashion magazine. One could argue they did the same thing with Aniston.

Right, they presented Aniston in the same way they always (or at least often) present women. But they did it under the guise of honoring her as "Man of the year." Isn't there something ironic about that? She is the first woman ever to receive the distinction (and I'm not saying it's the Pulitzer or anything, but to the magazine it is probably a big deal), and she poses topless for the cover shoot. I know that that is the norm, but I thought they were trying to depart from conventions.

I never saw GQ as wanting to 'depart from conventions' with this transparent gimmick of awarding a woman "Man of the Year." It's a marketing ploy to get people like us to chat about the issue and make GQ culturally relevant again. Still, I don't think that Aniston was denigrated in any way with the cover shot; on the contrary, I think it's more sexist to believe that women who use their sex appeal are victims being exploited by men. But it's probably an issue we're not going to resolve on a class blog.

That's a really good point, actually. Just because a woman wants to assert her sexuality doesn't necessarily mean she's being objectified; it can just as easily be a show of her confidence and strength. Honestly, if I looked like Jennifer Aniston I'd probably walk around like that all the time. It justs seems like that's the go-to way to sell magazines, and that's what makes it so annoying to me.

Ryan, in response to your comment: "I think it's more sexist to believe that women who use their sex appeal are victims being exploited by men:"

I agree with you. I just think that this topic really becomes a chicken and egg situation. Which came first: objectification of women, or empowerment through "owning" one's body?

Both sides have points, and in a lot of my women studies classes, people often couldn't come to an agreement about anything that had to do with pornography and/or objectification. I didn't meant to suggest that Aniston was coerced in posing the way she did. Mostly I meant to comment on the stark differences between her shoot and the other guys. I think we can agree that they were very different? And one could maybe guess that it was because she was a woman that she posed topless. Which only came into question for me because she was grouped with the two guys. I could make every post about some woman posing topless in a magazine, but that't not really as interesting as this case.

I believe: 1. objectification of women (and less often men) in magazines in bad, but so common we are mostly immune to it. 2. empowerment is good. 3. there is a huge grey area in between that makes for good press ethics discussion.