So if you’re not on Snapchat and don’t follow celebrity gossip (well
done, I wish I could be like you), then you’ve probably missed Kim K
Snapchatting a video of Kanye having a telephone conversation with
Taylor Swift re: the lyrics about her in his recent rap. Swifty claimed
she had no idea those lyrics were to be released and objected to them,
however the Snapchatted footage shows her thanking Kanye for warning her
and agreeing for him to go ahead and use the lyrics. As the yoof would
say; awks.
Swift reminds me of a Queen Bee in secondary school. The head of the
cool group that holds the power to approve or deny entry to the posse.
The type that would be lovely to your face and give you tasty ‘low cal
diet snacks’ that actually turned out to be weight gain bars. Say what
you want about Kim and Kanye but they are brutally open and honest,
often to the point where it’s shocking and socially frowned upon.
Throwback to ‘yo imma let you finish but’ and Kim telling us in detail
how childbirth has altered her vagina. A match made in heaven, I tell
you. But I rate that raw (and sometimes embarrassing and socially
awkward) honesty more than people being fake or lying. At least you know
where you stand.
Thinking about
honesty and openness got me thinking about the appeal of the Kardashians
and, while I’m not a huge fan, I totally get it. I’ve watched Kris tell
Kylie not to steal Kim’s clothes and have felt refreshed to see honest
depictions of female relationships that I think are severely lacking on
our screens. Mothers, sisters, friends, grandmothers...These
relationships are some of the strongest around and yet they’re rarely
reflected on screen without a strong male influence altering the
dynamic. The K clan are eminently open about their entire lives, be it
on their reality show, Instagram or Snapchat. They might live in
mansions in sunny Calabasas but they’re as dysfunctional as they come,
which is a comfort, as all families are to a degree, and that’s okay.
They go through divorce, adultery and grievances while the cameras roll.
The aspirational aspect of the show is huge, but there’s a reason the Rich Kids of Beverly Hills
cast aren’t household names and the Kardashians are. You watch their
lives unravel in the predictably unpredictable way that life inevitably
does, and despite the Birkins and Bentleys, there is undoubtably an
empathetic element and also an underlying human craving to satisfies our
voyeuristic desires.
My views on Kim
are quite conflicted. I think she’s vacuous, vain and it’s a crying
shame that someone with her level of influence and affluence isn’t doing
lots of charity work, speaking out about important issues and really
trying to change the world for the better. However, my affection for her
stems from her tough, ballsy nature and lack of fucks to give for what
anyone thinks of her. You can see it’s not an affected ‘I don’t care if
you hate me’ attitude but a genuine, focused self-belief and I admire
that. I think she’s extremely professional, walks to the beat of her own
drum and everyone who has met her seems to say she is very sweet and
polite. You can’t deny the woman has done tremendously well and played
the media beautifully. I can respect negative opinions of her (I share
some of them), however, when anyone has an abundance of scathing,
vicious hatred towards her it makes me feel quite uncomfortable. I’ve
been trying to analyse why that is and have come to the conclusion that
it’s because I doubt any man in her position would receive as much
highly concentrated vitriol. Interestingly, the most extreme anger I’ve
seen towards the Kardashians has come from men. That’s not a sexist
generalisation, simply an observation based on my experience.
In our patriarchal society a successful, powerful, beautiful, wealthy
woman is still a threatening figure to many men. From a feminist
perspective, when a man tells me she’s a ‘talentless slut’ I feel
incensed and jump to her defence. I’ve heard such venom spat about how
talentless she is and it baffles me slightly. You can say ‘what does she
actually do?’ a million times over but it doesn’t change the fact that
the woman is one of the top earners in the world and possibly the
biggest pop culture icon on the planet right now. To condemn her as
‘some slut who’s only famous from a sex tape’ (heard this so many times)
belittles the hugely successful empire she’s built. Yes she’s built it
off the back of being sexually objectified and sharing every aspect of
her existence with the public, but she’s still done it (and there are a
lot of people doing all of that for free.) Most sex tapes result in 15
minutes of fame but this woman has played the media game cleverly to
achieve what she has. Whether you agree with the way she’s doing it or
not, she’s clearly doing something.
She’s obsessive
about her appearance, and while I would never shame any woman for
caring about her looks, I don’t respect this extreme level of vanity. In
her defence, however, since we’re little girls we’re primed to ‘be
pretty’ and throughout our lives we’re constantly bombarded with
information on how we can physically self-improve. So for the same
magazines that circle cellulite on women’s thighs to criticise Kim’s use
of cosmetic surgery, seems to me, highly hypocritical.
What I think is
the most worrying aspect of the Kim K influence is the unapologetic
narcissism and selfish demeanour. For anyone to spend most of their day
looking at and thinking about themselves is worrying, and I’m concerned
about the impact she’s having on future generations in that sense.
Grooming is hugely important to women and has it’s valid place, but in
2016 it’s just another string to our bow. And I think Kim knows that,
she’s clearly a smart business woman that does a lot more than preen
herself. However if you follow her on social media you could
misinterpret her life to be one big glam squad session and we
desperately need young generations to want to do things and make the
world a better place, not sit at home all day watching contouring
tutorials and taking selfies. I worry the Kardashian phenomenon could
result in lots of young girls doing just that, which would be such a
waste of all of those brains. I’m not slating make-up tutorials or
selfies (there’s certainly a place for those videos, and selfies are
fun), my concern is the K crew encouraging those things to be any
woman’s sole focus.
That’s the deep
part over, so here’s a parody I made on Kim Kardashian. I’ve always
suspected she writes all of Kanye’s music for him, so I made a video
about it. It’s only a few minutes, then you can get back to your
contouring tutorial...
This Post Originally Appeared Westernblogspot
