Women's-rights advocates can pack up and go home. The playing field is now level. In fact, it has been nuked and upended and now tilts in favor of powerful women -- if you believe Forbes magazine, that is. Forbes' release of its "Celebrity 100" list contains the names of more women than men. Six women dominate the list's top-ten celebrities in the world including Oprah Winfrey as No. 1. Forbes describes the list as the "ranking of the richest and most powerful actors, actresses, and musicians."
Oprah is followed in the top ten by:
Beyoncé Knowles (OK, I guess)
Lady Gaga (puh-leeze!!!)
Britney Spears (no comment)
Sandra Bullock (power via being cuckolded?)
Madonna
Before we wipe our brows and sigh, "Sheesh, that was easy," a bit deeper examination is called for here. For one thing, Forbes' definition of power, even in the bizarre world of celebrity, is somewhat skewed and reads more like a ranking of a star's ability to self-promote than anything else. Forbes' definition of the list is based on a weird agglomeration ". . . of a star's ability to generate five precious commodities: money, film and TV appearances, media coverage, web traffic, and friends or followers on social networking sites."
I agree with Forbes that money is power and self-promotion becomes both money and power in our material world. But I still cling to the notion that true power is more than just money -- it's influence, it's clout, it's the ability to lead and to make the world a better place. It is not just the ability to sell a bunch of DVDs, movie tickets or start a clothing line with nothing particularly new or different or better about it other than an extension of the already cluttered world of eponyms.
Still, Forbes calls the new list progress for women:
"In the entertainment industry, women are gaining ground. While most of the ladies on the list owe their fame to on-screen or on-stage personas, many have built their fortunes through smart brand extension."
"Smart brand extension." Now there's progress for women, eh? That's not exactly what the suffragists or the leaders of second-wave feminism had in mind when they fought for the right to vote or the right to work or the right to equal pay for that work, and so on. They were trying to make the world a better place for themselves and their sisters.
Granted, some of those on the list do good things for other women. Oprah is renowned for her philanthropy for African girls, for example. But if these women used the power Forbes vests in them, why isn't Hollywood a more female-friendly place?
According to San Diego State University's Institute for the Study of Women in Television and Film: "In 2009, women comprised 16% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. This represents a decline of 3 percentage points from 2001 and is even with 2008."
Is this what we call progress? It does not sound like progress to me. And if women now command so much clout in Hollywood, why aren't they using it to improve America's commercial entertainment product instead of extending their self-centered, self-promotional brands? Is that even a fair question to ask stars to take on the dual role of do-gooder in today's material-girl world?
I believe it is. But if it's a fair question, the answer is a disturbing no. Women are not using their entertainment muscle to improve the quality of American film and TV, because study after study shows sex, violence and violent sex are increasing in all media, not diminishing. This latest study by the Parents Council on TV on violence against women in TV released this year is typical:
"The Parents Television Council observed a significant increase in the incidence of female victimization; an increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims; an increase in the use of female victimization as a punch line in comedy series; and an increase in the depiction of intimate partner violence (i.e., violence committed by a current or former partner or spouse; a sexual relationship is not necessarily implied)."
So I return whence I began. Are women gaining power and clout in the entertainment industry? By some extremely superficial measures, yes. Does that translate to progress for women generally? I'm afraid that so far the answer is no.
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