I realized I wrote that I won't be blogging much this Lent, but this article ("Cashing in on Nude Lindsay Photos") is something I've got to comment on. Anyone who's been on the Internet long enough and not behind work-safe/child-safe firewalls would have heard that Lindsay Lohan, former child star in several family-friendly movies, recently posed as Marilyn Monroe, emulating her famous photo shoot just six weeks before Monroe was found dead of barbiturate overdose in 1962.
I confessed that I did see the New York magazine article and photos, but what is sad is Lohan's own response and her mom's response to this whole stunt. Both women said it was an 'honor' to pose as Monroe's character. Lindsay's reported response was: "Doing a Marilyn shoot? When is that ever going to come up? It’s really an honor."
Honor? Honor??? That was my response. Are we living in such a culture where a woman getting invited to pose nude (or nearly so) for millions of audience on the Internet is deemed an honor? Come on. Never mind that many commenters left on pages showing her pictures said that she looked old for her age, and all kinds of unkind remarks.
The article about cashing in was particularly telling. Posing Marilyn-esque was deemed such an honor that apparently Lohan got NO MONEY for baring herself. The article said that Bert Stern got a 'standard fee', and the magazine's website enjoyed millions of hits (translating to a CPM of a good $15) and potentially earned hundreds of thousand dollars of (undisclosed) advertising revenue.
We are indeed in a culture where women are fighting for the right to objectify ourselves and calling it an honor! Where showing more skin means more attention and more sexual power, radical feminists speak of a woman's rights to do whatever she likes with her body, including killing children in the womb and selling naked images for free. Such an honor indeed.
Never before is our late beloved Pope's Theology of the Body more applicable. That, and more prayer!
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