Extraordinarily flawless human Emily Ratajkowski has landed a cover shoot with Harper’s Bazaar, and an interview with feminist icon Naomi Wolf to boot.
Emily, who rose to fame appearing the Blurred Lines video clip, then acted as the ‘other woman’ in Gone Girl, has most recently been known for her insightful takes on feminism, sexuality, and the non-mutual exclusivity of the two.
First, there was the powerful essay about owning your own sexuality for Lena Dunham‘s newsletter Lenny, then hen there was the selfie with Kim Kardashian to the intense, online slut-shaming that followed Kim’s naked selfie.
“A selfie is a sort of interesting way to reclaim the gaze, right?” said Emily. “You’re looking at yourself and taking a photo while looking at everyone. But also who cares? Kim’s allowed to do what she wants. So I issued a series of tweets; she sent me flowers, thanking me, which was very sweet. We ended up running into each other and had this idea to take a similar selfie with our middle fingers up.”
Kim captioned her post of the selfie with “When we’re like… we both have nothing to wear LOL” as a throwback to her original photo, but Emily decided to make about about sexuality, captioning it: “We are more than just our bodies but that doesn’t mean we have to be shamed for them or our sexuality #liberated.”
Sexuality and how ownership of it fits into modern day feminism is a key theme throughout the interview.
As Naomi says, “We’ve gotten to ground zero of this whole conversation, which is that there’s still the fear and contempt of female sexuality and the just intolerable cultural reaction when women take ownership of their sexuality and their bodies.”
“Kim said that to me,” Emily replies.”You know, when Lena Dunham takes her clothes off, she gets flack, but it’s also considered brave; when Justin Bieber takes his shirt off, he’s a grown-up. But when a woman who is sexual takes off her top, it plays into something.”
In this case, Emily took her top off and became a modern day Lady Godiva.
Honestly, this interview is as much about Naomi Wolf reacting to the potential clash of feminism and playing into the male gaze for power as it is about Emily. Check this out:
Naomi: “I wish that you and Kim and everyone who’s creating cultural objects around their own bodies could have the right to define those images for themselves. At the same time I’m also seeing in that image the huge influx of pornography and the rigid definition of it. Women learn what a sexy woman is from porn or from airbrushed Victoria’s Secret models, so I would love a world in which you don’t have to look like that to say, ‘Screw you, I own my sexual body.’”
Emily: “True, but the world should not be exclusive of the ideal body. It has to include all ideals, all bodies. The whole idea is that when Kim takes a nude selfie, she’s just seeking attention. That’s not the issue. A woman can be seeking attention and also make a statement. They don’t need to be mutually exclusive.”
Read the full interview here.
Source: Harper’s Bazaar.
Photo: Harper’s Bazaar.
