Megan Fox has long been outspoken about the way she and other women have been over-sexualised and exploited in Hollywood, and now she’s called out the feminist community for not accepting her either.
Speaking to Glamour UK for an hour-long sit-down interview, Megan opened up about being ridiculed for standing up against misogyny before the #MeToo movement took off.
“I think that I was ahead of the #MeToo movement by almost a decade,” she said.
“I was always speaking out against some of the abusive, misogynistic, patriarchal things that were going on in Hollywood back in 2008 and 2009, way before people were ready to embrace that or tolerate it. And I actually got ridiculed for doing it. I think people just have had time to review that, in retrospect.”
To refresh your memory, 2009 was the year Megan Fox starred in cult-classic feminist horror film Jennifer’s Body. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a teenage cheerleader who turns into a demon and starts killing and eating boys who try to have sex with her while navigating her confusing feelings for her girl best friend. Upon its release, both the film and Megan were absolutely eviscerated by film critics. Now, the movie is recognised for the queer feminist art that it is.
It was also the year of Megan’s infamous stint on Jimmy Kimmel, where she tried to speak about the exploitation she experienced as a sexualised teen only to be laughed at.
This is the clip of Megan Fox Interview with Jimmy Kimmel that is trending now. Megan Fox describes Michael Bay as tyrant.#FoxNews #Tyrant pic.twitter.com/5yJIPfe3bP
— 🌏⚔️🦠 (@Yajur_v) June 23, 2020
“I’ve never felt completely included in the feminist community and I do still think that it’s tricky in an awful way,” Megan told Glamour.
“Whatever I provoke in them is not something that they can digest very well. And so that comes back on me, as they reject me for those reasons. And I just don’t think that I was a very sympathetic victim.”
That last line broke my heart.
“My personality is so lost on people, my sense of humour is lost,” she continued when asked if she has any regrets about being so outspoken.
“My intelligence is not acknowledged. And so that is a regret. Sometimes I feel like I just waste my energy, giving myself to people who don’t understand and won’t appreciate [me], but I’ve never had anything where I look back now and think, ‘I really shouldn’t have said that’.”
megan fox stunning for glamour magazine pic.twitter.com/gyZPGfbRIF
— 2000s (@PopCulture2000s) April 26, 2022
Megan Fox was either over-sexualised or slut-shamed for the entirety of her time in Hollywood, by men and women. And even now, she’s not respected like she should be.
“[It seems] I have to meet a certain requirement or follow all of these rules,” she said.
“It’s very bizarre to get judged for, like, ‘What if I am in a BDSM relationship? And I’m like, yes — is that OK with you? Because that’s what I want.’ So, I shouldn’t be outcast from the feminist community, because that is something that I prefer for myself. I feel sexual power in that way, by experiencing it that way.
“I was being celebrated as being a feminist until I had the nerve to call my boyfriend, ‘Daddy’.
“And a lot of people got upset about that, which I think is a funny conversation to actually have, because that goes into allowing women to be… women. Allowing us to experience what we want in life, what we like. That is feminism.”
It’s worth acknowledging that some of the criticisms of her relationship with Machine Gun Kelly are based around his creepy comments about other teenaged girls.
But Megan’s right in that it is nobody’s business to revoke her right to feminism because she’s into some freaky shit.
Especially not when she was paving the way for women’s rights in Hollywood way before it was socially acceptable, and before she had a fan base who would defend her.
Justice for Megan Fox, she’s been through too much.
