Clown Nose On, Clown Nose Off

Mo

Ariana Grande is worried about the objectification of women. Yes, the same Ariana Grande who parades around in public in various stages of undress and whose performance attire frequently consists of little more than a bra and a tiny skirt. If you Google “Ariana Grande selfies” you’ll get hundreds of pictures of her attempting to look sexy, many of which involve the most ridiculous of all selfie-sexy poses, “duck lips,” a pose that I guess is supposed to look like kissy-face but invariably ends up looking like the bearer is nursing a fat lip. You should read some of the lyrics to her songs, too, like “Hands on Me,” which are unfit to print on a family-friendly website like this or, to be honest, anywhere else. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t.

What prompted Grande’s cri de coeur was her distress about a fan who approached her while she was out with her boyfriend and said to her boyfriend, “Ariana is sexy as hell man I see you, I see you hitting that.”  Was the guy kind of rude?  Yes. Is it fair that Grande was upset about it?  I suppose, although it really isn’t much to get upset over.  

Getting mildly upset in private is one thing. For Grande to turn this into a stand for women’s rights, however, is quite another. After the incident, Grande took to Twitter to loudly proclaim that “expressing sexuality in art is not an invitation for disrespect!!! just like wearing a short skirt is not asking for assault.”  Please. Grande has made her bones selling female sexuality. She has a beautiful voice and doesn’t need to, but she chooses to do so anyway. She wasn’t “assault[ed]” or anything close. Some random guy said out loud what she knows guys are thinking and wants guys to think!

Grande is a rather silly person, but she illustrates a large problem we face due to confusion over “women’s rights.” This desire to put one’s sexuality out there on display and then complain when people comment on it or want to act on it is not only astoundingly hypocritical, it’s also damaging to relations between the sexes. Most women want to be desirable to men and some even objectified by them to a certain extent. They don’t want to be treated only as a sex object, though. With women acting only sexually but simultaneously demanding to be treated seriously, men and boys who are growing up to be men don’t know what to think or how to behave. And neither do girls who look to famous women as role models and see them demanding to be taken seriously for nothing more than their sexuality.  

Grande really just wants to have it both ways, just like Jon Stewart and his ilk with their “clown nose on, clown nose off” routine. She wants to be desired and even objectified by the masses, but is upset by the result of objectifying herself. If she wants to be taken seriously, and not as an object, she needs to be a serious person and not act like an object. She can’t willingly contribute to the degeneration of relations between the sexes and then complain about the results.