It seems like everyone is aflutter about the GQ ‘Glee’ photo shoot that has Lea Michele (Rachel) and Dianna Agron (Quinn) taking most of it off and posing like strippers, while their male costar, Cory Monteith (Finn), is fully clothed. Even the bartender where I went for brunch yesterday (for pancakes, not drinks)–who had never seen ‘Glee’ mind you, but he’d heard about the GQ photos–saw me reading a New York Times feature on the controversy in my morning paper and wanted to know what I thought of the whole thing.
I think Frank Bruni’s column about it, “Good Girls Gone Wild,” summed up my thoughts rather well. Bruni focuses on how this isn’t the first time that young “good girl” celebs have tried to become “more adult” or seen as “more mature” than their sweet, young tv/celeb images by getting naked for the camera–while their male counterparts are never asked to do this as a way of showing how they are “growing up.” Miley Cyrus, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears all did the same. Bruni sums up:
“While Justin Timberlake, another graduate of “Mickey Mouse,” proceeded to record the album “FutureSex/LoveSounds,” including the hit single “SexyBack,” no video put him in the sort of attire or through the kinds of gyrations that Ms. Spears and Ms. Aguilera came to know. And at the Super Bowl, it was his female sidekick who had the wardrobe malfunction. It’s also interesting to note that Cory Monteith, the lone male “Glee” star to appear in the GQ spread, exposes no more flesh there than on the show. While the gals vamp, the guy is merely banging on drums.”
This makes me ill. The double standard never seems to go away does it? I wish the ‘Glee’ cast had never done the shoot. It made me so sad when I started seeing the photos everywhere–and kind of shocked, too. What do you think?