So lately it seems like there is a lot of interest and consequently a lot of backlash oriented towards Zooey Deschanel. Most of which I don't really understand (referring to the backlash). Women in particular seem really outraged that she is portraying a sex icon that they deem as girlish and shallow.
I resent that. I resent the implication that just because I want to wear ribbons in my hair, that somehow means I don't read classic literature. That just because I break out into random song (which I have done pretty much my whole life) that I don't know how to use a circular saw (like a badass) or write well enough that I was repeatedly published before I was old enough to vote. Under the guise of feminism, people are applying the exact same logic which has been used to undermine women for centuries. Ultimately, it all boils down to this: just because a person engages in one type of behavior does not automatically mean that engage (or don't engage) in a wide variety of other behaviors.
I idolize the exact same traits that people seem to find shallow and demeaning. She exemplifies the idea that a woman can be interesting and sexy without conforming to modern media standards. Now to be fair, I recognize that as her persona becomes more popular, she is becoming part of modern media standards. However, she is sexy in overalls, when most women on television are wearing clothing that resembles underwear.
So maybe many of her characters are tropes. But honestly, they are characters in a movie or show. They are a whole person shoved into a 2 hour time slot. A time slot that gets sensationalized in order to make more money. Of course they are shallow. So is almost every character ever created in any crime show. Law and Order had years and years to develop their characters and they were still just caricatures of our legal system. (Or do you really think that all prosecutors are old men with pretty female lawyers working under them. Women who always have to be corrected, so that the old timer can get in the last word.) Even HBO, which makes significantly better television than most stations, has characters like Eric on True Blood (whom I totally love, but lets face it, is not a very deep character). Eric goes through swings of being "good" and being "bad", but never reaches the complexity of owning both characteristics at the same time.
A person is so complex that years and years of psychology and research is barely scratching the surface of the human psyche. Why on earth would anyone think that script writers and media producers would be able to provide any of that?
My point is, if you are going to complain about an actor because you feel their characters are shallow, then you should stop watching American television and probably most movies. Because lets face it, that's what the American media culture produces: shallow imitations of the human condition.
So at the end of the day, I'm going to giggle and blow bubbles and be obsessed with adorable cats because I like those things. And the point of feminism shouldn't be to critique me for those traits, but to accept that
A) it does not mean that I am a shallow character from a film
B) it doesn't mean that I don't know how to weld or that I can't discuss the modern application of romanticism in several current cultures.
And the problem is that if people keep engaging in this type of presumptive behavior, then they might have unintended consequences: see labeling theory.
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