What a storm in a C-cup. Jennifer Lawrence has worn a dress and now people (but in the media, read: women) are arguing about the dress Jennifer Lawrence wore, and whether she should have worn it, and also, how cold it is in London.
If you missed this, the particulars are this: at a photo-call for the film Red Sparrow, Lawrence was photographed in a low-cut, thigh-slit dress, flanked by four male actors. A lot of people commented that Lawrence looked cold and that her male co-stars were all wrapped up warm. Lawrence then responded, saying she was “extremely offended” and wearing the “fabulous” dress was her choice.
My thoughts on this picture were as follows: Lawrence looks amazing in that dress. That dress looks a lot like the famous Liz Hurley Versace dress, I like the dress. Haha, the juxtaposition with all the coated men, eye-roll. Why has Jeremy Irons dressed as Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant? Did anybody tell Jeremy Irons he dressed as Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant? Is Red Sparrow a biopic of Duncan Grant?
Later thought: I don’t actually think it is that cold. But then I am from the north, where New Year’s Eve revellers go out in T-shirts and halter-neck tops unadorned (having lived south for almost a decade, I know nothing is as traitorous, not even a softened accent, as daring to throw on a jacket when the temperature is above freezing).
But the main beef I have with this particular slaughterhouse of public opinion (please remember that Lady Gaga wore a dress made of literal meat that didn’t garner as much attention), is this: why is it not permissible to think two things at once – that it is much more common for women to dress sexily in such situations (and to question what, if anything, that says about our gendered society), and to also think it’s fine that Lawrence wanted to wear a dress because it looks hot?
Neither thought is bad. The only bad thing here is the narrative of women pitted against each other (joyless feminists versus vain women-deserters), and the apparent inability to take an issue as being complex and multifaceted.
I feel for Lawrence, who three years ago had to deal with intimate photos of her being stolen and distributed around the internet, which she correctly described as a sex crime. Please take a moment to think about how horrific this would be to experience, and marvel at the strength of this person. Lawrence has never seemed hesitant to speak her mind, so her saying that it was her choice to wear the dress isn’t at all surprising. But again, questioning whether there is pressure for women to dress in a way that isn’t expected of men isn’t wrong (though I can imagine from her perspective, and indeed all celebrities’ perspectives, the persistent idea that everyone knows your inner mind is infuriating).
The thing is: variables, people. Remember when it was reported Cannes would ban women refusing to wear heels on the red carpet? Well, some women love high-heels. The actor Emily Blunt, for instance, said she hated them. Lawrence, meanwhile, “loves fashion”. Ellen Page, when she came out as gay, said she was now going to wear whatever she wanted, without duress. Maybe Page also loves fashion, but not the same sort as Lawrence. Men also love fashion. People who define their gender differently can also… love fashion.
One of the most pleasing things of recent years is the resurgent profile of feminism in the mainstream. But what’s been lost somewhat is that There isn’t One Type of Feminism, and just because intra-debate occurs, doesn’t mean that everything starts collapsing, like a huge chunk of iceberg falling off into the sea.
This goes for everything, pretty much. It shouldn’t be surprising that there are members of the Labour party who don’t read their children Das Kapital at bedtime, and that not all Tory members eat breakfast in cummerbunds. It shouldn’t need spelling out that even those in the same political parties don’t always agree with each other, given that we are now leaving Europe thanks to a never-ending inter-Tory tiff. I don’t think white people should read a single James Baldwin essay and be like: great, got it. The conflict in Syria, I’m afraid, isn’t as simple as pick-a-side, except for pick the side of ‘there is a genocide happening that needs to end’. I enjoyed last month, after a French reporter asked Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about bookshops in Nigeria, watching the confused reaction of a woke Twitter user when a Nigerian man tweeted that he actually didn’t think the question was so stupid, because there were hardly any bookshops in his particular area and he thought literacy levels could be improved.
So, what have I learned from this episode? Only that Jennifer Lawrence has once again proved herself an everywoman, in this case, someone who also takes to Facebook and writes statuses that include “I am extremely offended” and then veers into all-caps; that the Liz Hurley dress has its own Wikipedia entry; and that the item of celebrity attire in cold weather I care most deeply about remains, I’m sorry, Lenny Kravitz’s iconic scarf.
- Hannah Jane Parkinson is a Guardian writer