The Feminist Case for Megan Fox

I liked Transformers, so fuck you!  Sorry, I’m going to be a little defensive.  I feel like I’m about to sell Sarah Palin as a women’s rights advocate.

I saw Transformers on opening weekend last year and was just delighted by it.  I thought that the script was playful and decently-written, the actors charismatic and so pretty, and the special effects the best I had seen in my life.  These are dark times – that’s all you could ever want it a summer blockbuster.  So when this brown bombshell (and the other worthless female character, blonde) marches on screen to play opposite squirrely, wavy-haired, Gerard Depardiu-nosed Shia LeBoeuf, I couldn’t believe that movies, despite their makers working so hard to make them perfect blockbusters, were still plunging into the never-ending pit of worthlessly untalented and uncharistmatic, phenomenally gorgeous actresses to cast their female leads.  Sigh.

So she’s not the sharpest cookie.  She supposedly claimed to be hotter than Angelina and we’re all super pissed and up in arms about that.  But read what she actually said when an EW reporter said that she looks like AJ:

“Look, are you aware of who ‘FHM’ magazine voted the Sexiest Woman Alive? ME! Not Angelina Jolie…it was ME!

“Jolie was lucky to make Number Nine!”

“I’m only 21 and she’s like…ancient! I’m much hotter than her.”

Tell me now, is it possible that she’s just joshing?  Because that’s the way she comes off in other interviews.  And if so, then she’s mocking everyone for trying to pit her against another actress, and ironically everyone just misquoted her in order to do exactly that.

But the real heart of the matter is her balls, if you will.  She just loves being sexy.  Look at any photo of her.  This ain’t no Britney riding a tricycle with the word BABY written on the butt of her pink hot shorts.  This is some (em)powered, Madonna shit.  A bit overconfident, perhaps, but the girl owns her sexuality in a way that only Angie does, but only Fox does interviews about.  And the rest of the time she spends trying to convince you that she can and will be a good actress.

Kudos to the EW interviewer for 1) asking if she thinks she’d do well in an Apatow flick.  Because that’s really at the heart of the matter – comedy-wise, anyway.  Not to say that Katherine Heigl was bad, because I don’t think that, but she was absolutely no fun.  And don’t try to blame it on the writing.  Imagine her lines being said by Seth Rogen’s cave belly voice (pre-Mall Security era) and you’ll know.  Let’s get a chica with some charisma in a comedy, PLEASE!  And 2) putting her up to the ultimate test of worthless girlness: asking questions about hooking up with other girls.  Did she take the bait?  You decide.

She’s calculated.  She knows that she’s a product that is sold and also that people underestimate her.  It doesn’t sound like she’s the blathering idiot celebrity mags (the patriarchy) would have you think she is.

Maybe we finally have a woman who defies our neat categories for female celebrity behavior.  Come on, let’s say what we’re all thinking: how can someone that hot be smart or interesting?  Fingers crossed for Jennifer’s Body, because we know for sure that Diablo can write a decent leading role for a lady.  But if it doesn’t work out, hey, we’ll always have Tina.