Tit for Tat

Just a note on the whole Cameron Diaz topless-photos fiasco. Every article I seem to see on this fluff sympathizes with Diaz, arguing that the photographer who took the photos in question is basically extorting her for money. This may in part be true-- there's certainly an exploitative dimension to this. But I have *no* sympathy for Diaz, either. She posed for the pictures, and I'm pretty sure she probably signed the release, and now that she's a star and the pictures are climbing out of this historical wreckage, she's crying foul. Well, Cameron, face it: there are consequences to your actions; history catches up. And it's not as if you could expect any sort of privacy from modeled photographs taken for explicitly commercial purposes. Are you really that dense?

You can't unring the bell.

At the risk of sounding sexist, this is something people (women especially) seem to have a very hard time accepting: there are consequences to your actions, so you have to think first before you act. Not just do and cry foul if it comes back later later. This is the same shit that went down with Vanessa Williams, with Madonna, with Vanna White, with so many female celebrities, who used their sexuality to pay the bills before they achieved stardom. Well, if you take that route, you have to accept that that choice will eventually have repercussions.

So buck up and accept it. It's called accepting responsibility for the decisions one makes. These photographs weren't taken for personal reasons, they're not the result of a relationship she thought private, and they're not things which will ultimately impede or affect her career. This is not the same scenario as the Brad Pitt-Jennifer Aniston papparazzi case where the photographers broke into their privacy and photographed them without their knowledge. This was conscious modelling.

I can't help finding all of this patently silly because Ms Diaz even now continues to frame herself in the skimpiest of clothing and in sexually-objectifying terms in films like Charlie's Angels and The Sweetest Thing. What's the difference, really? In the photographs there will be areolae-- that's about it. Sheesh. After all, I can't see her areolae making any fundamental difference in Ms Diaz's hirability, or harming her public image. Maybe she should give Drew Barrymore a call.