the immodesty of the golden globes (no no, not the dresses)
If you follow movie or pop culture you may have noticed that last Sunday night was home to the 71st annual Golden Globe awards, a place for the Hollywood Foreign Press to vote on the best films and TV shows of the year and the elite of Hollywood get to gather together and congratulate themselves on a year’s work done well. It’s a multi-million dollar party that is bathed in extravagance and attended by the top of the entertainment A-listers.
If you follow the Mormon blogosphere you may have noticed that on Monday LDSliving.com put up this gem as a response to the ceremonies.
From the opening paragraph:
“Most celebrities probably aren’t the best people to emulate”
Wow. That’s a pretty sweeping statement to make right out of the gate there LDS Living. Let’s first consider that the Golden Globes are an awards show that does not reward celebrity status; they reward the people who worked very hard in their professional fields of writing, directing, composing, and acting. But I guess actors/craftsmen and celebrity are all considered one big demographic in the article.
We are then treated to pictures of “celebrities” who wore what LDS Living considered “modest” or at least mostly modest. Please remember, these people are not members of the church, but they are being held to that standard anyways. So that’s like me going to a symphony and blaming the orchestra for having poor choreography. Celebrities are generally terrible people but sometimes even they can surprise us by doing something moral.
Interestingly enough, after just accusing Hollywood of being not so great role models to follow and then praising them just based on what they chose to wear, they did not pay much attention to why they were there in the first place. Their examples of modesty included actors from American Horror Story, Top of the Lake, Breaking Bad, and of course the most modest show ever produced, Masters of Sex. Shows I don’t think anyone at LDS Living would be quick to endorse.
Take note: inspiration does not come from personal success, because that is not what’s being endorsed, only from what you choose to wear in public. LDS Living didn’t even feature Emma Watson, someone who presented at the awards ceremony and is a well-known proponent of modesty. You can see Emma’s quote here in an article posted by…LDS Living. But I guess because she wore a backless dress, it’s irrelevant.
I’m slightly embarrassed I even have to ask, is it too much to ask we celebrate Jenifer Lawrence for her talents and pro-body messages instead of fantasizing about what her dress would look like if she were wearing garments?
If we are going to apply our Mormon modesty goggles to the golden globes in the first place, how do we miss the grand extravagance of the ceremony itself? Millions of dollars are spent self-congratulating a billion dollar industry. As the year continues, many other extravagant award ceremonies will follow suit. Critiquing these events based on something as trivial as dresses fails to miss the greater act of immodesty—the awards themselves. Picking something as trivial as dresses and failing to miss the greater act of immodesty is failing to see the forest through the scantily clad trees! It’s a level of superficial scrutiny I would expect from E! and not a website promoting what I believe to the world.
But I guess that’s what modesty has become. All the conversation is dominated by what women should and should not be wearing while the attitude of immodesty is ignored. It’s become the lone hand raised in Sunday school to remind us all about immodest attitudes and actions after the class has torn apart every tank top and knee-length skirt.
Young Mormon Feminists 
One Response to “the immodesty of the golden globes (no no, not the dresses)”
I agree with you-to a certain point. The awards themselves aren’t that self-congratulatory, I’ve voted on them before while I was in that industry and the others in the voting pool agree, we judge that ish without bias. I didn’t vote for my own film because there were better films in that category, and that’s mostly how it works. The ceremony, however, is RIDONK. The ceremony has very little to do with the actual awards, as it presents a very small portion of them, and a very small portion of the jobs within the industry.
To put it simply: would you call a Women’s SBA Awards self-congratulatory? That’s women voting for women. This is artists voting for artists, let’s stop being completely disparaging simply because it’s high profile, I thought we were beyond that.