Anthony Lane's Scarlett Johansson profile in The New Yorker

So Anthony Lane wrote this about Scarlett:

http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/24/140324fa_fact_lane?currentPage=all

The internet is throwing a little fit.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79681828/

Slate calls Lane a creepy uncle, says it's leering and gross and treats her like she's a jackoff fantasy, not a person. The New Republic suggests it's perhaps the worst profile the New Yorker has ever run. Talking Points Memo says its a symptom of the lack of female editors.

I read it and found it fairly shallow, but hardly offensive. It's hard to write about Scarlett without talking about how attractive she is, no? I mean, all due respect to her dry-borderline-wooden acting, but it's sort of the reason anyone cares about her.

I think if this ran in GQ no one raises a finger in protest, which I guess speaks to what The New Yorker means to certain people.

 

So she's nominated for an Oscar because of Her voice but a male writer calls her voice "honey" so now he's a perv?

Please.

 

As compared to his feeling for Jodie Foster:

"On a broiling day, I ran to a screening of Contact, the Jodie Foster flick about messages from another galaxy. I made it for the opening credits, and, panting heavily — which, with all due respect, is not something that I find myself doing that often in Jodie Foster films"

 

I'd be interested to compare to a Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, or George Clooney feature in the New Yorker and see how they treated the attractiveness facet.

 

This response is due to the lack of female readers.

 

The LA Times online piece criticizing the New Yorker writer for drooling all over Scarlett contains two links to photos of the "50 most beautiful female celebs" and another link that states: "Scarlett Johansson strips in 'Under the Skin' trailer (Video)"

Pot, kettle, etc.

 

There will never be another profile written that doesn't bring a dozen people drafting off its heat and saying they could have written it better.

 

I thought it was overwritten, but hardly offensive...

Does anyone here remember the SI Kournikova cover story by Deford? I remember reading that and cringing several times. I didn't think this was nearly as cringe-inducing.

 

That lede sucks. "Exciting times for SJ"…Snooze

 

Yeah, that was awful. It was like Deford started to write, said to the editors, "do you want this to be about tennis, AT ALL, or just how hot she is," and they said, "what the hell do you think?"


For the real old-timers, remember the SI story in 1984 by, I believe, Kenny Moore, which absolutely slavered over the blood-boiling physical attractiveness of Finnish javelin thrower Tiiina Lillak? By the time you got done reading the article, you felt you had to go wash your hands.

And yeah, they had a picture of her in a skin-tight track suit. And.... well ... a 6.


As far as a story on ScarJo dwelling mainly on her physical allure, nobody gets upset, because everybody, including her, understands that's pretty much what she's all about right now. She wouldn't pose for the pictures she does or take the movie roles she does if she wasn't 100% fine with it.

Probably at some point she'll take some roles like Charlize Theron in "Monster" where she's intentionally made up to NOT look very good and will have to carry the show on acting chops alone.

 

This perfectly encapsulates about 60 percent of modern media.

 

Good point, except she wasn't "nominated for an Oscar because of Her voice".