We’re all used to reading snappy headlines on the Daily Mail website that objectify celebrities, debating whether they look good or not. Every single time they leave their homes and venture into the streets, the paparazzi are on them like vultures, snapping as many photos as they can. Whether the photos are flattering or frankly embarrassing, the paparazzi don’t care. Because of how tabloid culture works, their work is eaten up by avid readers worldwide either way. With people commenting on how ‘sizzling’ (or not) the celebrities look, and whether they’re dressed stylishly enough.
One Twitter account, the Daily Male Online, pokes fun at how absurdly the Daily Mail’s presents female stars by posting similar photos of male celebrities and writing up identical headlines that objectify them. The results are hilarious because they show how unflatteringly women are treated by tabloids everywhere, and that double standards do, in fact, exist in popular media.
More info: Twitter
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
The Daily Male is an up-and-coming Twitter account with over 560 followers. Among the stars the account uses to make fun of tabloid culture are ex-California governor and movie legend Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
It should come as no surprise to anyone that tabloids everywhere have clear double standards when it comes to how they present male and female celebrities to the public. After all, tabloids are, first and foremost, businesses. They do whatever brings them the most profit. And readers, clearly, respond to what tabloids do. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this says anything about our society (or human beings) as a whole.
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
Image credits: MaleOnline1
The Huffington Post wrote about a video called “The Experiment” where writer Kate Hardie and lighting technician Andy Lowe illustrate that these double standards are far from a myth. The pair cut out pictures of men and women from the popular British daily newspaper The Sun and showed just how different they really are when compared side by side.
“The men are nearly all active, doing things. Not posed… the women are passive. It’s all about how they look,” Hardie and Lowe explain in the video. “When I look at the men’s side, I see real life. But when I look at the women’s side, it doesn’t seem real. It’s all manufactured.”
As Hardie and Lowe explained, tabloids rely on stereotypes: women were traditionally seen to be valued for how they look, while men are valued for what they do. The Guardian writes that, at least in Britain, newspapers subscribe to ‘sexist’ stereotypes by posting ‘humiliating’ pictures of women. According to The Guardian, this may have something to do with the fact that 78% of all front-page articles were written by men.
What do you think of tabloid culture as a whole? Do you think female celebrities are treated unfairly? Which one of The Daily Male’s headlines did you like best? Let us know in the comments below.
Here's how the internet reacted to the Daily Male Online's posts
