Women Have Been Bitten By Snakes, But The Emmys Was A Rope

I was one of the 16 million plus viewers who watched the Emmys on Sunday night, and I loved most of it. I love television. I love film. I want to be in both. And I love the award shows that celebrate the actors, their work, and the people that make them possible (writers, directors, producers, camera crew, etc). I watched Sofia Vergara come on stage and I laughed right along with her because I thought she was funny. And when she stood on the rotating pedestal and made sure to highlight her curves, I laughed, too.

But all good things have to come to an end. Apparently, Sofia Vergara was objectified?? Sophia is a beautiful woman with beautiful curves, and she likes to show them off and celebrate them. Unfortunately for us, women, we have a an unwritten and unspoken clause that says that we have to choose between being beautiful (read: sexy) and being taken seriously. But are these mutually exclusive? Can a woman not be both?

If it was a handsome and well dressed man (read: Idris Elba, Will Smith, Collin Farrell, and oh my goodness, Hugh Jackman) propped up there, would he still be objectified? Or would it be allowed because he is a man and since women have been objectified for years anyway, it wouldn’t matter what we do to the man?

I know what’s going on here. There’s a Nigerian proverb that says, A person who is bitten by a snake will be afraid of an old rope. Women have been bitten by snakes for centuries, and now, we are afraid of ropes, old and new. We are even afraid of cob webs. It need not look or quack like a duck for us to call it a duck. If it just looks like a bird and has a sound, then we call it a duck.

No, Sofia Vergara was not objectified. She was admired. She was gazed upon with admiration. Awe. Appreciation. Even envy. If what happened to Sofia Vergara was objectification, then I would like to be objectified. Daily, if possible. Set me up on a rotating pedestal and stare at me. The pedestal does not need to rotate. In fact, there does not need to be a pedestal. I am here for your objectification. Where do I stand?

There is something about women – innate or acquired – that makes us (most of us or some of us, but God forbid it be all of us) want to be beautiful and be admired while being said beautiful. From hair to makeup to dresses to shoes to accessories and even to the cuticles of our fingers, we want to be beautiful – whatever that means to us. The fact is that woman ARE beautiful, and whether you agree or not, I will probably always admire a woman’s body. All the curves and shapes and turns and crevices, what’s not to be looked at?

Instead of losing sleep and starting e-world wars, we should observe this as a teachable moment in life, so what we should be wondering is why was Sofia Vergara not on a larger pedestal? And while we are at it, we may also ask, why did the rotation not last longer? Oh, that’s right. Because she got dizzy. That’s why she stopped doing car shows.