Episode 11.
Pedro Pascal is riding a career-high with the The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, but it is his newfound status as the "Internet's Daddy" and even “Cool Slutty Daddy” that has everyone talking. From playful memes to increasingly graphic thirst tweets, it seems all that anyone, including the mainstream media, wants to discuss with him - becoming the go-to question on red carpets or in interviews.
In this week’s episode, we are discussing where does appreciating male sexuality end and objectification begin? Actors such as Paul Mescal, Kit Harrington and Brad Pitt have all spoken out about being uncomfortable being labelled a “hunk” or a “sex symbol”. Yet Buzzfeed’s male celebrities read thirst tweets series is massively popular. So is the open sexualisation of male celebrities any different to sexualising women? And is there a double standard? Join us as we dive deep into the comments.
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This series is produced by Emily Crosby Media.
Credit for the Pedro Pascal image: Shop Kinda Obsessed.
Click here for the full transcript
SPEAKERS
Sarah, Lisa
Lisa 00:06
This year, Pedro Pascal was crowned the internet's daddy and it spread like wildfire from lovable memes to increasingly graphic thirst tweets.
Sarah 00:14
But more than that the mainstream media eagerly took up the baton and started bringing it up in interviews, and in any media coverage he appeared in.
Lisa 00:21
So is this just a bit of harmless fun? Or is it a new form of objectification?
Sarah 00:26
And how do we know where the line is between appreciating male sexuality, and aggressive sexual objectification?
Lisa 00:32
Let's go straight to the comments.
Before we get into talking about Petro Pascal, we’d just love to ask you, if you're enjoying the show, if you could leave us a five star review on Spotify. So just tap the five stars if you think we're worth five stars. And also, if you could leave us a review on Apple, it would be really appreciated. Thank you and enjoy the episode.
Sarah 00:53
So Pedro Pascal has been around for a while now. And he played Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones and Javier Pena in the Netflix crime series Narcos. But since starring in the Mandalorian, and with the release of HBO’s The Last of Us this year, he's suddenly just become everywhere. And he was even at this year's Met Ball. And Lisa, you're a fan of him on The Last of Us, aren't you?
Lisa 01:15
Yeah, you well know that, and I kept talking about it. But yeah, I do love it. And I have to admit, I've got a bit of a crush on him, especially in The Last of Us.
Sarah 01:23
You know, and as we said he is just everywhere at the moment, but in case anyone doesn't know who he is. Probably no one, but just in case. Lisa, why don't you give us a brief intro on who he is.
Lisa 01:33
Absolutely. So Pedro Pascal is a 47 year old Chilean born American actor who has been acting for almost 30 years. And he took small roles for many years, including on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and most of the Law and Order franchises. He's spoken before how many roles he missed out on and how long it took for him to get his big break. And he said this, “I had to let go of so many ideas I had about what the pursuit of this career was going to be. It’s a child’s fantasy. There were opportunities, the close calls started early for me, but it didn’t pan out. You find yourself suddenly in your mid-30s and can’t live off the next Broadway show.”.
Sarah 02:07
And alongside this recent meteoric rise, he's recently been associated with a meme where he's referred to as “The Internet's Daddy”. And in January this year, an Entertainment Tonight reporter asked him on the red carpet, “you know, you're the daddy of the internet, right?” And then he showed him a tweet that a fan had penned about him being a sort of “cool slutty father” to which he responded, “I am your cool, slutty daddy”. And it's now become almost the only thing that anyone wants to ask him about. So for example, there was one tweet that picked up on this that said, “Pedro Pascal hiding in the bathroom at red carpets so he doesn't get asked about being the internet’s daddy for the 152,636,476th time”.
Lisa 02:48
Oh, my goodness, I can't believe you've managed to say that. That was a lot of times!
Sarah 02:53
Yeah, that's, that's a lot of numbers there!
Lisa 02:54
Yeah. You're right, Sarah, because, you know, when he went on The Graham Norton Show in February, Norton asked him if he was enjoying all the sudden attention to which he replied, he was with an eyebrow raise and a smile. And then Graham Norton said, “what's the Internet’s Daddy? And Pascal replied, “me!”
Sarah 03:13
So he's definitely aware of this phenomenon himself. And he's even leaned into it, you could say, and tiktok, which I'm not on, but it seems to have been one of the places it's really blown up. So there was a FanCam edit of Pedro Pascal that went viral on January the 20th. And it earned its creator millions of likes, and more than 30 million streams, which is a lot. But Lisa, why is everyone calling him daddy? What's that about?
Lisa 03:38
I mean, I know, that's why we wanted to do this episode, we wanted to dig into this, you know. Well, the actor's ‘daddy’ status seems to come, I think, from the fact that he's played a couple of father roles, well very iconic father roles. He plays the Mandalorian himself who becomes the protector and caretaker of a young Grogu. Hope I’ve said that right. And in The Last of Us, Pascal's Joel is a grieving dad over his daughter, Sarah, and he also becomes a sort of pseudo parent to the orphaned Ellie. So I think that's where it's originating from, that he plays so many father figures.
Sarah 04:08
Although ironically, he doesn't actually have any children himself. And he addressed that by saying “Daddy is a state of mind. You know what I'm saying? I'm your daddy”. Yeah. And in The Cut, they actually described his appeal as “Pascal is the platonic ideal of a leading man in a post-Brad Pitt world. He is consistently likeable without being smarmy, comfortable without being too cavalier. He'll share bits of himself that don't feel like a stilted media-trained anecdote, (for example, did you know he used to be a Go Go dancer). He will play along with whatever an interviewer throws at him while seemingly remaining sincere.”
Lisa 04:43
I really agree with that. That's the kind of vibe I'm getting from him when I pick up some content with him. But when they say, Daddy, it's like what we've got to get clear. It's not about being literally a father figure, right?
Sarah 04:54
No, and that's the bit that confuses me a bit more is that sort of Daddy has become the, it's definitely become synonymous with sex and not just being a parent. And it's mainly used these days as synonymous with “an attractive man of an older age”. But I mean, we're going to come back to this and we're going to sort of briefly go over the history of Daddy as a sexual term later. But why is Pedro Pascal, in particular, associated with this term? And what kind of comments are there out there about him in this respect?
Lisa 05:23
Well, I'm gonna take you through quite a spectrum of online comments about him. Starting from the sort of tame to the most extreme. Let's start by saying there’s a lot of warmth towards him. For him as a whole person like you said, with your comment earlier in The Cut. People really like so much about his whole personality, the whole package. On Instagram - “he comes across like such a beautiful human being. Gorgeous, certainly, but such a lovely man”. And someone else said I”'m always struck by how intelligent, humble and genuine Pedro is, because he had to struggle and persevere for so many years before making it big. What an inspiration!” And then finally, “I just want to go dancing with Pedro.” So they’re on the more tame end.
Sarah 06:02
And I totally get that. I totally get that and especially if he has been a Go Go dancer, he's probably very good at it.
Lisa
Yeah, yeah.
Sarah
He just looks fun. And you know, cheeky but respectful, which I think is a nice line to have.
Lisa 06:15
Exactly. A lot of people comment that when he meets fans, he leans in but always keeps his hands in his pocket. So he's never too much.
Sarah
Yeah.
Lisa
But the temperature then just goes up a little bit. Sarah, are you ready for it, with people openly lusting after him? On a Pedro Pascal Instagram fan account there is this caption to a picture where he has his sort of back turned, pulling up his jeans. And then the caption is,” just imagine slowly running your hands down his back:. And then someone responded, “they say stop sexualizing him and there we go”. And then the author says, “my bad”. And then someone else wrote, “why does he have so many slutty photos? I love them all”. And then it sort of goes off the scale. This week, a promotional image dropped on Twitter of him and Ethan Hawke sort of in an embrace, and it's for their film, Strange Way of Life directed by Pedro Almodovar. They play lovers and people were saying on Twitter, this was a sort of an exchange on Twitter. First person said “drop the sex tape and maybe we'll watch”. The other person responded, “Petro already did it with me yesterday.” And the other person said, “how was it?” And the person said back “I'm in a wheelchair now.”
Sarah 07:19
Oh, god. Yeah, that's a bit far.
Lisa 07:23
But this is like you'll find a lot of this. It just really escalates quickly, like with the graphic things they'd like to do to him.
Sarah 07:32
Or have him do to them.
Lisa 07:35
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But what's interesting is how the mainstream media treat Pascal. You know, he kind of like, did you see him at the Met Gala?
Sarah 07:44
Yeah, he was wearing an outfit with, it was very red, but they were quite short shorts that he was wearing.
Lisa 07:51
Yeah. And it's strange, because you had everyone going up the red carpet or the white carpet. And Vogue, E News. Entertainment Tonight, they all tweeted quite quickly when he hit the carpet all saying - well, here comes the internet's daddy. And then The Cut again, even tagged him as you know, “here comes the cool slutty daddy”. And a lot of people have reacted in a positive way to this as if they're enjoying the in-joke these media outlets are making about him, but a few objected and they said “E News, you need to act like professionals”. This man is much more than being diminished by you guys as a daddy in every interview”. And then someone else said “weird caption for a professional news outlet.” But I just wanted to say what do you think of a professional news outlet calling him this?
Sarah 08:32
Well, I mean, it's a little bit creepy and pandering, to be honest, especially at this point. And at this point, it's also really unoriginal. So someone said on Reddit, what they said was “I do wish journalists would ask him more questions about his project rather than Internet memes and thirst tweets though. It's such lazy journalism too, the whole daddy thing has been beaten to death already.” And someone else tweeted “I think the popularity of celebrities read thirst tweets videos has contributed to how comfortable certain entertainment journalists have become with ambushing famous men and saying weird sexual shit to them under the guise of “omg aren’t the fans soooo funny”. It’s very odd
Lisa 09:10
Yeah. And what's interesting is the mixed reaction to his daddy status online, you know, on the Mail Online, a comment said, “I don't get the daddy stuff though. The last thing I want to read about is my dad LMAO”, which is laugh my ass off, I have to still remind myself what that means. And then people jump in and say, well, actually, “he's all smiling and stuff, knowing damn well his fandom is feasting on these looks. I’ll have more legs, please.” And for the sake of time, I won't go into any more of the comments. But they are broadly in two camps. There is the - it’s harmless fun, and Pascal started it, and then there's other people coming out and saying what you said earlier, you know, why are the media driving this? You know, this is not right.
Sarah 09:48
Yeah, exactly. It really has sort of snowballed at this point. But as you read with your spectrum of comments, all the comments are not created equal, so to speak.
Lisa 10:00
Although you're right, some of these posts seem just like people with a celebrity crush, which is, I think, very normal. And we all have our celebrity crushes. But it's, some seem to me much more extreme and essentially objectifying him. And that's the question I think I have, which is how do we differentiate? What's the line? And how do we know when it's crossed into objectification?
Sarah 10:20
Well, yeah, I mean that, I think that's a really good question and something that a lot of people struggle with. And I'm just going to briefly start with a definition of objectification to put it in context. So as the name suggests, it's the act of treating a person or a group as an object or a thing. And it's part of the, part of dehumanisation, so reducing people just to their parts. And in this way, that object exists for the sole purpose of the viewers wants or needs without regard for the individual or the group's own agency. And then as an extension of that you also have fetishization, which can be thought of as the act of making someone an object of sexual desire specifically, but based on some aspect of their identity. So for example, just their race or just their size. You know, or just their feet, I don't know. And interestingly, there was an Ask A Feminist forum on Reddit, and someone asked, “Can someone explain to me the difference between physical attraction and sexual objectification?” And some of the comments were quite succinct in describing this. And one of the comments was, “physical attraction is - Sally is pretty. I know Sally has other qualities too. I care about her wants, needs and who she is as a person. And objectification is - Sally is pretty. Her value comes entirely from being pretty. I don't care about her wants, needs or who she is as a person.” And there was another one who summed it up as “In short, you can be sexually attracted to someone while still viewing them as a sentient human being with thoughts and emotions, who is as deserving as respect to someone you wouldn't have sex with”.
Lisa 11:53
They're fantastic definitions that's really helped me actually get a bit of a clearer picture on it, you know, and I suppose it’s where it starts to feel that some people have definitely crossed over into the objectification with this daddy meme, with Pedro Pascal. It even seems to be one of the main things brought up in the interviews now, and that the media is actually fueling it as much as the fans. For example, in March in a red carpet interview for the current season of the Mandalorian, Access Hollywood asked Pascal to read thirst tweets about himself, similar to the popular BuzzFeed YouTube series where celebrities read thirst tweets to the camera.
Sarah 12:24
And I'm just going to jump in here and say, I do want to come back to the whole thirst tweets thing in a bit.
Lisa 12:30
Definitely. But when he was asked to read the thirst tweets, Pascal politely declined. And someone tweeted in response, “I can't imagine having red carpet access, only to make an actor uncomfortable by putting him in a sexual situation he didn't accept like that. I thirst Pedro, like we all do, but the way he's been reduced to this instead of you know, maybe asking about his work”. And then she added, “when Latinos still only make up 6% of all speaking roles, reducing Pedro to sexual feelings others have for him is even more increasingly frustrating.”
Sarah 13:00
Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's a really interesting aspect that I hadn't actually thought about at all. To what extent is him being Latino part of this sexualization? Is it actually a fetishization? And I mean, I don't know really, because I'd imagine there, there are maybe a lot of people who just specifically fancy him. So it's really hard to know exactly what role that plays. But it is a good point that I hadn't even thought of. And more and more people, as we've mentioned are starting to call out this, this obsession with this meme. So on Reddit, someone said, “Imagine having everyone you meet bring up the daddy thing. He's a saint, because I would have snapped long ago”. Yeah, probably. And another said, “it's funny when one person says it, less funny when hundreds of fans are obnoxiously screaming at you. I feel very bad for him. And I'm getting hardcore secondhand embarrassment for the internet”. And I think that is a good point is there's a critical mass. It's like a joke. One person says it but when you hear it, like 20 times a day, it's like, oh, God, I'm over this now.
Lisa
Yeah.
Sarah
And just to put into context why we're even talking about objectification and why it's important. Studies have actually shown that exposure to sexual objectification has been linked with depression. It's been linked with eating disorders and low self confidence. It's been shown that it can disrupt the development of a healthy sexual identity, and sexual objectification of women has been found to negatively affect women's performance, confidence and level of position in the workplace.
Lisa 14:30
Oh, absolutely. But objectification isn't just confined to women, though, is it?
Sarah 14:34
No, I mean, it's talked a lot in relation to women. But male objectification has definitely increased over the years. So in 2013, male sexual objectification was found in 37% of advertisements featuring men's body parts to showcase a product. And although that's still less than women, it's definitely been shown to be on the rise. And within gay male communities, male objectification has been found to be even higher. But as with the reference to adverts, the media and Hollywood, they definitely seem to be one of the main places where you can witness objectification most at work. It's the most obvious place that we can see it in our daily lives.
Lisa 15:12
Exactly. And I mean, Hollywood has been using sex symbols as a marketing strategy since the early days of the industry, you know, thinking of Marilyn Monroe. But male actors have also been subjected to objectification and sexualization. But it's not always been as openly obvious as with women.
Sarah
Yeah.
Lisa
Back in the day, you know, even back in the silent era, actors such as Rudolph Valentino was sort of fetishised and he played sort of exotic figures like Matador to Sheikh. And his sudden death at 40 caused a complete outbreak of female hysteria.
Sarah
Oh wow
Lisa
Yeah, and when you think of the 1940s and early 50s, maybe that you had the ‘sword and sandal’ movies featuring ripped sort of American actors, like Kirk Douglas, not wearing many clothes, followed, you know, by the obsession of over heartthrobs, like James Dean and Marlon Brando in the 50s. So it's always been there. But then you think about it when we like go back to when we were growing up in the 80s and 90s. We had the sort of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, so you know, sort of hyper masculine men, often portrayed as quite aggressive and ridiculous, but I never really fancied them.
Sarah 16:17
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's all the action films of the 80s and 90s. And it's weird because I did slightly fancy Sylvester Stallone, and then later, Vin Diesel.
Lisa
Yeah
Sarah
More because of the film Pitch Black than the Fast and the Furious stuff. But I think it's embarrassing to admit, I think I just liked the idea of a big guy who could pick me up because I'm 511, and, you know, we've we've mentioned many times, I’m not tiny. I think that appealed to me to a certain extent while I was growing up, and that sort of - oh being rescued by a man which, you know..
Lisa 16:52
Oh, it goes right back to Tarzan, right. I was thinking, I wanted to be rescued out of the jungle. And you know, it's really strange because I had such a crush on Andrew McCarthy from Mannequin and I used to play that song “Nothing's gonna stop us now”, the video repeatedly because I adored him so much. And I just want you to be the mannequin. I mean, really, it was actually Kim Catrall. And then I little bit fancied Tom Cruise. But when I started watching Top Gun when I was in my early teens, I didn't really pick up on all the gay undertones. I didn't understand he was being really pushed as a sex symbol. But you can definitely say there were male sex symbols back in the day.
Sarah 17:24
Oh, definitely. And I think, you know, in my teen years, you've already mentioned Tom Cruise. There were two that were really massive at the top for that. And it was are you a Tom Cruise girl or a Brad Pitt girl, that seemed to be, I remember that being the sort of main choice of the ultimate pinup which was interesting, because, for me, it was never those two, it was actually Keanu Reeves long before this new renaissance for him. So you can imagine like when Interview with the Vampire came out, I think people just lost their shit, because it was like we've got both of them, what more do you want?
Lisa 17:58
It’s too much, yeah. And there was, wasn't, who was this actor…Antonio Banderas?
Sarah
Er Christian Slater, they also had Christian Slater aswell. But that was just like all of the Hearthrobs in one.
Lisa
They were just squeezing them into every movie. Yeah.
Sarah 18:11
But as you know, I actually grew up a lot on classic films, black and white films, and not always black and white, but the classic films, Golden Hollywood. And weirdly, you know, I mentioned Sylvester Stallone, but I didn't have a specific type, so to speak. But my first crushes were actually James Mason, Fred Astaire and Cary Grant. For someone growing up in the 80s and 90s, I suppose that I was a bit of a weird child, I don't know. But for me, it was definitely a lot less about their bodies, but their charisma, their suaveness, the elegant suits. And you know, for Fred Astaire the dance skill, I just wanted to dance with him. I think it was a really innocent crush when I was a kid. And I just loved their abilities. And there was something about that, that was so appealing to me.
Lisa 18:56
Yeah. And I totally get the Cary Grant thing because I remember I watched him so many times in different films, especially with Doris Day, I can’t remember the name of it now. But that, Touch of Mink, that was it. And he's always playing those suave, very sort of knows himself and confident. And, and it was interesting, when I started looking into this, I found this film scholar called Richard Dyer, and he did a lot of analysis of like the marketing and the kind of way they position male film stars in Hollywood. And he said, what the important thing is, is that when it comes to sort of marketing them is that you focus more on their abilities and being active. And that in the sort of classic sort of film publicity shots, men were often staring off camera and deflecting the gaze, where women were seen as passive and directly invoking the gaze. So this is an important part of it is about sort of not being seen actively to sort of want to be looked at.
Sarah 19:45
Yeah, and I mean, we've mentioned Brad Pitt. He was a huge symbol, especially when Thelma and Louise came out. It was just all about his abs, he really took off. He would often try and deflect being seen as someone who was lusted after and he'd go out of his way to look rough often and even said, “being a sex symbol all the time hampers my work”. And this is definitely a common trend among male actors, including Leonardo DiCaprio. He's also said in an interview “being dubbed as a hunk sort of annoys me, it gives me a yucky feeling.” But do we have leading men like we used to? It definitely still feels like the role of the masculine leading man has changed a lot in the more recent years. There's definitely a lot more space for diversity and not being pigeonholed just into that sort of romantic leading man status. And if I think about, I mean, we've mentioned Cary Grant, but it feels like in the same category as Cary Grant, that George Clooney is almost the last of these leading men in that particular vein.
Lisa 20:40
That's so true. I mean, you've got like Chris Hemsworth. But he's sort of you know, who I really fancied in Thor, but he only exists really in the Marvel Universe. And you seem to have like this sort of roster of sort of more boyish stars, like Timothée Chalamet and Robert Pattinson, I mean, we did have that brief return to sort of hyper-masculinity with sort of Gerard Butler and 300. You know, look at all the muscles and beards. And there’s sort of Jason Statham but they're almost like A list actors in B movies.
Sarah 21:09
Yeah, I mean, definitely. And it seems clear that we're sort of we've moved into a new era of Hollywood male stars, because masculine ideals are a lot less specifically defined in our current society. And as a result of that, I think a lot of people crave a new breed of men, those who embody masculinity, vulnerability and self awareness all in one, which is where I think Pedro Pascal comes in. He's seen as the best of both worlds, the masculine and the vulnerable.
Lisa 21:41
I mean, millions can be riding on Hollywood stars, and as they say, sex sells. Many of us have seen them on the promo rounds doing press junkets and being interviewed on the red carpet and really, they're just being reduced a little bit to sound bites and viral clips. Scarlett Johansson has had her fair share of attention of being a sex symbol. Do you remember when that reporter felt her boob up on the red carpet.
Sarah 22:02
Yeah, that was I mean, it was what, in the early 2000s? It was just, I mean, I can't comment enough about how inappropriate it is, this isn't someone she knew, right? And he just pounced right..
Lisa 22:13
Yeah, he said he was checking the padding of her bra, but it's sort of then again became a viral moment. And then in May 2021, Scarlett Johansson has called on her fellow actors to take a step back from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation behind the Golden Globes, as she slammed the sexist questions and remarks she's received from its members. She said, “As an actor promoting a film, one is expected to participate in awards season by attending press conferences as well as awards shows. In the past, this has often meant facing sexist questions and remarks by certain HFPA members that bordered on sexual harassment. It is the exact reason why I, for many years, refused to participate in their conference”.
Sarah 22:53
Yeah, I mean, she's really over it. And you can see sort of collections of video clips where she's been asked in press junkets questions and she always calls them out. She's like, why are you asking me this question? And you know, she's not the only one. There's been quite a lot of actresses who have pointed that this is predominantly in the past being directed towards women, that there is a double standard. So for example, I remember recently seeing a clip of Cate Blanchett calling out a red carpet photographer, she, you know, they do the whole, what are you wearing? And he pans down her dress. And she just sort of bends down to where the camera’s going and says, I mean, would you do that to a man? What do you think's going on down there? And, but it does seem like it's now starting to happen more and more to men. So there was a tweet that said, “I feel like Pedro Pascal is getting the actress treatment where he can't go to any interview without being sexualized, it's wild”. And then they also highlighted this in response to him wearing shorts at the Met Gala. So there was a comment on the Daily Mail that said, “Pedro and his slutty little knees. He's giving his fans what they want, and that's why they call him Daddy!
Lisa 24:01
But I read a lot of comments, but slutty little knees?!
Sarah 24:04
Yeah, that's a first.
Lisa 24:07
Yeah, okay. That's really, I mean, that's starting to get really out of control. But, okay, let's go back and explore this whole ‘daddy’ thing again. Where does the whole daddy term come from? And why is it considered so sexual?
Sarah 24:19
Well, I mean, it was really interesting doing some research on this, because I hadn't, I hadn't known that much about it before. But actually, there are records from the early 17th century that show that the word Daddy has been used for any controlling and older figure, regardless of biology. So, as early as 1621, there's evidence of Daddy being used by prostitutes to refer specifically to their pimps. And then Daddy sort of became a slang for male lover, and that's been found in the early 1900s. And then in the 1970s, the gay community really took up the word for the leather subculture with the term ‘leather daddy’. And they later just drop the word leather. And it definitely has associations of power and dominance. And that comes in from the BDSM communities. This sexualization of ‘daddy’ terminology, I mean, it spawned various other iterations from ‘sugar daddies’, which we mentioned last week, to DILFs, which is short for dad I'd like to fuck, like a MILF. And then there's the Latin inspired ‘Papi’. I don't know if I'm saying that right. But you know, you hear it a lot in JLo songs. Like ‘ay papi’ kind of thing. And then there's even this mysterious ‘Zaddy’. So daddy with a Z. And apparently that comes from a Ty Dolla $ign song, and what it means is a man with ‘swag’ who is attractive and also fashionable. I mean, had you ever heard of ‘Zaddy’ before? And what do you think of these terms?
Lisa 25:47
No, no, but and it's strange, because I, because you know, I love so much R&B music, I've been hearing ‘daddy’ for years.
Sarah
Yeah
Lisa
And ‘call my name daddy’ and all this stuff and, but it's…I've never really thought really hard why?
Sarah
Yeah
Lisa
It's so interesting to hear where it's sort of coming from.
Sarah 26:06
Totally. And so for me, I'm British. And even as an adult, I would often alternate between calling my dad ‘dad’ or ‘daddy’, just completely normally. So I really, really personally don't like associating the word daddy with being sexual, because, you know, it's just my dad, like, I don't want to, you know, go, that's, hmm, anyway. And I don't know whether it's more of a Brit thing to call parents daddy legitimately. Maybe it's less used in America, sdo it doesn't feel like such a crossover? I don't know. But I'm also, maybe I was a bit too innocent, but I, you know, for the longest time when I'd hear people say “Who's the daddy?”, because that's a phrase you do hear around, I just thought it meant like, who's the boss, who's in charge? And, or who's the winner? I didn't think it was a sexual thing. And you know what, I'm definitely not the only person who's struggling with the use of ‘daddy’ being a sexual thing. So for example, there was a comment that said,” the whole daddy and mommy thing just weirds me out. The same generation that is so progressive and awesome about consent, justice for victims of sexual assault, and being anti-paedophilia also uses daddy as fun slang when talking about a guy they find super hot and are lusting after. Just … ew. Think about what you’re saying.
Lisa 27:22
Yeah, it’s so strange. Like, I don't really get it. And you know, taking out the specific daddy thing, the open sexualization of male celebrities, is that any different really from sexualizing women? I mean, there is a double standard here.
Sarah 27:36
Yeah, and this brings me back to the thirst tweets that we mentioned earlier, and I said I wanted to come back to. I mean, they've really taken off in recent years. BuzzFeed brought them out in 2018. What it involves, for anyone who hasn't seen them, are they’re videos of predominantly male actors reading quite extreme tweets about themselves which they haven't seen before, and then they have to read them out. And for example, Shawn Mendes had to read,” I'd let Shawn Mendes father every single egg in my non existent uterus laaawd”. And he was quite uncomfortable with that I think when he read it, and, you know, that was actually mild, in comparison to some of the other really thirsty tweets that I've seen, which are actually explicitly violent, particularly in a masochistic way towards the men. You know, they describe in really great detail what the person wants the celebrity to do to them, it's usually quite violent. But as you can imagine, if a woman was asked to read these out, it would be considered very degrading. And an article on The Swaddle sort of sums up this disparity and it says, “objectification of a man is viewed radically differently because of the existing power inequalities in our society. A man's agency is much less likely to be overridden by a woman and a woman lusting after a man isn't inherently perceived as a threat”. In addition to that the men are just expected to laugh it off or play along and that's what's expected societally. So for example, they also said, “there are millions and millions of views on these videos just to see celebrities get queasy in their chairs, get uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to vocalise it. Just enough to joke about it. There is an unspoken expectation of all these men to just embrace the discomfort and only identify as a high fiving alpha male who prioritises sexual desirability as the ultimate quality in a man.”
Lisa 29:23
That's interesting. Well, even though there is this difference in power dynamic, I think there's also an aspect of some people just want it to swing back the other way. In the sort of post-metoo world they would argue that women have been sexualized and objectified for so long that doing, you know, the same back to man is somehow evening the playing field.
Sarah 29:42
Yeah, it's like they've taken this sort of tit for tat approach, or or, in this particular case, tat for tit, I would say, but yeah, but I think that kind of misses the point entirely. And it does seem like there has been a greater amount of openly sexually objectifying men in the mainstream now, because I mean, it was always around, but it's really become much more mainstream. So maybe there's even more of a demand for it, you could say. So when you think of the film's like Magic Mike, some people have argued that “it could be a symptom of the lack of sexual freedom and judgement, free safe spaces available to people, especially women and queer individuals to express their sexual needs comfortably”.
Lisa 30:24
That's a really good point.
Sarah 30:26
This is where it's coming out sort of sideways is what they're suggesting, I think.
Lisa 30:30
Yeah, that's a very good point. And, you know, another thing that people bring up a lot is the idea of consent or the individual being complicit in the sexualization. You know, for example, like you said, with Magic Mike, Channing Tatum produced the film's and all the actors involved would have known what was expected of them, and of their characters before signing on. So it seems to me that it's like men are embracing that sexuality or their sexuality. And with the BuzzFeed episodes, people also point out that there is a degree of consent in terms of agreeing beforehand to read these thirst tweets, unlike when Pedro Pascal, you know, was sort of ambushed on the red carpet or when people publicly post extreme sexual fantasies about celebrities without knowing them.
Sarah 31:10
Yeah, exactly. There is a sort of difference between those two and there was an article in GQ that was titled “the rabid sexualization of male actors is getting creepy”. And in addition to talking about this treatment of Pascal recently, it also included Paul Mescal, from the TV show Normal People. And he'd actually described two experiences with fans that left him feeling objectified. And these were in person experiences. So not just on the internet, so the Irish actor, he recalled meeting a woman who referenced his show normal people, and she said to him, “I didn't think the show was any good, but I saw your willy and I have a photo”.
Lisa
Oh
Sarah
This was just a stranger who'd come up to him. And number two, he also revealed an experience where a woman who was taking a photo with him outside the London Almeida Theatre where he was currently starring in A Streetcar Named Desire. He was taking a fan photo with someone who’d asked him and the woman actually groped his bum, as they posed for the photo. And he said, “I remember tensing up and feeling just like fury”. And then in 2015, Kit Harrington, who you know, burst onto the scene as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, he spoke about, he said, “young men do get objectified, and they do get sexualized unnecessarily, with every photoshoot I ever go to, I'm told to take my shirt off”. And he also described it as “demeaning to be put on a pedestal as a hunk”. But when he spoke out about this, instead of people taking him seriously for raising this, I mean, he was widely mocked, there was even an op-ed in The Telegraph that said, you know, we're “getting out the world's tiniest violin”, which you would definitely not get that response to a woman if she spoke out about feeling uncomfortable in these sorts of situations.
Lisa 32:57
Absolutely not. And he's not the only one. You know, other male celebrities have also spoken out about feeling uncomfortable being objectified, including Richard Madden, Sam Claflin, Matt Smith, Rob Lowe, and even Henry Cavill, who said, this is quite incredible, “I mean, if a girl shouts something like, ‘Oi, love, fancy a shag?’ to me as I walk past, I do sometimes wonder how she’d feel if a builder said that to her. Although, of course, I wouldn’t feel physically threatened, as she might.” This goes back to your point earlier about the power dynamics that somehow because they’re bigger, you know, it's okay to do it.
Sarah 33:27
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, he recognises that himself, but it's also, why should he have to deal with that on a day to day basis? I think another quite recent example is this thing where they talk about the BDE, the big dick energy, and particularly in relation..
Lisa
I don’t get it!
Sarah
I know
Lisa
It’s so weird!
Sarah
Yeah, it's, and they talk about that specifically with Pete Davidson. It's come up a lot. And they regularly talk about, you know, this must be the reason why he's able to date such high profile women. So for example, there was a comment that said, “First, he was engaged to Ariana Grande, and now he's dating Kim Kardashian. I don't get it. In my opinion, he's average looking at best, and his comedy is just okay. Someone make this make sense to me”. And again, I mean, they basically have reduced him down to just a single appendage, almost like his entire value is due to sexual prowess. And so there was a comment on the Daily Mail that said, “Pete’s a real knight, he’s wielded his sword through a lot of Hollywood”, which was just a bit icky, you know.
Lisa 34:28
It's a little bit funny, though. Sorry.
Sarah
Funny and icky.
Lisa
It's almost like people can't imagine attraction being about someone's personality or that just because one person doesn't appeal to you personally doesn't mean that they're not very attractive to another person. But to be clear, we're not saying it's not okay to be sexually attracted to celebrities, because, you know, my whole childhood will be over.
Sarah 34:51
Yeah, our lives. No, I mean, definitely not. We're definitely not saying that. I mean, it's really about the line, isn't it? And we've talked about a line before but the problem with the line is it's entirely subjective. You know, where is that line between what's essentially healthy attraction and what's just going too far, you know, and is inappropriate? So, I mean, one of the biggest things people say in response to this when, when people bring up the petro Pascal meme and, you know, criticise it, is they they say, Oh, well, he started it, and he's played into it, and he's encouraged it, and therefore, it must be okay. So for example, there was a comment that said, “Pascal is no fool. He's extremely self aware about the image, he projects both on and off the screen and is having an absolute ball with it”. But you know what I think is really important to note is, it's really hard to tell if you started out playing along in good humour, and then you never expected it to become so all consuming. And also, if there's a point at which, as part of the PR machine, and all the things that are resting on it, you know, is do you feel like you have to play along so that you don't get cancelled? So, so it's quite hard to know, how much those different things the playing a role?
Lisa 36:05
Yeah, like you said, if you just turned around, you know, and said, Look, I've had enough of it that could be in itself like a hole backlash right.
Sarah
Yeah.
Lisa
It’s hard to know. And I think this is summed up really well, in a post I read on Reddit, which was our last episode by the way. We love Reddit now, we’re obsessed with it. I've been reading cats asking for legal advice again. But they, I found this comment, “there's a real chicken and egg problem here that's hard to address. I'm not necessarily blaming him, but when an attractive older male star gets put into the PR promotion machine, they often get put in the daddy like role, the same way young musicians and actresses get put in the whore-madonna role (think early 2000s Britney). I think it's hard to break that mould, and unless the male stars especially PR savvy, his image will be ‘daddyfied'. Not to mention PR teams do encourage this sometimes. But it's clear, it gets out of hand very quickly.” And I think that's probably what's happening here with Pascal. As someone who spent two decades trying to break into the industry, to be finally having his moment, it must feel great. And in a way, like you said, he's leaning into that and you know the internet’s sort of obsession with him, and even humouring it. And it could easily feel like well, it's better than not getting any parts and not being able to pay my rent.
Sarah 37:18
Oh absolutely. I think that's definitely something to bear in mind. And also that just more than one feeling can exist at once. So I mean, for myself, I often have conflicting feelings. If a man finds me attractive or complements me, I can feel both flattered and validated on one hand, and also objectified if it feels like it's entirely surface level, or if my boundaries are being completely ignored in the way that they're expressing their attraction. So both of those things can exist at once, right?
Lisa 37:47
Oh, totally, and I can really relate to that. Like when I was waitressing when I was younger, like I was probably about 17 or 18. But these men in the hotel I worked in, were constantly saying, Oh, look at that jailbait. Look at that arse. Like maybe I'm going too far, but I had men, I felt really preyed on at that age.
Sarah
Yeah.
Lisa
But when it was constant, and I was studying my A levels, like, it's not like I’m going to turn around and say I've just read Jane Eyre, who would like to discuss it with me?
Sarah
Yeah
Lisa
But they were just like, literally, and you know, I'm telling you, I'm just an average looking woman, but they, the way those men treated me, I felt like, like, just a piece of meat. Yeah.
Sarah
Yeah
Lisa
Well part of me loved it a little bit. I did like it a little.
Sarah
Yeah
Lisa
I didn't feel scared of them. I just felt like, I didn't like the feeling that it was all that I was about. They didn't care about who I was.
Sarah 38:31
But, but I think that's natural as well. I mean, no matter what we sort of consciously believe we've grown up completely saturated in these messages, particularly as women, but I think all people nowadays, that our entire worth comes from someone else finding us sexually appealing, that someone finding us attractive is where we get validated from. So even if we don't believe that like you know, in an, on an intellectual level, we are primed to have that automatic reaction if someone finds you attractive, and also to feel sort of invisible, if some people aren't finding you attractive. And so there is an element sometimes where it's almost like, I know, I shouldn't feel this way, but I want to be seen, but I don't want to be seen. It's just such a, you know, mayhem, it's confusing. Also, another area of confusion, I think comes in with I mean, there have been times where I want to embrace my sexuality, and I believe I have every right to and it can feel empowering. But I can have those feelings and at the same time worry. Oh, well, what will this mean if I do that? Will I then have to deal with other people interpreting that as sort of, oh, well, I can treat you however I want now, because you've opened that door.
Lisa
Yeah.
Sarah
So I do think an important point in this is agency. And just because someone embraces their sexuality, it doesn't really give permission for others to aggressively project their own sexual desires onto that person, whether it's verbally or physically, and especially if there's no consent. That's something that seems to happen a lot in parasocial relationships. And you know, you mentioned that term in a previous episode, where it refers to a relationship that a person imagines having with another person whom they don't actually know. So I mean, you know, this is particularly happens a lot with actors and celebrities and through technology. But just because someone's not doing it directly to someone's face, they somehow think that the normal boundaries don't really apply.
Lisa 40:17
Exactly. And on Reddit, someone said, “I feel like people just have no sense of shame these days, combined with a very weird lack of boundaries, that lockdown only exacerbated. We've seen it with singers like Mitski, and even Lorde at concerts, who wants to sing instead of just having fans scream “mommy” at them the entire time. Time and place people!!!!” And this comment. “Yeah, like, it's funny to joke about online, but maybe don't say this shit or an actor's face. I don't know why people don't understand that something should just stay in groupchat.”
Sarah 40:47
So true. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this topic, because there's so much we could talk about, but for today, what are your final thoughts?
Lisa 40:59
It’s really hard to know where to start with this one. As some of the comments we read out have outlined, you know, it can be hard to know exactly where the line is being crossed between appreciating male sexuality and then crossing over into objectification. And Pedro Pascal, yes, he's an attractive older man, who's having his rightly deserved moment right now. And I think it's only natural that many people are attracted to him, especially when he's playing appealing characters, as we discussed earlier on, like the father on The Last of Us. As in everyday life, I think what can start as a joke or throwaway comment, through the power of the internet and social media, you know can snowball into epic proportions. As with Pascal, it suddenly becomes the only thing people want to talk about. And they get reduced into a reductive role.
Sarah 41:42
Absolutely. And it's also so easy for people to build up parasocial relationships these days, and having a celebrity crush is perfectly normal, as we've said, but because of the distancing power of the internet, it can also be incredibly easy to forget that what you're posting is actually going out into the world. And it could actually be seen by the object who is a real person and not just a fantasy. I mean, women have been on the receiving end of this for years. But while it has always been more subtle towards men, it now feels like it's reached sort of very avert levels. And despite the unequal power dynamics at play in our society, and the usual explanation of Oh, it's just a joke, it still doesn't make it okay to reduce men down to mere sex objects in the same way as it's not okay to do that to women. It's also particularly heightened when the media themselves get in on the action and actually fuel it for their own purposes. And it's very hard to know whether the actor is just playing along because they're afraid of the backlash if they don't, if they say - actually, this is making me feel uncomfortable now. Sexuality is great, and there's a time and a place for it. But if that's the only thing a person is reduced to, well I mean, it must get quite exhausting and ultimately demoralising. And the problem was so many things in this world is working out where the line is when things crossover from healthy into unhealthy, especially as everyone's line is different.
Lisa 43:01
And I just want to round it off with this comment on Reddit that sums up the role of the media in this process. “Almost all this rhetoric is for profit by outlets like newspapers, social media, etc t rying to get the ad impressions. I think we need to primarily take on these big sites, papers and magazines, Instagram, socials, etc that saw a cute daddy meme and then went crazy on it to make money. Now they’ll write articles shaming us like we are somehow responsible for all of this, thus double dipping into the controversies they create. You know, Esquire is now taking on the profitable anti-daddy stance when I'm sure before they were happy to daddify male celebrities when that was profitable”. Thank you for listening.
Sarah
See you soon.
Lisa
We want to say two very special thank yous this week, one goes out to my very good friend Claire. Thank you for suggesting this week's episode and all your support, and also to my dear friend Kush for his insights and tips for making this episode. Thank you to our lovely producer Emily. If you enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to leave a review and subscribe. It really does help us in reaching more people.
Sarah 44:06
Also, you can follow us on Instagram at straight to the comments podcast. Our handle is @ s2tcpodcast, and join us next week where we'll be diving headfirst straight to the comments. See you there. This podcast has been produced by Emily Crosby media