“We’re all topless models…”
Posted by charliegrrl on January 9, 2007
In an Independant article, a commentator proclaims, “We’re all topless models…”
Ummm… NO
You wish boys, we’ve got better things do
The Independant wrote an article about Keeley- the ZOO, FHM and Page 3 topless model, celebrating her rise to fame. Although, you could have mistaken it for an article in The Sun
“Keeley Hazell has a terrific pair of breasts. This…is not so much crude bloke conjecture as much as it is concrete fact.”
“Her achievement is all the more remarkable when you consider that, due to the flourishing men’s magazine market, there appear to be more topless women around these days than ever.”
The Independant seems to celebrate the trend for women posing topless…and celebrate the career Keeley has made out of her breasts, as if this is something admirable. They consider the position that posing topless may be degrading to women, but then dismiss it with this…
“Oh, come on – we’re all topless models now,” she states. “And I simply don’t think it has the stigma it once had. We live in a world where people masturbate with bottles on Big Brother. Page 3, in comparison, is a cradle of innocence, and the models – virtually the vicar’s daughters – are really rather endearing.”
Rowan Pelling, an Independant columnist who used to pose topless
Yeah, I’m sure topless 18 year olds posing with innocence appear really endearing to the pervy 30 year olds reading The Sun.
They wonder why Keeley is so successful, and put it down to having huge breasts, a toned body and the X-factor. Well, I’d put it down to clever marketing. ZOO always features Keeley and most often features her as the winner of ‘the best breasts’ competition, ‘the best bum’ competition… This is because Keeley is a regular model for ZOO. Not because she is genuinely the most attractive woman in the world. I don’t mean to be harsh to her. But this is the reality- she is a brand to ZOO, and other porn mags. She is being groomed into a lads mags porn star. They promote her and create a bond between her and the male right hand, to increase readership. It is in their financial interest to emulate her as an topless icon, so boys will carry on buying lads mags. It’s clever marketing.
“In terms of the way she looks…Keeley is a major influence to young women. She is entirely natural, not enhanced in any way. The anti-Jordan, if you like. She simply has an amazingly toned body, but with huge breasts – which is what all our readers ultimately crave.”
How dare this commentator make out that a topless model is a role model for young women. If she is, then we need to worry, not celebrate this. But oh yeah, I forgot, all you pervy men want teenage girls to aspire to take their clothes off for your penile pleasure.
This article in the Independant is so misogynistic. It’s a fucking disgrace.
There’s too much to criticise… so I’d read it for yourself…
Blog of Feminist Activism 
fannyblood said
and here is the delightful interview in the independent today.
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2008203.ece
i could pull quotes out aswell but i think people should just read it. it is sentence after sentence of pure misogyny. i read this with my mouth wide open. i was huffing and puffing in sheer disbelief that this shit is getting shoved in our faces on a daily basis.
unfuckingbelievable. un … fuckingbelievable.
as i said in the forum, charlie, the one positive thing that came out of this article was the fact that she ALREADY isn’t entirely comfortable with being judged purely on her tits and body etc. and she’s only been doing it for a couple of years! her pervy manager is grooming her for a fully-fledged pornstar career but i’m wondering whether she’ll crack. she said she understands that feminists might find it degrading and that she might even in years to come?!?!
i think we should get in touch with her somehow. prick her conscience even further.
f x
fannyblood said
sorry charlie, you’ve linked the article. i really should pay more attention. i get soooo het up though that i just charge ahead !!!! x
charliegrrl said
Thanks for spotting this article Fanny.
As you, I read it in rage.
Unbelievable.
But she does come across as quite a naive young woman in her interview, and it seems she is being pushed by her managers. She does acknowlege what she is doing may be degrading to women. I feel sorry for her.
fannyblood said
I feel sorry for her too. She wants to be an actress like Angelina and Charlize. Her manager has Baywatch in mind.
Honestly, she should trust her instinct and get out why she still can.
F x
Grace said
They love how her body is all natural and yet those pictures are still completely airbrushed! Her chest looks the same as all the fake chests they have in lads-mags – they have de-naturalised her (and i’m basing this on the front of her calender where she looks rather different) – well I haven’t hidden my distaste for the Keeley phenomenon! Particularly her calender which I see from the article ‘is far and away this year’s bestselling year planner’ – i.e. out of all of the calenders bought for 2007 the biggest percentage of them is Keeley calenders – what does that say about the British public? Probably a retorical question I think.
Rather than her surname being superfluous, I tend to think this makes her less of a ‘real person’, and from what i’ve seen on lads-mag covers the women are rarely shown with their full names!
Pelling said: “we are a breast-obsessed nation today as much as we ever were.”
And that is a good thing? A thing that we should be okay with and get over because people masterbate with bottles on BB? Personally I wasn’t entertained by that, grossed out and compelled to switch the tv off immediated more like.
Armstrong of More said: “She simply has an amazingly toned body, but with huge breasts – which is what all our readers ultimately crave”
Again with the ‘women long for huge breasts’ thing – why don’t they just advertise Zoo’s competition in there? Big breasts are wanted by women who believe that having said breasts will make them more successful, more confident, more attractive – because it’s desireable to men (well, I can’t see any female managers caring particularly what size the breasts of their female employees have!). So ultimately the crave male approval, the breasts are not the ultimate, they are the agent for approval.
She’s hoping to grow a further 2 inches in height soon? And that isn’t written as a joke…now i’m confused…”She is a 20-year-old with the temperament of an inhibited tweenie.” – what’s that supposed to mean?
Sigh, I could just keep picking quotes out but everyone can read the article so i’ll stop! I am distressed by the fact that she will be in Playboy though – even though I really have a problem with Keeley generally i can’t help feeling bad for her, the way she has been written about here. On the one hand they’re saying that she has dimensions and depth and on the other they’re saying ‘but we know the punters don’t care, they just want to look at her so we’ll give them what they want’.
She’s actually been in a film as ‘Naked Girl’ in Cashback. Great start to an acting career!
sparklematrix said
Those guys running the show sure are creeeeepy
tcupnewt said
The reason she is that famous just because there are more topless models around- they need a brand name to hook products on, a created celebrity. She’s being used in so many ways. And touting her as “natural” (what? like GM free fruit?) creates an even stronger impression that all women should be just like her. At least with Jordan there was no hiden it’s unatural.
Robert Jackman said
Hello Charlie – fantastic blog. We seem to be united in our definition of pornography (it’s certainly not limited to the top shelf) and what stand should be taken against it.
Let me know what you think of these articles if you would:
http://roberthenryjackman.blogspot.com/2007/01/comment-alcohol-doesnt-rape-women.html
http://roberthenryjackman.blogspot.com/2006/11/comment-its-not-just-women-who-should.html
Robert 🙂
Richie said
What genuinely scares me about her stance on whether or not it’s degrading isn’t only that she acknowledges it “might” be, but that she refuses to actually think about it because “not everything has to be academic”, as if the problem with promoting a virtually unattainable body type as an example of “natural” beauty is something that only affects people with too much time on their hands. Rather than, say, society as a whole.
But clearly she’s had those words / thoughts drilled into her by somebody else, so maybe one day she *might* think about it. I imagine it’ll be a pretty rude awakening, if she hasn’t already been completely brainwashed by then.
And yeah, I have to concur with the above; I feel sorry for her more than anything. The people behind her, however… Honestly, words aren’t strong enough. I’ll just kick something instead.
jennifer drew said
As someone else rightly pointed out, in this article the misognystic manager (yes he is a misognyst) termed Keeley Hazell a ‘brand.’ Now we have it confirmed by a man who works in the business of sexually exploiting young women that women are not human beings just brands to be promoted for profit and then discarded when they are past their sell by date. So women that is what we are just ‘brands’ for men’s sexual exploitation.
Independent’s article is an excellent example of how the insidious and never-ending pressure for all media to portray women and girls as just sexualised commodities. Who next will succumb I wonder – Guardian perhaps?
fannyblood said
yes jennifer, the manager stated that he didn’t think the fact that joe cole was beaten up over the ’34DD beauty’ did ‘the brand’ any harm. if anything, it served to bolster it. i remember THE SCUM had it as front page news when it happened. footballers brawl over keeley’s DD’s … ? something along those lines.
also in a recent more! magazine (the body issue) keeley is in there saying how she thought jordan was a bad role model because her breasts are fake whereas hers are the real deal.
i am so glad i’m not a teenager growing up in today’s society.
f x
charliegrrl said
Fanny, it seems Keeley says what the audience want to hear, cos in a recent ZOO magazine, she talks about how she envies Jordan’s breasts. She suggested that she herself apply for the Win a Boob Job competition, cos she’s bored of her ‘small’ breasts.
fannyblood said
i see, charlie. hummm … well groomed already, PR in full schwing. urgh.
x
Rachel H-G said
Fanny, I often find myself agreeing with you about being a teen today.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Keeley never even says half the stuff that appears in the LMs. She or her pervy manager probably just signs a release for what a journo has written.
Aimée said
“Keeley Hazell has a terrific pair of breasts. This…is not so much crude bloke conjecture as much as it is concrete fact.”
Lol, what a complete idiot. They don’t seem to realise that it would only be a fact if you find huge fake breasts attractive, which most frequently occurs among….. dun dun dun….. crude blokes.
Hilarious that they consider what she has done as an achievement. Yeah, if I could only be Zoo’s sexiest woman, my life would be complete!
What utter bullshit.
stormy said
Brand yes. Marketing yes. Symbiotic relationship between brand (now object not person) and publication. Yep.
What I also find quite disturbing about the above photograph is the paedophilic message embedded within it. Note the plaits/pigtails, the girlishly coy pose in the rear image, the long socks? All superimposed with overt sexual ‘symbols of woman/sex’ (ie breasts, knickers).
FFS, the imbedded message within the image screams paedophilia. And we wonder why so much child rape and incest goes on?
Do we ever see grown men, dressed as little boys, in sexual poses? Didn’t think so.
Michelle said
This disturbed me…
(Editor of teen girl mag says)”In terms of the way she looks… Keeley is a major influence to young women… She simply has an amazingly toned body, but with huge breasts – which is what all our readers ultimately crave.”
When the lad mag model image isn’t just something craved by men, but women too. Why do they ‘ultimately crave’ this body? Because it will give them male attention? It’s unnerving to see not only how lad mags portray women as objects, but also how these ethos worm their way into magazines aimed at young women too.
fannyblood said
yeah she looks like a school girl … like britney.
michelle that is FOUL. written by women aswell no doubt. FOUL.
RGM said
Excellent point, Michelle. It’s all part of the great big circle that holds up society’s constructed status quo.
Big-advertising executives create image of “idealized woman” for men to crave. –> Men consume image and demand that all women conform to it. –> Women told by same big-advertising executives that getting a man is most important thing they can do, provide tips to look, behave, and “be” the “idealized woman.” –> Women pursue “idealized woman” image despite its unhealthy rigourous (impossible?) standards. –> Men get what they want.
I think that sounds about right, yes? And of course, because they continually need to make more money, just as soon as get what they’re told they want, and women fit the “idealized” construct, big advertising executives change the notion of the “idealized women,” and thus the cycle begins anew.
There’s a similar pathology traced in Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, and it’s amazing to see it actually being played out. We can’t say that we haven’t been warned about how it will go; unfortunately, the problem is getting people to pay attention.
simplywondered said
She simply has an amazingly toned body, but with huge breasts – which is what all our readers ultimately crave.
yes – like grace and michelle, that was the sentence that made me unsure whether to laugh or cry. at the risk of a burst of watm, that attitude – that all men want to possess (on a short-term basis, naturally) a woman’s ‘huge breasts’ and all women want to carry them around (and grace put this better than i would have done)as the agent of male approval – just fucks us all up, men and women; sure it’s the women who pay the much much heavier price, but it isn’t helping anyone. RGM above has an interesting circle but i believe men don’t necessarily crave it without the stimulus of advertising and the industry that now realises this product (‘”perfect” stepfordised womanhood’) can sell is in full swing pushing that product to relieve as many as possible of us of our money – women for makeup, diet products, unnecessary plastic surgery blah blah blah, men for porn of all varieties and its kickthrough in selling all manner of unrelated things – oh just everything. (as an aside, i passed monsoon the other day and noticed a big big poster – whole of the back wall – of a woman lying on a sofa wrapped – but only a bit – in something that may have been a scarf – you really couldn’t tell; not exactly selling the product are we, chaps? ‘buy some of our clothes and you won’t have to lie around on the chaise longue! a naked woman advertising clothes – love that irony, very 1984… – subsequently informed by partner, the woman getting a cold was sophie ellis bextor).
other than hating it all, i just don’t know where we go; i suspect that banning the imagery starts to give the message that women’s naked bodies are shameful. whatever you do runs the risk of twisting by the underlying misogyny in the system. maybe it’s the longhand version, which i know many of the people commenting here practise and others i have seen in the bloglobe, which is to inform the companies that you won’t buy their products because of the unnecessary pornification of their business. beyond this who knows…?
but to return to the point ‘we’re all topless models’ WTF? how did anyone with half a brain get there?
SarahGrills said
I feel sorry for Keeley especially after the recently “leaked” (yeah right!) hardcore sex tape.
This will have an even more damaging influence.
She is just being exploited to create a brand.
fannyblood said
my god why is it obligatory now that glamour models have hardcore sex tapes aswell? it’s just so fucked up. you’re not anyone unless you’ve got your cunt out to the nation on video.
her parents must be so proud of their little girl.
f x
fannyblood said
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007020444,00.html
poor keeley?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what’s funny is the bit where she says something about the fact she was reduced to tears when her friend had told her the video stills were in a downmarket newspaper.
and the scum is what exactly?!?!!?
RGM said
SimplyWondered,
You raise a good point about what comes first: male demand for women of a certain body type or the stimulus from the big ad agencies. For many men, I’m more than willing to grant that their own “desires” are nothing more than a response to being told what it is they “want,” but the ad does have to come from somewhere/one (generally a male, of course) that seizes upon something that they’ve noticed in trends or male fancy. I don’t know, I haven’t done enough studying in media studies to say for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say that it’s a blend of the two leaning more towards the impetus.
Laura said
for a start, it’s amusing they should say she’s a good role model for girls. In what way? She’s a thin girl with huge breasts, which only a very few girls have naturally…so what are most girls meant to do? The thin girls, who more than likely have small breasts, will have to have surgery, the larger girls will have to shed some pounds (and probably lose those big breasts in the process…more surgery anyone?) and for what? So men can jack off over them? How on earth is that a good role model?