“My Butt is real!”, claims Kim willingly holding up an x-ray of her glutes. Kim Kardashian is a model, actress, entrepreneur, socialite and star of the reality show “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” Kim Kardashian has seemed to stay relevant through social media platforms and her television show, “Keeping up with the Kardashians”. She was catapulted into fame when a scandalous video showcasing her sexual exploits with former boyfriend, rapper Ray J, was leaked online. Since then Kim has been become an icon with the millennials and younger generations.
She’s exploited her image and capitalized off it, earning $200,000 per post on her Instagram. Indisputably, she’s well known for her bawdy images, she has repeatedly stated she’s proud of her body. Although she has received backlash for numerous of her posts on social media, Kim continues to post her obscene images. The notion of what the perfect female body is constantly changing within society.
When looking at Kim Kardashian, it may seem she is empowering women through body positivity, but while doing so she is advocating hyper sexualization of the female body. She has had countless body enhancements through out her career as a model.Kim Kardashian before becoming famous, she was a lowly assistant to a former celebrity, Paris Hilton. Nobody was keeping up with Kim Kardashian because she was too busy keeping Paris Hilton’s closet organized and her social calendar up-to-date. Even though she was hardly known, the name Kardashian was fairly known due to the case of OJ, a former football player turned killer.
Her father was the lawyer defending OJ’s freedom, which was her mother’s boyfriend. Soon after the case, it brought some light onto the Kardashian’s. Furthermore, Kim Kardashian became a playboy bunny for Hugh Hefner, she was a very popular playboy bunny, she was on nine covers. Kim Kardashian has appeared on the most popular American men’s lifestyle and entertainment magazine. So, her rise to fame undoubtedly depended on the male gaze. Laura Mulvey states, “The male gaze invokes the sexual politics of the gaze and suggests a sexualized way of looking that empowers men and objectifies women.
” Kim surely is the epitome of a woman objectified by men. Even though, Kim Kardashian continues to spread her notion of body positivity, her body has gone a tremendous amount of body enhancements. Most notably, her butt has gone through quite a few enhancements. So is there a female gaze? Certainly, beautiful men abound in cinema. But I’d argue that there is no direct female equivalent of the male gaze. The male gaze creates a power imbalance.
It supports a patriarchal status quo, perpetuating women’s real-life sexual objectification.
