In her new book, Suck It, Wonder Woman: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek, poor, unfortunate Olivia Munn was tricked by evil, gross-looking photographers to – gasp! – take off her clothes for a Playboy cover article.
I’m pretty shocked, too. I never thought I’d see the day when Playboy would want their models to go fully nude. Oh. Wait. I guess Olivia hadn’t heard about how empowering posing nude for Playboy is for well-informed women and their weight loss goals.
The Washington City Paper reports the details of Munn’s harrowing experience:
When Playboy offered Oliva Munn the chance to pose nude on the cover of the magazine, she declined. When Playboy offered Munn the chance to pose clothed on the cover of the magazine, she accepted. But once Munn got to the set, Playboy’s photographer, stylist, and team of handlers staged a day-long attempt to coerce Munn into taking it all off anyway.
If only she had had a contract ensuring that they couldn’t pressure her! But wait! It turns out that she did have a contract, and yet Playboy still tried to pressure her! The scoundrels!
After signing a comprehensive contract specifying which specific areas of Munn were on-limits and off for the photographer—side boob and underboob, yes; nipple, butt crack …
… and vagina no—Munn describes all the ways Playboy attempted to convince her to show what she didn’t want to show.
The Washington City Paper tries to argue that this is an example of a “frightening account of how manipulators attempt to coerce their targets into consent,” but I’m not so sure. Come on, this is the magazine that got a cheerleading coach fired. Is anyone confused about the fact that Playboy = nudity? Go figure.
Let’s even forget the contract for a moment. Let’s say Playboy called you up and asked you to be their cover model. Would you be shocked and disgusted to learn that they expect you to be naked in the pages of a magazine that has specialized in nude photos for over fifty years? Really? I’m a vegetarian. It’s like if I walk into a restaurant called “Joe’s House of Meat” and demand to know why Joe doesn’t have tofu stir-fry on the menu. I don’t walk into places called “Joe’s House of Meat.” If Olivia Munn wants to keep all of her clothes on, she probably shouldn’t agree to pose for Playboy.
Apparently in the book, Olivia claims that the stylist — a “tall, heavyset, bald man from Scandinavia with a very heavy accent,” in Olivia’s words — said pretty much the same. Or, as Olivia so charmingly transcribes him, “Zis iz Playboy!!! She haz to be naked!””
Munn eventually calls her publicist to help convince the photographer and stylist not to shoot her nude, and the photographer tells the publicist that they’ll airbrush out anything she doesn’t want seen. Still, let me get this straight: an enormous contract was drawn up where every detail of your exposed flesh was pre-approved up to and including the crack of your ass, and your agent or manager was not on-set to make sure that this lengthy and thorough contract was honored? Really? If that’s the case, why bother with the contract at all? Either Miss Munn is lying, or she really needs new people.
In the end, her pictures look more like something you might see in Maxim – Munn lounging on sofas, basically nude apart from a pair of panties, strategically covering her vital bits with hands and hair.
I wrote last week about how Olivia Munn is a problem because she panders too heavily and too transparently to a male audience, cracking the same sexist and offensive jokes as her fanboys. Here, however, I feel like Munn is pandering just as a hard to that same target audience, but this time casts herself as some kind of hurt, scared and vulnerable little lamb, rather than her usual foul-mouthed one-of-the-boys persona. Can she really pull off being both?
Munn claims that she doesn’t want to be thought of as a successful woman, but rather as a successful person who has gained fame because of her own blood, sweat, tears and talent. If that were the case, why does the model/fake news correspondent capitalize so heavily on her female sexuality? Take, for instance, the cover of Suck It, Wonder Woman. More to the point, which of Munn’s career moves have not somehow capitalized on her sexuality? Even on Olivia’s first Daily Show segment, Samantha Bee jokes she is already the show’s resident “sexy news bunny,” and they don’t need another.
The easy answer is that Munn wants it both ways. She wants to be able to flaunt her junk for money and fame, but is outraged when people claim that she’s only famous and rich because she flaunts her junk. And for that reason, Olivia Munn remains a problem.
And what a problem she is,maybe she’s a Republican,than we can just call her stupid!
Not all Republicans are stupid (as you well know, Joey ;-)) And you’ll notice that I’m leaving my whipping girl out of this …
Thanks for caring! Rumor has it that Sarah may run with Michelle Bachman(Rep. MN) as her running mate. You should try rum with cherry coke,you can mix them kickass strong!!
Sounds like I need a double ;-)
What is your vendetta against Olivia Munn? She seems to evoke some strange reactions in you. She has a contract specifically stating that she will be taking clothed pictured…Maxim-like pictures. This is not unheard of with Playboy. People appear clothed or partially clothed in Playboy all the time. You believe that it is unreasonable for her to complain that they tried to make her think that she had to appear fully nude despite this contract? You’re making fun of her for behaving as if she feels/felt hurt and vulnerable while being bullied by Playboy to expose her naked body on camera simply because 1) she has acted “tough” in the past and 2) presented herself in sexy pictures in the past. So, if a woman has acted “sexy” before, she shouldn’t be afforded freedom from coercion to get nude even in the presence of a contract meant to protect her from that? This sounds suspiciously like “she had it coming to her.” It’s not really surprising that they tried to coerce her despite a contract…it’s done all the time. Your interpretation of the event, however, blames it all on her and pretty much exempts Playboy from responsibility because that is the nature of what they do…an argument that sounds suspiciously like “boys will be boys.”
Yikes! She obviously pushes your buttons. I would have to agree with what was stated previously – that your article has a definite “she had it coming” attitude.
I’m not saying she had it coming, because I don’t think anything happened. I’m saying I don’t believe her account of this.
I could definitely see this happening. I am sure Playboy is used to dealing with young naive women and have lured their fare share of women in by telling them they could cover up some if they wanted, and then bullied them into taking it all off.
Agreed. I don’t find fault with her for this. I can’t imagine how stressful it would be for anyone to show up for a Playboy shoot (looks sexy on the resume, no?) with a contract stating exactly what can and cannot be shown, only to be sexually harassed all day by an abrasive photographer who wants to see her cooch. No matter how tough your persona, that’s not something people just shrug off.
I just don’t care what publicity whores do to garner attention.
It does annoy me that no one bothered to tell her to brush her hair for that picture.
Tacky tacky.
Playboy covers/articles don’t always feature photos of naked women. Sometimes clothed women, sometimes clothed men. Since she had specified ahead of time that she would not be nude, the behavior of the people at the shoot was unprofessional at best.
I also agree that just because you decide to trade on your sexuality at some point does not mean that you are thereafter forever forced to do so in every situation. Just because you said “yes” a hundred times before does not mean you can’t say “no” THIS time.
I do find her attitude naive, it’s not like Playboy is a magazine about women’s empowerment for Pete’s sake. They take your picture so thousands of pubescent teenagers and hairy old men can jack off to it. This is true regardless of what clothing you decide to wear.
Having said that, the existence of the contract meant that there should have been absolutely no coercion. It’s nobody’s fault but the photographer’s and the stylist’s that they went overboard and attempted to renege on the terms of the contract. What’s the point of a contract anyways, if someone has to babysit the people who signed it to make sure they follow it? Signing a contract means you AGREE TO THE TERMS. Frankly, they could even be sued for this. It’s certainly not Olivia’s fault.
Why do the ZL writers hate Olivia Munn so much?
It’s only one – as far as I know.
It seems personal to me – I have read and re-read both articles and really don’t find anything to hate.
Let’s face it – I am the resident bitchy old woman. If there were something worth hating, I’d be all over it.
I am that good.
(Sarah A. : lighten the fuck up – this is coming across as extremely petty and juvenile)
This article is so true. Olivia Munn is a biiiaaatcchhh!!!!! I bet at the shoot she was all like “Omg I have a contract that said I can’t be nude :(“. She is so dumb. How dare she sign a contract and expect it to be honored?!? I agree with Sarah in this post. Contracts are just paper and are not binding.
Why goodness gracious you could write for ZL
If you called a restaurant ahead of time and asked if they would have vegetarian options, and they assured you they would, and then you drove across town only to find that they only serve meat, which they repeatedly tried to coerce you into eating, would you not be pissed off? You can say, “Oh but I’d just leave, and that’s what Munn should have done,” but her situation is a little different. In the end she got what she wanted out of the Playboy shoot (exposure, likely a career boost) but she should not have had to fight so hard to get it. You have no legitimate reason to doubt her account of the events that day.
The attitude of the article seems to be more of a continuation of a general dislike of Munn’s playing into the virgin/whore dichotomy that so many men find attractive and expect from all women. Munn seems to be the kind of woman who plays to the Maxim crowd while couching it in pseudo-empowerment terms. She strikes me as a dumber Jenny McCarthy. McCarthy poked fun at her sexuality while juxtaposing it with a crassness that actually was quite clever. Munn doesn’t seem to have the ability to be self-deprecating or self-aware.
Why are we evaluating Munn’s intellect? While it’s perfectly fair to criticize statements she has made, or specific actions, I don’t understand why people feel compelled to conjecture about her motivations for doing what she does. “Munn seems to be the kind of woman…” “She strikes me as…” “Munn doesn’t seem to have the ability…” Do you know her personally? What basis do you have for calling her dumb and not self-aware?
I am judging her by her comments and no, I don’t know her personally. What I said was that her comedic attempts strike me as a dumber Jenny McCarthy. And by what I’ve seen so far of her, she appears to lack the ability to incorporate self-awareness or self-deprecation into her humor.
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