Reviewed by Kari Ann Peniche
Girl on Girl
How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
by Sophie Gilbert
Penguin Press
330 pp, April 2025, Hardcover, ISBN-13: 978-0593656297
Losing my Miss Teen USA title for appearing in Playboy seemed like a very mixed message from a very hypocritical patriarchy: that it was okay to line up on a stage in a low-cut bathing suit, but taking it one step further was strictly verboten. My subsequent appearance on a reality show, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, took the confoundment one step further. If my naked body was unacceptable to the powers that be, my personal story, iterated and reiterated ad nauseam before millions, was perfectly okay!
Sophie Gilbert got it right. If it feels like objectification, it it smells like commodification, it probably is.
Girl on Girl, Sophie Gilbert’s no-holds-barred examination of pornography in all its myriad forms, reads like a laundry list from Emile Zola: On accuse! Gilbert, a veteran writer for The Atlantic who has written extensively on mass media, lays out the evidence in broad, bracing strokes. Reality shows, which are overwhelmingly watched by women, have catered virtually since their inception to a Straight-White-male worldview. One of reality TV’s most enduring principles being that “a woman’s value corresponds to her success in catering to the desires of others.”
Pamela Anderson became the first celebrity to have footage of herself having sex disseminated on the internet without her consent. When Anderson sued the company distributing and profiting from her tape, its lawyers told her that because she’d previously posed for Playboy, she had no right to claim she was being victimized. And they say lightning never strikes twice!
Sophie Gilbert does some major uncovering in this book, digging deep into the culture’s recent past to unearth the filthy White underbelly that lies beneath. Part archeologist, part pallbearer, she exhumes the back story and brings it kicking and screaming into the light of day. Gilbert writes, “In 1995, a self-help tsunami of a book titled, innocently, The Rules, advised women who wanted to get married to look to 1950s feminine mores for guidance.” The beast known to the world as postfeminism doesn’t play well with mindful others — although it seems to have had enormous impact on women’s buying habits, on the cultural in general, on the way we look at ourselves.
Keeping Up with the Kardashians was prima facie evidence of this tidal wave. The series, and dozens of others like it, preached the gospel of self-improvement, and the necessity of outperforming an economic climate they had little or no control over. “Mass merchandisers promised women an ersatz version of emancipation, the fulfillment of individual and aspirational desire. Women were assured by advertising campaigns and persistent media messaging that there were instant ways to assert their new power that didn’t involve tedious organizing or advocacy.” (pp 240-241.)
Gilbert’s media expertise is deep, archival, inspiring. Her knowledge of movies and television is in fact awesome and speaks to her own personal fascination with celebrity, maquillage, and the ins and outs of makeovers, cosmetic surgery, butt lifts. (She openly admits to this.)
Her searchlight is more than revealing; it is a super-comprehensive, exhaustive even, sparing no one and nothing in her quest to reveal. The author invokes Lena Dunham, Judd Apatow, Howard Stern, just to name a few: a cast of characters and creatives who either bought into the postfeminism shtick, profited from it, or tried to show it in a different light. Ultimately, postfeminism is pornography dressed up to look like Barbie or My Little Margie: in the author’s words, “…the Kardashian look is still ubiquitous and it shows no sign of fatigue.” (p. 145.)
Girl on Girl is a maelstrom (pun fully intended), a whirlpool that draws you in, leaves you wondering, breathlessly, So this is the trash we’ve been carrying and wearing not to mention believing in all these years? Gilbert’s argument carries the day and will enlighten readers, perhaps dishearten or even sicken many. The author might have further carried the day by briefly citing the evidence that television and movies exert such a stranglehold on society. Likewise, her numerous references to the Great Recession of 2008 may leave some readers wondering, Where was I? (Not everyone was equally affected by this economic downturn, as Gilbert suggests.)
These are minor points. Girl on Girl definitely gets it right. I was there, we were there. And ladies and gents, we still are, more than ever.
About the reviewer: Kari Ann Peniche lost her Miss Teen USA title after appearing in Playboy. She subsequently appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. She recounts these experiences, and her push far beyond them, in her forthcoming memoir, Breaking Beauty: How I Topped the Patriarchy Without Even Trying.