Why Olivia Munn Was Wrong About Go Fug Yourself — Or Was She?

Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, editors of celebrity fashion blog Go Fug Yourself, came under fire after actress Olivia Munn tweeted “a short essay” on April 26. In the post, Munn reprimands “messy journalists who throw out baseless musings as if they’re facts,” condemning “fashion-policing celebrity” for its active misogyny because it “mainly focuses on females and not men.” By Munn’s estimation, media outlets like Go Fug Yourself are to blame for misogynist ills: “Blogs like theirs have been around for awhile, with their snarkiness and hypocrisy on full display,” Munn wrote. “And we’ve accepted it because as women we’ve been conditioned to believe that being publicly chastised for our weight, our looks, or our choice in clothing is an acceptable part of our existence.”

Numerous commenters, celebrities among them, were quick to jump to Cocks and Morgan’s defense. Actress and screenwriter Zoe Kazan tweeted that she found their post about one of her ensembles “kind and insightful,” despite the fact that it was critical in tone. Another user pointed out that Munn’s argument 一 that criticizing celebrity fashion is an inherently sexist practice 一 wrongly repurposed the language of social justice and gender activism in the name of self-defense. “I just think you can’t climb up on your soapbox and shout ‘But FEMINISM’ when you don’t like what’s being said about your costume,” she wrote on Twitter. “People get to have opinions about public things. Most fashion critics are pretty careful to only critique curated outfits.”

In the case of Go Fug Yourself, Munn’s rebuke was mostly unwarranted. A quick survey of recent posts on Go Fug Yourself reveals incisive, yet (in the grand scheme of online celebrity discourse) generally innocuous content. Recent posts call Taylor Swift’s Time 100 dress “twee,” for example, and one of Marion Cotillard’s Lacoste sweaters “shockingly bad.” Admittedly, it would be unpleasant for anyone, celebrity or otherwise, to read such vehement censure about sartorial decisions that — in the case of many celebrities — were made on their behalf by a team of stylists. Yet the content of their criticism is careful to avoid ageist, sexist commentary that objectifies celebrity bodies, the way that so many other outlets do. How often do we read scathing tabloid articles that comment point-blank on a celebrity’s cellulite, how they look in a bikini, or the dreaded “post-baby body”? In comparison, Go Fug Yourself seems pretty innocuous.

Whether the Go Fug Yourself writers are culpable or not, Munn’s post opens a contentious conversation about critiquing celebrity fashion. Munn’s point is valid: Why do we care so much how celebrities, disproportionately the female ones, look? At what point does critique target not just the clothes, but the body of the wearer?

Surely, this is a gendered issue. Any woman who has walked the red carpet implicitly consents to thorough cross-examination about the designer of her dress, supplier of her jewelry, and, at one point in history, a special mini-red carpet equipped with its own camera to inspect the state of her immaculate manicure. Most celebs play along — as Munn prefaces her essay, it comes with the territory — yet some, like Reese Witherspoon, have resisted the ritualistic red carpet interrogation, even framing it as a feminist issue.

To be fair, men are also featured on style blogs, but less frequently, and not with the level of borderline-forensic examination on their bodies and faces. Red carpet attire for men has, in recent years, branched out from the classic suit-and-tie combo — think Timothée Chalamet’s harness at the Golden Globes and Billy Porter’s Oscars floor length gown. Women, on the other hand, have to reinvent the wheel with a new dress at every event. Myriad other factors also come into play when beauty standards default to white, thin, and cisgender bodies.

Is there such thing as an apolitical fashion critique? Whether a celebrity looks “twee” or “fugly,” whether they’re pulling it off or crashing and burning — these opinions are, even if inadvertently, fundamentally bound up in assumptions about gender and race. Implicit bias works in strange ways. Maybe the enterprise of blogs like Go Fug Yourself isn’t completely evil, but it’s not without political consequence. Who knew that “who wore it best” was more than skin-deep?

—Staff writer Caroline A. Tsai can be reached at caroline.tsai@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @carolinetsai3.