The Authenticity and Archetypal Constructs of Women in Contemporary Media
Chappell Roan for Polyester Zine
“Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? Who knows what women's intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love?” — Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique.
In her groundbreaking 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan delves into the concept of femininity—the foundation for how women present themselves and how society, regardless of gender, perceives them. “The Woman” is a phrase with one literal definition yet infinite social interpretations, debates, and historical undertones. In any room of ten women, there are ten unique individuals—ten distinct lives and personalities. Some may share overlapping traits or passions, but no two are truly the same. As women, we embody a spectrum, adapting our behavior based on our environment, circumstances, and mood. This dynamic range is evident to anyone who steps outside and observes; it’s basic social awareness. Yet, these nuances are increasingly blurred by today’s media consumption. We often lean so heavily on what we see in the media that it begins to replace our understanding of reality. Representations of women in media are often accepted as universal truths, overshadowing the diversity we encounter in everyday life. With the rise of media consumption, our perception of reality continues to blur. From scrolling through social media to catching up on the news, listening to a podcast, or watching TV over breakfast, media saturates our daily routines. This constant exposure influences how we see the world and ourselves. As viewers, we instinctively try to find relatability in the figures we admire on screen or in the spotlight. We idolize celebrities, not just for their success, but for the fragments of ourselves we see in them. This relentless need for relatability becomes especially complex for women in the public eye. In the age of cancel culture, female celebrities are under immense pressure to mold themselves into versions of authenticity that align with public expectations. Audiences demand realness, but only within narrow, socially acceptable limits. A lack of self-awareness or failure to acknowledge privilege is quickly deemed unrelatable. We crave connection—someone to reflect our struggles, aspirations, and identities, but only to the extent that their lives remain aspirational yet attainable. This paradox creates a delicate, often impossible, balancing act for women in the spotlight. They must navigate public scrutiny while embodying a version of authenticity that satisfies the contradictory demands of their audience.
However, there’s a striking contradiction between how we, the public, craves authenticity in women in the spotlight, while we also simultaneously hold them to the standards set my how the media has continuously portrayed women. The public commends when female celebrities are honest and bare, showing themselves at their core. Whether it’s Millie Bobby Brown showing up to a talk show without makeup or Selena Gomez talking about her health struggles. In cruel fashion, the public eats that up completely and praises them for being raw and honest, without realizing the systematic issues within and how the public is the source of them keeping up the facade and hiding in the first place. This is because, as much as the audience craves authenticity, women in the spotlight are expected to conform to what the media has been telling us about how they should act. In cinema, women’s portrayals have been molded to fit into only a few nameable archetypes, despite the range of representations women have. We’ve seen mainstream media limit women to simple categories of how they should act. There’s barely a range, that goes from femme fatales, like Jessica Rabbit, to the highly critiqued manic pixie dream girl, like Ramona Flowers. These archetypes usually conform to the male gaze, and while we, as a public, have mostly moved on from those direct stereotypes, the portrayal of women hasn’t changed much, with only a few breakthroughs in the last decade. It’s within this framework that the resurgence of the ‘insufferable girl’ trope in recent media has become both an authentic and controversial topic. The ‘insufferable girl’ is a character that refuses to fit into any of the neat, acceptable boxes the media has historically assigned to women. Unapologetically loud, abrasive, and, at times, exasperating, qualities that challenge the traditional narratives around femininity. But as we've seen, this character sparks intense debate. There’s only a few to be able to name that fit into this category but the distinctions between this, the traditional archetypes women fit into, and actual people deserving of controversy are a wide line.
Distinguishing the Blurred Lines:
“I am not for everyone, and I’m OK with that,” Chappell Roan in a 2023 interview with Rolling Stone.
The public’s inability to distinguish between authenticity and boundary-setting versus perceived rudeness remains a persistent issue, and Chappell Roan finds herself at the center of this conversation. Her actions ignite debates about the standards society imposes on women in the spotlight, particularly the glaring inconsistencies in public tolerance. Consider the stark contrast: when Taylor Swift politely asks paparazzi to step back, she’s applauded for her grace in setting boundaries. Yet when Chappell Roan uses TikTok to request space and discourage unsolicited fan interactions, she’s labeled rude and insufferable. This double standard highlights the public’s shallow approach to praising female celebrities—it’s often conditional and tone-dependent. Chappell’s bluntness in asserting her needs, far from being a flaw, underscores her autonomy and aligns with the unapologetic ethos she conveys through her music and public persona. Why, then, would she dilute her message when addressing personal space? To do so would contradict her character and undermine her right to self-expression. The issue lies not in the boundary but in society’s discomfort with women who set them directly. Personal safety and autonomy should not require gentle tones to be valid, and Chappell’s candor exposes the fragility of the public’s standards. Her actions challenge the narrow expectations placed on women, proving that the manner in which boundaries are set does not diminish their necessity.
So is it fair to group people like Chappell Roan into the same category as people like Gwyneth Paltrow? When people assert their boundaries become subject to comparison of people who are actually insufferable. When we group women in categories of difficult versus sweet, what is the public really saying? When we see celebrities or people in the spotlight, we know their lives are so much more privileged and complicated than ours, we know the differences. So when the public continues to project their wants and needs of what they want to see in a public figure, it’s a seesaw game of whether we want them to reflect us or reflect something unattainable. And there really is no middle. Think of Chappell Roan again. She asserts her boundaries as a public figure that reflect the same boundaries we as people want for ourselves; this is relatable. But then it’s twisted and she’s ungrateful, not recognizing her own fame and the so-called debt she owes her fans; this is now privileged?
The contradictory expectations for people in the spotlight, more often women, highlights perhaps the deepest issue embedded in celebrity culture today. We, the public, demand authenticity and transparency. But when it doesn’t fit the mold we created and continue to say we’re against, it’s condemned. The public loves to see people defy the status quo. In fact, we praise it. But when it’s repeated or reinforced, suddenly it’s rejection of acknowledging privilege. It’s a spiral of expecting these public figures to mirror ourselves, so we, as people, feel validation of our own selves because we are being represented in the spotlight versus an obvious unrelatability their career has over our lives, so we want them to recognize how much better they have it. The public demands them to recognize their privilege, and while this is so important, it’s also not fair to project onto them.
Female Rebellion as Self Expression:
“A powerful woman is someone who exudes confidence and can be tough but fair and kind. And also knows how to get what she wants”
The internet doesn’t really know whether that quote came from Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lawrence, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. Both of them are exactly the core of what has been prevalent in the media and how it ties into this. The constant pull and push between what’s expected of women in the limelight brings focus to a larger conversation of how women have presented themselves (and been presented by others) over the years. When female celebrities push back against these societal expectations and contradictions, it can be portrayed in a number of ways. Like talked about above, Chappell Roan and the category she’s pushed into. But what happens when these female celebrities use this pushback as their trademark in the form of rebellion. And what line is drawn from strictly the visuals of revolt and unrest versus the actual rebellion carried out to fight against the systematic cruelty they endure?
Rebellion, often celebrated as a catalyst for change, frequently devolves into a mere branding tool for artists, packaged as revolutionary but rarely breaking new ground. Olivia Rodrigo’s image, for instance, frames her as defying her Disney roots and societal expectations for teenage girls, yet her angsty persona, while compelling, is hardly unprecedented. This raises the broader issue of why we demand depth and sophistication from artists while dismissing them when their rebellion remains surface-level or pushes boundaries too far. Lorde’s unapologetic rejection of traditional femininity resonated precisely because it wasn’t pandering, unlike the media's reductive archetypes for women like Megan Fox or Jennifer Lawrence, whose voices were overshadowed by hypersexualization. Historically, women in the spotlight have faced a double bind: Jennifer Lawrence was ridiculed for her humor and relatability, Megan Fox was vilified for speaking out against mistreatment, and even Angelina Jolie’s activism was eclipsed by commentary on her appearance. Despite claims of progress, this cycle persists, as seen in the discourse surrounding Chappell Roan, highlighting how society continues to demand substance from female artists while punishing them for stepping beyond the confines of a marketable image. The resistance the public wants from these women continue to be superficial. We raise our hands in support of female celebrities who make rebellion their brand, who take it on the surface level and lay it out on magazine covers. But when it goes past the outside and comes out of their mouths, no one knows what to say. We love when she says it gently but what if it’s not gentle. What if the issues should not be approached with softness? When the media craves realness and conversations about real issues, responding to them and labeling them limits how conducive these conversations should be and negates all the change they want to talk about. We ask and beg for them to speak on certain issues because their voice echoes louder than our own but then spit at them and remark that these female celebrities will never understand the struggle and can’t relate to the cause.
As Charli xcx says in the groundbreaking Lorde collaboration:
“Girl, it’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl”
The generation wide treatment of women in the spotlight highlights the deeper systematic issues they face. As we recognize women’s strength and achievements in the limelight, we often lose focus of the losses and obstacles we place in front of them. It’s like the public makes it their very job to place these challenges in front of these women just to see how they navigate, heckling at them as they try. But when a woman takes control of the situation, it’s not her conversation to join anymore. It’s no longer about being a woman and a voice, and more about being a celebrity and privileged.
Ultimately, the conversations aroused around women in the spotlight should take a shift from the superficial expectations of how one should behave and what they should say, and recognize that the change the public continues to desire and wants these women to promote can only grow from challenging the standards we’ve set. It’s important to recognize when the public should take a step back from the constant and unnecessary attacks of women and allow them to flourish in their own voices. The labels that are stuck onto them limits the expression that must go deeper than surface level for any change. If we truly want change, we must stop reducing these women to archetypes and instead embrace the complexity and depth of their voices. Only then can we move beyond the surface level and foster the genuine, systemic change that is needed.
thank you for reading !!
