Jon Stewart Delivers Media Smackdown After Caitlyn Jenner Coverage
"Now you're a woman, your looks are really the only thing we care about ... Welcome to America."
Yesterday, news outlets around the world clamoured to find their own throughline to the story of the day: the first magazine cover of Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce. For the most part, too, the media did well: outside of a few messed up gender pronouns (“I don’t really get hung up,” Caitlyn herself says in Vanity Fair’s forthcoming cover issue), Jenner received universal support — and almost broke the internet, too.
Another Jenner world record, and at 65? Who'da thought! Humbled & honored to have reached 1M followers in 4 hrs. Thank you for your support.
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) June 1, 2015
But overnight on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart picked out an angle that not many others did: that when you’re in the media’s eye, becoming a woman is brave for a whole other set of reasons. “It’s really heartening to see that everyone is willing to not only accept Caitlyn Jenner as a woman, but to waste no time in treating her like a woman.”
Criticising the media for focusing solely on Jenner’s looks becomes a little misguided when you consider that the news story, at its heart, is about a photograph (the full interview itself doesn’t come out until next week) — but Stewart’s next points serve as a salient reminder of how women are treated by the mainstream media: as Jenner experienced yesterday, they are compared to other women; shamed for their clothes, makeup or Photoshop use; and reminded constantly of their expiry date.
“Caitlyn Jenner, congratulations. Welcome to being a woman in America.”