Annika Feign Blog post #4 - JLo

While media’s fascination with female’s butts has become almost mainstream, with stars like Iggy Azalea, Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj being just a few who have become recognizable by their large butts. Jennifer Lopez was one of the earlier stars whose career was aided by her figure.

At a time where the large number of leading ladies in films were white and conformed to the stereotypical body type, JLo’s pride regarding her different body shape allowed her to stand out among her peers. It was through her voluptuous figure that helped her cross-over into films to happen smoothly. Rather than audiences focusing on her race and stigmatizing her, her butt garnered attention that was not seen on the big screen. As Mary Beltran explains, the audience has “a pure fetishization of her posterior” that moved one’s attention from her race onto her figure.

 

Since her body type deviated from Hollywood’s norms, it began a change within the portrayal of woman to redefine ideals, “star images serve as definers of power and identity for a society” Dyer states. So with the audience becoming more accepting of her figure showed a positive change in the diversification of Hollywood.

Even in contemporary media JLo is still reveled for her butt and instead of denying its power and allure, she proudly displays it and features it as part of her persona. In the past few years she released a song called Booty featuring Iggy Azalea which was a clear message of accepting her figure and the power it has in the media. While the booty has become appropriated into mainstream media, if it were not for JLo’s proud portrayal of her ‘booty’, the ‘ideal’ form of beauty has moved away from the white and opened up a more diverse image.

While it could be argued that JLo is “in a still-racist society as an ethnic sexual object”, by having her butt be featured so prominently, it has allowed the audience to become accustomed to this depiction. And therefore, not only allowing a more diverse image time to appear on screen, but also paving way for other Latino or ethnic actresses to feel more accepted for having different figures.