Sexualization happens when agency is taken away from the individual being sexualized, where one is seen, depicted, and treated like a sexual object rather than a person. This thesis aimed to explore at celebrities' reactions to their own public sexualization. To do this, an inductive approach was used when analyzing first-person narratives (written and video) and interviews by those whose sexualization is a notable feature of their career in the United States. This thesis used a nonprobability sampling technique to in order to cast a wide net to find the sample (prior knowledge, google searches, and google alerts). This thesis aims to explore reactions, emotions, and common themes among women, girls, and a nonbinary person in the entertainment industry who were sexualized at a young age (21 years of age or younger).
My analysis yielded three main categories (Celebrity Culture, The Good Girl/Bad Girl Dichotomy, and The Perfect Victim Narrative). The celebrity culture category shows how various institutions (the media, the public, parental figures, and powerful men) ignore, participate in, or lack enough power to dismantle the sexualization of entertainers. While the good girl/bad girl dichotomy creates very narrow and toxic ideas of appropriate gender and sexual expression. Lastly, the perfect victim narrative shows how victims have to fit in a specific narrative of what a victim looks and acts like in order to be “believed.” Showing, the intense pressure that is put on young entertainers (primarily female) to conform to be both aesthetically consistent with their branding and to be authentic. This thesis’ analysis revealed an intense desire to control or create unnuanced views around morality to those in the public eye, particularly young women and others, not in positions of power.
Education Career: BA, University of Central Fl, 2020
Committee in Charge: Michael Armato, Amy Reckdenwald and Shannon Carter
Approved for distribution by Michael Armato on March 10, 2023
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