MEGAN FOX RETURNS
A Sex Symbol Reclaims Her Place
Megan Fox became famous for her role as Mikaela Banes in the Michael Bay Transformers franchise. Mikaela could best be described as a teenage boy’s wet dream. She is a teenage girl (Fox was in her early 20s when she started playing the role) who saunters around in booty shorts and knows a lot about cars. When the audience is first introduced to her she is examining the engine of Sam Witwicky’s (Shia LaBeouf) car. As she explains car facts to Sam, the camera lingers on her exposed torso. Sam tells her he would have never pegged her for mechanical as he, like the camera, stares at her exposed skin. The dialogue is peppered with double entendres about engines and squirting apparati. Bay wants us to know Mikaela is a commodity to be ogled.
The objectification of Fox’s character translated to her own objectification. With the release of the first Transformers film, Fox became a sex icon. Her looks became her fame. No one cared whether she could act or not. In a 2009 article for the LA Times, Chris Lee wrote, she is “a sex symbol of the highest order: a woman whose hotness has become emblematic of a specific era. Call Megan Fox the first bona fide sex symbol of the 21st century.” Her image as some Hollywood sex goddess only became solidified when she took on the titular role in Diablo Cody’s Jennifer’s Body. The movie focused on a teen girl who, after being sacrificed by a group of young men, returns as a demon hell-bent on vengeance. It was supposed to pay tribute to classic horror movies while also skewering the inherent sexism in them. Unfortunately, viewers, and the film’s publicity team, zeroed in on a scene in which Fox’s Jennifer briefly makes out with her best friend, Needy (Amanda Seyfried). Fox has said that the extreme over-sexualization of her in the film’s promotional material gave her anxiety.
While she initially embraced her sex symbol status, it started to weigh down on her. Being an openly bisexual woman only led to more speculation about her bedroom antics. After the anxiety caused by Jennifer’s Body, coupled with the massive backlash she faced after speaking out about the treatment she received in Hollywood, Fox stepped away from the public eye. Times are changing and we are finally coming into a world where a woman can both own her sexuality and speak out against sexual impropriety. Enjoying sex, and being unashamed of that fact, does not make one deserving of victimization.
Fox has experienced a resurgence in the media for her new romance with rapper/actor Machine Gun Kelly. But also, as we as a society reckon with the #MeToo movement, new focus has been given to Fox’s statements. People have finally come around to the idea that just because she owned her sexuality and wore it proudly, the treatment she faced both in Hollywood, and by the public, was unforgivable. We made her a pariah for speaking out, claimed she deserved it because she was so sexy, and now we all have to grapple with our complacency in abetting a misogynistic, puritanical system.
Now, Fox has several projects in various stages of development. She stars as a mercenary in the action film Rogue, which comes out on August 28. She will also be in the dark comedy Big Gold Brick alongside Andy Garcia, Lucy Hale, and Oscar Isaac. And finally, she’ll star with Bruce Willis in the crime thriller Midnight in the Switchgrass. This time, let’s leave our judgment at the door and give her a chance.
