A couple of weeks ago, Vanity Fair’s Rich Cohen came under fire for writing what was widely deemed to be a creepy and sexist profile of Australian actress Margot Robbie. Cohen’s article quickly became the subject of both parodies and think pieces, and it sparked a debate about how men typically write about women in the entertainment field. Some observers pointed out that Cohen’s article was just the latest example of a male journalist obsessing over the physical attributes of a female celebrity. Cohen did manage to bring the outrage to a whole new level, however, by insulting all of Australia in the process, characterizing the country as a quaint, outdated place populated by simpleminded bumpkins. The whole thing was pretty embarrassing for everyone involved: Cohen, Robbie, and Australia. Maybe all of this shame could be avoided in the future, however, thanks to New York magazine contributor Dayna Evans, who has created an all-purpose, Mad Libs-style template for male-written profiles of attractive female celebrities.
The thinking here seems to be that, since these chauvinist articles seem to be interchangeable anyway, why not just automate the process? This way, magazines like Vanity Fair (or Esquire or GQ or whatever) will still get the leering, panting copy that they need to fill pages without having to inconvenience any actual journalists or celebrities. It doesn’t solve the basic problem, but it at least streamlines it. The process is very simple. The would-be “writer” simply plugs in some names, adjectives, and other nouns into the template like so:
It goes on from there. The user then clicks “GENERATE,” and the template spits out an artfully written, horribly sexist profile like so:
Like a mountain pushing through a passing cloud, Margot Robbie walked into the secluded restaurant on the Malibu coast that I was sitting in, looking like a slice of pie. She was lissome, evanescent, and wet, and though she is 28, she doesn’t look a day over 18. Her signature buttocks were practically glistening in the morning air, and as she sashayed toward me, I remembered the first time I saw the Grand Tetons and tried in my head to compare them to Margot Robbie. They are, I mused, nothing compared to her. She grinned at me luxuriously, and I felt a part of my steely heart melt into brown goo.
There. Another piece of adolescent drivel completed. The world is now a dumber place. Happy?