AMAZIAN OF THE WEEK! Olivia Munn Is The Internet’s Helen Of Troy
Theory: Olivia Munn is the internet’s Helen of Troy.
Like Helen, who was part-god, part-mortal, Olivia is mixed race!
Like Helen, Olivia’s beauty is renowned!
Like Helen, Olivia starts wars! (Of the blogging variety, which is maybe not as sexy as the hairy, sweaty, leather-clad, gladiator-besandaled and totally homoerotic variety, but still.)
To recap, sorta in order: First, following Olivia’s Daily Show debut, Jezebel questioned her geek cred. A few weeks after that, Olivia became the launching point–like Helen for those thousand ships of yore–for another Jezebel post called “The Daily Show‘s Woman Problem,” about the dearth of women in creative roles on The Daily Show, and in television comedy in general. Then Slate jumped in by accusing Jezebel of “petty jealousy, cleverly marketed as feminism.” Then The Gorgeous Ladies of The Daily Show got into the ring, defending their employer and the womyniness–yes, that’s a word and, if you Google it, apparently I didn’t make it up–of their work environment. Then The Awl responded to Slate by saying “I’m not Just Jealous” but there was in fact a Woman Problem at The Daily Show, all disarmingly punctuated by parentheses and exclamation marks. Then, then, then…pretty much everyone and their Argos–aka Odysseus’s dog–got into the mix, and by everyone, I mostly mean The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets that typically don’t devote word counts to internet beefs. All this over Olivia, a gal who doesn’t even consider herself a feminist!
Whatever you think of Olivia Munn–we’ve long considered ourselves fans—you have to admit, the lady has a way of getting under people’s skin (and obviously not just that of the typical G4 male viewer, ages 13-34). Put it this way: when’s the last time that someone who’s been on the covers of Maxim and Playboy and been the object of so many teenage wanker fantasies also managed to ignite so much public conversation about feminism and sexism and woman problems?
How we gonna hate her for that?
Filed under: Attack of the Show, Blog Wars, Feminism, G4, Helen of Troy, Jon Stewart, Olivia Munn, Olivia Munn Jezebel, Olivia Munn Playboy, Olivia Munn The Daily Show, Sexism, The Daily Show's Woman Problem, The Dearth of Women in Comedy, Woman Problems, Women In Comedy
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I know I’m being a fanboy, but I thought you should read this Salon interview of her in case you haven’t read it yet. She briefly mentioned how her mother remarried someone who basically has Asian fetish, and talked about insecurities with her looks because she’s multiethnic, etc.
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2010/07/07/olivia_munn_interview
It would be hilarious to think that a woman who deep-throats hot dogs to entertain geeky men would actually consider herself to be feminist.
I’ve never taken Olivia Munn seriously, and if she wanted to be taken seriously, she would have taken on less obnoxious roles.
That’s the Salon piece I link to in the post!
The problem with this whole debacle is not that Olivia is a woman – or even a good looking woman. It’s that, at the end of the day, she’s not funny. Clearly funny is a matter of subjective taste, but even then, she has a frighteningly thin resume. I think it’s a shame that much more talented women who run the improv and stand up circuit, who hustle their asses off for jobs like these, get jilted because, in the end, they might not be as aesthetically arousing.
Also, Ms. Munn could have defended herself intelligibly in her interviews, but instead she simply says that her critics need to get the s**t f**ked out of them, or some such nonsense. Not only is that crass, it’s an uncreative rebuttal. I can’t imagine real comediennes like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Sedaris, heck, even Sarah Silverman, saying something so elementary. Sad that Jon Stewart thinks this woman can do high brow comedy.
AGREED. I’m so ambivalent about her. She makes it hard to like her sometimes (“put down the sandwich?” really?), but I find myself pulling for her anyway. Ultimately, I hope she settles into the Daily Show gig and proves the haters wrong.
I fear that I will never understand the fascination with Ms. Munn. I don’t think she is good looking and I’ve seen some of the ‘behind the scenes’ outtakes from Attack of the Show…she’s not sporting much in the way of smarts either.
Wow, a lot of hate for Olivia Munn. I admit I first started paying attention to her because of the things she was doing for Attack of The Show, like jumping into a pie in a French maid outfit or biting off a hotdog that’s hanging from the ceiling. But I started following her twitter and discovered she’s got a lot of funny things to say (as opposed to Tila Tequila – after following and reading her twitter for a week my head was about to implode and had to unfollow her). And the truth is she’s an extremely hard working woman in the entertainment industry. She’s still on Attack of the Show, she shows up at Comic-Cons to greet fans, she just finished a book and is doing a book tour, and now she’s in a sitcom as well as The Daily Show.
I am not qualified to judge who deserves to be on The Daily Show, but I doubt they hired her to jump into a pie or dress up as Wonder Woman. Her Salon interview is really good, and it shows she’s actually aware of Asian American issues, too. And to be honest, personally a big part of the reason why I like her is because she’s got love for geeks like me.
She’s so awesome and you are so wrong! Prepare to get the sh!t fcked out of you! Why don’t you take the sandwich out of your mouth, sit back, relax and give her a fckin chance!
Your opinion of her comedy is irrelevant! Perhaps she nailed the audition where others bombed? Oh and you thing 3+ years of doing live tv, onterviews, and skits is a thin resume compared to doing shitty improv in a theater for 3 people? It’s the Daily Show jackass!
So WebsterShotFirst, you must be a gay man, not that there’s anything wrong with that. There is no possible way a heterosexual male could think of Olivia as anything less than drop dead gorgeous. To Mattt, for you to spend time writing two paragraphs on someone you don’t find funny or attractive says something very interesting about your own neuroses, and really doesn’t reflect on Olivia. I read her book and she’s no dummy. The only critique I have on the book is she should have waited a few more years to get more experience with fame before writing it. It seemed premature…I think she’s got an exciting future and it was like writing a book before the good stuff even happened yet. My favorite parts of the book were her moving story about her grandparents, I think anyone can relate to that, and her story about meeting Artie Lange. Olivia I know you’re reading this, you’re great…if only I lived in L.A. we’d be the hottest new couple on TMZ!
Has anyone else noticed that most of the negative, anti-Olivia comments on this article are from WOMEN? Look – it’s not Olivia’s fault that you can’t get a job in the industry, or that you are jealous that an attractive woman is both funny and successful. Rather than bitching about the success of someone who – in my opinion – deserves her success, perhaps you should try to improve your own talents and stop ‘hating’. Humor is definitely a preference – and I prefer Olivia Munn any day of the week!
@Timx Actually, I think it’s an even split. While Emily Gould of Slate pointed out in a salient way that some of the criticism of Olivia Munn is rooted in some women’s petty jealousy, don’t forget that this post was written by a woman, and this site is run by two women, and we are both huge fans of Olivia. We’re not down with turning this hating on Olivia thing into a hating back on women thing, K?
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