Why the Recent Celebrity Photo Leak Matters in Changing Problematic U.S. Culture

Last week, one of the hottest stories in both popular culture and news media was that of the Apple iCloud hack in which a list of 100 celebrity private photos were stolen and distributed publicly. I argue that this "scandal" is definitely newsworthy...but not for the reasons our patriarchal U.S. society has dubbed it as so. I want to use this scandal to explain why the shaming of female celebrities for taking nude photos is used in media to reinforce the sexist notion that a woman who shows her body is a "slut" and should be ashamed, which is also alarmingly popular in our culture in cases of rape victim shaming.

The dominant culture in U.S. is largely enforced by our media. These dominant ideals are governed by society unofficially and this concept is what cultural scholars refer to as hegemony.
With the release of female celebrity nude photos, news outlets did not hesitate to cover the event as a "scandal" and many websites linked articles about "How To Keep YOUR Personal Pictures Private" or "Past Celebrity Naked Pic Scandals" as if to underhandedly suggest that this was the fault of celebrities for taking such "wild" and "risqué" pictures in the first place. When first hearing about the scandal on the evening news, my own parents immediately stated, "Well why would someone keep those on their phone?" This truly disturbed me because, it's similar to what I've heard before in cases of rape: victim-shaming. When a
woman opens up about being raped, a lot of people's initial reaction is to ask if she deserved it. Not in these exact words of course but in their assuming questions such as, "What was she wearing?" "Did she drink a lot that night?" "Well why was out alone so late?"
Wow! All so problematic because it should never ever...not ever!...be the victims fault. The fact it so often is portrayed as such is the reason many critics have called us a "rape culture." Of course not all rape victims are females, but most of the time this is so. And almost always they are shamed for not doing enough to protect  themselves from the situation.

Refreshingly, what has been so unique about this photo leak is the lack of celebrity apologies and shaming that we have seen in the past with celebrities such as Vanessa Hudgens when her naked photos were released in 2009. Her popularity on Disney Channel cause controversy at her "immoral" actions and the company even apologized for her. In this case, social media outlets have talked about Jennifer Lawrence in an uplifting way rather than shaming her actions. The hashtag #ImNotLooking has raised support for the actress's privacy rather than reprimanding her for taking the pictures in the first place.

This change in the way we have been talking about the photo hack is promising in upturning the problematic cultural phenomenon of victim-blaming, especially in cases where of a female and her most private property...her body.