Koren Zailckas’ Smashed: Boozing Up the Anger — A Cue for Girls Gone Wild Women

by Nicolette Westfall

There are so many angles the issue of getting drunk and losing control can take. I decided to go with the angle of female reactions to the fact that many men do not respect or treat women as autonomous beings with their own minds. I chose the “Girls Gone Wild” video empire and Koren Zailckas’ New York Times Best Seller Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood as the examples of how women deal with the view that they are merely objects for male entertainment – with coy acceptance or scarred apathy. These reactions by women provide fuel to the fiery argument posed by Globe and Mail columnist Karen von Hahn: Despite past waves of feminism, the value of women (even as a sexual commodity) is declining.

I have a hard enough time on a sober daily basis in dealing with harassment from men who refuse to take “No” as an answer. Recently, I’ve found myself dealing with yet another guy who decided that my “No,” “Not interested,” and “Not dating” all meant “just playing hard to get.” His dismissive response makes me angry. But it does not surprise me when drunken women (and underage girls) give it all up to strangers for “a T-shirt, a pair of panties, and maybe a trucker hat”, according to one 2006 Los Angeles Times report on “Girls Gone Wild”. It is no wonder that this guy saw me as an object, to be taken when he decides.

In the case of the wildly popular “Girls Gone Wild”, where women of (usually) legal consent drunkenly take their clothes off and often perform sex acts for Joe Francis’ cameramen in exchange for a cheap T-shirt, women apparently degrade themselves for the very slim chance of scoring 0.0005 seconds of fame. After showing ID and signing a waiver, they are expected to perform according to Francis/cameraman instructions and their footage is given consideration for inclusion in one of the many GGW videos that go on the market and are aggressively sold through media marketing and a call center that pays callers base wages. It’s a cheap thrill for customers that objectifies and takes advantage of women who are usually under the influence of alcohol before the cameras roll.

Just the sight of commercials with drunken girls baring their bodies turns me off—I can’t watch, and it isn’t just because I’m not into porn. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, and easy money degrading women for “Girls Gone Wild” founder Francis and his cameraman. Yet the girls who’ve gone wild themselves promote GGW, to the point that they judge breast sizes and complain when lesser looking women appear in the videos. They base their worth on whether they get into the videos—even giving up their virginity to Francis, king of the empire, for external male approval. They even note before stripping that their fathers watch the GGW videos. In 2002 Rolling Stone revealed one girl at a Florida night club didn’t even appear to be “weirded out” by the possibility her dad may watch her strip. Aw, let’s make Daddy proud! All in the family!

With increased access to the male sphere of equal opportunity and power, including more equal pay, women are also clearly experiencing the negatives, like binge drinking and drugging, and uncontrolled sexual activity. Lori Aratani of The Washington Post writes that teenage girls now “equal or outpace” teenage boys in binge drinking based on national surveys. The consequences, which reach beyond humiliating evidence that ruins future careers, include addictions and mental illness. In the teenage memoir Smashed, Zailckas works hard not to give herself away sexually. She tries to keep her body intact while getting hammered to dull the pain, yet her binge drinking led to sexual encounters that left her angry, doubting her ability to be a responsible woman. The reality is that society refuses to take women seriously and women sell each other out just for a glimmer of male sexual approval. It makes Zailckas rightfully angry.

Sure, women get the freedom of being publicly sexual when they want to, according to Francis and Hugh Hefner, but it cheapens their already low, and declining, value. Men like Francis and the frat boys presented in Smashed just don’t see anything of worth in women, since they think they can get the whole package for next to nothing – a cheap cotton shirt. Women continue to be merely objects in the male narrative, which involves drinking and sexual aggression, explored in Devon Jersild’s Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman’s Life, inspired by her sister’s struggle with alcohol. It’s a boys club and the only way women get in is by giving it all for minimal corporate cost. And these women are twice as likely to become angry alcoholics and die from alcohol poisoning as the men they compete with on the job. Don’t bother assuming that these men see women for what’s inside. Respect and dignity aren’t important. It is as Zailckas points out, “Every woman adores a fascist, the boot in the face.” Many women appear to like the abuse and they continue to take it and encourage other women to participate. The passive-aggressive anger of these women overflows like the countless glasses of mixed cocktails.

When women feed into oppression, it leaves them empty, or with a sense of sadness and bad memories that aren’t washed away with booze—and it ignites into anger. A recent study by the University of Tokyo concludes that “ethanol — an intoxicating agent in alcohol — does not cause memory to decrease, as widely believed, but instead locks it in place.” Zailckas never consented to the “Girls Gone Wild” self-degradation, but she recalls abuse while in a drunken state. Zailckas has since overcome the drinking and self-loathing, but she acknowledges that it has left her emotionally scarred. She experiences the anger that I get when men (and sometimes women) refuse to accept me as an autonomous person with my own mind. I wonder what would happen to the potential GGW women if they read Smashed. Maybe they’d think twice about letting men like Francis (who flies around in his own personal jet) colonize their bodies for next to nothing. The feel-good buzz is temporary, but the scars are permanent.