Last year when Kim Kardashian was pregnant with her daughter North, we all learned a valuable lesson about the American media and pregnant women. The American media does not really care about pregnant women. That is to say, if you are a celebrity and you find yourself with child, you are still fair game for criticism about your body, weight, hair style, everything. Obviously Kim Kardashian is not the first celebrity to have been attacked by the media while pregnant, but the scrutiny seemed to be a bit heavier on her. Many people argued that because she’d essentially made a living off of her looks, it made sense that she was given a harder time than most. But for many of us, there’s nothing more ridiculous than calling a human being who is housing another human being “fat.” This legitimately makes no sense at all.
But the Kim Kardashian situation raised another interesting question. While critiquing and criticizing a pregnant woman’s body is ludicrous (and we cannot stress this enough), is it okay to talk about a pregnant woman’s maternity fashion or style?
Maternity fashion is a whole, huge thing now. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kerry Washington have proven that the designers keep calling, even when you’re well into your third trimester. And if you’re stepping on a red carpet or stepping out in a pair of Givenchy sandals (swollen ankles and everything), you are automatically inviting a critique of your fashion choice.
Which brings us to the recent debacle over the gown Elsa Pataky (wife of Chris Hemsworth) wore to the Academy Awards and E!’s Fashion Police critiques of it. First of all, when you’re pregnant with twins, you deserve all of the awards in the world. Period. That is insane. (Pataky also gave birth to her two boys recently, so congratulations are in order.) Second of all, when you’re pregnant with twins and you decide to walk the red carpet, you deserve all of those awards plus a medal for bravery. Because let’s be real: the pregnant body just starts to look strange at a certain point. Beautifully, gloriously strange. There are certain outfits and dresses that will only work to highlight such strangeness. And many of us are of the opinion that Elsa Pataky chose to wear one of those dresses.
So on the one hand the Fashion Police crew were completely in the right to critique the dress and poke fun at it. George Kotsiopoulos said that she looked like she had a beer belly, and nobody should have been surprised when Joan Rivers took it a step further and joked that Pataky clearly had all of the celebrities from the most retweeted photo ever in her belly. The whole show is dependent on Joan’s ability to go too far and to be offensive. And this is honestly one of the least offensive things we’ve heard her say on the show.
All of this to say we are inclined to argue that while discussion of a pregnant woman’s body (specifically as a negative) should be off limits (and just possibly illegal), discussion of a pregnant woman’s fashion choices — particularly when she attends a fashion or red carpet event — is fair game. Could E! have been more tasteful in their approach? Sure! But Fashion Police is not necessarily the place to go if you’re looking for tasteful fashion criticism. We here at BTR, however, are pretty classy about these things. Stick with us and you’ll be just fine.
