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| NZ Next Top Model Danielle Hayes |
I don’t like Danielle Hayes. Never have to be honest. I don’t like her because she has reinforced and encouraged negative perceptions about Kawerau. Her misrepresentations have done more damage to the town than anything I can think of. Danielle possesses an extremely shallow, misunderstood view of Kawerau. Her perspective is so warped and one-dimensional it is sad. It was stupid when she listed her greatest achievements as not getting pregnant and/or been in jail. It was laughable when she said the show was her ticket out of Kawerau and it was sad when she said “I hate this town”.
Pregnancy and incarceration are the exception not the rule and it is beyond comprehension why she would think otherwise. And why did she need a TV show to leave Kawerau? Why could she not go to University or Polytech? Why could she not search for employment somewhere else? There are plenty of options available for someone who wants to leave Kawerau. She makes it sound like the town had cast some magic spell on her so she could never leave – the reality is that she is just plain useless. In terms of her “I hate this town” comment - I don’t care but only as long as she keeps that hate to herself. Instead she has paraded it for all to see and propagated some pretty foul and deluded notions of what the town is like.
Danielle’s views are shaped through her superficial interpretation of her narrow experiences and are probably reinforced by ignorant people surrounding her. She shows no awareness and understanding of the community beyond the aesthetic - her views do not conform to reality and contain no insight. It is incredibly sad because she had the potential to reshape negative perceptions of Kawerau and serve as a colossal role model for young girls in Kawerau. Unfortunately she failed on both counts. She merely perpetuated the idea that Kawerau is a dead end town that they (young people) have no chances of escaping bar exceptional luck. It is an enormous tragedy that Danielle failed. Rather than earn the admiration and respect of young girls in the town she has earnt derision and disrespect. Certainly her achievement serves as a template to be emulated but her character serves as poor guide.
The statistics paint an unflattering picture of Kawerau yet the reality is not what you would expect. Community pride and closeness is possibly unrivalled and social problems such as joblessness and teenage pregnancy have not manifested into crime, deprivation etc. Kawerau has produced many notable people including Tony Ryall (although he will never admit it now), Olympian Sarah Walker, famous entertainer John Rowles, lawyer and activist Annette Sykes and beauty queen Ria Van Dyke.
None of this is intended to take anything away from Danielle’s outstanding achievement. She deserves praise for doing so well and I congratulate her on that count. Where she deserves disapproval is in her attitude towards Kawerau and her miserable failure to act as a positive role model for young girls in the town.
Danielle Hayes has every right to express her experience and life story without being labelled a "bimbo" or being silenced because frankly confronting the limitations on a young Maori woman from a less-privileged area "looks bad". And she's certainly not obliged to lie about her own life - or paint a rosy picture of it - to serve as a "role model" - unless the lesson you want young women to learn is to sit down and shut up about the oppression they face.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, she has every right to express herself, but I also have every right to express my opinion. As intolerable as I find her expression I accept her right to do so. She has hit a pretty raw emotional nerve with me and I responded with considerable invective however I retract none of it.
ReplyDeleteI fail to see how shitting on Kawerau can be considered confronting oppression, I fail to see how discouraging hope and encouraging pessimism among young women in Kawerau can be considered confronting oppression. Danielle has trodden all over community pride and spread the false notion among young women in Kawerau that their situation is doomed. She may be “speaking truth” or telling it how she sees it I would only ask she have some awareness of the consequences her actions. I am not asking she lie or embellish her life rather just think about the bigger picture. What advantage is there in damaging further the reputation of a misrepresented town? What advantage is there in alienating the people who need you most as a role model? Is she breaking down barriers by trashing Kawerau and isolating young women or is she creating more?
She wasn't "confronting oppression", she was talking about her own life on a reality TV show. And precisely what barriers are YOU "breaking down" by going straight to misogynist slurs when questioning a young woman's statements?
ReplyDeleteThere is absolutely no onus on Danielle or anyone to think about "bigger issues" when discussing their own lived experience. And when we're talking about "consequences", it probably did a hell of a lot *more* for awareness of socioeconomic inequality for NZNTM's predominantly young, white, middle-class audience to learn that not everyone just gets to go all the way through high school straight into uni with a hoppity-skip, and not everyone gets to just get the family GP to put them on the Pill or treat the police as friendly uniformed beings who are rarely encountered.
But that's beside the point, which for me is that a young woman has a different opinion to you and you respond by tapping into sexist language - which you don't apparently seem to feel any need to "retract".
There is no onus but one should consider the moral obligation to right by those who need you.
ReplyDeleteYes, she raised awareness among viewers but I would suggest rather than confront and demolish stereotypes she confirmed and perpetuated them. I can visualise now statements like "oh, those places are as horrible as I imagine them", "poor people can be so mean" and so on. She portrayed herself, or was portrayed by the producers, as a caricature of a stereotypical Maori female.
Lastly, I apologise for the use of sexist language and I apologise for offending you and/or others. It was wrong and at the time of writing I did not give it a second thought.