Kim Novak's Work

After the Twitter snarkfest died down after Sunday’s ceremony (e.g., via The Daily Mail, @chrischua007 tweeted ‘Kim Novak’s face just won for Frozen’) the backlash to the snarkfest was next. The general theme was a lamentation of the cruel Hollywood machine and what it did to poor Kim Novak. Cruel Hollywood machine, check. Deep-seated, multi-generational misogyny, check. Doing this to your own face—wait, did “Hollywood” do this to Kim Novak’s face?

Why isn’t it an insult to suggest that? To suggest that she is only, still, just a vessel for the twisted desires of men? That she has no agency? To suggest that this was somehow something she had to do, or felt compelled to do, while not also at least mentioning her own apparent batshit insanity?

What I mean is, this was ultimately her own choice to make, yes? If we react in horror, shall we blame Harry Cohn or Alfred Hitchcock or Hollywood itself rather than her own pathological vanity?