Reeva "misrepresented" Steenkamp | Aisling Murphy
The tragic story of South Africans Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp is certainly shocking and bizarre, and undoubtedly a biopic of Pistorius interesting life will be snapped up by movie producers worldwide. It’s easy to get caught up in the drama of it all, especially since the case borders on fiction. It’s definitely easy to forget that a person lost their life in the middle of all this – I certainly did.The media portrayal of Pistorius and Steenkamp barely crossed my mind until today. I’m subscribed to a campaign called “MissRepresentation.org”, which aims to change the portrayal of women in media. However, the emails they dispatch weekly get sent to my second email address which is full of Groupon offers (seriously does anyone buy diamonds from these offers??) and other companies I’ve signed up to in the hope of freebies. So I hardly ever get around to reading the countless long (but still interesting) emails they send me...until today. The phrase ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’ could not have applied more to my situation, and my brave step to block Facebook for two whole days led to the obvious decision to read the four hundred and fifty unopened emails in my Gmail account instead of my essayMissRepresentation.org had sent an email urging its subscribers to write a letter to the editor of their local newspaper complaining about the media coverage of the death of Steenkamp. They pointed out how articles about the death of Steenkamp have been accompanied by images of Steenkamp scantily clad modelling underwear or bikinis, thereby “using her as a sexualized object to attract readers, even after death.”Miss Representation also noted how much of the attention has been focused on the man accused of her murder – something which I too was doing. The story has focused the fallen status of great athlete and role model and anytime I discussed the case all I could think of was how Pistorius had overcome so much in his life; how he was one of many media outlets top athletes of 2013; how his reputation is ruined despite the outcome of the trial. The loss of a sports hero has been presented as being more important than the loss of a woman’s life – articles have included an article by The Guardian, which Miss Representation linked in their email, entitled “Oscar Pistorious, our flawed hero, has fallen”.Steenkamp was more than just a beautiful face – yes she was a model, but she was also a law graduate who applied for the Bar in 2011. She was a strong campaigner against violence against women. She was yet to reach her thirtieth birthday. She had a mom, a dad, a brother. She deserves to be treated better than an object used to sell magazines, even if her chosen profession means that there are a large number of half-naked images of her available, and even if her alleged killer had previously achieved great things.The flood of sexualised images of women in the media we see everyday have made us ‘used to’ these sort of portrayals. The fact that the portrayal of Reeva Steenkamp passed by me, someone who thinks of herself as a media aware feminist, just shows how used to the skewed portrayal of women in media we are. Has it gone too far to ever change? Is the fight Miss Representation is trying to fight too tough to combat?
