An Open Letter to MTV Regarding Their Open Letter to Mariah Carey

Hi, MTV. I know we don’t get along…well, pretty much EVER these days. But I often end up on your main site as well as your Buzzworthy blog when I’m looking for a hot tip or a blog idea for Buzznet. And sometimes you pay off. Like now.

You posted an open letter to Mariah Carey regarding her decision to celebrate her birthday by painting her heavily pregnant belly, taking a picture and posting it to Twitter. The picture was posted along with the message: “My attempt @ festiveness on 327! For ATLITL thank u + I♥U! Comin soon #dembabies! LYMA+thanx 4 making me happy:).”

And you know, MTV, I think that’s very sweet of her. She’s excited about becoming a mother soon, she’s celebrating her pregnancy and her impending motherhood. But you had something else to say about it:

Doll, we’re just saying. When we find ourselves harboring intense, grandiose artistic visions for ourselves, we head to Color Me Mine and glaze a bowl. And maybe you should think about that next time? Here’s to your riding out the rest of your pregnancy with a nice stack of heavy-duty paper from Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft Stores and a Crayola 94-pack at the ready, so you can capture all of your creative visions THERE. And not on your stomach. We look forward to meeting your twin bundles of joy in the near future.

MTV, I suggest you get over yourselves.

You would have NO PROBLEM with Mariah painting on her belly and posting it to internet if she were showing off her toned abs. But because she is sharing her body in a form that we’re taught to consider “less than flattering,” you’re telling her she shouldn’t be doing this, she shouldn’t be showing it off.

Look, here’s the thing MTV. Maybe your mommies never told you where babies come from. They come from INSIDE WOMEN. Which means a woman’s body has to change to accommodate them. Hell, with all the promotion you’ve done for those damn Twilight movies combined with Stephenie Meyer’s awful psuedo-science explanation for why Bella can suddenly have vampire spawn I’d figure you AT LEAST knew that part.

EVEN WORSE: this is just another example of a social Catch-22. If a woman DOESN’T want babies she’s told “You’ll change your mind,” or “You’re just being selfish!” or has it implied that there is something deeply wrong with her. How do I know this? I’m a woman who doesn’t want babies. I’m constantly made to feel that there is a MAJOR FLAW in me for that fact.

BUT when a woman does what she’s “SUPPOSED” to, gets pregnant, she should be happy, joyous even, but HEAVEN FORBID she be all public about it! And the last thing she should do is pretend that her body belongs to HER. We don’t just see this in policing things like Mariah or when Britney appeared naked and pregnant on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar Magazine, but even walking down the street. I have seen so many women complain that, during their pregnancies, people thought they could just walk up to them and put their hands on their belly. Even people they didn’t know.

Having a fetus inside you DOES NOT make your body public property.

OH and let’s touch on this! Apparently the APPROPRIATE way to celebrate your pregnancy is to be on an exploitative reality show. THAT’S perfectly acceptable. Twitpiccing pictures of your painted pregnant belly? GROSS.

So, MTV, seriously. You don’t wanna look at pregnant bellies? Don’t click on Mariah Carey’s Twitpic links. If you see one, look away. But you sure as HELL don’t have the right to tell women how they are and aren’t allowed to celebrate that part of their life.

Love,

Me