Tyra Banks recently spoke about how future generations are set to become more beautiful than ever, thanks to science. But for the next couple of decades, we’re still relying on genes in order to make gorgeous babies. So thank heavens for Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes, who have selflessly stepped forward to create a stunning future being.
News of the pregnancy emerged this week, and Ellen DeGeneres was one of the first to congratulate the couple on creating what is going to be ‘the most beautiful baby ever’.
Both Mendes and Gosling are very, very, very attractive. They are both so beautiful that if you don’t go to the cinema often, you might not realise they are actors, and think they both have full time jobs just appearing on lists of the top ten hottest and most sexy people.
They are both constantly and shamelessly objectified by viewers and voyeurs. I know women who have spoken about Gosling in terms that would make a gynecologist retire, crying. But as a woman in the public eye, Mendes is subject to alarming levels of adulation and even abuse, because of her beauty.
Hollywood Life describes her as a ‘glamorous woman with a Coke bottle figure’ – as if she’s a lovely sculpture, or a 21st-century variation on the theme of the typically gorgeous, vapid Raymond Chandler heroine. I have a theory that she’s so arrestingly beautiful, people talk about her and their reactions to her as if they’re discussing art, and not a real-life woman with a womb, who’s about to become a mum.
The creepiest reaction to the pregnancy came from the quarter of the internet who called the baby ‘the ultimate seducer’. It’s deeply unsettling, and to some degree, unusual.
As a society, we struggle to reconcile a woman’s sexuality with her humanity. Usually, we have no truck with sexy mums. When we use the expression ‘MILF’, we’re saying that it’s unusual to be sexually attracted to a mother. Having an interest in older women is seen as a freaky fetish, as proved by the reaction to documentaries like My Granny The Escort, and the jokes made about Wayne Rooney when the media became obsessed with an anecdote about him paying older women for sex.
Mendes is such a celebrated sex symbol that no-one is able to move away from the idea that she’s a MILF to be. So they’re focusing on it, even to the point where they’re predicting the attractiveness of the baby – and even, in the case of one forensic artist, computer generating a creepy picture of what their little boy/girl will look like.
Personally, I can’t help but be fascinated by what the Mendes-Gosling progeny will look like, but I also know it’s a weird thing to think about. Why does it matter what babies look like? And more importantly, how can the baby grow up to be happy and normal when strangers are wondering about how hot it will be before it’s born?
Mendes and Gosling might have good looks in common, but they’re both talented performers, too. No-one seems to care whether the baby is going to inherit any acting talent. But then, if we’re obsessed with looks and looks alone, perhaps it won’t need to.
How can the baby grow up to be happy and normal when strangers are wondering about how hot it will be before it’s born?
Friends with children have often told me that the strangest part of pregnancy is the way that there are so many different parties who are desperate to appropriate your body. At best, you feel like a lovely, cosy nest, but the baby is definitely in the driving seat. Essentially, you’re just providing food and cushions. At worst, it’s like Alien.
Then there’s the endless, invasive medical attention, where you’re forced to become so accustomed to getting naked and being probed by professionals that it’s easy to forget where you are and drop your knickers when you get on the bus.
Now her happy news is out there, we’re all collectively poking her in the stomach, saying, ‘Hey Eva! Sexy baby you’ve got in there, eh?’
And finally, and worst, there are the well-meaning strangers. People who are so overwhelmed by the miracle of new life that they’re moved to stroke and poke your belly for luck, even though you’ve never met them, and you’re in the middle of crossing the road or you’ve trapped your head in a maternity smock in the M&S changing room.
Together, we have appropriated Mendes’ body long before she became pregnant. Every outfit we analysed, every hair cut we scrutinised and every curve we accused her of flaunting made us feel like our opinion counted as much as her own. And now her happy news is out there, we’re all collectively poking her in the stomach, saying, ‘Hey Eva! Sexy baby you’ve got in there, eh?’
Or worse, making out that she’s ‘desperately covering up her bump’ by using the one picture out of an entire set where she happens to – quite reasonably – hold a handbag in front of her for a mere moment.
And, that’s not even the worst of it: there are also those people speculating that Eva somehow ‘trapped’ Ryan into marriage by getting pregnant when she felt their relationship slipping away from her – as if deciding to have a child and bind yourself to another man for life is something you’re really going to do to score a rock.
I’m as much of a gossip junkie as the next slack-jawed sidebar gawper, and I know that we’ll never stop being fascinated by celebrities and their lives. But I hope that as we discuss Mendes’ pregnancy, we’ll start to be much more mindful of the fact that she is not incubating this fetus for our entertainment, and no-one is entitled to point a camera up her womb.
No matter how beautiful this baby is supposed to be.
Follow Daisy on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.