Men Are As Objectified As Women On TV Says Natalie Dormer

Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer has put her two cents in about objectification in TV and the movies, saying that both men and women are equally judged on their looks.

The 33-year-old voiced her views to the Radio Times, and said that because of the changing nature of television, men were equally subjected to scrutiny in the looks department. “My personal experience has been to work on phenomenal jobs in which the men are objectified as much as the women,” she said.

“[Male] actors suffer from it, too,” Dormer added. “Wasn’t there a thing about Aidan Turner in Poldark? It’s a visual medium, so to a certain extent you get judged on the way you look.”

Dormer has a point. The Internet (and the rest of us) went wild for those shirtless shots of 32-year-old Aidan Turner from Clondalkin as Ross Poldark. A question and answer Twitter session that was supposed to be about the drama even descended into farce when the actor was swamped with queries about his looks.

“We’re not just talking about being slim here. We’re talking about character actors with big eyes getting typecast in the ‘friend’ role. It’s not just about so-called bed-ability: it’s about your physicality more generally,” Dormer added.

But The Tudors star believes that in the end, looks mean very little if you haven’t got talent and perseverance as well. “I believe that perseverance will out, that if you’re good and you work hard, everyone will notice.”

Dormer’s comments come shortly after fellow actors Chris Pratt and Channing Tatum called for equality between both men and women. It seems both actors don’t echo her views, as they both said it was still the women who were objectified the most.

Pratt said that in order to advocate equality, it was important to even things out. “I think it’s appalling that for a long time only women were objectified. [We should] objectify men just as often as we objectify women,” he said. While Tatum added: “I’m all for the equal opportunity objectification of everyone.”

Dormer’s views provide another interesting angle to the whole objectification of genders debate, what do you make of her views?