Nicole Richie’s Mouth of the South : Challenging Gender Norms and Reinforcing the Stereotype of Dumb Blondes in ‘The Simple Life’

Abstract

This study focuses on the connection between gender norms, one’s linguistic production, and how breaking these norms may affect how a speaker is perceived by others. Stereotypes are a concrete example of how certain attributes of an individual may have dire consequences on how you are perceived, a process in which speech and linguistic devices used can be central. The stereotype of a ‘dumb blonde’ is significant in respect to this study, as it is heavily gendered and visible in the data. The main characteristics associated with dumb blondes include vanity, stupidity, and high sexual libido, of which the latter is most notable for this study. In their early 2000’s reality TV show ‘The Simple Life’, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie challenge the gender norms “women do not tell jokes” and “women do not swear”, as defined by Lakoff (1975), simultaneously reinforcing the gendered stereotype of ‘dumb blondes’. For the heavy emphasis on gender, the study follows the methodology of reading against the grain, often utilized in feminist studies, alongside aspects of stance-taking. This enables insight into how certain roles and identities are upheld concerning the community at hand. The findings of the study suggest that Hilton and Richie’s choice of telling highly sexual jokes can be considered either as a community-building tool (banter) or as smut (seduction), depending on the gender of the listeners. A similar phenomenon is observable in the case of swearing, however not as prominently. In the given data, swearing is mainly used as a tool of community building in a negative sense: drawing a line between us versus them.