ArchiveFM

The Daily

The Sunday Read: ‘The Emily Ratajkowski You’ll Never See’

In her book, “My Body,” Emily Ratajkowski reflects on her fraught relationship with the huge number of photographs of her body that have come to define her life and career. Some essays recount the author’s hustle as a young model who often found herself in troubling situations with powerful men; another is written as a long, venomous reply to an email from a photographer who has bragged of discovering her. Throughout, Ratajkowski is hoping to set the record straight: She is neither victim nor stooge, neither a cynical collaborator in the male agenda, as her critics have argued, nor some pop-feminist empoweree, as she herself once supposed.
Duration
38m
Broadcast on
05 Dec 2021
Audio Format
other

In her book, “My Body,” Emily Ratajkowski reflects on her fraught relationship with the huge number of photographs of her body that have come to define her life and career.

Some essays recount the author’s hustle as a young model who often found herself in troubling situations with powerful men; another is written as a long, venomous reply to an email from a photographer who has bragged of discovering her. Throughout, Ratajkowski is hoping to set the record straight: She is neither victim nor stooge, neither a cynical collaborator in the male agenda, as her critics have argued, nor some pop-feminist empoweree, as she herself once supposed.

To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This podcast is supported by TikTok. Sometimes the most interesting discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for. That happens every day on TikTok. A science experiment can spark a whole new interest. A recipe you stumble upon can become a meal you make for the people you love. And a restaurant you've never heard of might become your new favorite spot. That's the thing about TikTok. Follow your curiosity and see where it leads. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. (jazz music) - Hi, my name is Andrea Longshoe. I'm a writer and critic and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine. I'll be reading a profile of Emily Radikowski that I wrote for a recent issue. Emily Radikowski is a famous model. She's an influencer on Instagram where she has over 28 million followers. She has her own clothing line and now she is a writer. She has published a collection of essays called "My Body" that is about her experience as a model, her childhood, her rise to fame, and her complicated relationship to her body, her image, and the public. There's a question that has followed Radikowski through most of her career which goes something like, well, how do you square the fact that you have a brain with the fact that men are consuming your body through these images and making money off of you? And this question is not just condescending. It's also, I think, the least interesting question to ask about this woman's career. This was the first profile that I've ever written. I have to admit. And before I started working on it, I knew there was gonna be this fundamental problem, which was that Emily Radikowski is attractive. She says this in the book. She's famous for being attractive. How do you write about someone who is famous for being looked out without falling into the trap of looking at her? And I've written at length about my own body in the times and elsewhere. I famously have problems with my own body. And I do think on my editor's part,

Transcription truncated.

In her book, “My Body,” Emily Ratajkowski reflects on her fraught relationship with the huge number of photographs of her body that have come to define her life and career. Some essays recount the author’s hustle as a young model who often found herself in troubling situations with powerful men; another is written as a long, venomous reply to an email from a photographer who has bragged of discovering her. Throughout, Ratajkowski is hoping to set the record straight: She is neither victim nor stooge, neither a cynical collaborator in the male agenda, as her critics have argued, nor some pop-feminist empoweree, as she herself once supposed.