a day ago
Shocking Howard Stern 2000s TV Misogyny Clip Goes Viral
When we look back at culture, it sometimes feels like the '90s and early aughts were some of the most particularly cruel times towards women.
Between the rise of relentless paparazzi, tabloids, and early reality TV, women were dissected and picked apart in new and pervasive ways (which often meant being objectified or turned into the punchline in the name of "entertainment"). Magazine covers sensationalized mental health struggles, reality shows pitted women against each other, and talk shows openly mocked women's bodies — all mostly without an ounce of shame.
As if we needed any more proof of it all, a resurfaced clip from a 2004 "ButtaFace Competition" (as in, "everything but her face") is reminding the internet just how bad it really was. The contest, designed to find the "ugliest" woman with the best body, was hosted in Las Vegas by, unsurprisingly, Howard Stern.
Stern's career has practically been built on making offensive remarks, especially towards women and minorities, under the guise of being "provocative" and a "shock jock."
The clip begins with Stern prompting a woman to take a paper bag off her head and reveal her face.
When she does, a crowd erupts into boos and shock. The camera pans to a woman who sticks her tongue out in disgust.
The judges laugh.
One dude pretends to throw up.
Sad music overlays the clip as the audience reaction gets progessively more hurtful and humilating.
Stern asks the woman if it's hard to witness the crowd's negative reaction after taking the bag off her head. She quietly replies, "No, not really." Stern then asks if "some guy" entered her into the competition, and she replies that no, a friend told her about the competition.
The resurfaced clip has since gone viral across multiple social media platforms, and people are collectively horrified at just how awful it is. "If you endured the early 2000s as a woman, you may be entitled to financial compensation," one post alongside the clip said on Reddit.
"Jesus Christ this just made me sad," another comment said.
"this was the worst time to go through puberty. the scars persist," this person wrote.
After seeing the clip, I had the unfortunate displeasure of watching the full episode, and the bigotry goes even farther. For context, the show begins with a table of mostly men, including Stern and Rob Schneider as a guest judge — former Deuce Bigalow actor and now very outspoken MAGA supporter — gathering to "find" Ms. ButtaFace. There's a $25,000 cash prize. "Nothing in life is more rewarding than evaluating chicks," Stern began. White, thin waitresses in heels bring the men shots before they begin rating (yes, they did this drunk).
The competition kicks off with one woman at a time walking out with a paper bag on their head. Then, "judges" score the woman's body on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the "best body." They'd then rate the woman with the paper bag off, with "10 being the worst face."
As contestants each walked out with paper bags on their heads, a voiceover played in which the woman shared insecurities about their looks and gave herself her own rating. The "judges" laughed and made crude jokes as the camera panned up and down her body, giving their opinions and ratings.
Between judges asking women to "turn around to look at their ass," another asking if a contestant "can take her top off," speculating about their pubic hair and sex lives, and labeling them "sluts" and "broads," the whole thing was essentially a master class in objectification.
I truly didn't think it could get any worse until they panned to Daniel Carver, a former KKK leader. As judge Artie Lange made an insensitive joke using the n-word, Stern asked Carver how he was doing, to which he said, "They're hot. They're white."
Later, after a woman disclosed that she had "lost" her virginity "unwillingly" at age 11, Artie Lange responded by making a joke that he was "the guy who took her virginity."
I was disgusted, humiliated for these women, and sad. We like to think this was "so long ago" and could never happen again, but this was only 2004. For many of us, this was the culture we came of age in. I wonder why I carry so many insecurities, why my friends and I say we never feel entirely safe around straight, white men, and then I see a clip like this and remember why. When jokes about race and rape are played for laughs, when women are paraded onstage for sport and a cash prize, and when whiteness is openly celebrated by a former KKK leader without repercussions — it's clear that racism and misogyny weren't just side effects of the culture. They were the culture.
Media like this that normalizes objectification, mockery, and humiliation reinforces norms that condone violence against women. Black women specifically face disproportionate rates of violence: over 40% experience physical violence from an intimate partner, more than 20% experience sexual assault, and they are 2.5 times more likely to be murdered by men than white women. Early 2000s shows like this one didn't exist in a vacuum — they helped shape a culture where women are seen as objects to hate and hurt.
We like to believe we're past all that, but I'm not so sure. If anything, the need to call it out feels more urgent than ever. As one commenter put it, right now, it sometimes feels it wouldn't be surprising if something like this came back today.
In a country where a man found liable for sexual abuse can become president, where Howard Stern still has a thriving platform, where our nation's leaders repost ideas that women should submit to their husbands, and where, above all, white, Christian ideals are what are being encouraged, if anything, 2004 doesn't feel so far away.
Even in the comments reacting to the clip, I was struck by how many responses still centered the woman's looks, rather than what was done to her. MANY (if not most) of the top comments were some version of, "She's not even ugly."
While I get part of the sentiment — beauty standards are ridiculously cruel and impossible — it feels beside the point. What if she were? Would that make her more deserving of the ridicule? When our defense hinges on her appearance, we reinforce the very logic that created a contest like "Ms. ButtaFace" to begin with: that a woman's worth lives and dies in what she looks like.
As this person wrote, "Putting aside the fact of whether she's pretty or not. This was a show where an almost-naked woman stands on a stage and an audience boos and hisses about how they dont think she's fuckable or how they wouldn't want to fuck her (or don't want to admit it because their cowards). This was considered entertainment and fine and normal. And people wonder why millennial women are so fuckin' ✨fed up with misogynistic BS like holy shit✨."
I'd like to think we're far past a "Ms. ButtaFace" contest reappearing. After all, the clip is recirculating for its cruelty. But I worry that the idea has just shifted more covertly, especially in a culture that more and more perpetuates one ideal of beauty. And unless we actively push back, it will keep finding new ways to reappear.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
