Written By Sam Rabie

Edited By Carly Rabie

The Artifice of Megan Fox

Megan Fox: a “screensaver on a teenage boy’s laptop,” a “middle-aged lawyer’s shower fantasy,” a “sexual prop used to sell movies” (Cooper, 41:03). These crude descriptions, pulled from her interview on Call Her Daddy, encapsulate how the media has framed the famous actress not as a person with passions, interests, quirks, and contradictions, but as a character: a carefully constructed artifice, an object embodying Hollywood’s ideals of female sexuality and desire. In her conversation on Call Her Daddy, Fox recounts how she has been commodified and reduced to a product for public consumption. Throughout the interview, she details the struggles of her life—her isolated childhood, her body dysmorphia, the relentless media scrutiny, and the cycle of “worship and destroy” that has followed her career (Cooper, 32:27). The insights in this piece come primarily from that interview, in which Fox tells her story in her own words.

The Megan Fox we have been sold is not a woman but a commodity, stripped of depth, her soul made irrelevant to the craftsmen who have molded her image for profit. A figure created to serve the male gaze while simultaneously threatening her female audience by embodying unattainable beauty standards. But I dare to ask: who is the woman behind this puppet performance of Miss Hollywood Sex Symbol? The answer is far more tragic than anticipated. She is not the untouchable icon she is made out to be, but an old soul, beaten down and worn thin by a life of hardship—her childhood marked by loneliness and confinement, and her career defined by exploitation, reduced to an object and sensationalized by the media. 

A Child on Her Ninth and Final Life: Estrangement, Rejection, and Polka Dots

Megan Fox is a human being before she is an image, a woman with the same desires we all have—to belong, to feel worthy, loved, seen, and heard. But from early childhood, these fundamental needs went unmet. Born into a tumultuous family, her parents divorced when she was a mere three years old. Her childhood was shaped not by warmth but by separation, eating disorders, and the ever-loneliness of feeling like she never belonged. Her mother was not emotionally present for Fox, consumed by her own feelings of unfulfillment and inadequacy. When her father disappeared following the divorce, she watched as her mother’s depression deepened. In her interview on the podcast Call Her Daddy, she painted a haunting image of her mother as a “soaking wet blanket draped over the couch, weeping” (Cooper, 15:30). As a young girl, she absorbed her mother’s sadness like a sponge, internalizing her feelings of inadequacy. 

When her mother remarried, her home life only worsened. Her mother remained withdrawn, but now their household was overtaken by her stepfather’s control and emotional volatility. Diagnosed at the time with bipolar disorder—though Fox suspects he had borderline personality disorder–her stepfather was emotionally abusive, further isolating her mother and enforcing stifling restrictions over their lives. Her stepfather controlled her movement, dictated who she could see, and prevented her from having friends over. Fox’s only understanding of relationships was that of toxicity and instability, leading her to internalize the belief that marriage and relationships with men are bound to be an “oppressive experience” that “drain you of your lifeforce,” a perception that would go on to influence her later relationships (Cooper, 17:05).

For Fox, the instability of her home and the absence of unconditional love or affirmation cemented deep feelings of isolation and estrangement. These feelings were reinforced at school, where she was not well-received by her peers. Rather than resisting rejection, she let the label become a shield—claiming it before it could claim her, making her status as an outlier an integral part of her identity. Fox continues to see herself as both an outsider and an outlier today. She resonates with descriptions given by healers and psychics that she is an old, lonely soul in her ninth and final life. But while she has come to embrace this identity, the rejection she faced as a child was not just something imposed on her—it became something she internalized, reinforcing the belief that there was something inherently wrong with her. At just five years old, she remembers staring at her black shorts with white polka dots and thinking, “I have such fat thighs” (Cooper, 24:48)  As she grew older, these feelings took an even stronger hold, eventually manifesting in an eating disorder that led to hospitalization during her middle school years. Compulsive behaviors–plucking out her eyebrows, self-harm, and disordered eating–became acts of self-destruction as well as attempts to reclaim control in a life where she felt she had very little.

The Making and Unmaking of Megan Fox

Despite being recognized for her beauty from a young age, Fox felt a profound dissonance with her own body. She speculates that she was blonde in a past life because the reflection staring back at her never felt like hers. Fox has always believed her greatest strengths lie in her mind and odd sense of humor, but the world refused to see beyond her body. Hollywood and the media sculpted her into an ideal of female desirability she never wanted to embody—a persona she never recognized. Stripped of her complexity, Fox was reduced to a caricature—forced to maintain a facade even off-screen, strictly confined to the character of a Hollywood sex symbol. Fox describes experiencing dissociation at award shows and public events, being physically present yet existing only as an ornament and an object of desire, not as a human being with an emotional presence, purpose, or voice (Cooper, 1:03). 

She reflects on how her voice has long been stifled—not just through the roles she was given but through the scrutiny she faced for simply existing. Even the smallest displays of autonomy were policed. Being too curious in conversation or maintaining too much eye contact—became offenses, lessons in silence. Over time, she learned what she calls “The Art of Becoming an Accessory,” which is also the title of a poem in her novel published in 2023, Pretty Boys Are Poisonous, a compilation of poems on the hardships of her life. After all, ornaments do not have thoughts, feelings, or desires, their purpose is simply to sit and be observed—a beautiful, erotic spectacle, a jewel in a display case, valued for its shine but never its substance. Being labeled a sex symbol did not, in itself, evoke a particularly strong reaction from Fox. What tormented her was not the label alone, but the relentless process of being molded into it—the suffocating weight of Hollywood’s and society’s projections of female desirability. She was not simply called a sex symbol; she was crafted into one, her identity reduced to an object of male fantasy, a golden commodity to be marketed and consumed.

By 2009, Fox had reached the pinnacle of her career—a well-established, widely recognized actress at the height of her fame. But with success came a shift in perception. No longer the fresh-faced young starlet, she had been stamped as Hollywood’s ultimate sex symbol. Her success became a threat. She existed beyond reach, a fantasy too powerful to control, and for that, she had to be torn down. The public turned against her, throwing every insult imaginable to diminish her, and they did so mercilessly. Fox was crucified in the press daily, being called labels like “slut,” “whore,” “fake,” and “talentless” (Cooper, 33:55) Paparazzi hounded her, shoving cameras in her face and shouting at her to elicit a reaction. “Megan, everyone’s saying you’re overrated—do you think you’re overrated?” “Megan, everybody’s saying you shouldn’t have gotten your nose done—are you embarrassed you got your nose done?” “Megan, why are you such a bitch? No one likes you” (Cooper, 34:22) The media’s obsession with Fox became inescapable. She was paralyzed under relentless scrutiny, dissected in every aspect of her appearance, personality, and choices—what she wore, every flaw, every pimple, every five pounds she gained, every five pounds she lost (Cooper, 34:58). Yet, rather than acknowledging their own fixation, the media criticized her, blaming Fox for the spectacle they had created. She was painted as an attention-hungry actress as if the relentless coverage was something she had orchestrated rather than endured. In a display of manufactured exhaustion, on August 4th, 2009, the press staged a ‘Megan Fox Blackout’—a full day without publishing content about her, as a stunt to punish her for taking up so much attention, despite the fact that the fixation on her was a result of the media rather than her own intent.

Fox describes this relentless public scrutiny as a form of psychological violence. Unlike physical violence, the online nature made this form of violence less visible, less scrutinized, and far easier to justify. Her tormentors hid behind screens, shielded by anonymity, convincing themselves that their cruelty was harmless, even warranted. She reflects that while she was once the primary target of this treatment, today, many women face the same crucifixion—proof that the cycle of glorifying and vilifying women in Hollywood has not changed, only expanded, with the same recycled misogynistic insults (Cooper, 36:50). Bruised and exhausted from the relentless torment, Fox withdrew from the public eye, leaving behind her work. Yet, in her absence, the same public that vilified her began to call her name, her presence suddenly missed. “Why did we murder her?” they asked, as if unaware of their own role in her disappearance (Cooper, 45:14). Amidst her relationship with musician Machine Gun Kelly and her long retreat from Hollywood, Fox re-emerged into the spotlight. But with her return in 2020, now 34 years old, the cycle resumed. The media preyed on her once again, illusioned by her ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude—a shield she built for survival—the media used it as justification to deny her humanity (Cooper, 32:45). Fox named this routine process of idolization and crucifixion: “worship and destroy,” a cycle she has not been able to escape—one that has also claimed the lives of countless other young female stars (Cooper, 32:27). 

Worship and Destroy: The Fate of Women in Hollywood

From a young age, Megan Fox has been denied the freedom to exist as a full, complex human being. Forced to wear the label of Hollywood’s sex symbol, she was hollowed out into a commodity—one that the world falsely believed encompassed her entirety. She was both exalted and obliterated, placed on a pedestal as the embodiment of female desirability while simultaneously disassembled under the weight of misogyny. Her success was never hers to own; it was a spectacle to be consumed, a threat to be neutralized. The industry built her up only to tear her down, her fame wielded against her as proof that she had ‘too much’—too much beauty, too much power, too much autonomy. 

Fox’s story is not just her own but a reflection of a broader, relentless pattern—one where women are glorified, objectified, and then discarded when they are no longer of use. The system that shaped her is the same one that crucifies women who dare to exist beyond the roles they have been assigned. It is a cycle that does not end, only evolves, waiting for the next woman to be placed on the altar of admiration before being sacrificed at the hands of public scorn. Unfortunately, as long as the world continues to consume women as objects, rather than allow them to be fully realized human beings, the ‘worship and destroy’ cycle will continue, leaving many other women with the same cruel fate Fox faced.

References

Cooper, Alex, host. “Megan Fox: Burned at the Stake” Call Her Daddy, 20 Mar. 2024. Spotify, http://www.spotify.com.