Call Her Daddy Vs. The People
graphic by lillian su
Facts of the Case
In October 2018, vlogger Alex Cooper and her roommate/best friend Sofia Franklyn launched Call Her Daddy, a notoriously raunchy podcast about sex, dating and everything in between…literally. After only four self-produced episodes, Call Her Daddy was picked up by Barstool Sports - an eyebrow-raising move for a company not exactly known for its feminist ideals. Capitalizing on modern hookup culture and the appeal of two hot twenty-somethings talking dirty for forty-five minutes a week, Alex and Sofia now boast a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts with over 71,000 individual ratings. Daddy flags hang on the walls of college dorms, young men and women walk around in signature “Degrade Me” and “I Am Unwell” sweatshirts, and Tinder bios come paired with a #DaddyGang. The content is unapologetically graphic, almost slapstick hilarious, and REALLY big on teaching girls how to get a guy. Or at least part of him.
The Question at Hand
While there’s a radical element to a major piece of mainstream media normalizing and celebrating female sexuality, as the podcast grows in popularity, it also grows in criticism. With a strong case to be made on both sides, the Jerk Magazine court seeks the truth as to whether or not the #DaddyGang is a badass pro-women movement, or just Barstool Sports exploiting their platform to play into the ye old perception of women as sexual objects only for the pleasure of men.
The Prosecution
One of the most striking things about Call Her Daddy is Alex and Sofia’s wildly colorful language. They toss out ‘bitch,’ ‘slut,’ and ‘whore’ like it’s nothing. They even have episodes titled “You’re Just a Hole” and “Welcome to Slut Camp.” Even in jest, that kind of language is intrinsically linked with men’s usage of the words as a means of keeping women down, objectifying them. And we have to remember that this podcast is produced and published by Barstool Sports, the same company that posts a daily “Smokeshow,” also known as the Instagram profile of an attractive woman posted on their website by… you guessed it- a man!
Coming from a site that has a whole subset dedicated to the ranking of women, it’s no wonder Alex and Sofia even refer to girls by numbers 1-10 based on their hotness. Their episode, “If You’re a 5 or 6, Die for that D*ck” literally details how a girl should behave during sex based on how hot she is, and how if she’s not hot enough, she has to compensate through her performance. It’s tired, male-gaze infused, and harmful to the social progress of women everywhere. We rest our case.
The Defense
Alex and Sofia are very open and very transparent about the purpose of the Call Her Daddy podcast. For everything they give women, they hold men to the same standard. In their most iconic episode detailing the infamous blowjob technique, “The Gluck Gluck 9000,” the girls make it very clear that men are not off the hook. Alex says, “I want to clarify too, this podcast is not just about you know, please your man and make him cum. No this is also about guys we’re gonna get to you don’t worry… we’re about to roast you.” And they do indeed go on to post episode 6, “Fine Dining: An Eating Out Special.” They also repeatedly address that their use of words like ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ are terms they choose to reclaim and use as terms of endearment, frequently using those same words to refer to themselves and each other. And isn’t the reclaiming of the female body and identity all part of the movement? Alex and Sofia fully own their sexuality, they know themselves through and through and they’re not afraid to capitalize on that both in their dating lives and in their careers. Most importantly, they emphasize choice. This is a podcast for an audience that wants to be engaged in hookup culture and wants to laugh along the way, Alex and Sofia are just the girls who are brave enough to take them there. The defense rests.
The Verdict
Well, that’s up to you, the jury, to decide. Either for your own entertainment or to fuel some feminist fire, it’s worthwhile to take all the above into consideration, plug in some headphones, and choose whether or not this moment in media is one of sexual liberation or just a scantily clad boy’s club.