By ALFREDO MENDOZA
Staff Writer
Love her or Hate her there’s no denying that Megan Fox is a household name and an icon throughout television and media. She’s been on everything from Transformers to confessions of a teenage drama queen, Jennifer’s body, and more. All of this fame to think she started off as an extra in Micheal Bay’s ¨Bad Boys 2¨. She was only fifteen years old when Michael Bay had her dance under a waterfall with nothing but a bikini on and this started the wrongful hyper-sexualization of this young starlet-to-be. Her new fame didn’t come without a price as we know how Hollywood isn’t only famous for tv and film but also for failing and blacklisting rising stars. She started her first real role opposite the Olsen twins in “Holiday in the Sun(2001)¨. She landed a lead in a Swedish soap opera and then numerous side parts. It wasn’t until ¨Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen¨ playing Carla, the notorious mean girl, opposite of Lindsay Lohan that she finally hit the mainstream. Superstardom wasn’t far for this now-famed ingenue as her big role in ¨Transformers¨ put the spotlight on her for the world to see. Her audition(if you could call it that) was her having to wash Michael Bay’s Ferrari while he filmed which further proves that he used her constantly and her being freshly nineteen only makes the situation worse. Megan got the right amount of exposure she needed to launch her career with the Transformers movie. Two years later a second Transformers movie came and harsh criticisms followed. While the film itself made 1 billion dollars she was still heavily criticized for her craft. This obviously put a halt on the whole starlet thing yet it wasn’t as bad as what was to come but I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, she was still seen as America’s it-girl and she was everywhere, in magazines, commercials, and films, she was taking the world by storm. This made her an easy target for tabloids to demean her as a sex symbol which she was always uncomfortable with. She was constantly compared to Angelina Jolie and gossip sites were quick to make up rumors about her weight, looks, plastic surgery rumors, and romance. As I said, fame never comes without scandals. During the filming of Transformers 2 she was quoted as saying, ¨Micheal Bay likes to be like Hitler on set…a nightmare to work with¨. She was referring to her director during the Transformers franchise who has also been caught up in his own controversies. It’s true that what she said crossed a lot of lines and was beyond wrong and offensive. Michael Bay talked to the press about her any chance he could and with his misogynistic history he tore into her using derogatory language targeted at her gender. The crew working in these films even turned to bash her about her behavior. After all this, she was blacklisted when her director called her a classless princess, and other words I can’t say on here. She then moved on to the cult classic ¨Jennifers’s Body¨. Which by definition of cult classic did not do well in its day but is now learned to be appreciated by thousands. She also starred in a comic book movie titled ¨Jonah Hex¨ which also failed at the box office and never recovered. A couple more failed movies later and her career was on the up and up in movies like ¨Friends with Kids¨ and ¨This is Forty¨. These films allowed her to express roles with emotional depth but she never could escape the ¨hot girl trope¨ as she was constantly typecast by Hollywood. Micheal Bay came back unfortunately and wrongfully cast her in teenage mutant ninja turtles which earned her even more backlash. She seemed to dissipate from the public eye until a 15-episode long run in “New Girl” and an out-of-box self-made documentary about the unexplained. Believe it or not, she worked on several more small limited productions that got her career nowhere. It wasn’t until she was in the 2022 movie ¨Good Mourning¨ that she met her now controversial lover known as Machine Gun Kelly. Before that, she met her now ex-husband Brian Austin Green in 2010 who in 2013, 2014, and 2018 had three children of their own. After Megan and MGK made their relationship official it was almost like all her hard work to stardom was erased and she was now seen as Machine Gun Kelly’s girlfriend rather than the talented actress that’s graced our screens for decades. Now she’s seen more as a trophy wife and ex sex-symbol but her true fans see her as much more. I see her as an aspiring star that was failed by the Hollywood elite that stunts any growth in the world of television. People are quick to call her a bad actress but her typecast confines her in a box with little to no material making what she has done, sublime. For example, the role of Jennifer in ¨Jennifer’s Body¨ was heavily ridiculed during its release but what she did was phenomenal. As an actor I can tell you, the heavy darkness of the role paired with comedic timing is beyond difficult and she delivered. This was shown especially since her co-star Amanda Seyfried never overshadowed her. This film tackled the pressure women face to fit in, relationships, and even the horrendous act of sexual assault and how it affects someone. These are not easy subjects to cover as a performer and she still did an outstanding job. After these hard subjects at the height of the ¨#metoo¨ movement, she tried to participate in the feminist crusade but reported feeling not accepted. The world victim-blamed her, shunned her, and made her feel not worthy of participating in how she’s seen in the media. She was quoted as saying she identifies with feminism but doesn’t feel wanted by feminists. She faced sexual harassment and microaggressions in the media for years yet was never allowed to speak up for herself. It’s as if the world hated her for one insensitive comment she made as a teenager dealing with the struggle of fame lashing out at a director that objectified her constantly. I mean seriously who makes a 15-year-old dance under a waterfall for a movie. It feels like people are treating her far worse than she deserves. Megan Fox has been a staple in television, a humanitarian, and an overall survivor.
She deserves her flowers.