palabravampiress
Bidet of Evil
For those of you who haven't seen that infamous Vogue cover, check out this. Don't read the article yet. Just give the cover a good perusal. Are you offended?
Next, refresh your memory by checking out this image.
Are you offended now? Are you offended after reading the articles?
I ask because I had an interesting conversation about this last night. When I saw that cover in the checkout line, I saw a basketball player and a supermodel... in that order. Left to right. You know how it goes. Neither of those really holds any interest for me, so my eyes passed it over and went straight for the soap opera magazine. I rolled my eyes at the Kate/Brenda/Carly comparison, gasped at the notion that yet another character might be dying soon, chalked it up to budget cuts, and checked out my meat and veggies. After checking my hotmail a little later, I saw a rather leading link asking whether or not a Vogue cover should be offensive. I clicked the link. I looked at the cover. I thought, "isn't that what all the covers look like?" I mean, don't we always show muscle-bound, aggressive-looking men and twiggy women? I didn't pick up on the Kong reference. I enjoyed those movies when I was a kid, but what I remember most is the Kong vs. the Dinosaur fight. I watched it again as a film minor and picked up on a lot more of the social messages that are buried and/or reflected there, but I still didn't connect that Kong image to that cover until someone pointed it out.
As long as I'm owning biases and influences, I think it prudent to point out that the person who pointed it out is a bisexual feminist woman from the South. She's sort of hyper aware of anything and everything that might be offensive. Also in attendance were three Cincinnatians: a photographer, an I.T. guy, and myself. The photographer said the image was about creating tension and that it's your basic beauty and the beast setup. The I.T. guy noticed the woman's strangely wavy hair and the lack of windiness on the man and asked if the woman had been Photoshoped in. I was already spoiled, having clicked the aforementioned link, so I held my tongue.
A number of topics came up. Kong came up. Racism came up. We spent the longest on body image, questioning why these two images were placed on the cover of a "hot bodies" issue. "Why are those the ideal body images?" we asked. "Why should a man be bulky and aggressive and a woman be frail and windblown?"
As the only straight woman in the room, I said, "umm... I get it. He looks that way because, well, there's something very primal in your average straight woman that totally responds to the bulky aggressive guy." Let's not kid ourselves here, people. We're Buffy fans. Angel and Spike were popular why? Oh yeah -- because they took off their shirts and killed scary monsters for us while also displaying a bit of the monster in themselves. That's right. We liked it. Didn't hurt that we got to see 'em in action in the sack with the show's dominant female, either. We like aggressive men who show off their muscles. Besides, LeBron James is a basketball player in a dribbling pose, right? Well, aren't sports about connecting with primal urges? Aren't they, at their core, about tribal warfare? Isn't that why local groups take bulky men and put them in game after game that has the same basic point: send two groups crashing into one another and see who makes it to the other side of the field first while locals get their rocks off whoopin' and hollerin' as though they actually have something at stake in the competition? There's something very primal at work here. I'm not sure how to put it into words, but my body totally gets it. The biological imperative is at work, here. It's not refined. It's not pretty. The idea is basically: Ooooh. Look at the big tough man. Mmmm. Me want. My friends didn't pick up on that, but then again, my friends are intellectual types who are eager to be offended and to deny their baser instincts and, oh yeah, not straight women. I, personally, have always been very well attuned to those base instincts of mine, and the straight woman in me says the mag is right: LeBron James' body is hot.
As for the woman... I've got no clue why she's the hot body on display. None of the men would help me out on that one last night. I mean, by the looks of her, that chick weighs about what I weigh and has about a foot on me in height. The biological imperative is not at work there. She's too skinny. She doesn't have much in the way of breasts or hips. The chances are very good that she isn't even ovulating or having periods because her body is in famine mode. Trust me; about ten pounds ago, my petite frame couldn't support that process. I have no idea how hers could now. The only conclusions to which we came were that, possibly, it's about affluence rather than fertility. When Rubenesque women were in, it was because heftier women were better fed women and therefore upper class. Now, skinnier women can afford to eat foods that are well-prepared, more organic, etc., and are therefore upper class. So maybe men aren't so much after signs of fertility as they are after signs of wealth.
I don't know. I think the people who are offended about the Kong stuff are either looking through race-tinted glasses or, like my friends, sticking their heads in the sand about the fact that James' pose was chosen first and foremost because someone believed it would sell the most "hot body" magazines, and so someone thought -- and I believe, rightly so -- that the largely straight female Vogue consumers would be attracted to the image of James as a bulky, aggressive male. Likewise, someone believed those very same consumers would want to look like the supermodel. I think that aspect of things deserves as much (or maybe more) discussion. The racist overtones might be indicative of some hidden agenda or some malicious intent by someone over at the Vogue offices, yes, but the overt message -- the one about body image -- is important, too.
What do you guys think?
Next, refresh your memory by checking out this image.
Are you offended now? Are you offended after reading the articles?
I ask because I had an interesting conversation about this last night. When I saw that cover in the checkout line, I saw a basketball player and a supermodel... in that order. Left to right. You know how it goes. Neither of those really holds any interest for me, so my eyes passed it over and went straight for the soap opera magazine. I rolled my eyes at the Kate/Brenda/Carly comparison, gasped at the notion that yet another character might be dying soon, chalked it up to budget cuts, and checked out my meat and veggies. After checking my hotmail a little later, I saw a rather leading link asking whether or not a Vogue cover should be offensive. I clicked the link. I looked at the cover. I thought, "isn't that what all the covers look like?" I mean, don't we always show muscle-bound, aggressive-looking men and twiggy women? I didn't pick up on the Kong reference. I enjoyed those movies when I was a kid, but what I remember most is the Kong vs. the Dinosaur fight. I watched it again as a film minor and picked up on a lot more of the social messages that are buried and/or reflected there, but I still didn't connect that Kong image to that cover until someone pointed it out.
As long as I'm owning biases and influences, I think it prudent to point out that the person who pointed it out is a bisexual feminist woman from the South. She's sort of hyper aware of anything and everything that might be offensive. Also in attendance were three Cincinnatians: a photographer, an I.T. guy, and myself. The photographer said the image was about creating tension and that it's your basic beauty and the beast setup. The I.T. guy noticed the woman's strangely wavy hair and the lack of windiness on the man and asked if the woman had been Photoshoped in. I was already spoiled, having clicked the aforementioned link, so I held my tongue.
A number of topics came up. Kong came up. Racism came up. We spent the longest on body image, questioning why these two images were placed on the cover of a "hot bodies" issue. "Why are those the ideal body images?" we asked. "Why should a man be bulky and aggressive and a woman be frail and windblown?"
As the only straight woman in the room, I said, "umm... I get it. He looks that way because, well, there's something very primal in your average straight woman that totally responds to the bulky aggressive guy." Let's not kid ourselves here, people. We're Buffy fans. Angel and Spike were popular why? Oh yeah -- because they took off their shirts and killed scary monsters for us while also displaying a bit of the monster in themselves. That's right. We liked it. Didn't hurt that we got to see 'em in action in the sack with the show's dominant female, either. We like aggressive men who show off their muscles. Besides, LeBron James is a basketball player in a dribbling pose, right? Well, aren't sports about connecting with primal urges? Aren't they, at their core, about tribal warfare? Isn't that why local groups take bulky men and put them in game after game that has the same basic point: send two groups crashing into one another and see who makes it to the other side of the field first while locals get their rocks off whoopin' and hollerin' as though they actually have something at stake in the competition? There's something very primal at work here. I'm not sure how to put it into words, but my body totally gets it. The biological imperative is at work, here. It's not refined. It's not pretty. The idea is basically: Ooooh. Look at the big tough man. Mmmm. Me want. My friends didn't pick up on that, but then again, my friends are intellectual types who are eager to be offended and to deny their baser instincts and, oh yeah, not straight women. I, personally, have always been very well attuned to those base instincts of mine, and the straight woman in me says the mag is right: LeBron James' body is hot.
As for the woman... I've got no clue why she's the hot body on display. None of the men would help me out on that one last night. I mean, by the looks of her, that chick weighs about what I weigh and has about a foot on me in height. The biological imperative is not at work there. She's too skinny. She doesn't have much in the way of breasts or hips. The chances are very good that she isn't even ovulating or having periods because her body is in famine mode. Trust me; about ten pounds ago, my petite frame couldn't support that process. I have no idea how hers could now. The only conclusions to which we came were that, possibly, it's about affluence rather than fertility. When Rubenesque women were in, it was because heftier women were better fed women and therefore upper class. Now, skinnier women can afford to eat foods that are well-prepared, more organic, etc., and are therefore upper class. So maybe men aren't so much after signs of fertility as they are after signs of wealth.
I don't know. I think the people who are offended about the Kong stuff are either looking through race-tinted glasses or, like my friends, sticking their heads in the sand about the fact that James' pose was chosen first and foremost because someone believed it would sell the most "hot body" magazines, and so someone thought -- and I believe, rightly so -- that the largely straight female Vogue consumers would be attracted to the image of James as a bulky, aggressive male. Likewise, someone believed those very same consumers would want to look like the supermodel. I think that aspect of things deserves as much (or maybe more) discussion. The racist overtones might be indicative of some hidden agenda or some malicious intent by someone over at the Vogue offices, yes, but the overt message -- the one about body image -- is important, too.
What do you guys think?
L
Lily
I finally got to weigh in on something!
