Not to take away from how godawful most those images are…

But I find myself actually liking that last one, with the girl and the elephant. In context, it’s bad, but if I saw it standing alone I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all.

I think people tend to confusing cutting edge with the opposite of cutting edge.  Also, fear isn’t sexy - WTF?

yeah, but she’s also bordering on gross-skinny

Not only are they misogynist and racist, but the composition of the pics (with the exception of the last) is pretty awful.  It doesn’t even succeed on the art level.

Wow. Those are not what I (or I daresay most men) I would consider pin-ups or glamour photography—both of those terms usually are defined by “kind of sexy and fun.”

“Artistic nudes” might be a good neutral description, if by “artistic” you mean “violent and creepy” and if by “nude” you mean a freshly severed bloody stump or a body being almost drawn and quartered by crazed men.

I’m sure Peter Beard and his sponsor were trying to be “edgy” and get some publicity (mission accomplished there), but I don’t know if it’s a good idea to associate your brand with something that makes non-sadistic and non-racist males queasy. Do they know something about auto company executives that we don’t?

Beauty is a lot of things, sexual and not, and there’s an unpleasant whiff of the euphemism to this phrase “celebrating beauty”.

Amanda you’re being far too kind. Let an old cynic take a crack at it: “celebrating beauty” is the line horny old guys throw out to justify ogling sexual images because they don’t want to be accused of being, well, horny old guys who are ogling sexual images. These aren’t titillating sexual pictures, they’re “art”! That makes it OK!

To all of the horny old guys out there, let me say: there’s nothing inherently wrong with being a horny old guy nor is there anything wrong with ogling sexual images. But don’t try to hide your discomfort with human sexuality by claiming the purpose of these pictures is to “celebrate beauty.” The purpose is to give you a hard on. Celebrate THAT, why don’t you.

I’m so tired of the “sex is icky” crowd. That’s so 30 years ago.

I can’t figger out what you LIEbrals are mewlin about. In the first picture they’re just showing how dangerous the jungle is.  In that second picture,  they’re clearly tryin to help that poor girl, exercising the demons or some such thing that heathens do.  (Why are you DEMONcraps so racist and biased against African cultural practices?).  The third one shows them about to eat a white woman for dinner and the last one is just an example of how Africans normally travel in Africa.

Why don’t you people grow up and read a National Geographic for a change?

This seems to be part of a larger trend in fashion photography showing images of simulated rape and/or dead women as supposedly sexy.

The second one is particularly disturbing to me, maybe because the look on the model’s face of fear or pain seems a little too realistic.

This bit struck a chord with me: Gosh, it’s almost like pornographic imagery gets meaner and more racist the more that people of color and women start to challenge male dominance at the highest levels of power.

There also seems to be this notion that now that most people don’t consider plain, old, vanilla sex particularly dirty or degrading to women, it’s lost its appeal, at least in pornography. So they have to up the ante.

(As Skorri said, there are one or two images that taken on their own wouldn’t be that bad - to me, the elephant one was so ridiculous, I actually laughed - but taken as a whole, as they are meant to be, very disturbing.)

Why did it become “sexy” or “hot” or whatever for women to be bone thin? I have NEVER understood that. It is NOT attractive to me.

Also, these pictures are totally racist. IIRC, didn’t Amanda take a lot of heat for similiar illustrations in her book? I believe that was unintentional, but these are just wrong and Pirelli (damnit, I have their tires on my car) deserve to be called out on it. I actually never knew about this calendar thing, though.

Aw, I was writing when Ms. Kate was posting. Damn!

Oh GAWD (God, A Woman Deity), how obnoxious.

And yes, the “women in peril” theme to some of these pictures is disturbing (especially the second montage), but every woman knows there are a lot of men out there who get their rocks off to such things. It’s not my cup of tea but let’s face it, it’s nothing new, and it’s pretty much a cultural staple these days. I mean good lord, have you seen an episode of “Criminal Minds” lately?

In that second picture, they’re clearly tryin to help that poor girl, exercising the demons or some such thing that heathens do.

Oh you’re right, I clearly see Bobby Jindal in the background of that shot ...

::eyeroll::

it has all these folded-in assumptions that “beauty” can only refer to very young, very thin women, and that older people and men can’t be beautiful.

If these things were making some claim to examine UNIVERSAL beauty, you’d have a leg to stand on.  But “celebrating beauty” could just as easily mean “bog-standard, commercial conceptions of beauty”.

“Beauty” is such an abused term (“the plastic bag…so beautiful”—gimme a break) that it’s almost a void concept.

That said, these particular pix suck.

it has all these folded-in assumptions that “beauty” can only refer to very young, very thin women

Who, inexplicably, have humongous “breasts” of a type only zaftig women could hope to have in nature.  The “Beauty Industrial Complex” sure likes to send mixed signals to today’s woman in an assault on women’s self-esteem.

That being said, the most bizarre industry pin-up calendar comes from Italian coffin manufacturer Cofanifunebri:

http://www.cofanifunebri.com/2008-calendar.htm

I have to confess, I do find this one sexy and fun!

Why did it become “sexy” or “hot” or whatever for women to be bone thin? I have NEVER understood that. It is NOT attractive to me.

A gentle reminder, folks. While it’s fine to criticize unrealistic beauty standards, what is or is not attractive to you, an individual man, is really not the point.

I didn’t like the second panel you showed but the others weren’t so bothersome to me. The use of elephants certainly have to meant to evoke phallic imagery. 

for a lot of men, pornography is about a lot more than just seeing sexual images.  It’s about using sex as a way to demean those that are not them.

If you get responses arguing with you I predict it will come down to what is meant by “a lot of men”.  Just about any kink porn one can think of (probably several I have not thought of) can be found and “a lot” of people will look and enjoy it.  Unless you’re ready to say “most men” it doesn’t have much meaning.  I am a fan of straight porn. On the short clip free sites, it is surprising to me how much “facials”  and anal are featured in straight porn, since neither activity is something I’m interested in doing.  I agree that the “facial” is a dominance fantasy and demeaning event since I can’t imagine what pleasure the recipient could get from it.  Anal is a little less mystifying but in heterosexual penetrative sex the alternatives would seem to be much more appealing to both partners.  I gather from discussions I’ve had with women on other boards that there is a deplorably high expectation among men in the ‘dating” scene these days for anal. which is attributed to the prevalence of it in mainstream porn these days.

Presenting a woman merely as penetratable was supposed to be humiliating, as if merely being a woman is humiliating to women.

Isn’t it?

The second one is especially gross.

What I don’t understand, and am never going to understand, is how something so banal can be touted as exclusive to very important persons, a celebration of beauty, and all the rest when it’s just a series of photographs inferior to most of what I can see two or three clicks away from a site like indienudes, deviantart, or even flickr?  I certainly understand the desire to be elite and elitist, but shouldn’t it have something only the elites should have access to?  If I was making millions for a tire company and they put out a calendar of beautiful women and I was supposed to be honored by it, I’d want at least a hamburger shot of both Olsen twins or a shot of Natalie Portman fingerbanging Christina Ricci.  You know, something you don’t see every day.  Plus, anyone who wants to can buy a coffee table book of Pirelli Calendar images.

/my bad self

@ MiddleAgeLiberal ... I always wonder how much is chicken and how much is egg with stuff like that. I don’t like to blame porn for men’s attitude toward women. On one front, much like drugs, I think the demand shapes the market. On the other hand, marketing obviously affects people’s desires on all sorts of fronts, so I can’t just dismiss it either. Also, all sorts of people are turned on by all sorts of things that don’t say that much about who they are in the rest of their life. And yet ... and around and around I go.

When I was referring above to images of rape or dead women, I was actually thinking more of mainstream but upscale advertising showing images of women that actually appear dead - like half buried in mud with dirt ground into exposed skin or bruise marks. When a dead woman’s body is considered glamorous, I think that’s pretty fucked up, and I don’t think I’m just being a prude.

Wow.  What “beauty” are these images supposed to be celebrating?  Of these four, you can’t even see the women clearly except in the 2nd and the 4th, and in the 2nd image the woman is clearly supposed to be in terrible danger.  She’s no sexy damsel in distress either, she’s being manhandled by a mob.  There’s nothing beautiful in that. 

And the 4th image… well… she looks like she’s about to sneeze.

These pictures elicit thoughts of “force” and “fear”.

Not sexy or titillating at all.  Pretty sick, really.  Especially the second one.

Hmm - Pirelli is HQ’d in Italy, the calendar was started in the UK, but the photographer is American.

Okay, so I’d assume Beard had artistic control - presumably it’s correct to interpret the images in the US racial context.

Speaking as a photographer can I say that first and foremost, the images you’ve posted and the ones posted at the link are complete shit.  They’re not even decent technical photographs.  One might be able to whine that the printer screwed the pooch and the original images were not complete shit, just mediocre but I frankly doubt it.  Even if the scans were crappy I cannot see decent images hiding in there.

So from a pure photographic perspective, there’s no value there.

Looking at them artistically, well, that’s subjective but honestly, shit again.  The composition is average, at best.  The color in the images is dreadful.  If the muddy brown tone to everything was intentional, they’re even more egregiously terrible.  Bad idea.

So what’s left?  The message?  What is the message?  It’s not erotic.  Amanda, I think maybe you were too easy on the photographer and the art director here.

As for the whole porn thing, great topic but perhaps one that is a bit too ambitious to take up here and now.  I tend to agree with you if your point is that American porn has developed some seriously dysfunctional sub-genres but again, that’s a bit topic to be addressed right now in this context.

Oh, and some very good friends of the family were big players in the tire business so I have a little experience mixing in those circles having attended some industry functions.  An entirely male dominated, rather neanderthal mix of men to be quite candid.  There’s no doubt in my mind many of them found this “intriguing”.

And with that said, fashion photography in general is really a nightmare of misogyny and just piss poor taste.  If there’s a more artistically bankrupt class of photographers than fashion photographers (and their art directors) I’m not sure what it is (outside of porn).  But what does anyone expect?  Fashion photography’s sole purpose is to use humans, mostly women, as hangars for clothes, jewelry and shoes.  The models are little more than display accoutrements.  That shows, I think, in the work.

yeah, but she’s also bordering on gross-skinny
 
These images are disgusting enough for the misogyny, racism, and violence.  Let’s not start in on bashing the skinny women.  I’m naturally very skinny and I don’t appreciate being called “gross”, thanks.  Fat women’s bodies are beautiful and so are skinny ones.  Yeah, it’s awful that women are pressured to conform to one body type (that for a lot of people is unattainable/unhealthy), that doesn’t make skinny people “gross”.
And not that it matters, but she’s not an unhealthy weight - she’s just been told to suck in her stomach and hold her breath.

Yikes, those images came through in my RSS feeder at work.  Can you throw a NSFW in the title next time?  I know they were behind the cut, but in the feeder, the whole post comes through.

>>Anal is a little less mystifying but in heterosexual penetrative sex the alternatives would seem to be much more appealing to both partners.

Facials are 100% a gender dominance play. Maybe I’m just too sheltered, but the gay porn I’ve looked at didn’t involve facials at all. Even when a woman is excited by it, it’s usually because she’s turned on by submission play.

Anal is different. It certainly is mostly sought after by young men because of its domination factor. But it’s also pretty enjoyable in itself, if it’s done properly and with care.

*chokes down small barf chunk*
I mean, these are AWFUL. Artistically, intellectually, aesthetically, technically awful. No wonder they have to give these pix away. Who’d pay for this crapola?

“Maybe I’m just too sheltered, but the gay porn I’ve looked at didn’t involve facials at all. “

Yes, you are too sheltered. Trust me.

Can you throw a NSFW in the title next time?  I know they were behind the cut, but in the feeder, the whole post comes through.

What’s funny is that these cleary aren’t safe for work for most of us (though I’m reading at work - I work somewhere we aren’t routinely audited), but clearly the intended audience most likely will put them up at work where everyone can see how special they are. I’m not sure what month that second image goes with, but it’s hard for me to imagine walking into someone’s office for a meeting and seeing that image on the wall. I know it’s tire executives, but yikes.

Hello, What surprises me is that no one commenting knows who Peter Beard is, or has bothered to look up him or his work of the past 50 years. Yes the images are dreadful, but no more demeaning that you’d find in any issue of Vogue. Beard does FASHION photography which could be another word for porn.

OK, those pictures aren’t very good, but as a woman I can’t find anything offensive about them.  It seems a bit of a stretch to call that degrading.  Is a woman scratching her fingers over a man’s back degrading to the man?  I mean, I can be dominated or dominate.  It can be fun either way as long as it’s consensual.  This is juvenile photography, but I wouldn’t think twice about it seeing it in a magazine.  Most beauty magazines are sold to young people, so young people are depicted.  Oprah magazine has an older demographic therfore has lovely pictures of older women.  With all the violence against women in the world, this seems a little reactionary to get upset over this.

Oh, and those women are about my weight.  Taller though, and younger.  I guess if it’s OK to call thin women disgusting, it’s OK for me to call heavy women disgusting too.  Holy hypocrisy!  When people scream body acceptance then disparage the thin, they just sound like jealous bitches.  Way to overcome the ugly feminist stereotype grrls. 

Why don’t us feminists talk more about positive stuff? You go over to the Concerned Women for America website and those nutjobs are always talking about how Spongebob is destroying our youth or other such nonsense.  Can’t we do better?  Where are the inspirational stories?  The ones about women who don’t elevate the beauty industry to the level of relevance many here seem to be.  Seriously?  Who cares?  I’m 35.. way older than Hollywood says is beautiful.  Who cares?  I don’t!  I subscribe to Cosmo, I admit it.  It’s stupid and funny, like watching “The Soup” on television. I subscribe to Bust as well. 

Anyway, sorry to rant.  I admit we had more layoffs at work today and I’m on my first break of the day and heading back into a long night and I’m crabby.  (At least I’m still here.)  But seriously, this just seems like a non-issue.  I can agree to disagree with people, but if this is what feminists become, I’m out of the club and moving to people who spend less time on Spongebob-esque crisis.

Jennifer, you seriously don’t find the image of a mob looking like they’re about to *tear a woman to pieces* offensive?

BBB Bastard:

The cross on the September coffin: what workmanship! Gotta have it!

These pictures….er, not so much. Where are the tires? Heh.

And save the “stop talking about popular culture or I’m taking my toys and going home!” whine for someone else. Popular culture matters. Things like this matter.

I’m pretty sheltered, but I must agree with Vitamin C.  Not sure about relative percentages, but…

I’m also not very knowlegeable about photography, but I can appreciate it when it’s done well, even if the content is disturbing.  This really isn’t done well at all.

Shorter Jennifer: You silly feminists! This stuff hurts no one! I am able to control my destiny! Ha!

With all the violence against women in the world, this seems a little reactionary to get upset over this.

Umm… do you seriously not see anything ironic about that statement?  Do you really think that *actual* violence against women and *sexualized depictions of* violence against women aren’t linked in any way?  It’s all part of a larger culture that uses violence and threats to keep women in their place.  If you care about the former you should be at least a little concerned about the later.

okay then Patrick, so Peter Beard ‘first went to Kenya in August 1955’, and frankly these images don’t express ideas that seem to haven’t moved on much beyond some muzungu big-game & savages colonial bullsh.t.

http://www.peterbeard.com/artist.htm

it seems this beard fellow has been doing cheesy, racist, Africa-fetishist photography for a while…this is alink to his work. Sucksville.

oh dear. ‘seem to haven’t moved’? sorry. ‘seem to have moved’.

OK, those pictures aren’t very good, but as a woman I can’t find anything offensive about them.

I third the query about why you find an image of a screaming woman being carried away by a mob to be completely inoffensive.

OK, those pictures aren’t very good, but as a woman I can’t find anything offensive about them. 

You =/= all women. Sometimes I need to be reminded of that, too.

This is juvenile photography, but I wouldn’t think twice about it seeing it in a magazine…. With all the violence against women in the world, this seems a little reactionary to get upset over this.

This is probably because you, like all of us, have spent your entire life in a culture that degrades and threatens women. You’re bombarded with images like these from movies, porn, comics, advertising, art, whatever. Maybe they seem normal. They’re not. They’re racist, sexist, violent images. They show women being brutalized or treated like exotic trophies. The fact that we have to face images like this, over and over, is one factor in the “othering” of women… just one more thing that makes it easier for us to turn away from the violence against women, one contributing factor in the normalizing of that violence.

Way to overcome the ugly feminist stereotype grrls.

Give. Me. A. Break. 

Why don’t us feminists talk more about positive stuff…I can agree to disagree with people, but if this is what feminists become, I’m out of the club and moving to people who spend less time on Spongebob-esque crisis.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concern_troll

Sorry to go there. You may have meant extremely well with your comment, and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. But you must know that people constantly try to talk feminists out of doing, tahinking or saying… well, anything. Feminists get crap for talking about sex, for not talking about sex, for addressing racist and sexist imagery, for not addressing racist and sexist imagery, for not looking good enough, for looking too good, and just generally for being alive or having a brain that works. I am innately skeptical of anyone who says “cause x isn’t important enough to get worried over,” because that is usually exactly the kind of thing we should be going after. The little things that permeate our lives, wear us down, remind us that resistance is futile. It’s not futile. Sometimes it’s what keeps us alive.

That’s all.

This is a VIP calendar? Wow, what a shitty way to assert their dominance and privilege over people, as if they didn’t already have so much more than anyone else. Firstly, those photographs are not artistic or technically skilled whatsoever. Secondly, they are disturbing and not at all sexy. The standards of masculinity and pornography have become even baser and disgusting. I sincerely hope that someone might protest these.

These photographs only serve one purpose: a reminder to women of color to remain in their place, and not dare to attempt to better their lives or seek new opportunities.

I’m angry, and I can’t understand how anyone couldn’t be terribly offended on behalf of all women because of those pictures.

So are these pics the chapter dividers for your next book?

“yeah, but she’s also bordering on gross-skinny”

Looks pretty normal to me.

My partner is that skinny, and eats more than me (and keeps it down)—and I eat a lot. Way too much.

Not all women are a size 12. Some are a natural size 2. Some are a natural size 16. Get over it.

One can, however, point to the utter lack of diversity and plausibly natural body forms involved here and make a more general statement about misogynist impositions dictating what is beautiful and then moving the goalposts.

Yeah, the thin-shaming is not a good thing. I’m pretty thin myself, technically underweight, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I realize my body type is far from common, but I don’t consider myself gross or unattractive. Whether anyone else does or not is not the point.

Anyhow, these images are very disgusting. And I love the “celebrating beauty” line. Classy. I’ve seen that phrase used to defend offensive pornographic images many times.

HAH! I knew I knew that name - I’m a several-times removed cousin of the photographer. (I thought he was married to a family member.) On his webpage, his description of the ‘loss of Kenya’

When I first went to Kenya in August 1955, I could never have guessed what was going to happen. Kenya’s population was roughly five million, with about 100 tribes scattered throughout the endless “wild—deer—ness” - it was authentic, unspoiled, teeming with big game — so enormous it appeared inexhaustible.

Everyone agreed it was too big to be destroyed. Now Kenya’s population of over 30 million drains the country’s limited and diminishing resources at an amazing rate: surrounding, isolating, and relentlessly pressuring the last pockets of wildlife in denatured Africa.

The beautiful play period has come to an end. Millions of years of evolutionary processes have been destroyed in the blink of an eye.

The Pleistocene is paved over, cannibalism is swallowed up by commercialism, arrows become AK- 47s, colonialism is replaced by the power, the prestige and the corruption of the international aid industry. This is The End Of The Game over and over.

We start with the Noble Savage Africa - full of what? Tribes, and deer, and more deer. And it would never run out, this fount of deer. But now, those sticky icky people are pressuring the only valuable things - the wildlife. “The beautiful play period”??? Who’s play?

And then, after listing the evils of population growth, colonial economics, and global capitalism, who is to bame? The power, prestige and corruption of… international banks? Railroad builders? No - the ‘international aid industry.’ Sheesh.

So - he is coming from a white colonial perspective, and this is who the fancy Italian tire magnates company hires to do the ‘girly calendar’. Makes perfect sense - Mussolini invaded that part of the world, so they had their natural highfalutin’ fascist contacts. As a cousin, I know that branches of our robber-baron family still have super unreconstructed racist attitudes.

And that’s what this reminds me of - the inherent fascism of sectors of the aristocratic and corporate elite. Racism and sexism are par for the course.

i used to be that skinny, except i suffer from BBS (big breast syndrome). i went out of my way to gain 20 lbs on the theory that if i didn’t look like a model anymore people would quit treating me as nothing more than a fuck doll.

i was wrong.

in general i feel sorry for women who look like this. they are told so often that their only measure of worth is their perceived beauty… to the point where they themselves lose all aspects of self-worth. yeah, they’re skinny. yeah, after a certain point being skinny is worisome. in most cases, i bet they are like i was - skinny just because they are skinny (i worked HARD to gain those first 20 lbs. then it was too easy, ya know?)

dear GODS what are they doing to that poor woman in the second picture? i want to know how a picture of what seems to be a lynching is *legal*

It’s a classic example of how everyone is pressured to conform to the lowest common denominator of masculinity.  After all, who’s going to complain about the sexism and racism and allow everyone else to think he’s a pussy?

I’m not sure “lowest common denominator” is quite the right term—more like “most offensive corner of the envelope”—but I think that for at least some of the people involved in distributing these calendars that’s exactly the point. Whenever you hear a certain kind of person talking about “pushing the boundaries” or being “edgy” it means “doing really offensive sh*t and daring ostensible fellow group members to call them on it.” Beard, who must be pretty much fossilized by this point (or archivally preserved like Ansell Adams), the art directors, the marketing managers who hired them: they all think they’re being cool and getting away with something.

And because their target market is a combination of rich jerkwads and rich possibly-non-jerkwads who want to keep a very low profile in such matters, they are.

I think the “boundary” here isn’t of photography; it’s the same boundary that Amanda has been talking about in the posts about upskirting and harassment-in-the-guise-of-flirtation: how far can you go before your peers will actually call you out in public as a perverted rapist-wannabee?

oh, as an aside…
i kinda like the last one, on the elephant. if it were out of context i would think it was worth buying.
by itself, what is wrong with that last one? or is it just the context?

Yay!  I got anti-feminist Bingo!  Thanks, Jennifer!

the degradation of women that seems increasingly mandatory in popular porn and fashion layouts

Is it really increasing, or is it just that when we look at earlier images we don’t feel them to be as offensive as contemporaries would have?

We start with the Noble Savage Africa - full of what? Tribes, and deer, and more deer. And it would never run out, this fount of deer. But now, those sticky icky people are pressuring the only valuable things - the wildlife. “The beautiful play period”??? Who’s play?

I guess BHO Sr. witnessing an assassination and possibly being assassinated himself via a car wreck was all in fun and games, eh?

I actually like the last one, but the others…well, I see neither art nor beauty; just a couple of degrading, grainy, low-quality images that make it clear why the calender is given away rather than sold.

It appears Peter Beard’s major claim to fame was banging Dinesen. He was born in New York, raised in Alabama, and educated at Yale. Then he took off to darkest Africa to live out colonial fantasies.

Whatever he is, he’s an unreconstructed one of those.

And his photos suck.

Hello, What surprises me is that no one commenting knows who Peter Beard is, or has bothered to look up him or his work of the past 50 years

I know who Peter Beard is. He was married to Cheryl Tiegs. Yes, he’s a famous fashion photographer and yes, he’s long been criticized for the misogyny in his images.

The fashion world is a strange beast. It uses demeaning images of women to sell fashions to ... women. Go figure.

(I mean hello, remember “heroin chic”??)

SB- I thought “heroin chic” was a label they came up with to explain Vincent Gallo’s bizarre career in modeling.

I shake my head at this sort of stuff, but I think I understand it. There is a definite generation gap in my office; people brought up post-Sesame Street and then aging Baby Boomers, with more than a few of them being high-achieving, recovering-type-A-personalities, and others being unreconstructed travelling salesmen still living the Mile High Club, 3-martini-lunch dreams of their fathers.

I’m not going to make any sort of apology for what men like this think and do, but they did grow up in an era of not just unquestioned white-male-supremacy, but of the celebration of male virility in corner offices, if not the rockist fantasy of tight-leather-trousered Zeppelinesque arena godhood. They think nothing of cracking jokes in “funny” Asian accents, openly discussing their next rub-n-tug appointments, among other things…

If anything, it boils down to the fact that the world changed and they didn’t. They’re increasingly feeling irrelevant, going through man-o-pause with its spikes and valleys of testosterone, grimly noting how they have more days behind them than before them, trying to navigate a world that respects Googlerank more than their ability to gladhand at conventions.

What stuff like this offers them is a salve to their (massive) insecurity. It’s the old John Berger thing about the male gaze, I guess. (or just ‘the viewer’s gaze’, i suppose now?)

Mainstream porn is getting edgier and edgier because the stuff that used to never be shown or discussed on TV is routinely part of police procedurals and HBO ‘gritty, realistic’ series. Male-directed porn was always about the power of looking, but when you can see nudity almost anywhere, it becomes about seeing what other people say you *shouldn’t* see; about breaking the rules.

The thrill of sneaking a peek at nude photos in an art book in the library, or buying porn as a young adult (pre-Internet) was not just about the porn per se, it was about the quasi-illicitness of it…so there’s the ‘you shouldn’t be watching this’ factor, on top of the inherent power-of-looking factor.

As for the edgy content of mainstream porn… I think if everyone was perfectly happy and satisfied and not feeling powerless about some aspect of their life, we wouldn’t need it. But I think we live in increasingly stressful times, and people operate without perfect knowledge, insight, or instruction to navigate beyond adolescent power fantasy. I.e. it wouldn’t sell if there wasn’t a market for it…but then yeah, there’s the chicken-and-egg problem someone outlined above.

In general terms—what’s the best response to something like this? Anger? Laughter? Ridicule? How do you get these old school Mad Men types to see what you find offensive about it, without somehow shutting down the discussion? It’s very easy in internet circles to point to something and fulminate, but I know that pointing at someone who already feels that their masculinity is ‘threatened’ (rightly or wrongly) can cause them to shut down the avenue of communication. How to channel what is ‘sexy’ and what is ‘sexist’? (cue Spinal Tap references).

How much do you have to pay someone to get naked and lie on top of an elephant? Assuming for the sake of argument that anyone would want to see me with no clothes on, I’d want a LOT of money.

What’s kind of scary is - if this is what made the calendar, imagine what is on the cutting room floor!  (Dark room floor?)

I would pose for the calendar if the elephant was the one doing my picture.

The second picture, the one with the beautiful black woman being pulled by her arms and legs, reminds me of a picture I once saw of an African woman held spread eagle, also with her mouth open (screaming) just before one man cut her with what appeared to be a small razor (FGM)...

Hello, What surprises me is that no one commenting knows who Peter Beard is, or has bothered to look up him or his work of the past 50 years.

I seriously don’t know why I should care who this guy is. Most of those pictures blow goats. Seriously. WTF is up with that grainy “out of darkest Africa” shit? Is that his claim to fame? And if it is, why the hell would anyone buy that steaming pile of shit?

I’ve seen better camera-work in some of the horror-sexploitation stuff produced 30 years ago.

And the greased up savage being tamed by the pale mob - yeah, that’s not even the slightest bit offensive. Everyone should be all, like, “OMG! I wanna have Beard’s children because he’s got such an eye for African culture.”

/Rant over

Mea culpa. I was about to roll in here and defend the calendar, but my impression was that it was the kind of pin-up art that you led with above the fold, not the images in the clickthrough.

Which are indefensible. Bleh.

For me, the Asian exoticism spread just highlights by sheer contrast how blatantly, relentlessly racist the “African” spread is. Every woman in the Asian spread is clothed. Sure, they fell back on that horrid “inscrutable” blank stare, but they are looking right at the viewer and are not being acted on violently. There is attention paid to the makeup, the clothing itself isn’t slapdash. It’s acceptable as a themed fashion spread. There’s opportunity to find beauty in the images, somehow. 

The thing is, I get the feeling the only reason the Asian exoticism spread had such lack of overt violence and fear is because even racists against Asians acknowledge that Asia counts as civilized. Not that they’d bother to tell the difference between different cultures, but it must be admitted that there is civilization there and influence on an international level. Imperialistic fantasy becomes Madame Butterfly, not this… naked, running around, screaming. With campfires. To show how primitive Africa is.

Ugh. And the woman in the second picture who looks like she’s about to be pulled apart? WTF is that. WTF!?

Oh get a life. No one is acting “violently” on the black model. They are other models holding her arms while she makes faces. If you look at the image carefully, you can see that they are actually restraining her quite delicately, or performing restraint. It’s a fucking photo-shoot. Reminds me of Amanda’s book when it first came out. I am sure these people who make the calendar are not unlike the Seal Book design department: they could use a training session on race and gender or perhaps ideological diversity, but get a life people. Seriously!

Don’t you have better things to stigmatize than some calender that no one wants to give you to hang in your bathroom, anyhow?

This is awful, a calendar with naked women.

I’m really broken up about this. It’s not right.

Echoing the objections to the thin-shaming.

Also, these pictures are shit.

One of the pictures of violent imagery reminded me a little of Eyes of Laura Mars, a movie I hadn’t thought of in decades. In the film she shot pictures of sadomasochistic violence. They weren’t racist IIRC, but I got some of the same vibe of those shots in a couple of these.

I can’t figger out what you LIEbrals are mewlin about. In the first picture they’re just showing how dangerous the jungle is.

You don’t know the half of it.  If you look really closely, RiM, you’ll notice the elephant is actually being chased by rabid pelicans.

(/parody troll indulgence)

When I worked in the auto repair trade, cheesecake calenders were probably the most common sort of freebie offerred by all the various suppliers- whether parts or tires or tools, they all had their own calenders.  A few would get hung up in the shop, a handful would be given to any employees who wanted one, the rest went in the trash.

I can certainly understand a company wanting to continue a tradition of giving out sexy calenders- it’s practically expected from everyone in the industry.  I can also understand wanting to put out something of genuine artistic merit rather than the same old thing- every calender is nothing but a series of boring portraits of nude/semi-nude/swimsuit models, each with a hugely phony smile, holding the box of brake pads, the air ratchet, or the torque wrench like it’s the coolest sex toy she’s ever seen.  Something that’s interesting to look at besides being just another cheesecake photo would be nice.

But seriously- this is just awful.

Oh get a life. No one is acting “violently” on the black model. They are other models holding her arms while she makes faces.

Are you for serious?  I totally thought they killed that chick!  Next thing you’ll tell me is that they don’t actually have blondes with seriously crimped hair, leopard skin minidresses, and ruby red lipstick sitting around at random campfires in Darkest Africa!

“Are you for serious?  I totally thought they killed that chick!  Next thing you’ll tell me is that they don’t actually have blondes with seriously crimped hair, leopard skin minidresses, and ruby red lipstick sitting around at random campfires in Darkest Africa! “

You need your head examined. Oh horrors: lipstick and crimped hair! Black chicks on elephants! Some bonfire out in the backwoods of your local zoo! How much more fucking offensive can they be? Oh boo hoo hoo… I forgot to google the porn channel today and see what they have to offer by comparison.

And Africa should be so lucky to appear so glamorous in a photo-shoot! When’s the last time you saw hot chicks representing that continent?

Foucalt, how can you look at that second image and see anything delicate about it?  Top Left: woman is screaming and angry.  White woman and man holding her are also screaming (though it’s hard to say what the man is doing- about to cry, maybe?).  Top Right and Bottom Left: woman is clearly scared shitless, wide-eyed with panic.  Man’s expression in top right is grim.  Bottom Right: woman is resigned, maybe about to pass out. 

As a denouement to the series, the very bottom right has a smaller image of the woman’s face in close up.  She’s screaming again, but there’s no anger this time.  Just fear and pain.  And what is the red tint of that one representing, huh?

Seriously, if this series makes you think of good clean fun, and the treatment of the woman seems non-violent, even delicate, remind me to never attend a party at your house.

oh foucalt, you’re back and being stupid. how shocking.

not even wasting time on your idiotic, meathead comments about what a waste of time this is (so wasteful that you HAD to come waste your own time bitching about it.)

but uh…“And Africa should be so lucky to appear so glamorous in a photo-shoot! When’s the last time you saw hot chicks representing that continent? “

really? http://beautyfashionlife.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/iman-cosmetics-400a121307.jpg

The black woman being “tortured” is the same model as the one on the elephant. Same flowing nicely shampooed hair and pendulous breasts. The white woman and brown man “tormenting” her in the second image look pretty creepy, but I am sure that all three of these ass-hats made good money doing this shoot. Notice the white woman’s careful handling of the skirt of whatever thong-thing that she is trying to remove. She is not tearing but just has her hand flat on the woman’s clothing item.

Your “denouement” shot resembles a faint smile to me. Sort of like, “Hey you silly auto mechanic viewing this image and taking it seriously, I hope you eat shit and die.”

I don’t have parties at my house on a regular basis, but if I did I would want some folks with a sense of humor (or at least some recognition that things are not always what they seem to be), and you are not it.

Tina Fey’s story of having her cheek cut by some random psycho should terrify you a lot more than this shit.

“Are you for serious?  I totally thought they killed that chick!  Next thing you’ll tell me is that they don’t actually have blondes with seriously crimped hair, leopard skin minidresses, and ruby red lipstick sitting around at random campfires in Darkest Africa! “

You need your head examined. Oh horrors: lipstick and crimped hair! Black chicks on elephants!
*****************

oh also, foucalt, you should stock up on batteries for your sarcasm detector. keep on failing, bb, you crazy diamond.

i want to know how a picture of what seems to be a lynching is *legal*

It looks more like gang rape to me, even though there’s a woman participating in it.  It’s not like women have never enabled or even participated in gang rape before.

Here’s my sexy Africa news story:

http://voanews.com/english/2008-12-01-voa64.cfm

Pretty attractive, right?

“It looks more like gang rape to me, even though there’s a woman participating in it.  It’s not like women have never enabled or even participated in gang rape before. “

Yeah, and if you look really closely, you will see the Duke lacrosse team hiding in the background!

Amanda, I think, that is I’m not sure but I think I disagree with you on your definition of porn.  Yes, some divisions are difficult to draw but they are important.  That’s really academic though.  The problem I think I’m having with your definition is that by that definition a significant amount of material would be classed as porn that was not intended to be and probably shouldn’t be.  If you want to talk about the way we use sex to sell nearly everything I’m game but calling anything that stimulates porn is, well, awfully broad.  I get your point about making porn acceptable.  I’m mostly all for that (I’m not a big fan of making unacceptable porn acceptable but that’s yet another discussion).

I do agree with you on degradation.  There’s no place for in a healthy, sex positive bit of porn.

I think AJ raised some interesting comments even if I don’t agree with all them.  I don’t think it’s just the maintream media using sex more and more, it’s the general acceptability of porn made possible by the VCR (and then the DVD and the net).  Yes, Americans are still basically hypocrites but what’s changed slightly is that it’s more widely acknowledged now that porn, in some form or another, is ok.  The other thing that pushed the boundaries of porn is being able to view porn at home (or in other private or semi-private venues, ymmv), the key here being viewing anonymously.  When the only way to see “slammin’ granny in fanny” was to venture out into public and see it at a theater or in an adult bookstore.  Now, you can download, buy it online or have it mail ordered, watch it ten times a day and no one will know.  Being able to consume almost any kind of anonymously is really what has pushed open the doors to all kinds of porn, bad and good.

Anytime you want to tear this up in detail, I’d love to participate.  For now, I feel as though I’ve hijacked enough of this thread. Thanks.

So.  Is Foucault posting drunk and angry, or is s/he always like this?

I’d say drunk and angry, considering s/he missed the caption talking about the “children” in hir link to the “sexy” picture.

Though I’d like to point out that there are totally no sexy women in Africa. Nope, none at all.

Uh, that should be “traditionally sexy.” I proofread the html and mess up the actual sentence.

Foucault only posts when she’s drunk and angry, so it’s not like this is anything new.

Bored now.

What surprises me is that no one commenting knows who Peter Beard is, or has bothered to look up him or his work of the past 50 years.

Assume much?  I spent several years doing photography as a major hobby (debated trying to make it a career and decided I didn’t want to ruin my passion) and came across Beard’s monographs when I worked at Big Book Chain Store.  I was not impressed then and I am less impressed now.

And who the fuck cares if Beard is a big name photographer or a no-name photographer?  It doesn’t change the fact that these pictures are violent, racist, and misogynist (Foucault’s blathering notwithstanding) pieces of shit.  Sorry, but I don’t give free passes on this, especially not to photographers who demonstrate a clearly racist mindset with their tales of white men coming face-to-face with their souls in the “Noble Dark Continent” which has now been destroyed by the evil Marxists and Western liberals (rather than colonialists). Meh. He can go fuck himself.

I handled the girlie calendar thing pretty well, back in a magazine office in the ‘70s.

Geezers from the car and sports books, put up their Pirelli (and otherwise) girlie calendars chortling, ‘cause they had a live girl in the office to offend (me.)

The next day I brought in a Playgirl centerfold of a naked guy splayed out, and tacked it above my desk.

Geezers were dumbfounded, flummoxed, you name the consternation they had it.

And tried to shame me out of my backlash, with an outmoded line (that might have worked on women from the ‘50s, maybe), “Judy, I didn’t know you were that kind of girl!”

“Herb,” I replied, “I didn’t know you were that kind of boy.”

Finally, the Publisher while taking a visitor on a tour of the office, pointed out the guys’ calendars, “They put up theirs, and she put up hers. And now they’re going to take them all down.”

(For some reason there was also a bad copy oil painting of “The Rape of Europa” was on the wall, but it was so dark and allegorical, and a bit damaged, that I didn’t bother to point that out.)

The Playgirl centerfold also came in handy while working on a women’s magazine, in a skyscraper where the office window put us in a fishbowl, to be relentlessly stared at by the guys in the window across the way.

Finally, I pasted a Playgirl centerfold across one of the windows, and that forced the Peeping Toms across the way into putting down their blinds.

Does Playgirl even exist anymore? If not, I’d recommend one of those hunky gay calendars of naked firemen or whatever, if you’re in a similar situation.

Finally, I pasted a Playgirl centerfold across one of the windows, and that forced the Peeping Toms across the way into putting down their blinds.

Does Playgirl even exist anymore? If not, I’d recommend one of those hunky gay calendars of naked firemen or whatever, if you’re in a similar situation.

Would that *work* these days, or would they just rate the model for the, um, cut of his jib?

I’m determined not to feed the troll.  So I’ll talk about a funny calendar I found at the grocery store today.  It was “Porn for Women” and it featured scantily clad men cleaning house, cooking, or lounging around on a fur rug.  I’m debating whether to buy it as a gag Christmas gift for someone else or to just buy it for myself.

Actually they’re not scantily clad, but here’s a link.

I’m mainly a lurker and I’ve only posted once before, but I just have to say this. Judy, you ROCK and I love you. :D

Either this corporation sees their clients in an extremely poor light and/or their clients are actually enjoy this rubbish.  In addition to the previous comments, the way this seemed to be arranged is a cringingly bad attempt at a porn parody of White colonialist tourist pics. 

exercising the demons

Obviously, all the efforts of your fellow political/religious compatriots have not prevented the demons from overindulging in Halloween candy and Thanksgiving meals.  Instead of driving them away, you may want to suggest that your local church/denomination consider buying gym memberships for all those candy and turkey and trimmings laden demons….especially with the culinary temptations of the next few weeks…....

Faced with this, the only thing I can do is cook up a nice little fantasy scenario where a black female auto industry leader (with a gender- and race- nonspecific name, to explain how she stayed on the mailing list) receives this special little item in the mail and promptly cancels her company’s multi-million dollar account with Pirelli.  And makes sure they know exactly why. 

...and as long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a pony.

Considering the mass outbreaks of rape-as-weapon-of-war that have been happening on the African continent (and throughout the world), you’d think the editors of this calendar would have had some qualms about this series of photographs, especially the one that to my eyes is clearly depicting a rape in progress.

But no, of course not.  Why would the editors think of that, when there are women-hating jollies to be had?

Sickening.

I am sorry for going off-thread but I think I may have found the ULTIMATE Nice Guy site:

http://wwnh.wordpress.com/about/

  It’s called “What Women Never Hear:  A politically incorrect blog about women and their relationships.”  The picture at the top is an illustration of a woman with a look of consternation on her face and a thought bubble stating, “Oh, no! What have I done?”  It purports to be a man’s “advice” (his moniker is “A Guy Maligned”) to women about how to get men to like and respect them more, and of course, it is all about being a sexual gatekeeper, playing hard to get, manipulating men by making them feel important, blah, blah, blah.  What I love about this guy is that he doesn’t even try to hide that his “advice” is all about protecting the poor little male ego (and threatening women with violence if they don’t hop to).  See e.g.:

When Girlhood rules itself with virtue and abstinence, boys turned down don’t take it personal. “She’s all hung up”. When Girlhood provides sex easily, boys turned down take it personal. He must be lacking, since she yields to other boys. He’s indirectly told that he’s insignificant or worse. His self-esteem takes a temporary hit, but self-image takes a permanent hit: He can’t compete with other guys. Forced to face his shortcomings so dramatically causes bitterness and self-hatred that too easily leads to violence later if not sooner.

I left a couple of comments (still awaiting moderation), though I am not sure why I bothered.

Laurie:

controversial1
Fantastic blog! I applaud you for presenting your thoughts in such a professional manner. My ex-wife would tear you to pieces just for your honesty. Although presented in a more random fashion, my blog is similar to yours and she (my-ex) was the primary catalyst for writing it.

But really, it’s nothing against women… just some very honest, honest guys who <strike>hate bitches</strike> want to open up deeper conversation.

I can’t help it if you people get upset over something that is meant to be controversial and provocative. No one publishes this sort of calendar except to get a rise out of people. And you’re right that there are no sexy women in Africa because they all have AIDS!

” But whatever it says about any individual men, it certainly says something about our cultural construction of masculinity, doesn’t it?  About how “real” men are inherently cruel, dismissive of women, and racist?
My experience is that most men struggle in some way between the pressure to be “masculine” as defined by our culture and the desire to be human, with all attendant empathy.  Some men choose to delight in the worst excesses of masculinity, and some reject them all and a few even stand up to other men exerting sexist pressure to perform a dehumanizing form of masculinity.
“

No rascim is good, not even racism against white people.
No sexual descrimination is good, not even sexual descrimination against men.

“When Girlhood provides sex easily, boys turned down take it personal. He must be lacking, since she yields to other boys. He’s indirectly told that he’s insignificant or worse. His self-esteem takes a temporary hit, but self-image takes a permanent hit: He can’t compete with other guys.”

Um… Duh.

“Why did it become “sexy” or “hot” or whatever for women to be bone thin? I have NEVER understood that. It is NOT attractive to me. “

It is not attractive to most men. I am afraid fashion magazines and female readers bear most of the blame for that one.

When Girlhood provides sex easily, boys turned down take it personal.

Well, yeah. There are people I’d like to have sex with and people I don’t want to have sex with. And most of it comes down to personal qualities of the people involved. I didn’t realize that everyone was supposed to want to have sex with everyone else. Sorry.

So chingona, don’t you demand that the people you want to have sex with refuse to have sex with anyone who isn’t you, so you can feel better about yourself? Or do you not think it’s the world’s job to coddle your self-esteem so you don’t turn violent?

These guys are a step below Nice Guys, I think. At least Nice Guys think women should have sex with them because they’re “nice.” These guys know women will never have sex with them no matter what, so they’ve moved on to demanding that no one else get any because they’re never going to. Christ on a stick. Even at my most self-pitying, self-absorbed jackass phase of life, I was never quite that far up my own ass.

When Girlhood provides sex easily, boys turned down take it personal.

Yet another reason I can never take guys like that seriously. Hell I didn’t get all the girls I wanted as a youth. Neither did most girls get everone/everything they wanted. We fuckin’ grew up and found something else to be into. But these losers seem like they’re still mentally caught back in High School, still angry about petty-ass slights that happen to everyone.

“Hell I didn’t get all the girls I wanted as a youth. Neither did most girls get everone/everything they wanted. We fuckin’ grew up and found something else to be into. But these losers seem like they’re still mentally caught back in High School, still angry about petty-ass slights that happen to everyone.”

I think you are actually the losers who are mentally caught up in thinking that your concerns about race and gender are shared by the customers of Pirellis. They are probably reading this blog and peeing their pants about the crazy ranting here. Oh, the rape of fashion models in deepest darkest Africa!

Why don’t you rant about how African men should learn to use condoms and circumsize?

I think you are actually the losers who are mentally caught up in thinking that your concerns about race and gender are shared by the customers of Pirellis. They are probably reading this blog and peeing their pants about the crazy ranting here. Oh, the rape of fashion models in deepest darkest Africa!

I wasn’t talking about the Pirelli calendar anymore. Though I will say that the pictures aren’t even good sadomasochistic porn. They’re just crap.

As far as the rape of fashion models… what are you even talking about?

I agree that the photos are crap. I was referring to the crazy people earlier in the thread who can’t tell the difference between representation and reality: there were numerous readers who actually thought that these images are documentation of a black woman being “gang raped” or tortured by white people. The intelligentsia among us came out big for this article!

I was stunned that people would waste their time on something like this when there are way more pressing issues facing women and people of color (especially female people of color) than this junk. Yesterday was World AIDS Day, for example. I think people might divert their energy to that cause rather than whining about a calendar for United Auto Workers.

Speaking of Pirelli calendars, I’m personally partial to Hans Feurer’s (very NSFW), 1974, which I think has actual artistic merit and appreciation of beauty, although I can’t help but wonder how old the models really were (too many fashion photographers from the seventies give me serious “Humbert Humbert” vibes). I can hardly believe this heap of desaturated hateful crap and the 1974-1990 run are from the same publication.

The “African” theme isn’t new, either, but compare this shit with Terence Donovan’s calendar (1987). Do we have to take it to mean just standing there being beautiful is not good enough anymore? “beauty” cannot be “appreciated” unless it’s being molested, or juxtaposed to death and decay? and elephants, leopard prints, dancing around fires? seriously? what century is this again? All that’s missing is the rifle-toting victory pose over a pile of animal skulls

When did our culture become so violent and reactionary?

And you’re right that there are no sexy women in Africa because they all have AIDS!

So banned.

there were numerous readers who actually thought that these images are documentation of a black woman being “gang raped” or tortured by white people.

No, I think they were objecting to the portrayal of the woman in those pictures. I don’t think the Pandagon readers thought that Beard had actually picked up a woman in Africa and gang raped her and took pictures. They were objecting to the portrayal. The commenters on this site aren’t stupid.

And, yeah, it makes sense to talk about the calendar, because it’s widely distributed. As Amanda said, it’s a form of mainstream porn.

Whatever. You’re just trying to get a reaction, or something.

“Jennifer, you seriously don’t find the image of a mob looking like they’re about to *tear a woman to pieces* offensive? “

Ummm ... I don’t see it.  My first impression was actually that this was a rather poorly done reenactment of a tribal ritual.  The second woman involved has both hands placed flat on the first woman’s abdomen - perhaps an attempt to drive out a “demon of infertility”?  The man in the picture is holding her arms, but if you look at his hands, he is *not* holding her tight enough to injure her (note the lack of indentation in the flesh under his fingers).  His expression also is not one of pleasure, but more focused - like that of someone performing a complicated task. 

Yes, the restrained woman appears to be screaming (or shouting), but so is the second woman.  The men are not, and I am assuming that there would be some men shouting encouragements if this was meant to actually harm the restrained woman.  This is to be expected during certain rituals, especially one of exorcism.

It’s cheesy, and overdone, and plays to too many white fantasies of “deepest, darkest Africa,” but I don’t see the violence being described above.  I think that if these pictures were meant to depict violence against this woman, there would be *no* second woman in the picture, the restrained woman would be tied down to something rather than merely restrained by hands, and the men involved would be engaged in activities such as caning her/threatening with weapons/abusing her breasts/groin.

Eh, blame it on too many National Geographic specials ...

Blech! Pirelli calendar = FAIL.

I agree that the photos are crap. I was referring to the crazy people earlier in the thread who can’t tell the difference between representation and reality: there were numerous readers who actually thought that these images are documentation of a black woman being “gang raped” or tortured by white people.

Oh, so glorification of rape is good, but actual rape isn’t.  Okay.

“Sure, Mhorag.  If you’re completely unable to read a deliberately staged look of terror on someone’s face.  Which is entirely possible, if you’re 100% completely disinterested in her face. “

I looked at her face.  I was well aware that it was staged.  I know that she was deliberately producing the expression of terror.  That doesn’t mean it was because they were staging a gang-rape or other violence against her.  Again, I felt it was a cheesy, overdone, “white man’s burden”, “Heart of Darkness” reenactment fantasy of what tribal rituals are like in “deepest, darkest Africa”.  Tacky?  Yes.  Racist?  Absolutely.  Misogynistic?  Possibly - there’s not enough information in the pictures to make a 100% call on that. 

BTW, the people involved in rituals of this sort almost always produce facial expressions of terror, anger, and other strong, often violent, emotions, and frequently shout and/or scream.  That’s the point - it shows the “evil spirit” in question is being driven out.

So I have a different explanation for what’s possibly happening in *one* serious of pictures.  Now I’m an evil misogynistic bitch who’s too stupid to recognize violence against women?

Jumpin’ Jeebus ...

Mhorag… nobody said anything of the sort.

Auguste: THANK YOU.

Jennifer, you seriously don’t find the image of a mob looking like they’re about to *tear a woman to pieces* offensive?

It’s not a mob tearing a woman to pieces, it’s some sort of tribal ritual, and yes, it’s bad art.  But offensive?  Really? 

Oh, and Amanda, I AM a woman.  So now if I disagree with you I’m not really a woman?  If I don’t feel constantly oppressed by the evil male patriarchy lurking around every corner, if I like wearing heels and lipstick sometimes, I’m not really a woman?  I’m also a feminist, a liberal, and a former supporter of yours.

They do all have AIDS in Africa, and here, too. It’s disgusting.

Jennifer.  Protesting too much.  Textbook case.

““Sure, Mhorag.  If you’re completely unable to read a deliberately staged look of terror on someone’s face.”

I think this could translate as “too stupid to recognize violence against women.”

“Which is entirely possible, if you’re 100% completely disinterested in her face. “

Perhaps I overstepped on the hyperbole, but an “evil, misogynistic bitch” would certainly be “100% completely disinterested in her face,” don’t you think?

If the same pictures had been staged with the people dressed in Western-style clothing, with the action taking place in an urban setting, there would be *no question* that what was happening was a gang-rape or other violence - because there is no other explanation in an industrialized culture.  That is simply not the case in tribal culture.  There are *other reasons* why such a situation might be occurring, and the main purpose would *not* be violence against the woman. 

That’s all I’m saying.

Mhorag, my problem with what you are saying is that there isn’t evidence that it’s in a “tribal” situation. Unlike the following picture where the men are holding tribal implements and dressed in loincloths, this picture has the men dressed in pretty sharp kahkis with leather belts. We can’t see the other woman’s clothing, but you can’t assume that it’s not just as modern. You’re slipping into some dangerous territory if you assume that all of Africa is primitive and tribal when the evidence is contrary to that.

Now i’m not saying that there aren’t broad swaths that are likely both modernized in clothing and tribal in political make-up, but we don’t have any proof of political/social makeup here so falling back on ‘tribal’ seems more than a little over the top when there is no evidence (positive or negative) evident.

Mhorag:

The pictures were taken by a western photographer for a western audience, the former with a history of fetishizing Darkest Africa, the latter with a history of handing out girlie calendars as a sign of elite status.  I don’t see much reason to give them benefit of the doubt.

That is simply not the case in tribal culture.  There are *other reasons* why such a situation might be occurring, and the main purpose would *not* be violence against the woman.

Such as?

I can’t help it if you people get upset over something that is meant to be controversial and provocative.

**** CONTROVERSIAL! PROVOCATIVE! ****

It’s crap.

Artists who deflect criticism of their work by claiming people hate it just because it’s controversial are the same folks that produce crap.

Gullible people buy into it because they’ve been told “four poorly-lit frames of a naked chick being grabbed and manhandled” is at the cutting edge of photography. 

The second shoot isn’t CONTROVERSIAL or PROVOCATIVE. It’s poorly-executed and deliberately offensive - not thought-provoking, mind you, but just plain offensive.

Beard is to photography what ‘Jackass: The Movie’ is to cinema.

kodiak:  It’s possible to assume a more “tribal” situation (regardless of the modernity of the dress) because there is no indication of an urban setting in the background (i.e., buildings, pavement, garbage cans, etc.).  Also, while the men are indeed wearing khakis and leather belts, they are also bare-chested and wearing headgear that is more suggestive of tribal status than (for example) the “do-rag” of gang members.  Anyway, I’m suggesting that this is a possibility because I’m allowing for a culture that is *not my own* - that maybe they do things that I do not understand or find repugnant because those things aren’t part of *my* culture.  As I stated previously, if these pictures were set someplace like New York or LA or New Orleans or East Dogsbreath, Kansas, there would be no question that it was portraying a gang-rape or other violence against the woman.  There *is* no other explanation for that type of behavior in my culture.  There *might* a different explanation for the situation in the pictures for *that culture* which is considered perfectly normal by that culture.  That’s all I’m saying.

Seraph:  In my original post, I suggested that perhaps the pictures were badly done reenactments of a tribal ritual such as an exorcism, as imagined by white privilege.

It’s cheesy, and overdone, and plays to too many white fantasies of “deepest, darkest Africa”.

Whose fantasies are those, besides up-to-1940s-era Hollywood’s? Are they any more reality-based than the fantasies about the women?

Calling the two non-elephant images an “homage” to the old-Hollywood style “Africa”, or “edgy” or “retro”, doesn’t work in my book.

(PS I haven’t said anything on the depictions of the women but I have nothing to add to upthread folks.)

In my original post, I suggested that perhaps the pictures were badly done reenactments of a tribal ritual such as an exorcism, as imagined by white privilege.

Given the photographer’s “Darkest Africa” attitudes, it’s entirely possible that you’re right.  But here’s what your missing: it doesn’t matter. 

Let’s strip away all interpretations.  What are we left with?  What is the picture in itself?  A naked, attractive woman is being restrained by a group of people.  She looks frightened or angry, as do they.  It looks very much like a gang rape or some other type of attack, though I’m sure that the creators of the calendar would say that was not their intention, if you ever got the chance to ask them. 

Could it be an exorcism or some other tribal ceremony that isn’t intended to bring harm to its subject?  It very well could be.  However, it’s clearly a very violent experience for all concerned, and that violence is thoroughly sexualized by a) choosing a hawt naked woman as the subject and b) its inclusion in a whole calendar filled with a similarly disturbing combination of sex, violence, and imperialist images of Darkest Africa. 

That last is the real point.  This isn’t a National Geographic shoot.  It’s a calendar full of pictures of naked women that Pirelli distributes to those it considers to be VIP’s (bad enough in itself).  A western photographer working for a western audience (so let’s have no more talk about cultural relativity, especially when the setting for the pictures is a parody of Africa at best) arranged models to create a particular effect and then took pictures - and he decided that the models would be sexier and/or more appealing to his audience if the models looked frightened and threatened in addition to being naked.

The “point”, Seraph, is that it *is* a parody of Africa, as viewed through the lens of the “Great White Hunter” fantasy - right down to the white “jungle queen.”  The women *have* to be threatened so the virile “hero” can rescue her and she’ll fuck him blue in gratitude.

Nice Guy(tm) syndrome, in spades.

Seriously, don’t know if someone mentioned this before, but can you please put a “NSFW” warning on these posts? I don’t want to have to consign Pandagon to “nights and weekends” only, but nude breasts at work are GOING to get me fired.

“Finally, I pasted a Playgirl centerfold across one of the windows, and that forced the Peeping Toms across the way into putting down their blinds.

Does Playgirl even exist anymore? If not, I’d recommend one of those hunky gay calendars of naked firemen or whatever, if you’re in a similar situation. “

““Would that *work* these days, or would they just rate the model for the, um, cut of his jib? “

I can’t believe that heterosexual men have changed that much in only 40 years—even if some did put on an act in the beginning.

The point was they were viscereally threatened, and made uncomfortable by a naked (therefore vulnerable) photo of one of their own gender in their workplace.

Which would seem to be human nature, no matter how and which way women are shamed in the 21st century if they react negatively to porn of even torture status.

Keep the naked men calendars up (or keep putting ‘em up) and I can

For all you whiners who are so sad that you can’t obtain the calendar as a customer, there are many on Amazon.com

Just add one to your wish list and you’re set to masturbate to Queen Latifah all year long.

“I know that she was deliberately producing the expression of terror.  That doesn’t mean it was because they were staging a gang-rape or other violence against her. “

Right, just because she had the look of terror on her face didn’t mean something violent or horrific was going to happen to her….maybe they were going to give her a basket full of bunnies.

It’s even more offensive when you see the whole calendar. 

There are dead animals being eaten, right after a picture of a sexy dead woman about to be buried.  There are women with insects on it, and swimming in muck.  There are women simulating sex with each other (that goes without saying). 

And then there’s the whole elephant fetish thing (which, OMG, I never thought I would type the words ELEPHANT and FETISH next to each other).

In one of the pics, a model is parting her legs in front of an elephant that is extending its trunk right towards her.  In others, a couple of models are caressing an elephant trunk pointing up.  In another one, they are hanging naked on its big, hard, manly tusks.  Seen in context, the pic in which the models are running away from elephants is really them running away from sexual attackers.  It’s really very clear.

“Throughout the shooting and production of the Calendar, a number of measures were taken to minimize its environmental impact. In keeping with Peter Beard’s message, the Pirelli Calendar and the gala presentation of the 2009 edition will be Zero Impact®. Pirelli, in cooperation with a LifeGate initiative, will contribute to the creation and protection of a forested area in Costa Rica capable of absorbing the same quantity of CO2 emissions generated by the production and printing of the Calendar and by the presentation gala. Additionally, the Calendar will be printed on natural, lead-free paper.”

Just trying to make yu fuckwads feel better.

Foucault:

I was referring to the crazy people earlier in the thread who can’t tell the difference between representation and reality: there were numerous readers who actually thought that these images are documentation of a black woman being “gang raped” or tortured by white people.

I believe I can say with absolute certainty that you are the only person ever to comment more than once at Pandagon who could even possibly come up with the contention that anyone in this thread or elsewhere honestly believed that the second series was made up of actual photographs of an actual gang rape.

If you’re trying to convince us that it’s bad to talk about the things that representations represent, you’ll probably find that you’ve failed before you even started, because your particular brand of combining extreme pomposity and glib intellectual laziness is always a non-starter.

“Additionally, the Calendar will be printed on natural, lead-free paper.”

FAIL again, fuckwad.  The photography isn’t even good enough to feed my COMPOST.

Actually, the photography is great. Best exposure to the world that most of these zulus and their elephants will ever get. The photog is alos quite political so why don’t you research and find out more?