While browsing around at Wired Magazine I came across this article about MAdGE, a New Zealand group opposed to genetic engineering, and their latest ad campaign revolving around billboards with this picture of a woman with four breasts hooked up to a milking machine.
[…]
The public response has been mixed. MAdGE has gotten some complaints from people who find the billboards offensive.
“It is definitely degrading to women, but more degrading to women is putting human genes in milk,” Currie said. “It’s punk art.”
The biotech industry is predictably unhappy about the billboards.
“MAdGE’s latest grasp for public attention denigrates women and illustrates what little grasp this group has of reality,” said William Rolleston, chairman of the Life Sciences Network, a biotech industry organization for New Zealand and Australia, in a statement.
The article and ad both caught my eye, and I was curious as to what Alas readers would think of it. Is the image degrading to women? Is there such a thing as “punk art” that can be degrading in order to promote a cause that the advertiser believes is just? This ad strikes me as being of a different character than the infamous PETA supermodel ads, but I haven’t entirely made my mind up about it and will have to think about it a bit more.
I don’t want this to turn into a debate about genetic engineering, but I’d like to hear what people think of this ad..
It might have been a little more striking if they hadn’t used a sexy, pouting model. Also a little more realistic – I don’t see any stretchmarks on that belly.
MG
This kind of ad makes me cringe. I agree with Mary that it would have been more effective if the model weren’t in a sexual position (despite it being a “cow” stance) with a pouty mouth, completely naked.
While ads like this have good intentions, I think they provoke more than they make their point. I wonder how many people find it sexually arousing instead of reading it as a protest.
To draw a parallel, I find it similar to feminist protests in which women decide that being topless will really help to draw attention to their causes.
If I’d run across the ad without an introduction, it would be so striking that sexuality would be the furthest thing from my mind.
I don’t find it degrading…yet the person who created it says he intended it to be, in order to make a statement. The discussion of the image raises more questions in my mind than the image itself.
I think it’s a lame dodge for corporatists who really don’t give a damn about “degrading women” as long as they stay within the law to bitch and whine and try to co-opt “liberal” issues as a way of beating down criticism. In fact, they just adopt the terminology, and then let people like us argue about the protest instead of arguing about the issue itself.
This is how corporations work, as well as how Republicans work. And it’s nasty.
–Kynn
I’m confused. Which element is degrading; the nudity, the brand, the mechanically enhanced lactation, or the overall absurdity?
I’m a bit annoyed at the way the tubes coming out of the machine just vanish behind the woman’s knee. They ought to continue on the other side of her leg, trailing off the left side of the picture, or something. Sloppy.
Other than that, well, this very discussion brings up a flaw in the notion of degrading images. Are people more likely to consider the image degrading if they disagree with the political opinion expressed in it? Should they be?
I haven’t looked at this, but fur wearing in England ended almost overnight based on one ad: it showed a supermodel trailing a fur coat behind her, with it leaving a trail of blood. Caption: “It takes up to forty dumb animals to make a fur coat. It only takes one to wear one.”
One of the most effective ads in history, and clearly offensive.
If, as Currie says this was meant to provoke an ethical debate, it was a major misfire, unless she wanted to promote a debate on the ethics of using beautiful naked women to sell everything from cars to vital political issues.
The concept of the ad isn’t bad, but the execution reduces it to the level of the boot ad that was written up here a couple of weeks ago (can’t remember date).
I agree w/ms. lauren – it makes me cringe, but not for the reason Currie intended. Just now, I had to look back at PDP’s original post so I could remember exactly what that was.
MG
John – I never saw that ad, but I think it sounds fabulous and right on target, since what was being attacked was the vanity that would make women buy fur because they want to look like the supermodels they saw wearing it in Vogue. Just out of curiosity, was the supermodel naked?
What do I think ? Uhhh, how about
“BLECCCHHHH !!! On stilts !!”
Seriously, were the model a tad thinner and blonder and famous supermodelish, I see no reason why this couldn’t be a PETA ad. That’s not a compliment to Ms. Currie’s group, though her cause is laudable.
Had a bitch I know not have had puppies recently I might have found this more shocking.
I love the model’s insouciant stare, though. Like Manet’s Olympia.
I’m of the opinion that the ad need not have been degrading, but that certain elements – notably the model’s total nudity – distract from the intended message. I think if she were fully clothed but with her shirt hitched up, it would direct attention more to the fact that she’s been used as a cow. (True, real cows don’t wear clothes, but that’s the default state for a cow. It’s not the default state for a woman except in erotica or nudism, neither of which is the point here.)
But I’m in total agreement that the biotech spokesman clearly doesn’t care about women, he’s just looking for a handy stick to deflect attention from the real issue. His claim that it proves the ad-makers don’t care about women is just ludicrous.
Well, on the one hand the ad has so many people talking about it that I suppose it is quite effective. On the other hand, I think it could easily fall prey to having the message be missed because of the image. I guess we will see if after a while the original message is forgotten and the ad becomes “that one with the woman with four breasts being milked.” I wouldn’t associate that necessarily with genetic engineering at first glance. A cow with multiple udders would have hit me harder with the message.
Mary: the model was dressed for a night out. It was a fashion shot, with a trail of blood. And I think you’re exactly right: it’s because the whole fur industry was built on image that it could collapse like a house of cards within a month. The ad was pretty cheap too: just posters.
I don’t know if fur’s made a comeback in England since I left, but it vanished. Harrod’s closed its fur section.
I guess this makes me feel that with a little imagination, people can effect radical change without being grotesque or pandering (as here). But fur was an easy target.
Is not the point of the ad that genetic engineering is unnatural? Is not the point to put the shoe on the other hoof, so to speak?
It may be a disgusting image, but that only serves to underscore the message of the ad, that this form of genetic engineering is disgusting, whether done to cows or done to humans. As for Currie’s stated intentions to be “degrading”, that sounds like a rhetorical gambit to anticipate an opponent’s argument, concede it and get it out of the way to discuss the more important issue. Or, she may simply be saying that, off course it’s degrading! Genetic engineering is degrading for all concerned. Something like that. (Artists. Never trust their interpretations of their own stuff.)
I’m with Kynn Bartlett on this one. Life Sciences Network is using the “degradation of women” as a distracting ruse from the real message of the ad, which is critical of the industry. My only quibble with the ad’s design is that it could use a tag-line to make it a bit more explicit whom its target is. Otherwise it works fine.
Well, allrighty then !!!
I’m looking forward to the companion piece featuring a sexxxeee male model, nude and on his knees, with three buttcheeks and two assholes. Maybe a hose in each asshole from which manure is being extracted to grow pwitty fwowers.
:p
It is certainly an arresting image, getting attention and spawning discussions such as this one. But is seems irrelevant to the message. How does a four breasted woman being milked relate to genetic engineering? It seems people will remember the image but not the message behind it. It is a frequent problem with a lot of advertising. People may remember a highly entertaining or provocative ad but not remember the product or message behind the ad, defeating its purpose.
I have only seen the image of course. Is there a headline or additional copy which relates it better to the message against genetic engineering? I don’t see how that could happen, but you never know. I actually think the image might be better for a client like PETA (with a headline like “how would you liked to be caged, naked and milked?”) then for MAdGE.
The fur coat ad mentioned above was effective because it was both provocative and relevant to the message. This is only provocative.
To clarify a few things:
The ad was made in response to GE companies in New Zealand starting projects to introduce human genetic material into cow’s milk; such projects are on-going in America, but have apparently been stirring up something of a ruccus in New Zealand. With that in mind, the image isn’t a complete non-sequitor from genetic engineering in general.
I think the idea was to create a striking image that sticks in people’s minds while letting the inevitable press coverage carry through the message to people.
More on the image itself later, but I’ve stuff to get done…
I’m looking forward to the companion piece featuring a sexxxeee male model, nude and on his knees, with three buttcheeks and two assholes.
like we guys don’t spend enough time scratching our butts as it is. do we really need to spend 33% more time at it?
heh — i guess that’d be 50% more time, actually… gotta check my “buttcheek math” more closely next time…
I didn’t care for it. I felt dirty looking at it and I’m pretty sure that an ad like that wouldn’t convince me of the righteousness of the anti-GE cause.
Frankly, I thint that the real question is this: is the term “protest advertising” in and of itself an oxymoron?
It’s the same issue raised by Adbuster’s plans to market their own brand of shoes: should we try, in the words of Audre Lord, to use the master’s tools to tear down his house?
This ad is dumb. Most people are just going to be distracted by the nudity and the obviously sexual position of the woman in the ad with the pouty lips. Since there are so many images like that out there, it just isn’t very impactful, and the people that do remember it aren’t going to remember the message. “Punk” indeed. I think the advertiser was just lazy and sexist.
I don’t think it is degrading to women, I think the idea was to shock and get the attention of the audience. However, I am not sure the audience will necessarily get the message intended. The use of the nude sexy model with 4 breasts in a suggestive pose with a pouty look on her face…I’m just not sure it makes the point enough.
Upon examination, the message of the ad seems a bit wrongheaded. The effect of providing cow’s milk to human children is to relieve human women of the need to be … pardon me … “milked” for the sake of their offspring. Many people have opposed giving cow’s milk to human children, on the theory that it lacks particular nutritional value that is unique to human mothers’ milk. If the genetic modifications in question can take steps to address those objections, then they may be making cow’s milk more suitable for human children, thus further freeing women from the role of milk provider. So the notion of creating a four-breasted woman for the purpose of milking makes no sense, and the assertion that what is “more degrading to women is putting human genes in milk” seems exactly backward.
I don’t mean to take any position myself on the relative merits of breast-feeding vs. cow’s milk. I know nothing about those issues. I’m not trying to suggest that breast-feeding is degrading. Rather, I’m saying that, to the extent that the ad tries to suggest that breast-feeding — milking — is degrading, then it seems to have its own argument confused.
Look, Amy S. is pretty much exactly right. No one would use an image of a man like this: it obviously doesn’t transfer directly anyway, in that men don’t usually produce milk, but images of naked men just don’t show up that much in ads. Once in a while you get a shirtless guy whose pants are down so low that you’d be seeing his pubic hair if he hadn’t waxed it off, or the outline of an underwear model’s penis, but that’s it. Advertisers assume that it’s ok to represent women as naked, vulnerable sex objects – they don’t assume that about men. That’s what the fuss should really be about. This ad is bad for gender politics because it buys into the same old ideas about who produces sexuality and sexiness (women) and who consumes it (men), and the same old double standard about how to represent people; in my experience, that kind of thinking is bad for everyone, and contributes to sexual violence. And frankly, I’m sick of people claiming that it’s ok for them to propagate sexism because it serves whatever higher cause. There are other ways to get the point across.
Yeah, what Laurel and Amy said.
And re: the PETA ads–I thought calling a woman a dumb animal was pretty damn sexist, considering the fact that the corporations that promote and sell fur are run mostly by *men*.
And frankly, I’m sick of people claiming that it’s ok for them to propagate sexism because it serves whatever higher cause.
But no one is suggesting this. At least no one here. What I’m suggesting is that the Degradation of Women as a Sex is simply not a part of this ad—but Degradation of Human Life is, at least as part of an analogy with the corruption of nature (or Nature, if you will) is. To say that men would not be used in this way seems silly, because, (as you noted) insofar as this ad is concerned, male mammals do not lactate to feed their offspring; female mammals do. That is the analogy being drawn by the ad. If there are uses of male mammals in genetic engineering that are as abhorrent in MADGE’s view, then perhaps we might expect them to make use of a similar analogy. I don’t know, I won’t predict. Write them a letter and point it out. Maybe they’ll listen.
As for the other features of the model herself, the pouty lips, etc., well….that’s what models tend to look like. Sorry. Not the artist’s fault. Blame the modelling industry. Would any other body type really make much of a difference here? Also, I am not entirely sure how this pose is “sexy.” The pose is meant to reflect the four-legged stance of cows, especially when being milked. (Perhaps they get up on two legs when they go dancing, but the social habits of cows is not really germaine here.)
It is true that in general men are not used in this way. But why are you holding the ad and the designer to account for the marketing habits of the industry? And how does that make this particular ad sexist, given the specific analogy the ad is making and the specific message it is designed to send? It is not as if the female body in general is being used in the typical fetishized manner in which breasts are used to sell cars and beer as ersatz enhancements to “sex up” the ad: Lactation and mammary glands are integral elements of the analogy being drawn.
There are plenty of examples every day of women being degraded in the media; I just don’t think this is one of them.
neko: that was my exact problem with the fur ad. I’m not sure it was PETA, though, this was in England. It does have a PETA feel.
Just a comment from New Zealand- the model in the ad is a member of MAdGE.
I love the Thompson Twins. So glad to hear Alannah’s up to her old antics.
actually, from an advertising standpoint, it works astonishingly well.
to begin with, you’re talking about it. if they ran a print ad, even a full page in section 1 of the New York Times, outlining in detail their position on genetic engineering (I’m personally in favor of the concept, although many of it’s commerical applications bug me as they function as a money gouge) you wouldn’t have paid any attention to it, and that idea wouldn’t be in your head. yet here you are talking about it.
is it degrading? no more than a GAP advertisement. which is, in fact, the point. GAP ads are mundane, we’re USED to that sexism and degradation. but rather than milking that (pun unintentional) to sell a pair of jeans, they’re pushing a concept: GE is bad (again, I disagree, but that’s a digression). the juxtiposition of high concept (ideologies always are) and lowest common denominator make it shocking, or at least shocking enough to spark debate, their goal in the first place.
they’re selling a meme, and you all bought it.
a hypothetical: suppose they weren’t selling anti gene ideas. suppose it was “futuro jeans” with the slogan “the future is now” and, in addition to the multibreast genetic chimera woman, they had a bubblegum snapping, cyberpunk nymphette and a feminine robot design inspired by Akira Sorayama (you know his designs, even if you don’t think you do. he’s surprisingly ubiquitous).
by even discussing it, you get the name out, which means the ad campaign succeeded. you also probably wouldn’t bat an eyelash. “that’s offensive, but they’re just selling clothes, they’re ALWAYS like that.” and really, clothes and sex are just as different messages and mediums as genetic engineering and sex.
I’m more troubled by the concept behind the “punk art” subgroup that adbusters and the like fill. the point: that commercial memes are becomming overpowering in society, are helped, as the images they create include the same iconography (sexy woman selling clothes/anti-genetic manipulation ideas, the macdonalds arches, the GAP logo, whathaveyou) in turn making the images more inescapible.
as a male, I’m generally offended by the implication (and this topic is not the first time I’ve heard it either) that “if there’s anything even remotely ‘sexy,’ men will miss the point entirely. therefore, nothing having to do with worthwhile ideas should be expressed in a sensual way” taken to extremes, it means that “sexy” women should not be allowed t-shirts with slogans on them, as men will simply stare at breasts without paying attention to the message (Earthday 2003, Megatokyo is cool, whatever). it also implies that style and substance are mutually exclusive, an idea to which I disagree should anyone consciously be proporting.
“There are plenty of examples every day of women being degraded in the media; I just don’t think this is one of them.”
(Would someone pass the plunger, please ? I’m up to my shins in shit here and the stench is making me dizzy.)
Well, I guess Katherine Anne Porter was right forty-odd years ago. Women have been symbolized nearly out of existence. Kevin’s and Karpad’s posts are living proof. Our naked bodies are universal symbols of… like, the universe, and cows, and stuff. And to chide anyone for using them as such is just plain mean and shallow. Ho hum.
Believe me, Kevin: If we weren’t friends, I’d gladly give you both barrels. That is without a doubt about the most obtuse and dense thing I’ve ever seen you write.
My point stands. Just because (yawn) This Is How It’s Always Been Done is a fucking lame-assed excuse for doing it That Way. Again. And when it’s done That Way by people claiming compassion and concern for humanity, it’s just twice as onerous. Great. Let’s depict a hhhhot woman being used like an animal/machine to show that the transformation of humans and animals into machines is wrong. It stinks when PETA does it. It stinks here. It’s insulting and stultifyingly unoriginal. A Guess Jeans ad shows about as much concern and compassion as this ad does. Only with less dishonesty, doubtless, from its Ministers of Truth.
And, yeah, Karpad, of course the ends justify the means. (Rolleyes) Would you say that if this ad featured minstrelsy ? Doubt it. But the image isn’t far off from using women in a similar way.
(Oh, and send up a gallon drum of bleach while you’re at it. Someone ? Anyone ? Thanks.)
actually, yes, the ends DO justify the means. that’s the whole point of advertising.
otherwise, companies would rely solely upon word of mouth using truthful opinions of actual customers.
advertising is making a product or idea more appealing to propagate sales (or, in this case, ideas)
therefore, advertising will ALWAYS aim for the most base, insulting, and shocking methods. because the more outrageous the material, the more attention will be paid, and therefore sales will be higher.
advertising preys upon the ugly side of humanity. it is designed to make you feel insecure, incomplete, and unhappy. for advertising, you are not a person, but dollars, waiting to be spent on the product which they are all to ready to tell you you need. so you can be a healthy weight, but they want you to think you need “the latest fashions” “the new diet suppliment” and “that one piece of exercise equipment” in order to be an impossible ideal.
I don’t need a nordic track. I have perfectly good shoes and lots of space for walking. but theirs money to be made by telling me and everyone like me that we do.
more importantly, I’m speaking from a purely theorhetical standpoint. not only do I find it disgusting and offensive, but I don’t like the IDEA they’re selling either. but being offensive is an effective advertising tactic. while reprehensible, it’s not original, but that doesn’t make it ineffective.
your minstrel reference is rather disappointing. the entire point of the marketing tactic is to seem like nothing more than a normal advertisement. “normal” advertising doesn’t use minstrels, and as a result, makes it inappilcable.
should it become national news of significance, allow me to explain how it would be played out.
the first person spoken to would have a viewpoint similar to yours. next, they’d have someone, probably a man, say something along the lines of “feminists are offended by everything. this ad got me thinking about stuff I had never even considered before” you, by taking issue, have brought their point to the forefront, exactly as the advertisers intended.
and while I realize you are offended by the advertsing, neither I nor Kevin had anything to do with the design, production, or release of it. I ask that you keep insulting and vulgar language to a minimum.
Actually, what karpad said about the possible reasoning behind the ad being that someone would take it for a regular ol’ Abercrombie and Fitch and then get a nasty surprise is about the most ethical suggested motive I’ve seen yet for this ad. I don’t know if it’s true or not.
Also, I’d disagree with karpad that it’s extremely effective as a piece of advertising FOR THE ISSUE, since although we’re all talking about the ad, none of us are talking about the issue and by 10:30 last night, I, for one, had already forgotten the name of the group that ran the ad.
MG
I’m confused. Are people really arguing that the ad is bad because this model is young and attractive?
That if she were older, heavier, and uglier, the ad would be okay?
I don’t get it. Especially given — as someone else pointed out already — the model is a member of the group that produced the ad. Maybe she was the only one who wanted to get nude for the cause? I dunno.
Are the people who object to the fact the model is attractive willing to post their own nude pictures? :)
–Kynn
First — rock on Alsis, Laurel, and Neko!!!!
You know, Alsis’ (and Laurel’s) point about using women (and not men) stands. Regardless of whether men could be used in this particular ad, the fact remains, there are no companion ads using men to show the problems with genetic engineering. The fact that people see this as the “norm” — particularly “liberal” people is utterly frightening. And it also reinforces my pre-conceived notions that liberals and conservatives are both misogynists, and their claims of different ideologies just ring completely hollow to me.
Is the ad effective? — obviously not (as MG pointed out). Who has been talking about the “issue” — in this thread or elsewhere? I sure as hell haven’t seen it, I’ve seen lots of talk about the ad, but none about the issue — obviously not effective.
Furthermore, when I see ads like this — or any of the PeTA ads, does it make me think about the issue? Nope. In fact, it has the opposite effect on me. when I see a PeTA ad, I tend to go order some juicy fat hamburger — if I’m not hungry, I’ll give it to someone else. I’ve lost all interest in the animal rights movement because of PeTA. I’ve become not only a non-veg*n, but an anti-veg*n because of groups like PeTA. Yeah, real effective.
For those of you veg*n and/or animal rights supporters and/or anti-genetically modified foods supporters who want to actually do some good in the world, and don’t want to be looked down on, I’d suggest you loudly and vocally start denouncing the sexist, misogynist tripe put out by groups like peta and madge. if you buy their ad campaigns and their rhetoric, then you are nothing but a hypocrite, just as the leaders of these groups are.
it’s a bit of an aside, but is it really hypocritical to be misogynist and pro-animal rights, or anti-gene modification? I suppose if you see “liberal” as a monolithic institution where all “liberals” must support all “liberal causes,” in fact, both of those political positions can be easily drawn from a fundamentalist religious basis (anti-GE is obvious, and animal rights could easily be a “god wants us to protect the weak from suffering” position)
now, to call yourself “progressive” and be misogynist is obviously a misnomer, but hypocracy is not quite an accurate call (the real problem there being, if you call someone a hypocrite, but they don’t see any intellectual conflict, any of your valid points will be dismissed)
again, that’s just an aside, and doesn’t really need a reply.
now, in substansial response:
with all due respect, I’m fairly certain feminist circles of any sort aren’t the target audience for this ad. as I explained in my previous post, it would play out in the press with a feminist speaking about how it’s degrading, followed by a quote from some “john everyman” speaking about how it got his attention and managed to get him thinking about something he hadn’t before.
whether or not he’s sincere isn’t the point. the controversy, and therefore press attention, is the goal, so they can get someone from the entirely apolitical masses to pay attention to the material, even for the 15 minutes of noteriety.
is it particularly effective? I’m not impressed. in fact, I’m insulted and annoyed by both the politics AND the sexism. but if there’s someone who doesn’t like gene manipulation who isn’t in contact with the group, this controversy gets MAdGE’s name out there for them to subscribe to their mailing list, buy their t-shirts, and donate a few dollars.
in other words, they don’t CARE if we’re impressed or not. they’re gunning for a different group than we are with this ad.
honestly, I see this to be less similar to the PETA ads than to ads used by Truth.com (the anti-smoking shock-advertising group, for those not familiar.)
although not nearly as clever or unique, that seems more their line of logic than the PETA ads.
after all, the point seems more to shock and upset than to set up some “sexy pinups” for the cause. (the PETA ads being more akin to a sexed up version of the Got Milk ads.)
but again, that’s purely technical. advertising theory is more interesting for Journalism students than anyone else.
Whatever, karpad. You run some impressive logistical figure 8s, but frankly I don’t have the energy to deal with your contradictory nonsense right now. Frankly, I could care less if you find my language vulgar. Fact is, once in awhile I really would like to hear Left-leaning men who would cringe at use of racial or ethnic stereotypes get ticked off about ads like this piece of shit. It IS a stereotypical take on female beauty, and if it were even, as some implied, featuring a model who was larger, older, or less modelesque, it wouldn’t help much. The pose and “woman=cow” bit would still be an offensive and degrading stereotype.
As far as I’m concerned, this crap is no better than using Aunt Jemima or Charlie Chan on a poster (sans comment, context, or any contrasting image for company/contrast) to make a statement against racism.
Know what else ? It cracks me up that millions of Western men would be so clueless as to never have heard, in all the years it’s been going on, of the controversy over BGH or genetic engineering. Really, it’s kind of pathetic that the only way you can get such a man’s attention is by putting a twenty-foot tall submissive bovine babe directly in his line of vision.
Also, I really don’t understand why you keep harping on how it’s practically international law that an advertisement must, simply must, appeal to the lowest common denominator because Everyone Else Is Doing It. Can you really not see the oxymoronic nature of creating an ad that attempts to change the world… and tries to do so by simply adding one more piece of cliched’, insulting shit to the heap we’ve already got ? Not to mention that it engages in what Dijkstra would probably call the simultaneous “decorative centrality and intellectual marginalization of women.” Women are not the audience, women are the passive avenue to men’s entertain– oh, sorry– men’s enlightenment. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear supposed progressives rationalize this kind of crap.
Or maybe it’s just plain moronic.
Yes, yes, I used too many naughty words. (rolleyes) All the delicate souls in the audience that think a nude woman posed as a mutated cow is all in good fun can fall over in a dead faint now because nasty, bitter, vulgar alsis uses the word “shit” too much.
Gevalt.
I asked my boyfriend, an artist and an appreciator of protest advertising like Adbusters, what he thought of the billboard.
He blocked off the woman’s rear, directly behind the branding on her bottom, and the ad was instantly changed. Without the space behind her (in which a dirty mind might insert him/herself), the animalistic image changes. In addition, if her face was a profile instead of gazing seductively (or boredly) at the viewer, the sexuality of the image would be greatly reduced.
We discussed it some more and wondered if there were an accompanying message with the billboard or on the billboard that enhanced the issue, or if the branding was the only allusion to the anti-corporate or anti-GE message.
The only problem with blocking off the woman’s head (which we also discussed – it might had added to reduce the sexualization of the image by eliminating her “come hither” gaze) is the standard reducation of women to their body parts. If degradation of women wasn’t the goal of the people who produced this image, we might give them some credit for not reducing her to her breasts alone.
If the billboard included a political or explicative caption, like the PETA ads previously mentioned, the message would have more merit than if it were posted without one. It would draw attention to the unnaturality of the genetic practice they protest and the unnaturality of the model’s extra parts.
Without that caption, the billboard retains a sexualized S/M feel that does little to enhance the group’s message.
Is there even a phone number or website address at the bottom of these billboards? Anything?
The flaw with the ad is that it’s not absurd enough. The photorealism works against the message of cut-and-paste. It should communicate how awful the *idea* of genetically-engineered humans are, rather than presenting it as an actuality.
A better ad using the photorealistic concept would depict something like a human-sized milking barn, with very sad looking seated women with their blouses opened, all hooked up to the impersonal machinery. One woman is in the foreground, maybe the woman we’re looking at in the existing ad. She’s got her front to us, and we see the milking apparatus attached to her. Some copy, like, “Genetic Engineering Dehumanizes Humanity,” is in big type next to her.
For me as a nursing mother, the add is offensive on a much different level – the implication that human milk is “icky and gross”. (You have to come to that conclusion to get ‘offended’ by the ads intentional message). Human genes do belong in milk, maybe not mixed in with bovine milk for adult consumption, but it is a proven fact that infants are better off with the milk of their own species.
Not only is this ad degrading to women on a sexual object level, but degrading on a bodily function level. It takes a normal act of a mother (milk production) and perverts it.
I don’t think the add is all that effective.
Peace,
Marka
First, the ad isn’t effective. We aren’t talking about the issue it raises, we’re talking about the ad itself. And it’s divisive–MADGE has managed to alientate quite a lot of potential supporters with this. (And really, a naked woman. Oh, *that’s* original. Not.) So it’s failed, IMO.
Second, if they wanted to drive home the idea of GM food, why not photoshop a chicken with four wings and eight legs and an oversized chest? Why not photoshop a freaky looking animal? (The original ad says volumes about the status of women as consumable products, but that’s a different post.)
Our naked bodies are universal symbols of… like, the universe, and cows, and stuff.
That’s not what I said. What I said was that an analogy has been drawn between the human and the bovine world based upon mammalia. The point of the ad was, as I noted earlier, to put the shoe on the other hoof. That is, to say, “Now, imagine if we applied this technology to human beings.” Yes, her womanhood is integral to the analogy made between our species and the bovine. How can it be any other way? If you put a man in her place, people would just get more confused and point out, correctly, that “hey, men don’t lactate” (not normally, anyway). It’s just basic biology.
Just because (yawn) This Is How It’s Always Been Done is a fucking lame-assed excuse for doing it That Way. Again. And when it’s done That Way by people claiming compassion and concern for humanity, it’s just twice as onerous. Great. Let’s depict a hhhhot woman being used like an animal/machine to show that the transformation of humans and animals into machines is wrong. It stinks when PETA does it. It stinks here.
My argument is not that This Is How It’s Always Been Done. First of all, what exactly is being done here in this ad? A young naked woman is impersonating a cow to make a point about genetic engineering. Would it have made much difference if she had been old, or fat, or thin-lipped, or African, or Asian, etc? Secondly, as Jo points out, the woman in question is a member of MADGE, so she’s not just some model off the street, but a member of the group sponsoring the ad. Granted, I did not know that when I wrote that one should blame the modeling industry for her general look. So maybe it’s moot. Either way, she’s a woman impersonating a cow to make a point about genetic engineering. Sexuality, as I said above, has no place here.
Thus this is different from the PETA ads. I have seen those and have drawn the same conclusions you have, that they exploited female sexuality to oppose cruelty to animals, totally ignoring the cruelty of female objectification. But in MADGE’s case, this is very different. For one, sexuality is not being used. I still say there is nothing either “sexy” as someone else has implied nor “submissive” as you suggest about her pose. Cows stand on four legs. To drive the human-bovine analogy home, she also is on all fours. While in other contexts such a pose could be seen as submissive, this context makes such an interpretation invalid.
The pose and “woman=cow” bit would still be an offensive and degrading stereotype.
Yet the ad is not saying that a woman is a cow. Again, the point of the ad is to say, basically, “How would you like it, o humans?”
And as for my “obtuseness”, well, look: It’s not as if I do not see how you could interpret the image in the way that you have, it’s just that I think that in this particular instance, your interpretation is wrong. You’re using the wrong tools. Sometimes history and theory are misleading. So it goes.
It takes a normal act of a mother (milk production) and perverts it.
Isn’t that shooting the messenger, here? That’s like blaming the media for showing the violent side of war. MADGE is saying that the GE industry is treating human beings like cows. And I don’t think they’re against breast-feeding. I think they’re against using human hormones in cow’s milk and then selling it back to humans, based upon any number ethical and health reasons. MADGE would probably argue that the GE industry is perverting human milk.
Maybe I’m missing something somewhere, but why does it matter if the woman is a member of MADGE or not?
Kevin, I already addressed why using a comparitively more “normal” looking woman would do little, if anything, to alieviate the offensiveness of the image. And I stand by my opinion that there’s something sleazy and insulting at the fact that a nude, kneeling woman is somehow a stand-in (kneel-in) for both humans and the animal kingdom. Last I heard, both humans and the animal kingdom contain males and females. And both male and female cattle are subject to “harvest” and consumption by male and female humans. Because of that, and also given the vast amounts of cultural, artistic and historical baggage attached to the image of a nude, kneeling, young, conventionally attractive woman –to say nothing of the obvious focus on her breasts– it’s incredibly disingenuous for Currie, or you, or anyone, to faux-innocently announce that it’s mere coincidence that this is the image they chose, or that it’s just “punk art.” (snort. I remember reading that Currie’s group was punk for about as long as it took them to find out they couldn’t make money at it;It shows. :p) Nope. I think they know damn well about the baggage attached to the image. They know damn well many, many people will find the picture insulting and many more will adore it and give diddly-shit about the supposed Moral Cause it represents. They just don’t care. It’s just more Newkirk-esque angling for attention, at the expense of women. It’s just more bullshit. You can have it.
Maybe I’m missing something somewhere, but why does it matter if the woman is a member of MADGE or not?
Perhaps it doesn’t. Yet it seems to me that her own volition might mitigate charges of exploitation. Maybe not. It’s a point to consider.
…to faux-innocently announce that it’s mere coincidence that this is the image they chose…
It’s not mere coincidence, it’s the basic facts of biology and the particular facts of the GE industry practice they oppose. The two work together in this ad.
As for her representing humanity or womanhood—well, what do you suggest? How does one make the same point differently?
“Maybe I’m missing something somewhere, but why does it matter if the woman is a member of MADGE or not?”
“Perhaps it doesn’t. Yet it seems to me that her own volition might mitigate charges of exploitation. Maybe not. It’s a point to consider.”
The point isn’t weather or not the model was exploited or forced. Models/actresses in all sorts of sexist ads *chose* to appear in these ads. The point raised by some was that the ad itself was exploitive of women. So her affiliation wouldn’t mitigate this charge.
“As for her representing humanity or womanhood?well, what do you suggest? How does one make the same point differently?”
A glass of milk with a human hand reaching out from it–with “Got hormones” as the caption. Or a mutant cow. Or photoshop pictures of food to drive home the fact that the food we eat is Frankenfood and not natural. That way, the focus would be on the actual issue, and the only angry people would be the bioengineering companies out there.
“MADGE is saying that the GE industry is treating human beings like cows”. No. What it’s trying to say is how wrong it is to try to substitute cows for humans. As all the conflicting “takes” on this ad posted here clearly show – the message is confusing at best and totally lost in its degradation of women at worst.
When was the last time Playboy ran an article about genetic engineering in foods? Because that’s the audience they’re obviously shooting for here – I saw this ad and I immediately thought this is some misogynist punk art trying to tie capitalism (in the form of General Electric – that’s my knee jerk assumption for “GE”) to some truly warped sci-fi story (ala the multiple breasted women in Star Trek, Star Wars and Total Recall). The thought of the genetic engineering debate didn’t cross my mind at all. Granted, were I in NZ and this debate were going on hot & heavy in the local news it might have.
Yes this screamed “sexual” to me. The doggy-style pose and dumb, vacant expression made me think this was some ad exec’s excuse to bring a personal fantsy to life. There are just so many other, much more effective ways they could have expressed this. Why NOT a MAN with four breasts of his own hooked up to a milking apparatus? Now THAT would have said “THIS IS UNNATURAL” very clearly. If the woman was supposed to be a cow, why not slap some brown spotted body paint on her? For me anyway she would not have seemed so “nude” and therefore sexual.
Karpad’s right about one thing – this ad was NOT intended for any kind of a feminist audience. But that’s where they’ve failed miserably. Just WHO do they think is most interested in the prospect of feeding children genetically-altered cow’s milk? The guys who pick up Playboy (who so clearly ARE the intended audience) or mothers (such as Marka)???
A much more effective ad for the audience they *were* apparently aiming for would be a guy standing infront of a refrigerator in nothing but a shirt drinking milk right out of the carton (with their big GE on the side) with four testicles hanging down in silhouette (or with Alsis’ suggested double-buttocks).
first, when exactly did I say advertising “must” or “should” appeal to lowest common denominator. I’m stating a fact. advertising DOES. they need to quickly grab the attention of a jaded public, then get the name recognition out before they lose attention.
the target audience for this ad are people whose concerns lie more with enviromental issues and bioethics than with feminism. guess what, people like that DO exist, and this ad would do a pretty good job attracting their attention and getting MAdGE name out to them. the producers are relying on the shock value.
that doesn’t make it NOT degrading to women in general, but unlike the boot adverts, the POINT of this ad is degradation and horror, not liciviousness. they could just as easily go for any other “shock value” (multiple testicles in silhouette actually seems a pretty good design) but the point of the ad is shock value, not sexiness for sales. the multiple breasts are supposed to be horrifying (and, in fact ARE) the sex value is secondary, and more to trick the mind into thinking it’s “just another ad” (going with “got hormones” and altering the first image into somthing subtlely unnatural falls into a similar vein)
let me make something absolutely clear. I do not like this ad. I find it degrading, insulting, and disingenuous (since, simply put, bioengineering isn’t about that sort of conduct).
that doesn’t mean I’m unable to look at that ad and say “these are the aspects that work, and these are the ones that aren’t.” it’s EFFECTIVE advertising, not “good” advertising.
and Amy, swearing and drawing over the top analogies just make rational discussion difficult. my request is there the same reason the USENET Hitler rule exists.
[Quick Aside]It should be noted that anyone who absolutely hates swearing probably shouldn’t read this blog. It’s going to be used, and used a lot. By me, by Amp (although less often), by other commenters. In fact, I encourage swearing — so long as it’s not of the “fuck you” type.[/Quick Aside]
karpad – I’d like to see you address the comment brought up by several people here that the ad failed as an ad because it’s the ad we’re talking about not the issue.
MG
I’m sorry, Kevin. I’d like to answer your question, but A) It’s lunchtime and B) I’m really invoking Hitler. Now it can be told. :p
P.S.– Please use neko’s excellent ideas to tide you over until I get back.
Or Sally’s. I’m easygoing about these things. Also please pray that my lunchtime chicken soup is not GMO.
Hmmm… there’s an idea. If femaleness was so important to this campaign’s image, how about a three-legged chicken, or a chicken sitting on some gonzo-looking egg ? (gonzo in the original sense or gonzo the muppet. Take your pick.) At least chickens are not mammals, so the whole breast-fetish crappola could’ve been avoided.
I’m sorry but I think the only place where imagery of multiple breasts would be perceived as “horrifying” and not titillating (pardon the pun) is somewhere deep in the Amazon rainforest where they’ve never been subjected to the constant media barrage of women’s boobs being sexual. They at least might still see their primary purpose as functional – nobody else on the planet will – including environmental/ bioethical activists. They’ve all seen the soft porn that passes for pop culture’s depiction of breasts waaay too often.
The point raised by some was that the ad itself was exploitive of women. So her affiliation wouldn’t mitigate this charge.
Well, I think it might at least insofar as the women involved in creating the ad, including the model, might have considered secondary and tertiary interpretations such as have been suggested here. Or maybe not. I am not saying that because they are women they would absolutely be conscious of these possibilities; yet it seems highly unlikely that they wouldn’t. And of course, it is quite possible that despite their careful considerations, mysogyny and sexism would result anyway. An artist is not in complete control of his or her work’s meanings, no matter how hard they might try to maintain it.
I think some of Sally’s suggestions are pretty good. But do they have quite the one-to-one ration impact of the analogy used? Men’s testicles don’t produce milk, for one thing, although a shadow suggesting a cow’s udder is interesting. The question of the present ad’s effectiveness is relevant here, of course. One problem is simply a matter of design. Like I said before, a caption or a tag line really would have helped clarify things. Yet when I asked my wife to look at it (without any coaching on my part, honest), she drew roughly the same interpretation I did. Granted, she and I tend to think alike (and she tends to be much more clear-eyed than her husband, for that matter), so make of that what you will.
About breast fetishism: Well….how can one avoid it? I mean that a bit rhetorically, because it seems that no matter what context a woman’s breasts appear in, someone is bound to find something to fetishize about it, whether warranted or not. This ad seems to be a case where the fetish would be inapplicable, where the “sexiness” of female breasts would be inappropriate. Again, I fail to see anything sexy about the breasts (or the woman’s pose or her arguably blank stare—”arguably” because she seems to have a glint of a challenge in her eye) in this context, and that is coming from someone who tends to find breasts attractive (for whatever reason; that seems like whole other subject to blog on).
And yes, I think Neko’s “Got Hormones?” idea is quite good. And much more to the point.
By the way, I actually have no other “dog in this fight” other than a persnickety concern for how important critical tools like semiotics and feminist theory are used (in this case, I think they’re more distracting than useful). I’m no GE-phobe (or -phile), cuz those issues are simply beyond my ken. Jenn and I are pro-breast-feeding and we drink store bought milk, organic when affordable (which is really rare). All that is said in the interest of full disclosure, if anyone really cares.
But do they have quite the one-to-one ration impact of the analogy used?
That would be “ratio” not “ration”. My bad. Sorry.
as far as I can tell, karpad’s argument comes down to saying that this is just how advertising is done, so we should all shut up and deal. That’s true and it’s not. I don’t think this ad is much worse than some of the awful conventional ads, but those are terrible. and so is this one. Lots of people have suggested other options for an ad to get this message across, but the people who made the ad decided that a naked woman in a blatantly sexual position* would be the best way to get people to look at it. You know what? they’re probably right. That doesn’t make it not sexist and exploitative. Worse than most advertising? maybe, maybe not. STILL BAD.
What pisses me off about this kind of thing has mostly already been said by Amy S.: this is bad, and it’s bad when big corporations and other people do it, but we knew they sucked. When it’s people who claim that they’re trying to make the world a better place doing it (which is, by the way, really common: the petty sexism in radical politics can be breathtaking), it suggests that women and sexism don’t really matter. And people who think that or act like that can bite me: I don’t want to be part of their movement.
*Kevin, I know you don’t think it’s blatantly sexual, but you’re just flat-out wrong, for reasons that lots of other people have pointed out. I don’t find it arousing either, but I can still see how sexual it is.
And, of course, the ad conflates two separate things. Even if we ignore the extra breasts, it’s still shocking to see a women being mechanically milked like a cow. For some people that might even be more shocking than the extra breasts. That means the ad is stirring the issue of animal rights in with the issue of genetic engineering.
Only slightly off-topic:
Did anyone notice Adbuster’s “Buy Nothing Day” spokesperson this year?
Kevin, I don’t agree that there’s ever a time when feminist theory is irrelevant.
Yes, there are theoretically non-sexist ways to think of this ad idea. But the ad isn’t published in theory; the ad is published in the context of a non-theoretical and vastly sexist advertising culture, and will be interpreted in that context. Using the nekkid babe approach to advertising is pretty much inevitably sexist, until our culture changes.
* * *
Bean keeps on saying what I would say before I’d say it. But, yeah, what Bean said: swearing is fucking-A-okay on this blog. It’s personal insults that we (hopefully) draw the line at.
Okay, what about this isn’t blatantly sexual? The woman is fucking presenting (please, pardon my language, I’m usually more polite, but really, this has got me going due to my own thoughts on genetic manipulation and how this ad betrays its cause). In viewing the ad I could only conclude that it has fuck-all to do, really, with genetic engineering. Stamping GE on her ass means nothing. I also totally did not grasp the cow thing. And what about the cow thing? Are GE companies trating women like cows? Cows like women? What’s the relationship?
There is an unaccounted-for non-sequitur at work here: the woman has four breasts (which seems to make one point), she’s hooked up to a milking apparatus (which makes another point when you think about it. It need not be related to the four-breast thing, but it probably is. But really, if this point has to do with commodification/exploitation related to production of milk, then really two breasts would have done just fine), and seemingly in spite of this fact, she’s clearly ready to go (which makes another point, completely unrelated to the first two). Think about that: She’s been saddled with extra breasts, hooked up to a milking machine, and she’s still presenting herself, ass-up, with a come-get-it-tiger expression on her face. WTF?????????
I’m also not sure how this is punk art. It’s not using the methods of advertising to subvert the message put forth by advertising. It’s using the methods of advertising to advertise. That’s a very important distinction, because what that means is that, rather than some snotty kid sticking it to anybody,MAdGE is just another player in that sexist game.
“…When it’s people who claim that they’re trying to make the world a better place doing it (which is, by the way, really common: the petty sexism in radical politics can be breathtaking), it suggests that women and sexism don’t really matter. And people who think that or act like that can bite me: I don’t want to be part of their movement…”
Thank You, Laurel. It always amazes me that people who would flinch at racism and homophobia in advertising (or at least make a show of flinching, even if deep down they didn’t care) just shrug at or even applaud this kind of crap. Well, it shouldn’t amaze me anymore, but it does.
BTW, the best/most memorable anti-GMO ad I ever saw was a poster hung in the window of a local organic grocery store. From a few feet away, its image “read,” as a giant, rich, glossy red photo of a strawberry, green leaf and all. But the berry had an odd shape. When you got closer, you could see that the outlines of the berry had been cut/snipped away to make the shape of a very alarmed looking fish, complete with a big round eye.
The caption beneath read, “What the Hell Are Corporations Trying To Feed Us ?!?!” The appropriate “hard” info was underneath in smaller type (the image was an allusion to the fact that GMOs can involve splicing genes from one species into another, entirely unrelated one).
Somehow, I imagine that if that were the image linked to, we’d all actually be talking about GMOs right now. But I’m weird. :p
ok, having typed this twice (IE hates me) I hope I manage to include what I meant:
MG: I thought I did, actually, but I may have been unclear. the discussion is secondary. the actual message being sold is “MAdGE dislikes BE.” that name has gotten out, that meme is in your head, and the controversy about the image only helps that. you know “there’s no such thing as bad publicity?”
Laurel: again, I was perhaps unclear. my only point was “it was an effective ad, if creepy and sexist.” I wasn’t saying it was right or good that it’s effective. while I think we SHOULD call them on the sexism of the ad (by, for example, not donating money to them) giving them the publicity for having a licivious ad only helps them. to get rid of ads you dislike, the best way is to not pay attention and make it end up ineffective. (simpsons reference # 106 “it’s got paul akin’s garuntee; garuntee void in tennessee”)
perhaps a misunderstanding is that, since I don’t support the politics, I don’t have any of my ideologies being “supported” by this sort of thing, so all I see is “they are successful in getting their name out” and nothing about MY ideas being advertised by pornography.
I hope that is clear
I didn’t get that message karpad. Like I mentioned earlier on, after looking at the ad twice, I still had to go back and re-read PDP’s original post to figure out who and what again. I didn’t notice the GE on her ass the first time I looked and the second time I looked, I didn’t think General Electric. If there’s any meme in my head now, it’s because of the latter part of this discussion, not because of the ad.
I still don’t really know who madge is and I’m not interested in looking them up, and once I had a minute to think about it, I don’t really care about the issue (human genetic material in milk) that the ad is supposed to express outrage about. In fact, though a number of people here have mentioned BE, I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of posters who actually mentioned the specific issue the ad was meant to shock us into paying attention to.
A lot of people here mentioned ideas that would have provided the desired shock to the system without burying the message in controversy about something totally unrelated. This ad is like hitting someone over the head on the off-chance it might relieve a bad case of gas.
MG
obviously, MG, I’m not saying that this ad is the ONLY effective ad they could have, or the MOST effective (in fact, I find some of the sugguestions the non-pros here came up with to be much more effective)
so by that standard (is this the MOST effective ad they could use) it’s not even close.
in advertising terms, it’s probably a 6 or 7 in effectiveness. it lacks the penache (which includes both execution and consideration of the public) and creativity to score any higher than that.
still, it’s more effective than a sign with a bunch of words printed on it.
on another point, I find the “punk art” position of the group just silly. but then, I’ve always hated the “it’s better because it’s being ‘ironic'” crowd anyway.
Amy, I actually think a lot of radical folks are pretty bad on racism, homophobia, and classism (also other identity politics). Usually a given progressive is good and thoughtful on at least one of those, but people tend to get focused on whatever their issue is and ignore the way they create or endorse or ignore (thus tacitly endorsing) oppressive images or standards or whatever. for example, mainstream feminism has often ignored definite feminist issues that mostly affect women of color or poor women or queer women or all three. and white radicals have sucked it up on race issues, at least where I went to school and in some number of public contexts. and there’s a long history of anti-racism activists, white and of color, marginalizing women. (I do think I tend to notice the gender politics most, just because it’s what I’ve been thinking about for the longest.)
anyway. I don’t think it has to be this way, which is one reason it pisses me off so much when it is. but it never fucking changes if people don’t stand up to it when the good folks on whatever issue get blatant about their sexism(/racism/whatever).
Yes, there are theoretically non-sexist ways to think of this ad idea. But the ad isn’t published in theory; the ad is published in the context of a non-theoretical and vastly sexist advertising culture, and will be interpreted in that context. Using the nekkid babe approach to advertising is pretty much inevitably sexist, until our culture changes.
Which, once again, raises my question—is advertising compatible with a movement (animal rights—-no—-say animal EQUALITY WITH HOMO SAPIENS) that is by nature RADICAL, utterly anti-the domant order of Western “civilization?”
I mean, forget for a moment the sleazy-porno/misogynistic image of the ad itself—to get it out to the masses, MADGE has a complicity in despoiling our urban areas, our scenic routes, our very neighborhoods with the ugliness of billboards?
I don’t know the answer to this. But I DO seem to remember somebody saying that we must BE the radical change—the revolution—we want……
I thought the image was completely sexual and it reminded me a great deal of a lot of pornography I’ve seen online. There’s a whole world of breast and lactation fetishism out there and that ad is going to end up in lots of archives. I’m amused by the idea that anyone could think there is nothing sexual about that image.
Now that’s just kinky! It is quite sexist and the lactation fetishism is a good point, Embitca.
The Farm, Harlan Elison, Dangerous Visions anthology (or was it Again Dangerous Visions.)
Early punk SF.
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The offensive to women part of this is bad, but I think what’s worse is that children and teenagers are seeing this. Advertisements these days are becoming more and more suggestive and inappropriate. It needs to stop. You shouldn’t be aloud to just post pornography up anywhere. Think of the effect this has on these young people. When they get older, they could be addicted to pornography. Have you seen some of Calvin Klein’s advertisements lately? There is a picture of the top half of a woman, topless, uncensored, full frontal. I was shocked. How are these things legal? It sickens me!
What none of you seem to get, is that it’s a statement of irony.
Dairy cows are overworked, are made sick, are constantly pumped with hormones and growth additives so that they’ll produce even more milk…this is abusive to the cows.
The point of the photo is…we would never do this to our OWN species women. We would be outraged. And rightly so.
So why enslave another species? And if you grow up believing the crap fed to you by school districts which have been subsidized directly from the dairy industry that cows “like” to be milked, and willingly give up their lives or the lives of their calves for veal (you can watch documentaries on how cows will cry for days and only shut up when killed when separated from their calves) you have another thing coming.
The dairy and meat industry is so indifferent and sickeningly abusive to animals and the fact that it leads to their death…the fact that more than 40% of dairy cows CAN’T EVEN WALK onto the slaughter trucks because they’re so lame ought to wake people up.
And the fact that we drink milk from another species? You don’t find that the least bit weird?
If I offered you some yummy rat’s milk or cat’s milk, you would shudder. So why be partial?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because you’re conditioned. So wake the fuck up, stop treating your cute dogs and cats any differently than you would any other thinking and bleeding animal with a nervous system. There are plenty of alternatives to cruelty.
Which do you pet, and which do you eat…and why?
Honestly…there’s nothing wrong with nudity. It’s the way an individual views the nudity that makes it wrong…not the nudity itself. Some people do not apply the same stigmas to nudity that we have grown up in America being conditioned to.
I look at the woman, and I don’t think sex at all.
I have to agree with Karen. I am continually and utterly amazed whenever I hear or read an opinion that indicates that the nude human form is somehow dirty, alien, unnatural, disgusting, degrading or impure. Quite simply, it is how were are made — to be disgusted by our own existence is very unhealthy. One can especially see this non sequitur stance when posited by Thumpers, who should know from their own dogma that the human form was supposedly created in their creator’s own image — by logical extension, their creator is therefore dirty, alien, unnatural, disgusting, degrading or impure. The dogma even goes so far as to engrain self-loathing into its most basic premise, that a creator hand-crafted humans, by depicting those first humans rushing to hide their diety-hewn bodies from even their very creator. Those with a more enlightened understanding find this apparent self-loathing quite humorous and pathetic.
As to the “degrading” comments, the mere fact that the woman is nude is not degrading, since that is her species’ natural state. However, being depicted as being forced to endure the physical torture of having a mechanical vacuum milking machine incessantly yanking on her breasts should instead elicit a response of empathy for her pain in enduring such an assault. Women who breastfeed often use a breast pump to ensure an adequate and consistent food supply for their infant, so merely depicting a pumping device attached to the models breasts should not be a source of disgust.
There also seems to be a bizarre mind-set that human beings are somehow born wearing clothing, in obvious opposition to the fact that they born quite naked, as is every other animal on the planet. Fur is not clothing, as quite disgustingly demonstrated by the anti-fur lobbies and aptly pointed out in many postings in this blog. Lack of clothing is the norm, the natural state of all creatures of which we are aware. It is societies, and the prejudices, misconceptions and mythos that form and manipulate those societies, that twist the natural order of things into a construct which the societies’ members use quite liberally to bludgeon non-members into conforming. So those who have chimed in claiming that the default state of a human is clothed are clearly quite thoroughly brainwashed by some cultural fad. Clearly there is need to protect one’s body from injury from environmental hazards such as direct exposure to extreme temperatures, impacts, caustic chemicals, radiation, abrasion, extreme pressures or vacuum, sharp objects, and other hazards which made wearing protective clothing necessary within those environments. But otherwise, clothing serves no useful purpose, instead promoting vanity, socio-economic division, a convenient way to hide one’s gluttony, and ethnic separatism. Clothing is fattening.
I really must question the sexual frustration of some of those who viewed that picture, to think that the picture is somehow prurient or “sexy” in nature. Beauty and sexiness are plainly in the eye of the beholder. Her face is rather plain, not attractive or possessing any sort of suggestive posing. Pouty lips? That’s some imagination you have there. There’s as near to no expression on the model’s face as I can imagine her ever attaining. I suppose that such a vacant appearance on that plain face is the photographer’s attempt to represent the accepted “mindless” popular view of livestock as whole. In that sense, livestock should feel degraded.
If one is aiming to make all images devoid of any potential sexual arousal effect, there will be very little that could be included in photography, given the breadth of fetishes that exist among the general population. Just about any photograph has the potential to be sexually arousing to someone. Such a pursuit is simply stupid.
So we are back to the original premise of the photo, that being a protest against genetic engineering of farm animals. Perhaps a picture of an eight-legged chicken would have been more effective.