viz.

A couple of t-shirt designs have ignited discussion in the interwebosphere of late, and since they represent the extremes of feminism (i.e., radical feminist to decidedly NOT feminist), I thought it would be interesting to put them in conversation with each other, especially under the rubric of what constitutes "free speech" and "visual rhetoric."

First is the "I was raped" t-shirt masterminded by Jennifer Baumgardner, the poster woman for radical third-wave feminism:

A couple of discussions online of late have got me thinking about what happens when we interpret an image one way and are called on the carpet for "mis"interpreting it or reading too much into it. What do we reveal about ourselves and our own possibly subconscious biases when we publicly interpret an image, especially a problematic one?

A couple of weeks ago, a blogger on Feministe.com posted the cover of the current issue of Vogue, which features LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen in a pose that the blogger felt was racially insensitive:

Note here that her commenters were pretty much split in their assessment that they couldn't see the problem with the image or that Jill was spot-on in her analysis.

Here's a Telegu (East Indian) sex-ed video extolling the virtues of using a certain brand of condoms, featuring a Bollywood-style anthem and men dressed up as dancing condoms. I have to wonder, though, who is the target audience for this video? They address men and women both gay and straight, but the message seems geared toward a younger demographic. At the very least, the dancing condoms juxtaposed with line drawings of gay sex is jarring. But this might just be a problem of cultural legibility.

At any rate, at 7 minutes long, the video is sure to get its point across, no matter who the intended audience is.

(Contains some images that may be offensive to some, and likely not safe for work.)

The person pictured below is Christian Lander, one of the authors of the much-discussed blog, Stuff White People Like.

Some love the blog, some find it offensive. I fall into the latter category because I think to write about "Stuff White People Like" (which feels grammatically wrong somehow), even satirically, is to exclude non-whites from the things that the titular white people like, like recycling, pricey sandwiches, dogs, kitchen gadgets, and Mos Def (?). While I admire the project of poking fun at the Gen X and Y Brooklyn- and Echo Park-dwelling hipsterati who have more money than actual sense, I do think it's a bit irresponsible to present such a limited view of whiteness and declare it ALL whiteness. What does it mean to the white person who rejects the Prius or can't afford a $300 Kitchenaid waffle iron (or never learned to ride a bicycle as a kid because their family couldn't afford one)? What about the person of color who practices alternative medicine, or lives by the water? Or the white woman who loathed Juno?

By now, you've probably seen the moving and (I assume) influential video by the Black-Eyed Peas' Will.i.am "Yes We Can" video in support of Barack Obama, which sets Obama's New Hampshire primary speech to a stripped-down tune, the words voiced by a coterie of A- and B-list celebrities:

Back in July, the Creative Review blog posted an entry regarding an art exhibit that imagines scenes from the bible as seen via Google Earth.

Fat-acceptance activist/blogger Kate Harding has assembled a collection of photographs to illustrate "how ridiculous the BMI really is." Each photo title states the person's BMI status (underweight, normal, obese, and morbidly obese), and the range of representations is both shocking and breathtaking. My favorite is Moxie, the morbidly obese cat with a BMI of 58.6.

Dove expertly uses visual rhetoric to combat the insidious forces of ... visual rhetoric.

Earlier this week, my lunch was liberated from the refrigerator in the grad-student lounge. After I sent a gently scolding email to our listserve, my friend pointed me to passiveaggressivenotes.com, where readers submit exchanges between themselves and coworkers, roommates, and strangers when conflict arose. (more below the fold)