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Visual Rhetoric - Visual Culture - Pedagogy
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Glorifying rape or visual rhetoric? |
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Visual Rhetoric - Visual Culture - Pedagogy
Site informationRecent Blog Posts
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Glorifying rape or visual rhetoric? |
TagsRecent comments
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Comments
On another note: the breast
I find the frequent and blatant exposure of the breast to be interesting as well. In my Rhetoric of the Body class, we recently had a very active discussion about breast feeding in public, and a majority of the students felt that this act can be considered an assault on the viewer, (inappropriately, they thought) making public a very private part of the body. Note: I realize that this public/private divide is not as strong in European culture and representation. But what does it mean that these women, in the war zone, getting down and dirty in couture, have this extreme level of exposure and vulnerability? I can't help but think of Sally Field's recent assertion (censored at the Emmys) that if mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any goddamn war in the first place. Is this a similar assertion? Granted, the breasts don't seem overtly maternal, but the presence of the breast and our familiar and familial connotations with this part of the body seem to be arguing for a maternal love, not war.
History of the buttock
On another, other note: Slate has just published a History of the Buttock with an acompanying slideshow (some images are not suitable for work).
Fashion and social critique
Vogue isn't the first and (although some might wish it) won't be the last to combine fashion photography with social critique. Diesel is notorious for fetishizing social issues in their ad campaigns, and this past season's global warming theme is no different. What are the implications of combining marketing and critique or consciousness raising? And why do both imply that sex (I don't know about love) is found at the intersection of fashion and critique? Check out my favorite image from the recent Diesel campaign, with the woman holding tight to the phallic object, being smeared with what I hope is sun screen, while Mt. Rushmore sinks in the background:
On a more technical note,
On a more technical note, the digital photo spread is notable for how it animates the still photography. Parts of the photos are isolated and appear on the screen sooner than the rest of the image. A careful reading of the photos might reveal whether this animation is purely aesthetic or contributes to the argument of the essay. I'm leaning towards it being rhetorically significant, given what is isolated in each image, but haven't thought about it much more than that.
I disagree with the reading that this glorifies sexual violence. First of all, little of what's shown is in any way glorious and, to boot, there is a pretty clear commentary, as Melanie notes, through the placement of American flags.
I'm not sure about the
I'm not sure about the critical sentiment of the American flag, but it clearly matters an awful lot in terms of how one regards the issue of glorification of sexual violence. Of course sex and violence are both at play, but one can consider it glorified only if one buys into the idea of the flag as sincere and if one feels a pang of patriotic empathy with the soliders. If the flag is critical, then it is possible that the photostory is critical of sexual violence, of the hedonism inherent in the processes of war. Then the only question to ask is whether you can make a critical account of war and sexual violence by way of the salacious photospread (on that count I'm decidedly unimpressed...editors are given the right to work blue and lay claim to the moral high ground that would forgive the excessive skin).
One thing I find interesting about the photostory is the diconnect between the title and the images that follow. "Make Love, Not War" is a an interesting title for a series of images that show a brand of love that could only be produced by war. This is surely not merely a pithy slogan for images of war and sex. It seems to me a cynical refusal of the 60s and 70s era ideology of mutually exclusive categories. Love and War are mutually exclusive according to that worldview, and here comes the world of fashion to refuse the distinction.
The images of women
The images of women throughout the photo spread range from women (partly) in uniform to women partially unclothed, to women asserting themselves (arm wrestling, tattoing) to women in extremely passive positions (I'm thinking specifically of the the photo where a woman is held down in the mud and one where the woman lies on the bunk bed next to a partially clothed soldier). To add to Brett's thinking about love vs. war, and the concept of love made possible by war, these images seem to argue that war makes possible a certain kind of love - one that some of these pictures depict to be potentially violent and/or unwanted (the woman on the bed looks really unhappy, and the muddy woman's situation is ambiguous). But thinking about the context of these photos, doesn't Vogue ultimately want us to find these images titallating and sexy? Or, is their argument that the men and women depicted are "making love" (and partying!) rather than fighting?