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Selling Arrow with Skin and Ethics

Deb Streusand — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:00:23 +0000

This week I’m following up on Aubri’s discussion of promotional photos for TV shows (in her post, Orange is the New Black) and my own examination of masks in Arrow. While the Arrow characters’ masks cover up more of the actors’ skin (in addition to the long sleeves and long pants of their costumes) some of the promotional imagery for the show specifically emphasizes bare skin. The image above portrays Stephen Amell playing Oliver Queen as The Arrow, but wearing only his quiver and some tight-fitting pants. Queen is frequently portrayed shirtless in the show while he is exercising or being patched up after combat, but never does he actually go out as The Arrow wearing less than his full costume including hood and mask. The image juxtaposes Queen’s identity as a vigilante hero with his sex appeal as a handsome and muscular man.

On one level, this image simply rehearses the standard formula that sex sells. However, the text in the upper right of the image emphasizes something rather different. “Destiny leaves its mark” draws attention to the scars that criss-cross Queen’s upper body. In the story, these are relics of the torture Queen underwent as part of the backstory that made him into The Arrow. Whether these scars constitute part of Queen’s attractiveness or work counter to his appeal depends on the eye of the beholder. Within the show, the character Laurel Lance sleeps with Queen, her old flame, immediately after her first time seeing his scars, suggesting that she, at least, finds him more attractive with them. Others’ mileage may vary. The emphasis on the scars may also be a nod to the show’s heterosexual male audience, who presumably wouldn’t particularly care about Queen’s bare chest without the scars that emphasize what a badass the character is.

Image Credit: wegotthiscovered.com

This picture of David Ramsey as John Diggle is even more transparently sexual, showcasing his muscles without any scars or distracting tagline. Diggle is Queen’s loyal friend and in some ways the emotional heart of the show, but he’s not the hero or any of the vigilantes who go in costume and have alternate names. Nor would the character actually ever pose like this in the show. The picture doesn’t sell the story of Arrow; it sells the body of the actor. There is a similar poster of Colton Haynes, who plays Roy Harper, so all the male members of Team Arrow have been used to sell the show in this way.

Image Credit: thegreenarrowtv.com

The above picture, by contrast, shows a clothed Oliver Queen (as far as one can tell) with his face partially obscured by an arrow. The image emphasizes the divided nature of Queen’s character – part ordinary man, part city-saving hero. It also shows the hero side as shadowed, which the tagline picks up on: “innocent and not guilty are two different things.” Since its beginnings, the show has wrangled with the ethical implications of being a vigilante. The second season features a key character transformation in which The Arrow stops killing bad guys and settles for stopping them, sometimes only temporarily. A vigilante who is not a killer is not guilty of homicide, but he is not an ordinary, innocent man either. This image actually sells the show’s ethical complexity as something attractive, a much more cerebral approach to advertising than the ones shown above.

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Visual Rhetoric

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Alice or Wonderland: How Visual Representations of a Story Change Over Time

Deb Streusand — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 00:31:14 +0000

Image Credit: Deb Streusand. Taken at the Harry Ransom Center.

The Harry Ransom Center’s current public exhibit is on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the children’s book by Lewis Carroll. It displays many fascinating artifacts related to the book, including a selection of about twenty-five different covers the story has had over the last century. (The picture above shows the entrance to the section of the exhibit containing the book covers.) These covers demonstrate what people have found most interesting and most attractive about the story over the years. This post will discuss just three of the covers, though I certainly recommend going to look at all of them if you have the opportunity.

Image Credit: Deb Streusand

The above cover is from 1903. It emphasizes the magical and mysterious aspects of Wonderland, showing a mushroom and a caterpillar that are both far bigger than Alice. The exotic hookah and the accompanying puffs of smoke look rather magical as well. Alice’s eyes are wide with wonder, but most of her face is obscured – the story is more about Wonderland than it is about Alice. The cover shows no sign of concern about whether prominently displaying a hookah is an appropriate way to sell a book for children, which demonstrates some of the cultural changes that have taken place between 1903 and the present day.

Image Credit: Deb Streusand

This cover of an Alice in Wonderland comic book from 1945, by contrast, emphasizes Alice over Wonderland. Alice is by far the largest thing in the picture. All the other entitities in the picture are much smaller, and even look like they could be toys, not living beings. The playing cards are flat and can be held in the hand – they are not the rather unmanageable characters they become in the actual story. Alice, in saddle shoes and letter sweater, is clearly immersed in the modern world. The background is plain and shows nothing of the Wonderland environment. In fact, it bears some resemblance to the cover of an Archie comic from the same year:

Image Credit: Comic Vine

The Archie comics are set in the real world, not in a wonderland, and this Alice looks like she would fit right in there. This cover sells Alice as someone the audience can relate to.

Image Credit: Deb Streusand

This much more recent book cover, from 2008, does not show Alice at all. It shows the White Rabbit, in color, against a dark and formal-looking house and garden. Rather than portraying Alice in Wonderland, it depicts a Wonderland creature in Alice’s England. The Rabbit brings the magic into this colorless background, but it is a rather forbidding environment for him. This cover seems more directed at adults who are interested in exploring the sinister aspects of the story, or perhaps children who like their fairytales dark.

These three covers demonstrate what were considered the most saleable or most interesting aspects of the story at their respective times. The 1903 cover sells the tale as magical and mysterious. In 1945, Alice needed to be an accessible figure to the readers. The 2008 cover argues, “this is not your grandmother’s Alice in Wonderland.” The book covers from these three time periods sell the same story in entirely different ways.

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Headless Fashion Photos: The Human Body as Mannequin

Deb Streusand — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 00:35:43 +0000

Image credit: Favim.com

While seeking inspiration for this post, I combed the internet for interesting fashion photos. I noticed an odd trend. Many of the photos showing off particular outfits cut the photo off at around shoulder height on the model, like this:

Image credit: Favim.com

Such photos emphasize the outfit over the model’s looks, which I guess is helpful for those who want to envision themselves wearing the outfit without feeling like they need to look like a model to wear it. But they’re also a little creepy. Their argument seems to be “your body is more important than your face,” which has unfortunate implications when one considers how much more personality is expressed in the movements of one’s face than in the shape of one’s body. (Yes, I’m still thinking a lot about body positivity.) The photos sell the outfit as making the buyer's body look good, changing something over which she has a little more control than the appearance of her face. In the process, however, they make the person in the photo look considerably less like a human being and more like a mannequin. In fact, many mannequins are headless, and some fashion photos show headless mannequins in all their glory – that is, with their headlessness fully exposed.

Image Credit: Indiamart.com

To make a human into a mannequin for the sake of selling clothing is pretty alarming, but it’s also a logical extension of the practice of using conventionally attractive human beings as moving displays of fashion. Anything that might be contained in the human being’s head or heart is irrelevant to the aim of conveying the product’s value. At its best, fashion can be an expression of personality, a way to affirm one’s self-image to the world. Yet the process of selling fashion rarely reaches for this best. Headless fashion photos are a particularly problematic example of this failure. They can’t possibly express the personality of the wearer, because they don't even show her face! While a headed model can express some of her personality through acting, the headless photos have none of this. They advertise what fashion can do for your body, not how it can express your personality.

One odd fact of note: some Pinterest users actually collect such photos, tagging them “headless” in addition to the series of other descriptors. I’d like to ask them why they want these photos in particular, because even after looking at a whole bunch for this article, I'm still creeped out by the headless fashion photos.

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Visual Rhetoric