This photo is from last week’s Pride parade in New York. Everyone is always pretty friendly in allowing me to take their photo at these events — it’s one of the only times people are that gracious about having a stranger stick a camera in their face, and it’s one of the things I love about NYC Pride. I also love that it’s one of the most racially diverse queer events you could ever participate in. Not every state is that lucky. What I hate about Pride, though, is that like any queer-related event, the focus is still on very homonormative goals and values.

This year, there was a lot of focus on DADT and on marriage, as there was last year. Don’t get me wrong, when I decided to sneak into the march last year, I ended up walking with Marriage Equality NY – and they were lovely people! But the emphasis on “gay marriage” is problematic for a number of reasons: it ignores the fact that not everyone who wants a same-sex marriage is gay, and it also prioritizes marriage (something that mainly affects gays and lesbians) over issues that affect the other letters in our acronym, such as trans-inclusive hate crime legislation. Last year, I was at an LGBTQ conference with other colleges in the Northeast, and we were asked to state our opinions on a number of issues affecting our community by standing in various boxes ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. When marriage came up, 95% of students strongly disagreed with Prop 8. When HRC’s actions concerning ENDA came up, 95% of students stared blankly at the man asking us questions, as they had no clue what he was talking about.

Let’s think about this for a minute: a bunch of students living on the east coast were up to date and very much concerned with a law in California concerning marriage, yet none of them knew about HRC lying to the trans community and pushing for a non-inclusive ENDA, an action that probably set our community back a good decade. They’ve since apologized, but it’s still troubling that this doesn’t quite register as a big concern within the LGBTQ community (at least not within my age bracket, though I don’t think this is really specific to us).

I also saw a lot of “born gay” signs this year, a phrase that annoys me more and more every time I hear it. I think it’s one of the worst approaches to homophobia our community has ever created. Besides the fact that it (absurdly) singles sexual orientation down to this one so-called “gay gene,” it assumes gender by suggesting that biology predetermines our attraction to gender. If we understand gender to be biologically innate (rather than a social construct), the “born gay” standpoint further complicates the LGB relationship with the trans community, and we have enough tension there to begin with. “Born gay” is an easy comeback to the argument that homosexuality is unnatural as well as the religious argument, but it’s more problematic than anything else, and completely ignores the fluidity of sexuality.

In addition to the born gay posters were signs that appropriated the language of the Civil Rights Movement. I believe I’ve posted about this before (one one of my blogs, at least), but I’m bothered by it so much more after Prop 8. As it is, offending the black community by equating our struggle with the Civil Rights Movement does nothing to help our relationship with people of color, but it’s especially offensive after we blamed black and Latino voters for the outcome of Prop 8. And that was only after opponents of Prop 8 did not go into communities of color to appeal for their vote in the first place…

I still love Pride events, and I always enjoy myself in the craziness of it all. But we’re not immune to homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or racism just because we are a fairly progressive community. As a community so focused on our own oppression, we should be more conscious of the prejudice within our own community and the voices we silence in favor of the ones more marketable to heteronormative society.

(cross-posted on my tumblelog)

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In their advertising text, Burger King does away with any attempt to throw in the usual cunning, subtle remarks and instead goes with this:

“Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce.”

I’m not sure whether it’s even worth picking apart at the details of this text because the sexist imagery is so shamelessly vulgar I’m tempted to think the BK masterminds created it to be that way, if only to stir up controversy that will really have everyone talking. Otherwise, Burger King needs to hire a new employee for their Sexual Nuance Conceptualizer position, because the language sounds like something a 13-year-old boy might say while harassing a female classmate about his own long and juicy member blowing her mind. BK doesn’t even attempt to mask the sexual positioning of their female model, instead caking on her makeup in a way that makes me imagine her dressed as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. I’m not even sure if the word “blow” is meant to further emphasize the obvious sexual act going on here, or if BK is gloating about the blow-up sex doll they’ve created out of their model for this advertisement. Thoughts?

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There’s something very interesting, sociologically speaking, about the types of people you see and encounter in the city. It’s sort of like going to college for the first time in terms of being introduced to all sorts of different worlds. It seems like in middle school, the object of the game is fitting in and looking like everyone else — but by the time we approach high school, the idea is to stand out a bit. Dye your hair a funky colour, mismatch clothes, have a certain signature shoe or piece of jewelry. And then when you get to college, you realize you’re not the only rebellious teenager with blue hair who mixes plaid with polka dots, so it takes even more effort for you to solidify your unique identity and really stand out. In one of my sociology classes, we discussed the ways in which that same logic applies to life in suburban and urban areas. In the city, you see all sorts of unique and interesting styles, partially because mixing plaid and polka dots isn’t “weird” or “unique” enough to stand out. I really need to get in the habit of taking more pictures when I go into the city, but I guess I’m weary of being confronted by nutjobs if it becomes obvious that I’m shooting their portrait. Anyone have a spy camera they’d like to loan me?

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One campaign I am particularly interested in is the Dove campaign for “real beauty,” which annoys me for a number of reasons. Beyond the obvious hypocrisy of such a message when coming from a company that sells beauty products, I question what exactly they mean by “real beauty” or “real women,” which is what the claim to feature in their ads. The idea of a “real woman” seems to suggest that some women are not real, either because they are famous or because they conform to current societal standards of beauty by embracing the ever so coveted protruding hipbone look. Despite the negative attitude they promote towards the skinny standard, they don’t seem to promote women of very many sizes. All of these women look to be within close range of one another in terms of weight. Furthermore, the thinnest woman in the picture is the only woman pictured from straight ahead without another woman covering part of her body or some sort of pose cleverly manipulated to accentuate her curves while simultaneously masking the size of her thighs. None of the women are significantly overweight to begin with, nor are any of them underweight.

This image also mirrors a lot of the problematic phrases constantly used to promote healthier body images among women, as most of them simply present a different idea of what the standard should be. “Real women have curves” doesn’t say to me that women come in all shapes in sizes and should be proud of their natural shape; on the contrary, it suggests that all women are beautiful so long as they aren’t too thin. I’m not sure how much better that is than the expectation that all women share Barbie’s measurements — the reality is that some women are naturally thin. Some of us are never going to have hips and large breasts. Society might tell me I’m not a Real Woman because my ribs don’t show quite enough, but now Dove is telling me that I’m not a real Woman because I need to gain 30 pounds.

In terms of race, this ad is also very interesting. They at first appear to present a range of colours; it is strange, though, that despite the fact that women of colour have a wider variety in skin tone, there are four different shades of white in this picture. Of the two women of colour, neither one is particularly dark-skinned, and the woman all the way to the left is hardly a shade darker than the woman to her right. The woman closest to the center of the image, besides being the thinnest, is also the lightest and only blonde. In addition to that, all Real Women appear to have perfectly white, straight teeth and glowing skin. They may also belong to the anti-cellulite campaign that Margaret mentioned, but that’s an assumption on my part…

The Dove campaign reminds me of Nike’s “If You Let Me Play” commercials from the mid-90s, which I first read critiques of in my psychology class with Dean Schuster last year (Psych 421: Intersections of Sport & Sexuality). Those commercials seem to have been received very well by the general public, getting a lot of praise for promoting women in sports, but its underlying subtext promotes a very different message rooted in notions of white male dominance. Besides the audacity that these girls are asking for permission to play rather than implying they should be “allowed” to play by default, the vulnerable-looking girls Nike chooses to feature present an interesting image of girls in America, with the white girls receiving significantly more airtime and filling the most prominent sections of the commercial. An article I read in that class by Shelley Lucas goes into much further detail, but I don’t want to stray too far from the topic of advertising and photography. What it comes down to is the fact that in these ads, Nike is trying to inconspicuously promote their company and products by presenting a message that will be well-received in a more modern America, but its hypocritical use of certain prejudices and biases to appeal to the American public reveal the truth behind their motives.

In the end, advertising always has one goal: to reach to their demographic. As our morals change as a society, advertising will change to appeal to those morals, but it does not necessarily mean that the advertisers have suddenly embraced our cause or denounced the sexist and racist attitudes that still govern our country and society — those attitudes simply become more covert as these values slip out of our consciousness and take on less obvious and more institutionalized forms.

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When I was first introduced to her work in high school, I remember a huge debate surrounding this particular image. Not with respect to ethics or pornography or anything of the sort, but over how old Jessie is in this photo. She has the face of a late teenager and the body of a pubescent girl, the expression of a young adult and the chest of a developing adolescent. I remember being shocked at the realization that she is merely 12 here. In many of Sally Mann’s photos, her children appear strikingly mature, either in the roles they are playing or the ways in which they carry themselves. Her photos seem to reverse the idea of the ‘gaze,’ with her children taking on the role of the empowered onlooker. Typically children are uncomfortable looking and awkward in front of adults, but her children stare back into the camera with looks of confidence, like in the following photo of all three children:

I think this photo is one of the most powerful examples of why Sally Mann’s photography should not be considered exploitative or pornographic. Her children have said, years after the fact, that they never felt exploited. Jessie Mann described the experience of being photographed as giving her a “sense of beauty,” and interestingly enough, she is now an artist herself. I think people sometimes become overwhelmed with the social significance of an image of a nude child in an age where we are so cautious of pedophiles, online predators and child pornography that it clouds their view of the artwork itself. I also wonder if they would be received differently from another source. If Sally Mann were a foreign photographer, perhaps photographing children from an African tribe in which nudity is the norm, would people see the photos as exploitative? Maybe because the media is so dominated by images of young celebrities navigating the city and shopping in high-end stores, we forget that people throughout the country lead very different lifestyles. The culture of the city is very different from that of rural America, and nudity is more acceptable to children growing up on a farm than to children who live in more urban areas and amuse themselves differently than children who play outside in fields and lakes.

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“Wait, you’re a lesbian?” he asks.

“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Well, it’s just like you can usually tell.” Sensing my confusion, he quickly adds, “like Rosie O’donnell or something.”

“Right. Because all lesbians are overweight comedians.”

“Well, no,” he says apologetically, “but you know.”

A brief silence ensues. I’m hoping he’ll lay off, but I begin to feel sorry for the idiot and make the mistake of speaking again. “You still look confused,” I offer, hoping he’ll take the chance to redeem himself.

“Well you just like, make out with other girls?”

“Yeah, that’s generally what lesbians do,” I say lightly, still hoping he’ll begin to understand. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.

“But I mean, you’d like never make out with like, me?” Pause. “Or any guy,” he adds.

“No,” I say firmly. Still not getting it.

“Wow. You know, I still wouldn’t have guessed you’re a lesbian. Not that you all look the same, but most are just… butch, you know? But I guess you’re not one of those. Like when you’re in a relationship, she’s the guy?”

“No, neither one of us is the guy. We’re both women. That’s kind of the point.”

Awkward silence. I think he gets it, I think he gets it!

And then comes the icing on the cake.

“Well, I do love watching girls make out.”

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Recently, there have been some horrendous sounds coming from the bathroom in my dormitory. A late night trip to the restroom revealed to me the source of this problem: speakers hooked up to an iPod belonging to someone whose iTunes library apparently contains nothing but rap music. After discovering this, I also realized that one particularly annoying song, which Google has informed me is called “Crank Dat Soulja Boy,” has become very popular not just in my bathroom, but everywhere. I can’t walk around campus or go to the mall or do much of anything without hearing people singing about cranking dat Supaman.

Despite the widespread popularity of this song, I had a difficult time deciphering the words. My Google search proved useless here, as after reading the lyrics, I still had no idea what the words actually meant. Never have I heard “Superman” in this context before. I thought Superman was just a fictional character, and I’m not sure when the word became a verb. At this point, I turned to Urban Dictionary to help me. What I’ve learned is that when you “superman dat hoe,” you ejaculate on a girl’s back and attach a sheet or blanket to her so that it sticks like a cape. Apparently, this is how to “put a bitch in her place” if she refuses sexual activity, which somehow makes her a “hoe.”

I’m slightly confused by this message. First of all, the song contains the words “soulja boy” in the title, which I’m told should be read as “soldier boy.” Does the rapper mean to imply that soldiers are sexist, horny bastards who have no respect for women? Or does he mean to give off a more respectable image by implying that his disgustingly sexist ideas make him a strong role model for boys? I’m also confused about the spelling of “soldier.” Since when is there a ‘j’ in there?

From the message of the song to the music itself, which sounds more like a lot of banging on loud instruments and screaming, this song comes across as very confusing to a listener like me. As I’ve explained, it took me a long time to hear, decipher, translate and understand the words, and I’m still having difficulty. If you’d please excuse my ignorance and answer some of these questions for me, I’d greatly appreciate it. Perhaps if you would also find some artists with a decent amount of talent and begin making music with a more understandable and respectable message, this confusion would happen less frequently. There was a time when music contained melody and soul, but it has deteriorated into what I can only describe as a mess of ignorant, money-hungry celebrities with no talent other than screaming or looking pretty who like to masquerade as musicians, defacing what many others love and respect dearly.

I hope you understand how unfortunate this problem is and that you will do your best to save the world from horrible music, as they are becoming more and more corrupted by the day. Yesterday I saw a 12-year-old girl preforming what has been dubbed the “soulja boy dance,” and I can only hope the poor soul will one day learn and have the chance to appreciate what real music is.

Sincerely,
Concerned listener

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For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll briefly explain the project. We basically turned a room into a work of art that viewers experience as they watch a video that shows acts of hate throughout history. The walls are covered with graffiti containing hateful and discriminatory words, but after the hate video plays, the room transforms from dark to light and the walls become covered with sheets painted instead with words of peace. The video then transitions from acts of hate to acts of love. It’s hard to explain and it’s something you really had to experience, but basically, our goal is to spread a message of hope to our community, showing that love can overcome hate. After seeing the reactions from our audience, I think we’ve accomplished that.

Of course, there were times when a lot of us thought this project wouldn’t happen. Many of us didn’t believe we could pull it off. It got to the point where our class considered electing a delegate to speak with our teacher and gently explain that we simply didn’t have the capacity to complete what we started. But despite the doubts, the disagreements, and some mishaps along the way, it all came together in the end. Every individual person brought their own unique ideas and creativity to the classroom, culminating in a project that we are all extremely proud of and extremely blessed to have been a part of.

After the presentation, one girl came up to me in tears to express her appreciation for all of our efforts. And if she’s the only person at all affected by our work, the project was worth it. Seeing it affect just one person that deeply means it was a complete success, and that we accomplished what we set out to do. At that moment, the meaning of our presentation overshadowed every problematic detail and stressful debate we had along the way.

It’s interesting how after everything we put into that project, our own message didn’t fully hit home for me until I saw how it affected other people. Our presentation showed individual acts of courage in contrast with hate, war and genocide throughout history to prove that one person can make a difference, and ultimately, it was this one student who made the difference in my feelings about this project. If every single student in our school agreed to sign our pledge and stand up to an act of injustice after seeing our presentation, I don’t think it would mean nearly as much as this one student’s reaction.

We all crafted this idea from the start because we wanted and expected it to make an impact, but I don’t think any of us expected such gratification from the project or the response from our community. We certainly didn’t expect it to change our own feelings about our message and about ourselves so much, but the experience has definitely changed us all. When we spoke about peace and individual power and righteousness before, those were all just words. It was all theoretical. But now, we’ve proven it not just to our school, but to ourselves. We’ve never had such faith in our own words and ideas, and we’ve never felt closer to one another. All in all, I think Emily said it the best: “Yes — we complained, argued and struggled — however, I wouldn’t change a thing about our process or presentation. What we’ve done will be remembered for years to come, and I couldn’t be happier.”

For those of you who haven’t come yet, I hope you come next week to our evening presentation. I think you’ll find that the result completely speaks for itself.

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