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What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Jill


Vogue Italia, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

The same thing that are wrong with the rest of these:

(trigger warning: violence against women)



Vogue Italia, originally uploaded by JillNic83.



Vogue Italia, originally uploaded by JillNic83.



Vogue Italia, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

Women being assaulted and brutalized by police officers. That’s hot.

via Gawker, sent to me by Amanda. I’ve posted a few of the photos on my flickr page, or you can see full scans of them — and glowing comments about how arousing it all is — here. I’m not linking to the Vogue Italia slide show because I see no reason to drive up their traffic. And note that even in the shots where the women are totally empowerful — shooting guns and whatnot — they’re still shooting at pictures of women. And being felt up by men in uniform.

I won’t get into all the obvious commentaries about sex and violence (and how too often, sex = violence in our culture), but I will point out that it’s pretty fucked up when images of women getting hurt are considered sexy enough to sell us shit. I like fashion as much as the next person, but ladies, I think it’s about time we stopped buying things (like Vogue, and the clothes advertised therein) that are marketed by glorifying violence aimed at us.

Dr. Helen (aka Mrs. Instapundit), however, may have these pictures taped on her office walls.

42 thoughts on What’s Wrong With This Picture?

  1. it’s pretty fucked up when images of women getting hurt are considered sexy enough to sell us shit.

    And what are the selling? The opportunity to be gang raped? The thing that disturbs me most is that these pictures aren’t just supposed to be marketing, they’re supposed to be erotic. I don’t know how we got to the point where police brutality is supposed to be arousing, but sweet Jesus.

    And beyond that, there’s the fact that there’s one picture which decidedly looks like an Abu Ghraib remake. (The woman on her knees with the German Shepherd nearby.)

  3. Even aside from the fetishization of abusing women, it’s pretty awful that they would want to glamorize the police state more generally. Ugh, ugh.

  5. And beyond that, there’s the fact that there’s one picture which decidedly looks like an Abu Ghraib remake. (The woman on her knees with the German Shepherd nearby.)

    From what I’ve been reading elsewhere, these are supposed to be a criticism of Abu Ghraib and the police state.

  6. This is what police DO to protestors that they arrest. Especially if they don’t like them.

    Do you know the background of this? It seems almost like it might be a protest of government violence. Those pictures are disturbing, not arousing.

  7. Well, these are from Italy, the country that decided if you rape a sexually active woman, it’s not as bad as if you rape a virgin.

    Also the country that decided a woman wearing blue jeans can’t be raped. because there’s no way an attacker could get blue jeans off a struggling woman, right?

  8. I can easily believe that the intent behind the photo shoot was to criticize this stuff, but it strikes me as a bad way to do so. It’s all just too pretty, too perfect. The idea is, what, to shock people into reconsidering these tactics and this aesthetic, by showing it turned against conventionally beautiful white women rather than anonymous brown people?

    The problem is that violence, especially violence against women, seems to have a compelling aesthetic appeal of its own–witness the way war has historically been glorified, not in rational but in emotional and even aesthetic terms; think of the attention paid by totalitarian leaders to *spectacle*, whether in Red Square or North Korea or Berlin. Bottom line: if it’s trying to criticize, it’s being far too subtle about it. People will put those pictures on their walls, and not in an ironic way.

    (I think, incidentally, that Starship Troopers actually DID succeed as a satire of fascism … but it’s easier to do with a feature length movie than with a photo spread, and even then a lot of people didn’t get it.)

  9. uh, Sailorman, then where are the men in these pictures being ass-fucked?

    You’ve been spending a lot of time lately defending depictions of rape. It’s getting a little suspect.

  10. I can easily believe that the intent behind the photo shoot was to criticize this stuff, but it strikes me as a bad way to do so. It’s all just too pretty, too perfect. The idea is, what, to shock people into reconsidering these tactics and this aesthetic, by showing it turned against conventionally beautiful white women rather than anonymous brown people?

    Exactly. It only works if the resulting scenario is absurd. This…isn’t. If the pictures had been a bunch of white men in executive drag, and if the violence had been sexualized but in a way that didn’t encourage the audience to join in, that might have worked. This is just another fashion spread.

  11. Exactly. It only works if the resulting scenario is absurd. This…isn’t. If the pictures had been a bunch of white men in executive drag, and if the violence had been sexualized but in a way that didn’t encourage the audience to join in, that might have worked.

    Yes yes yes. Spot on.

  12. The couple of photos I can see suggest it is reasonably effective as a class-reversal shocker. Superwealthy, ultraglamorous, well-placed white women in fashion apparel don’t get stomped on by jackboots, and they don’t get their clavicles broken with a riot stick. They get carefully approached by a polite officer and escorted into the back of a van, while the “undesirables” get the stomping instead.

    So while the ad obviously shows violence against women, it doesn’t glamourize it, and in fact treats it pretty negatively Doesn’t it? I mean, those models don’t look happy, the suited-up police look scary… Q, why does there need to be a guy getting assfucked to make you see that?

  13. Superwealthy, ultraglamorous, well-placed white women in fashion apparel don’t get stomped on by jackboots, and they don’t get their clavicles broken with a riot stick. They get carefully approached by a polite officer and escorted into the back of a van, while the “undesirables” get the stomping instead.

    Except, of course, in fashion spreads. This is a slightly new twist, but haute-couture models as victims of violence has been around for a while. This photoessay would not have been out of place in Vogue.

  15. Unless these pictures are about a crew of fashion model bank robbers I don’t get it. Is the fashion biz in Italy being oppressed by the state?

    Ah, I get it they want to portray fashion models as the common woman on the street, getting hassled by cops for hanging in the hood in their versace (sp?).

    Seriously, it is not rational but art is not necessarily supposed to be that. They are, I suppose, pushing the envelope maybe, like the “Piss Christ”? Putting the models in an environment so off kilter that it grabs your attention.

    My first reaction was sheesh this is tacky. Unfortunately, I can see where there are control freak types out there that would get off on this stuff.

  16. piny: I had no idea the violence thing was common in fashion; I’m about as far from that stuff as i can get. (No TV in the house, and my wife would use Vogue for kindling before she would read it). Sorry I didn’t get the context; it seemed pretty unpleasant to me.

  17. This reminds me of something I saw on the wall of a police station, years ago, when I was a reporter. It was a calendar, obviously geared toward police officers–ads for weapons and the like, the words “Do You Have Court Today?” splashed across each month.

    Anyway, what I particularly remember was that month’s photo. It showed a hot babe, whose blouse could barely contain what it needed to, gaping at being caught by a cop in the act of burglarizing someone’s dresser. It was shot from the cop’s POV–all you saw of him were his forearms and hands in the foreground holding a gun on the burglar.

    I realized that this must be a common police fantasy–catch a hottie in the act, where she can’t complain of what you do to her. What the hell, I guess cops are as entitled as anyone else to weird sex fantasies. But I remember thinking it might make females in the office a little uncomfortable.

  18. ha, just remembered what was stuck in my head. (I may be about to expose my lack of knowledge of this industry…) Are there ad companies “specialize” in shock ads? Any chance this company is the same one who did “I am African” or the Sony black v. white ads?

  19. As someone who has (as a kid) seen their mom and her friends get manhandled by police during clinic defense, I just have to say: I AM SCREAMING BEHIND MY DESK.

    This is sick. I’ll never buy a Vogue again.

  20. When I first saw these photos I immediately thought it was a commentary on the war on terror. I think they do a good job of exploring the way we glamorize, sexualize and propogandize violence.

    The war on terror and the war in Iraq is highly sexualized–think about those awful assults on women that occur, and the sexualized assualt and abuse of prisoners that occured in Abu Grahib.

    Those images are suppossed to be disturbing. Art isn’t always about comfort and beauty, sometimes it’s suppossed to shock, provoke, and be a cause for discussion. Those images do just that.

    The violence in the images is over the top and out of proportion to the women it is inflicted against–just like much of the war on terror. Think about how Bush is justifiying his new “questioning techniques” that he refuses to admit are just torture “light.”

  21. I think they do a good job of exploring the way we glamorize, sexualize and propogandize violence.

    No. Art isn’t about comfort and beauty, nobody asserted that or really believes that. Heaven’s sake – Piss Christ reference up there. On the contrary they are prettifying the images of terror and sexualised assault. It is a purposeful manipulation and affirmation of our supposed terror to form something more cohesive and maneagable in the form of a magazine layout.

    Assuming they were creating some metaphorical analogue to the war on terror is presuming too much intellectual purpose -It is merely the typical knee-jerk, white, monied attempt to consume and process the pain that we observe – the news, abu ghraib, and so on – and appropriate it in terms we can understand and remove ourselves from – glamor, subjugated women, sex, airbrush.

    Sexualisation is not a protest (although perhaps it could be seen as so – since we’re talking about sensationalist art – in Marc Quinn’s work) – here. It is an attempt to ignore the reality of what’s going on – another evasive balm. Sorry if that’s too Orwellian.

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  23. I agree, mere sexualisation is not protest, but I argue that the war on terror is already sexualized, and this just plays with that sexuality. Also, it is a spread for a fashion magazine–whatever the photographer’s intentions they still had to be cognizant of their bosses desire to sell clothing. I think it’s walking that middle ground between the sex we use to sell, and how we’ve sexualized various conflicts and the sexual violence we use in the war on terror.

    I would disagree that it is assuming too much to believe that “they were creating some metaphorical analogue to the war.” You don’t see it in the images above, but other photographs in the layout feature images of women at airline security checkpoints being stripsearched, and a woman training with weapons. It’s a very obvious reference to the war on terror–it is of course up for debate about what the message is and how or if it’s glorifying sexualized violence rather than critiquing it.

  24. Ah, LJ fun. One comment says the police look like rapists. Then someone agrees, followed by a fight about how no, it’s so totally political, but obviously you have to use hot women in the dresses cause it’s a fashion shoot (cannot use men in tuxes too?) and it’s not about violence against women, really, and it can’t be sexist because there’s one female security guard in uniform.

    I am not clear why people are making this into a narrative, though, or maybe I just missed it.

  25. Ah, LJ fun. One comment says the police look like rapists. Then someone agrees, followed by a fight about how no, it’s so totally political, but obviously you have to use hot women in the dresses cause it’s a fashion shoot (cannot use men in tuxes too?) and it’s not about violence against women, really, and it can’t be sexist because there’s one female security guard in uniform.

    I am not clear why people are making this into a narrative, though, or maybe I just missed it.

    We also get the ‘not misogynist! violence is HOTTTT! even if it is sexist, it is TEH SEXXYY’

    Time for another lesson for my sister in ‘how to recognise sexism’. This is a fairly basic one and she’s beyond it, but still.

  27. (I think, incidentally, that Starship Troopers actually DID succeed as a satire of fascism … but it’s easier to do with a feature length movie than with a photo spread, and even then a lot of people didn’t get it.)

    Yup. The books do a much more thorough job of it though.

  28. A few points:

    (cannot use men in tuxes too?)

    This is a shoot for Italian Vogue, which is a women’s fashion publication. Vogue Uomo (or whatever it is called these days) which is the ‘brother’ publication, would be the place for men in tuxes.
    Italian Vogue is renowned as being the ‘edgiest’ magazine in the mainstream fashion press. The fashion spreads are no longer really about selling clothes, but rather an opportunity for top name photographers to be paid shed-loads of money to ‘realise their vision’ as long as it includes designer clothes. I have no doubt that the photographer responsible for this was trying to make a point about the rise in repression and ‘the police state’ in modern society, rather than thinking ‘violence + women = sexy’. I am not saying the photographer was particularly successful, but put it in context people. And if you have a problem with a fashion magazine using glamourous, air-brushed images to try and make a political point, you should not bother trying to critique fashion magazines. You obviously don’t get it – this is the way they operate, for right or for wrong. Expecting them to do otherwise is to overlook the whole rationale behind their existence.

  29. I’m gonna go ahead and suggest that you obviously don’t get it — this is a feminist blog, for right or for wrong. What we do is pinpoint sexism in politics, media, and our personal lives and write about it. Expecting us to do otherwise is looking the whole rationale behind our existence.

  30. And if you have a problem with a fashion magazine using glamourous, air-brushed images to try and make a political point, you should not bother trying to critique fashion magazines. You obviously don’t get it – this is the way they operate, for right or for wrong. Expecting them to do otherwise is to overlook the whole rationale behind their existence.

    Then they should just accept that their medium will fatally dilute their message and stop trying to pretend that they’re remotely aligned with radicals. If your industry promotes humiliating women, you can’t really support that and attack humiliation in general. It’d be like using glamorous, air-brushed, super-skinny models to protest unattainable beauty standards in the media.

  31. And read some of the responses at the LJ link. “Bella.” “Arousing.” The photographer chose to put super-hot skinny model chicks in brutal positions, but still makes sure that they look hot and sexy. Check out the expression on the woman in the red dress who’s having her throat stomped. They’ve got all the hallmarks of sexualized images of women — the bee-stung lips, the sultry eyes, the slightly mussy hair, the objectified stance… read up a little bit on feminist criques of media and advertising and perhaps you’ll see where we’re coming from.

  32. Fair point Jill. I’ll pay that. I guess what I was trying to get at (and not doing a very good job of it) is that this is what fashion magazines do, and the sexulisation happens in almost any context, not just in regards to violence.
    And I think the photographer is living in a vacuum if they are using a fashion magazine to make a stand on this issue. No doubt. But THEY do not see it that way – Italian Vogue sees itself as a legitimate outlet for this type of expression. So my problem is not how they did it – the glamour, the air-brushed images – but that they think they are the place to make these points.
    So, have I cleared up my point or just muddied the waters further?

  33. On Starship Troopers
    you must read the book to understand. The movie was a horrible and gross character assasination on the book.

    The book was the last of Heinlens Juvenile series. He wrote it in response to the current Administration rolling over for some Soviet Political manouver regarding nuclear weapons. Heinlein actually wrote about his motivations later in some collected musings.

  34. As someone who used to love fashion, I know that this kind of stuff is unfortunately very common. About Face has been documenting this crap for ages – here are some examples. I’d also recommend Genderads for more examples and great analysis.
    I can understand that violent images are visually arresting, but I cannot condone glamorizing or sexualizing violence. Also, the depiction of violence is extremely sanitized and unrealistic. Sailorman mentions at #12 about protestors being stomped on and having their bones broken. Do any of these pictures show realistically the physical effects – the tissue damage, swelling, blood, etc – of such injuries? When I got a bloody nose from dry air, it ruined my shirt and I looked like a wreck. Also as Jill noted at #31, the women’s expressions look sexually aroused, not with the contorted red face and spittle that might suggest anger or the runny nose and swollen eyes of pain or fear.
    If you want to see a more realistic depiction of violence, may I suggest James Nachtwey’s Inferno or Century. Many of the pictures feature war, violence and social unrest, and airbrushed, designer-clad models in porno poses are few and far between.

  35. Megami,

    I have seen fashion magazines. You’d be amazed, but they often show the women with guys around, too, and the guys are usually clothed. (In fact, I see guys in this spread.) So if you’re showing police oppression of the ‘hey look, it could happen to anyone’ sort (which I will take as a given for this argument), then you need to explain your choice of only women being attacked by almost exclusively men. Or, you know, the female cop in her sexy dress shooting at pictures of women.

  36. Ugh. I only saw the red dress one at Pandagon. Seeing the whole series makes it look less of a protest and more sexualized. For example, the one with the girls’ face hidden and all her leg exposed is dehumanizing to her and not in a way that protests dehumanization.

  38. I also doubt that these advertisements glamorizing designer clothes are 1) “art” 2) some subversive political statement.

    A good satire would make the brutality absurd and laughable, like in Starship Troopers, or Team America… I see no visual cues to connect these images in any way the “the war on terror”, either.

    from an SM pornografic -fantasy- perspective, these images can be arousing. But used to sell or glamorize clothes? Inappropriate.

  39. if anything, the big fault of this spread as an “edgy” piece, is that the references to the war on terror is so tenuous and pat, so easily manipulated to fit the fashion photographer’s (Miesel is CORNY) vague understandings of sex as violence – it is not edgy at all! it’s transparent. transparently bad. if it’s supposed to be art, which i think it’s trying to do, it’s bad art. overstylized and says nothing – except that the photographer is aware of the existence of our tensions with terrorist states.

    BORING.

  40. So the way to protest sexual violence is to make it sexy, skinny, and hawt? Given the way men resent women, and the way Nice Guys (TM) think hawt chicks owe them sex, I’d be doubtful that models aren’t the focus of some pretty serious hostility, like all women.

    If they really wanted to make a point, how come the officers aren’t female, in haute couture or whatever, arresting hawt guys?

  41. There is nothing even remotely new, cutting edge, or original about this equation of violence and sexuality, particularly sold as glamour (and of course, the text accompanying the photos doesn’t critique Abu Ghraib, it identifies which designers the models are wearing). Regardless of their intent, it fails. Melanie Pullen’s High Fashion Crime Scenes, in which she photographs models as murder victims wearing borrowed high-end fashion, has gotten lots of press, praise, and sales in the art world. (you can check them out at melaniepullen.com). When I heard her speak, all she had to say in it’s defense was, well, nothing. But she doesn’t even have to defend it. She, like Steven Meisel, is giggling all the way to the bank.

    And please don’t trot out that “art isn’t pretty, it’s meant to provoke” crap as a defense against questionable imagery. I am an artist who depicts women’s bodies in my work, and I’ve never considered it a license to produce anything that pops into my head. Artists are still of the world and still have a responsibility in it.

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