Oct
4
Dolce & Gabbana Misses the Point: Subjugation is Not Sexy
Filed Under Uncategorized | By Morgan J Curtis | Leave a Comment
Earlier this year, fashion designers Dolce & Gabanna bowed to public outrage and pulled an ad that many people saw as depicting a gang rape in progress. 
Naturally, the Italian fashion designers claimed that they meant no harm with their ad and had no idea that it would be seen as glorifying a sexually violent act. When Spain called for a ban on the ad, the designers claimed that Spain’s “climate of censure, shows that it wants to read negative messages even where they don’t exist”. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to read a negative message into a scene that depicts a man holding a woman down on the ground with her dress pulled up to her waist.
Apparently we are supposed to ignore the fact that Dolce & Gabbana have a history of using such disturbing images in their ad campaigns. So, here we are a few months later and their newest advertisement spread features groups of mostly clothed women with a naked man in various submissive poses. At the time of this writing, some of the ads can be seen on their website homepage, advertising page, and desktop images page (scroll through the different options to see some of these ads). They can also be seen in fashion magazines such as W, but I don’t recommend supporting the ads by purchasing the magazine.
One of the photos depicts two men on their knees taking off their shirts, their faces can’t be seen, and the only other clothing item they are wearing is underwear. The women are standing over them menacingly; one of them is even brandishing a whip, about to strike at one of the men.
Once upon a time, it was difficult to find media images that objectified men in the same ways women were often objectified – represented with mostly body parts, partially or totally naked, in submissive poses, etc. Unfortunately, we are seeing objectification of men much more frequently now – that is one of the few areas in which we seem to be quickly nearing equality. This is a very clear sign that companies have missed our point all these years. Perhaps we need to spell it out more clearly.
When we said we wanted equality and that it was frustrating and harmful to see women objectified and sexualized in the media, this was not the response we wanted. We did not mean that we wanted men to be objectified, too. We know where that leads. We understand the problems inherent in dehumanizing people. We know that objectification facilitates violence. Mutual objectification and subjugation is not the answer, and we need to make sure advertisers know that.
Sep
17
A Culture that Supports Sexual Violence?
Filed Under Uncategorized | By Morgan J Curtis | Leave a Comment
During prevention trainings (and even when talking to people in my life about ending sexual violence), at some point, I usually use the phrase “a culture that supports sexual violence†when I’m talking about the macro-level issues that contribute to sexual violence. It’s not unusual to see some eyes glaze over or some eye rolling at this point in the training or conversation. In an interview recently, a reporter repeated back questioningly “A culture that supports sexual violence?â€
Now, I’m not sure if she was just playing her part and getting me to elaborate on my point or if she really didn’t know what I meant, but I had to clarify none the less. I usually talk about media portrayals of men, women, violence and sex as part of the problem. (Media people really love it when you directly address the problems of their field, let me tell you.) Rarely, however, do I have examples of what I’m talking about that are as clear as the one I heard on a The Bobby Bones Show (a local radio show) last week.
Now, granted, I pride myself on not staying totally in touch with pop culture – I don’t watch much tv and I mostly listen to public radio. So, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that I had never heard (nor heard of) the following song until today, despite the fact that it was originally recorded almost 10 years ago. Here’s the context: the morning show co-hosts are reporting back on their top 3 i-tunes downloads for the week. The co-host who is usually the most offensive of the bunch offers up a song called The Everclear Song, and they play the following snippet :
In my junior year, I swore I loved sweet miss Cherry Ann.
One night I put some Everclear in her Dr. Pepper can.
I thought it’d make her easy, but she took it pretty hard.
I took her home and rang her doorbell, left her lying in the yard.
Following the song, the other co-hosts (two male, one female) laughed, and they all joked about the song.
Now, I’ve heard lots of very offensive, concerning comments on this show. I’m to the point where the comments cease to surprise me but still rile me up. However often they objectify women, make homophobic remarks, etc, nothing has ever been as blatantly supportive of sexual violence as this snippet and the co-hosts’ response. And nothing has ever left me so speechless. I looked up the lyrics to the rest of the song and it is mild in comparison and none of the rest of it is about drug-facilitated sexual assault. This means that the producers of the show made a deliberate choice to play this particular verse of the song over the others.
So, when I say that we live in a culture that supports sexual violence, I mean that we live in a culture where someone can write and record song lyrics like these, get paid to perform the song, the song will be played on the radio and all of the radio hosts will laugh and joke about what a funny song it is – even 10 years later. Oh, and no one will call in or write in to complain – or, if they do, the radio won’t air their thoughts anyway. Anyone who speaks out against it and points out the problem of trivializing sexual violence will be accused of not having a sense of humor. And you know what? Despite all of the offensive moments I’ve heard on this show, I still listen to it on occasion. Sure, I do that sometimes because it gives me something to talk about later, but the point is that by listening I am also supporting the radio show. They don’t care why I listen as long as I am listening, and that makes me complicit in the problem, too.
I am complicit every time I hear something that supports sexual violence and I don’t respond. I responded this time by sending them a note about my concerns (from my personal e-mail). I don’t expect a response from the show – I didn’t receive one the last time – but I still feel it’s important not to let those moments go by without responding.
Silence on the issue only suggests that we are okay with a culture that trivializes and supports sexual violence. We can’t change the cultural support of sexual violence if we don’t speak out against what we see and hear. We cannot prevent sexual violence if we can’t – or won’t – directly confront the conditions that perpetuate it.