the seuxal politics of pop culture
The latest "special edition" of Vanity Fair featuring nude, pasty white, young beauties Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson:
"The clothed male represents some form of dominance," said UCLA art history professor Albert Boime, a modern art specialist. "Whereas the women appear much more vulnerable and subject to the whims of the male." (No kidding. Check out the photo on Page 132 of Ford playfully biting the ample, surgically enhanced bosom of aging sexpot Mamie Van Doren.)
What keeps the cover photograph within the bounds of good taste, said Boime, is that it is not explicitly sexual, "mainly because the women do not respond to Tom Ford ... , and they don't seem to be seductive themselves. They don't cast alluring glances, they are sort of indifferent."
There's something familiar about this scene. I can't put my finger on it. The men are clothed and the women sit unabashedly naked, indifferent to their surroundings.
I don't know what to make of Vanity Fair. Does it have substance or is it pure upper-middle class consumerist fluff? The first forty pages are advertisements for unnecessary high-end consumer brands like Calvin Klein, Prada and J. Crew. But occasionally they publish genuine journalistic endeavors.
What are your thoughts on the cover? Should we burn British and Swedish embassies because two European girls have disgraced America's newsstands?
I personally think it's a cheap publicity stunt by two actresses who already receive enough attention from the merit of their own work. Perhaps the Academy voters like some T&A?
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