Fresh meat
ANTM was disgusting tonight. The photo challenge was a shoot in a warehouse in the Meatpacking District and guess what? The girls were dressed up in bikinis made of raw meat, posing alongside huge slabs of slaughtered cattle on hooks. So controversial! So fashion!
This challenge raised multiple issues for me. I appreciate Carol Adams’ critique of women’s bodies used, essentially, as “meat”; advertised, commodified, and “consumed” by the male gaze just like a big juicy burger. On a literal level, the meatpacking industry (and specifically the fast food industry), as detailed in Fast Food Nation, is notoriously exploitative of women, especially the Latinas–many undocumented–who constitute a large part of the slaughterhouse workforce. And finally, from an animal rights perspective, I object vehemently to the use of animals’ bodies–alive or dead–for the human purposes of consumption, both literal (eating) and figurative (advertisting, marketing, commodification).
I am not speaking against provocative art, or the use of (sometimes) disturbing or unsettling imagery to make a point; I don’t even have a problem with unconventional fashion advertising. But this whole thing was ludicrous–there was no statement being made, no social critique or intent other than to sell designer clothing (worn in conjunction with the corpse bikinis). The comment made by one of the judges, as he was talking about a particular model’s photograph, were striking in that it conveyed–completely unintentionally–how women (especially young women) are viewed in this culture: “She looks like chopped liver in front of you but here she looks like prime rib.” Poor taste, that.
However, toward the end of the judging there was one remarkable quote by Tyra that showed some level of awareness, although I can’t for the life of me understand why she chose to represent her views this way: “If you want to be in this industry, a lot of times that’s how you’re treated: like a side of beef.”
Then what, Tyra? You know what, I’m taking away all of her points from the first episode where she spoke eloquently about FGM in Africa. She is obviously aware of the issue, but chooses to rest on her laurels instead–”well, that’s just the way the industry is; that’s just fashion, etc.”–and rather than using her media persona and considerable influence in the fashion “industry”, she decides to exploit young women right along with them.
As I’m writing this I’m listening to the latest round of pundit sputtering and speculating on the Eliot Spitzer* debacle. This has not been such a great week for women thus far. I’d say the Uterometer is down past the halfway mark.
*I sold out and voted for this asshole, in a large part because he was big on immigrant rights and ended up passing some important and progressive legislation around human trafficking. The Democrats aren’t getting shit from me anymore.
<script src=”http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.