ArtForum Ads Hit a New Low

LeisureArts: I like your comments, but can you take it down a notch so the thread doesn’t turn into a flame war?

It’s funny that the Lynda Benglis image everyone is referring to is reproduced in a Jonathan Monk / Yvon Lambert Paris ad on page 19. The connection is… tenuous at best? It seems to me this meta-discourse/blackface argument might just be an excuse to celebrate culture rather than get critical.

I think the first one is offensive and the second one is hot. The first one showing the blow up doll look on her face – why not just use a blow up doll? The second one is more sculptural and the bottle looks more like a clitoris. The photo alludes to the mystery of a woman’s pleasure. I still don’t see how it intends to sell men’s cologne, but it’s still more interesting to me than the first. It would have been better to keep the second ad, toss the first and replace it with smooth, hairless, male anatomy used in a similar way. Perhaps with a more unique skin color, not as often seen in the ad world. Then, the whole thing would take on a larger, more complex theme.

I think the first one is offensive and the second one is hot. The first one showing the blow up doll look on her face – why not just use a blow up doll? The second one is more sculptural and the bottle looks more like a clitoris. The photo alludes to the mystery of a woman’s pleasure. I still don’t see how it intends to sell men’s cologne, but it’s still more interesting to me than the first. It would have been better to keep the second ad, toss the first and replace it with smooth, hairless, male anatomy used in a similar way. Perhaps with a more unique skin color, not as often seen in the ad world. Then, the whole thing would take on a larger, more complex theme.

For the record, I mentioned Benglis as a parallel not as a direct connection/reference to the Tom Ford ad.

My mention of “meta” critique is not an attempt to celebrate anything, but is an attempt to complicate the all-knowing, self-congratulatory nature of the so called critical position. I am suspicious of straightforward readings of how images operate – in this case, consumerism, human sexuality, and art history among many other fields are converging. It seems too easy to fall back on the exploitation of women riff. I am especially dubious of people who presume to know how something functions in a sexual economy – an incredibly complex milieu fraught with exceptions, contradictions and unknowns.

it really shocks me to run into such an abundance of second-wave feminist outrage.

christalmighty. the fragrance is obviously targeted towards the hypermale, the elitist hypermale at that..who perchance dotes on modelesque robert palmer-type women.

who cares?

if it offends you, don’t purchase it.

frankly, i find the images rather attractive. in this raw sexual way.

it really shocks me to run into such an abundance of second-wave feminist outrage.

christalmighty. the fragrance is obviously targeted towards the hypermale, the elitist hypermale at that..who perchance dotes on modelesque robert palmer-type women.

who cares?

if it offends you, don’t purchase it.

frankly, i find the images rather attractive. in this raw sexual way.

Have any of you checked out Richardsonmag.com?

If not, I’d recommend it.

Especially the Jameson shoot by Glen Luchford and Mario Sorrenti beastiality imagery.

O-face Olio

Sorry 2b so rambling w/ non sequiturs, but I was doing this at my leisure, it was just a ‘meta’ critique, not really serious. Next time I’ll have my paper topic and bibliography in on time. MLA okay? No need for the ad hominum heavy, although it kinda made my point.

Some think these photos are some kinda organic or natural similacra, some how ‘meta’ed thru media and repro. The Silverman’s/Chappelle’s use taxonomies of race to deliver u to product or to pay cable. So their appropriation of racial types is the product of their labor, which they sell to cable and we pay to see. Meta usually means like the old philosophy like the concept of mind, having neither material or location. So, this comedy is a social relation of exchange, and pretty goddam empirical, not meta.

Porn, Porn, and more Porn u Porny Pornificators. This scenario is pornish. I think I caused friction dragging on the priviledged access to the female body. I think we were assuming here the woman is a porn worker, paid for services, and as a body/worker/laborer is objectified and demonized. Therefore, not being a ‘real’ person, but a ‘meta’ person makes it discountable as not really real. How managerial, a tie as we say in the factory. The frosting of highlights courtesy of Photoshop adds to the masking. Once a male is delivered to the omniscient spectator, of course, the photo loses reference. The antiseptic cleanliness of the whole scene, yuk!

The idea that the bottom photo is a clit: Whoah, u got some klit there woman. But when does a large clit become a small penis? These and other intersex problems …

Gee, Paddy, have you never seen an advertisement that blatantly showed a woman’s body before? Shocking! Welcome to the twenty-first century.

Hanger-On: Just because people are aware of problems, it doesn’t mean that it’s redundant to talk about them. It’s this kind of thinking that creates a lot of the problems we see today. Notably, I’m the only woman on this thread willing to take an unqualified position against this advertisment.

As a rhetorical gesture, consider the following. This photo represents a masculinist mentality similar to the Taliban, whereas the Taliban wish to position women as covered and powerless, the moneyed masculinists wish to position women as undressed and powerless. Pithy.

Looks like the trolls have found this page. I’m closing the comments. Thanks to everyone who discussed this post.