Pornography In Mainstream Media

I chose each of these media artifacts for different reasons. In the first artifact, it has two women in the restroom. Jenny McCarthy is sitting on the toilet as Kelly Clarkson is in the bath tub. This is an advertisement for Candie's shoes; shoes, however, is not what they are selling. Jenny McCarthy is a woman of many talents and began her career as a Playboy model. This is an example of everyday porn in that it alludes to the male fantasy of two women. In examining the advertisement, one can see the gasp on Kelly Clarkson's face and the "whoops" on Jenny McCarthy's. What the cause of these facial expressions is un known but the placement of the women is precise. They are close in proximity and sexually vulnerable. Jenny McCarthy with her underwear down and Kelly Clarkson naked in a tub.
The second artifact is the scene in Aladdin where he is on the balcony and under his breath says "teenagers take off your clothes". This is an example of how pornography is tied into everyday media including children's movies. There are different articles that suggest this: Hidden Sexual Messages Found in Disney Movies (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tcom/faculty/ha/tcom103fall2003/gp13/gp13.pdf) and a video that explicitly shows the comment:


The third artifact are the urinals that are shaped as women's mouths. These urinals play out the fantasy of urinating on women, more specifically urinating in their mouths. It produces the violence and objectification that can be relayed back to a majority of pornography.

The next artifact is an advertisements for the Longchamp Legend Purse. In the top image, she is sexually positioned with her legs spread open dressed in lingerie. Advertisements are consistently used to portray sexually available women to continue the male fantasy of women that always want sex.

The last two artifacts are used to demonstrate the differences between the female advertisement and the male advertisement for the Shake Weight. In the female advertisement, although the women are clothed, there is a focus on their breasts and cleavage. In the male commercial, the men are shirtless. The machine itself imitates the up and down movements of the "hand job." In these workout videos, both men and women are cut into sections of the body. The primary focus of these advertisements is the body and emphasis is placed in the commercial on the value of image. For women, there is the promotion to be thinner and for men, there is the promotion of being "ripped".

As discussed in class and in the articles, porn is everywhere and camera angles, music, positioning, and lighting are just some of the ways that these everyday images replicate the same ideas as pornography.

Sexuality As A Social Critique

In the Nike campaign to replicate the idea of “real women” in advertising, it helps to reinforce the idea of women as they are rather than these thin, white, skinny women. The images of these women are in black and white and cast in shadows so as not to uncover the ethnicity or race of the women. Only part of the women is photographed so as to commodify her into pieces. Along with each image is a poem or brief monologue spoken by the body part displayed. This one in particular exhibits the woman’s butt. In the lines, it reclaims the “butt” as a body part that has attitude and power in its own sexual prowess. In a sense, it critiques the idea of sexuality in the acceptance of the body rather than be ashamed and desire to be thin.

Some bathrooms now exhibit the sign that there are baby-changing tables within the men’s restroom. Originally, only women’s restrooms would have the baby-changing tables. This sign critiques the male gender role. It acknowledges that men, too, can change diapers and care for children.

This advertisement is from the Dove campaign for “Real Beauty”. This particular ad focuses on age. The woman displayed has gray and white hair, wrinkles, and age spots to demonstrate her age. The woman is nude and her entire body is shown. The ad says, “too old to be in an anti-aging ad.”, across her breast. Underneath her image it says, “but this isn’t anti-age, this is pro-age.” The ad at first glance reemphasizes the fear of age and how old is not beautiful. The statement underneath the article critiques women’s sexuality as being infinite rather than female beauty lasting only in a woman’s “prime”.

The Vagina Monologues were created to raise awareness about sexual assault. This particular monologue empowers women’s sexuality to the extent of seeking orgasms. It critiques female sexuality as having the ability to be the aggressor and that women are capable of having sexualities outside of the passive stereotype.

This commercial advertisement from Dove demonstrates the use of airbrushing in advertisements and the image of impossible perfection that is being sold. It critiques female sexuality so as to say that, “We are all beautiful. No one really looks like those images in the media.”

"Objectified" and "Empowered" Sexuality

In Rihanna's Rated R album, she has a variety of photos selected for each song in the album. In this particular photo, she is dressed in a sexually provocative corset. The most indicative part in this picture is what appears to be barbed wire that is wrapped around her body and is constraining her. Her body language in each image displays a different emotion. In the first frame, her eyes are averted to the right and her eyebrows are tensed while her hands are grasping the wire but are positioned as if bound. Her hair is structured and yet in disarray while her lips are full and pouty. In the second frame, her eyes are closed or looking downward as she kneels over barbed wire with the look of passivity. The third frame displays her arms as bound once again, her face is tilted toward the camera although her eyes are averted to the right again, and her mouth is slightly open in an almost seductive way. In the last frame, her posture is slightly slumped over as her eyes look in the distance, her eyebrows are drawn together and her mouth is slightly open.
The first two articles discussed social subordination having four parts: hierarchy, objectification, submission, and violence. It, also, discussed that these four parts are so deeply embedded in mainstream culture. Rihanna is a popular artist within the mainstream and this image in her album portrays hierarchy in the second frame where she is kneeling that sends the image that women are weak or lesser. She's being objectified with the emphasis on her breasts and lips. The submission can be seen in the aversion of the eyes and the helplessness portrayed in the last frame. The barbed wire that is bound to her body not only reemphasizes the weakness and helplessness but signifies the violence toward women.

In this Carl's Jr. commercial, it focuses on the fruit entering Kim Kardashian's mouth, zooms in on her breasts, and flashes some of her thighs. This commercial objectifies women by portraying women as individual body parts: lips, breats, hips, and thighs. The commercial, also, creates the fantasy of insertion of objects (food in this case) orally in a slow seductive manner. The apple in this scenario is representative of the penis which is shown twice slowing entering her mouth. This allows for the allusion that real life replicates this willingness of women to constantly be seen as sexual. In the Jensen/Dines article, the civil rights ordinance drafted by Dworkin and MacKinnon defines "pornography as the 'graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words'." Although the material is not sexually explicit in terms of pornography, it does allude to oral sex.

Lady Gaga - New Music - More Music Videos

Within the first two minutes of the Lady Gaga video, Paparazzi, the viewer can see how sex easily changes to violence. The moment she says, "Stop!", there is some commotion between the two before he pushes her off the balcony. In the commotion, it appears that he does not respond to her cry for him to stop and in response she slaps him. When she had fought back, he pushed her off the balcony. This is a portrayal of domestic violence. Dworkin talked about how women are seen as these sexual beings and that when a woman says no it means yes because a woman would never turn down sex. Pornography and the mainstream media perpetuate this idea that "No doesn't really mean no."

The movie Speak has many significant examples; however, I'll simply focus on the introduction of Kristen Stuart's character, Melinda. As the camera brings up the image of Melinda, you begin to see these black lines over her mouth. It isn't until the camera positions itself to reflect her image in the mirror that the viewer discovers that her mouth is drawn as if it has been sewn shut. The film is about a young girl that is raped; therefore, the introduction is symbolic of her silence and her inability to speak about it at present. Dworkin discusses the role of silence within the female community and quotes The Three Marias of Portugal who said, "Let no one tell me that silence gives consent, because whoever is silent dissents."

This image is in grayscale. The woman's eyes are shut and her face is relaxed. She is poised and graceful; her strength is demonstrated in the vein that is popping out of her neck. In Hartley's article, she brings up the point that pornography or any sexual adventurism can be a choice that a woman makes to empower herself. In this image, the woman looks strong. She is fully clothed and yet, she is hanging from a pole. There are strippers that do the same thing in less clothing and that does not make their job a depiction of objectification. At least not for themselves, if that is a choice they are voluntarily making to empower themselves.