apocalypstic

contax / new york photo by emir eralp

contax / brooklyn photo by emir eralp

(via dearhead)

garconniere:

fette:

Top, photograph by Cass Bird, 2010. Bottom, screen capture from El Guincho, Bombay, 2010 directed by Nicolás Méndez. Watch the music video.

This is part 1/2. See part two.

As much as this video is visual compelling, it reminds me of the case Beck x Charlotte Gainsbourg, Heaven Can Wait, 2010 directed by Keith Schofield, where each shot could be extracted to be found somewhere else as a photograph, sculpture or as another form of existing expression.

i agree and disagree with fette on this one… i gave it a bit of thought and realized that my main disagreenment is that the heaven can wait music video is similar to el guincho, but only in the fact that they both reference countless other pieces of art and/or cultural products and appropriate them for their own uses. so those feelings are put to rest: in my opinion heaven can wait > el guincho.

the fact that nothing in el guincho is original in and of itself, a pastiche of “carl sagan meets jodoroswky”, is not what makes it bad. in fact, it is what seems to interest people and lead them to leave comments like “best video i’ve ever seen.” people who may not know of karen finely’s egg performance but will watch this music video may be wondering “why the fuck is that woman crushing eggs on her face?” people who may not have never seen two girls flashing traffic photograph by cass bird might be wowed by the image in the music video.

what i find strange is that while the video takes its references from photographs, stills keep popping up all over the place. and it is terribly hard to find the original works they reference… it has been frustrating me to no end so i am going to try and deconstruct just why i hate this music video. trigger warning: discussions of sexual violence against women.

please watch it and tell me what you think: am i really alone in hating this music video? there are just so many things about it that rub me the wrong way. while the image fette posted above could be interesting and beautiful for many numbers of reasons, i feel like the music video completely strips any of the interesting aspects of its original context and renders it dull at best, and offensive at worst.

aside from the point that fette raises about the politics of referencing other pieces of art in your own art, my main problem with this video is that it is a perfect illustration of how we are constantly hypersexualizing (at best) and objectifying (at worst) female bodies, and always a specific kind of female body (young, white, thin) and fail to see the consequences that this objectification might have on a culture.

at first when i felt nauseous watching it, i thought perhaps i was being a bit of a prude… but if you know me, you know i love breasts! that couldn’t be it, i thought. so i watched it a few more times. here are some notes:

• number of breasts in the music video: 11 (well, 22, but 11 pairs)
• number of penises: 0 (not counting phallic objects)
• number of vaginas/crotches/upper thigh region: 6
• number of female butts in tight pants (when focused on): 6
• number of “girl on girl” action sequences: 6
• number of “guy on guy” action sequences: 0
• number of violent acts against women (holding limbs down, choking, etc): 4 (the feet ones are ambiguous, could be against men)
• number of shirtless men: 2

but even if we crunch the numbers, it isn’t about the number of breasts, the amount of nudity, the sexuality, the exhibitionism. it’s about who those breasts are put on display for, what is being exhibited for whom, and even how they are being exhibited.

active masculinity, passive femininity

if we watch the male characters in this short clip, they are often doing active things: running with guns, riding bikes, attacking someone, shooting a cd into space. if we watch the female characters, they are mostly passive. a woman is resting her head on a table balancing a bowl on top as a man eats from it. a woman is standing still smoking while towels are teetering on her shoulder. when the women are active, they are taking off their shirts, licking branches, humping statues, showing a body part for someone else. the only exception to this is when two topless women with big guns force a man out of the bushes.

but the worst? the worst is when women have their limbs held down, like @2:11. this is what i realized is really triggering for me. this is the main reason why i think this video is not only bad, but offensive. maybe for most viewers the idea of rape does not come to mind, but it is the first and only thing i am thinking of when i see those images. in this case, these images are shown casually alongside a sexy librarian sucking someone’s foot, two girls dressed the same giving each other mouth to mouth, etc. the fact that these images are so carelessly thrown together next to one another is incredibly distressing.

now let’s address the hypersexualization very briefly. i’m queer. i don’t mind seeing two girls make out. what i do mind seeing though, is two femme girls making out for the sole purpose of titilating a hetero male in pop culture. it is so boring, and frankly quite irritating for myself, an actual queer femme. i’m sick of being confronted by bi-phobia all over the place, constantly being reminded that being a queer femme woman is a pretty complicated identity space to occupy, and then have the mainstream media paint it as this casual one-dimensional “sexy”… thing.

i just think in the end the entire video is vapid and potentially dangerous. it reproduces these really boring norms of “guys makes music, women who are fans of that music are sexy and objectified, and then if we try to have sex with them and they resist, they’re in the wrong! they were asking for it!” attitudes. female nudity and sexuality is shown purely to titilate hetero men, while male nudity and sexuality is played at for laughs. the two times male genitalia is “shown” it is very very brief moments and mostly for comic relief, like pretending your finger is a penis (@4:10) and a man in underwear putting a vaccuum cleaner on his crotch? @4:21. and because their sexuality is portrayed as silly and fluffy, they are not threatened with sexual violence.

this shit pisses me off.

(sometimes when i think about this stufff/try to write about it i get really upset that i don’t have a classroom space to flesh these ideas out or to help me develop them and carve them out more. i miss school.)

karen finley’s egg performance

Ryan McGinley / Photographer