Look! B00bs!

A fun movie–fast-paced action, clever twists, entertaining acting, even a couple thoughtful social commentaries woven in…

And then, an inexplicable scene where the two detectives–one in particular–become so impressed by a witness’ breasts that the entire film disintegrates into a series of Beavis and Butthead moments of, essentially: “Heh, heh, look at her b00bs!” as he stares at her chest. Huh?

I will never get used to idiotic and exploitative scenes involving women in films…and television and advertising… I’m anywhere from affronted to outraged, depending on the situation and its context. In this case, there was a thin reference to the possibility that the bank heist perpetrators might be distinguished from the victims by noting body shape; at least, that would have been the excuse for the staring-at-her-boobs moment, but it doesn’t hold up. It also pretended to be humorous, but it wasn’t. And I’m not above finding humor in even stupid body part jokes, believe me. But it wasn’t there. We tried to figure out how this scene might be less distasteful than it was (Hmm, we must have missed something...), and I was hoping we could, but no; I’m convinced that excuses aside, it was simply yet another shameless, degrading moment for a female character in a film.

I don’t get it.

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How to Make Domestic Violence Cute and Funny

Foxnews.com “reports” on a sickening author and cleric who was broadcast on Saudi and Kuwaiti television giving advice to men on how and when to physically abuse their wives; he references how to assault a child as well.

The first sentence of the article reads: “Move over, Dr. Phil, there’s a new relationship expert in town.”

Then the segment is described. An example: “‘Woman, it has gone too far. I can’t bear it anymore,’ he tells the men to tell their wives. ‘If he beats her, the beatings must be light and must not make her face ugly.'”

The article’s last sentence: “Take that, Match.com!”

I don’t even know where to start with this–this man and his repugnant advice, or the news outlet who sees a flippancy to this story. Hideous all around.

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How To Defeat Sexist Advertising

My high school English teacher–the one who told me feminists could wear white robes–had a bulletin board in her classroom devoted to advertising. Not only did she display the ads, but she led close-reading/seeing discussions on the sexist and racist images and symbols in advertising–and once she clued us in to what we were seeing, we saw it everywhere. What could have been a better lesson for the girls and boys in her classroom than how to read their world along with their literature? Particularly when they learned to read the messages they didn’t even know were there.

We found and collected those images, picked them apart and vanquished them with our discussions, then relegated them to the corner of the room where they belonged.

This ad is on NOW’s Love Your Body page–go there to see it along with a dizzying array of other awful ads.

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