Of course, it's just IMHO, but I though I'd post a link to it and see what y'all have to say.

Here tis.

quote:

---

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman's trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

---

I heard on CBC that the third model was to be Rachel MacAdams but she balked.

It really gets my goat that Tom Ford is fully clothed. Could the message be any clearer?

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: pookie ]

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: scooter ]

quote:

---

If I could boil the Tom Ford experience down to a single element for you, it would be the yellow Post-It note I found stuck to a photograph of Angelina Jolie that was pinned to the wall of Vanity Fair's planning room. In small handwriting were the words "Leave in butt crack. TF."

---

quote:

---

coyly concealing her breasts while simultaneously flashing a come-hither look at the camera

---

quote:

---

Ford, the issue's guest art director, said he hadn't planned to become part of his own project, but he stepped in when "Wedding Crashers" star Rachel McAdams backed out.
"She did want to do it, and then when she was on the set I think she felt uncomfortable, and I didn't want to make anybody feel uncomfortable" Ford said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

---

...and naturally my first thought was "yeah, it was mighty big of him to step in and save the photo like that." However, I have since learned that Tom Ford is openly gay.

So I have revised my thinking: I believe it is an exercise in stroking his ego, rather than stroking his Tom Ford.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emma Francis:
I don't understand what the big problem is.

What does the curdled milk comment refer to, their paleness? If so, I like the fact that they are pale, and not the faux tan orange colour that so many people are sporting these days. They look healthy, natural, feminine and beautiful and if they are comfortable enough in their own skin to go nude like that, I commend them.

---

I agree. I was also put off by the "curdled milk" comment. My skin doesn't tan; I go from "curdled milk white" straight to "damaged bright pink" without passing any shade of tan. I refuse to spray-paint my body or do any other such foolish thing to correct this "problem". So I agree, it is nice to see a famous caucasian woman who doesn't feel compelled to turn herself orange to be fashionable.

And I suspect that were something as uncomplimentary as "curdled milk" said of someone of a different skin tone, Babblers would have beaten them down with the fury of a white hot sun.

quote:

---

Originally posted by pookie:
It really gets my goat that Tom Ford is fully clothed. Could the message be any clearer?

---

Now, I certainly support people not trying to alter their original skin colour. If my community (South Asian) could stop glorifying "fairness" that would make me very happy.

Still, this photo is meant to prompt aesthetic reactions, no? Well, mine was negative. I saw the extreme contrast between the background, TF's suit etc as playing up the whiteness, making it extreme. I don't find it attractive in this instance.

quote:

---

posted by brebis noire: ... Of course, it's just IMHO, but I though I'd post a link to it and see what y'all have to say. Here tis.

---

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: deBeauxOs ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by deBeauxOs:
'Thank God for this picture - look how amazing I was.'" [/i]

---

Hey - I bet that's just what Dr. Laura thinks, too! There's nothing like having naked pictures of one's young self posted on the Web for posterity's sake!

quote:

---

Originally posted by pookie:
On reflection I agree that the "curdled milk" comment was gratuitous, so I've edited it.

Now, I certainly support people not trying to alter their original skin colour. If my community (South Asian) could stop glorifying "fairness" that would make me very happy.

Still, this photo is meant to prompt aesthetic reactions, no? Well, mine was negative. I saw the extreme contrast between the background, TF's suit etc as playing up the whiteness, making it extreme. I don't find it attractive in this instance.

Is it inappropriate to express that?

---

Not necessarily. But for those of us milk-white types, being able to disagree with your assessment would also be good.

If it's any consolation, the last time I did any on-camera work, I had a South Asian producer insist on the makeup artist using a heavy pancake on my very Celtic white-and-pink complexion because "everybody looks better with a golden glow". He also requested that she paint out my freckles.

I find the picture interesting in a couple of ways. First, Ford being in the photo at all, especially if he's not doffing his clothes too, offensive. It doesn't work for me at all, either compositionally or in terms of gender relation. On the other hand, I like the contrast of the bodies and the background, and I like nudes in general. I did, actually, use a similar high-contrast technique when taking a nude self-portrait when I was in film school.

quote:

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He adds, "I said to them, 'When you're 70 you're gonna look back and say, 'Thank God for this picture - look how amazing I was.'"

---

Maybe, maybe not. It's a manipulative thing to say to an actress, regardless -- you don't enter that business without a good dose of vanity and it certainly plays on that.

I think it's cheesy in the extreme that McAdams didn't know, on arriving at the set, that she was expected to pose nude. Firing her agent was exactly the right thing to do.

Edited to add: I was once in a student film entitled "The Naked and the Nude". I was the one fully clothed -- my male co-star was the one without the duds.

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: Zoot ]

quote:

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They look healthy, natural, feminine and beautiful and if they are comfortable enough in their own skin to go nude like that, I commend them.

---

Pardon? Knightley looks frail and ill. It's made even more obvious next to the more normal looking Johannessen. I don't think emaciated ribs is healthy, natural or feminine. I also think the uberpaleness of their skin is a bit creepy. It's not an ode to those who can't tan. Or an encouragement to avoid the Paris Hilton tan. It's something else and it's not pleasant.

quote:

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
I heard somewhere that the intention was to mimic Manet's Luncheon on the Grass.

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Mimic would be the word, which again is why it ain't art.

quote:

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He looks like some degenerate tourist who has been caught humping a waxwork in Madame Tussaud's.

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I think the healthy human body in its prime can be very lovely indeed.

Fortunately, less perfect bodies can also be endearing.

quote:

---

Originally posted by skdadl:
He wasn't just imitating someone else's clever idea, which is all that Ford is doing. Woo-hoo! Women naked; man has clothes on. Aren't we all shocked. A century and a quarter later.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lagatta:
A bit later, Claude Monet responded to Manet's painting with his own déjeuner sur l'herbe

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[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: deBeauxOs ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scout:

Pardon? Knightley looks frail and ill. It's made even more obvious next to the more normal looking Johannessen. I don't think emaciated ribs is healthy, natural or feminine. I also think the uberpaleness of their skin is a bit creepy. It's not an ode to those who can't tan. Or an encouragement to avoid the Paris Hilton tan. It's something else and it's not pleasant.

---

As someone paler than Johannessen and of similar body type to Knightley (ribs and all), this comment just made me feel pretty shitty. I kind of dug the cover because she was so pale and it made me feel better for not wanting to go to the tanning booth

Other than that, though, it is pretty cool to see a discussion of a nude spread centering on the composition and artistic context rather than on the hotness or ugliness of women themselves.

I don't really have any insightful comments, I guess. I just wish we could stop picking apart women's bodies and appearances. Which is hardly an original thought, I know. And Scout you have every right to say whatever you want to say about them, I totally respect that. I just hate when the feminism forum makes me feel ashamed of my own body. It makes me wish the world was kinder, or something like that.

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: vmichel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by vmichel:
It makes me wish the world was kinder, or something like that.

---

I am with you there, vmichel. I want to clarify that when I said they looked ordinary that I was not being derogatory - I think that the 'ordinary' human body is lovely. I don't even like 'amazing' - that's what makes us feel all wrong, so when we get the chance, we pick it all apart. Sometimes, rightfully so; sometimes, just for the spite of it.

quote:

---

Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman's trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by vmichel:

As someone paler than Johannessen and of similar body type to Knightley (ribs and all), this comment just made me feel pretty shitty. I kind of dug the cover because she was so pale and it made me feel better for not wanting to go to the tanning booth

I don't really have any insightful comments, I guess. I just wish we could stop picking apart women's bodies and appearances. Which is hardly an original thought, I know. And Scout you have every right to say whatever you want to say about them, I totally respect that. I just hate when the feminism forum makes me feel ashamed of my own body. It makes me wish the world was kinder, or something like that.

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: vmichel ]

---

Thank you for speaking up about this, vmichel - I was stung by the criticisms of Knightly as well. Being slim or slender is not the same as being emaciated, frail or ill. I don't see any ribs on Knightly's body - in fact, she seems to have a nicely muscled stomach. In the comments section of the page that the picture is on, there are several people wishing Knightly would eat some pies or a sandwich. My body type is very similar to Keira's and I eat very heartily, I exercise and I rarely become ill. People often make unwanted comments about my body, by calling me "so skinny!", telling me to eat more, or making fun of my thin arms.

quote:

---

Originally posted by brebis noire:

I want to clarify that when I said they looked ordinary that I was not being derogatory - I think that the 'ordinary' human body is lovely. I don't even like 'amazing' - that's what makes us feel all wrong, so when we get the chance, we pick it all apart.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pookie:
On reflection I agree that the "curdled milk" comment was gratuitous, so I've edited it.

Now, I certainly support people not trying to alter their original skin colour. If my community (South Asian) could stop glorifying "fairness" that would make me very happy.

Still, this photo is meant to prompt aesthetic reactions, no? Well, mine was negative. I saw the extreme contrast between the background, TF's suit etc as playing up the whiteness, making it extreme. I don't find it attractive in this instance.

Is it inappropriate to express that?

---

I guess it was the way you expressed it that upset me. It struck me as making a rude comment on the natural color of someone's skin. I can't imagine somebody on this website having the incredible bad sense to compare a non-white woman's skin to a rancid food product... but because Johansson is white (frighteningly so, apparently) it seems ok.

And if Emma hadn't commented, I probably wouldn't have commented either. I'm a natural blonde, so I learned a long time ago to not take that sort of comment personally.

quote:

---

As someone paler than Johannessen and of similar body type to Knightley (ribs and all), this comment just made me feel pretty shitty. I kind of dug the cover because she was so pale and it made me feel better for not wanting to go to the tanning booth

---

quote:

---

I just wish we could stop picking apart women's bodies and appearances. Which is hardly an original thought, I know. And Scout you have every right to say whatever you want to say about them, I totally respect that. I just hate when the feminism forum makes me feel ashamed of my own body. It makes me wish the world was kinder, or something like that.

---

Keira Knightley isn’t just some regular girl with a faster metabolism; most of Hollywood starlets aren’t that girl, they work damn hard to be thin so they can work. This isn’t the Dove campaign, this is Vanity Fair trumpeting the new beauty status quo, they do the It-Girl thing yearly. If you want to see it up as “Wow, they finally are speaking to us skinny, white girls that are so under-represented in main stream media!” fine, just don’t try and silence others through guilt who don’t see it as a positive message to be sending to the masses of average or un-thin and the not-so-white.

It’s irritating as a woman when it’s insinuated that I should be less honest about an issue that is generally of serious concern to feminists and simple be kinder. That I should be nicer when pointing out that something is wrong with the extreme whiteness and thinness of these models, including the one that bailed not to mention the full clad older man hover over them. It just feels like feminism-lite. It’s not nice that the roles models hurled at young girls are almost always white and thinner than average. This photo is an exaggeration of the reality of media these days. And how would not addressing that be kinder? Actresses are getting thinner and thinner. I don’t mean this new crop, I mean older established actresses are shrinking. Tanning to extremes isn’t as popular as one would believe after reading some of the comments here regardless of Paris Hilton’s over-exposure. I can name several top Oscar winners that are pale. Lara Flynn Boyle almost always covers her freckles, and has for years, so does Lindsay Lohan. Terry Hatcher is so thin now I think she might disappear all together. And I find a certain level of obscenity in the praise for extreme thinness for thinness sake in light of the fact that people are still starving to death. It’s far more troubling to me than the North American trend of overindulgence. Maybe because it’s a class thing, the rich are thin the poor are often not in North America society..

The problem with the photo, to me, is not the body types or relative beauty of the actresses (although we can discuss that all day), but the shocking, gratuitious, and unapologetic difference in power the shot represents.

On another note, the Reuter's report this cover (which, sadly, made the top news box on yahoo) mentioned that Angelina Jolie "also posed naked -- in a bathtub -- for the special, which includes shots of a fully clothed George Clooney and a galaxy of other stars."

The version I read yesterday, which was longer, mentioned that the shot of Clooney, fully clothed, was against a background of many female models in skin-coloured underwear.

I'm pretty sure I've seen Lara Flynn Boyle photos with freckles apparent... If she's anything like me (and she is, with the exception of blue eyes instead of green), sun exposure makes you tan reddish, which many people find even less attractive than fish-belly white.

I didn't find Knightly especially emaciated, just thin. There's skin/muscle tone there, which you lose when you lose too much weight.

There was something (if you blank out Ford) very 1920s boudoir about the models. I've seen more offensive photos on magazine covers.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoot:
There was something (if you blank out Ford) very 1920s boudoir about the models. I've seen more offensive photos on magazine covers.

---

How are you going to go about blanking out Ford? He's part of the photo, wheter Liebowitz designed it that way or not. And the fact that he decided NOT to remove his clothes presents a very, very offensive portrait. Not to mention, if Ford's claim to fame is his "fashion designs", why aren't we seeing those? What is his point in the photo?

Actually, the composition is impeccable. Leibowitz is very, very good. I think it's the message that you're reading within the composition (and we all read somewhat different messages from visual images, usually) that disturbs you. And I'm not saying that it isn't disturbing -- I agree that I don't much like it, either.

But if you did remove Ford, and adjusted the placement of the models, I wouldn't find it a necessarily displeasing image. In fact, I very well might appreciate the use of contrast and the style.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scout:

While I understand that accusation of being too thin for those who are natural thin can be hurtful, you can’t ignore that those not thin or lily white are shown daily that it’s not quite as good to be rounder and darker skinned. The message is strongly be thin, pretty and white.

---

I hear you on that, and I'm not spoiling for a fight. I'm just saying that the answer isn't to turn tables and slam whiteness, thinness, or beauty. That's just more of the same in a different direction.

It's not the fact that skinny-ness was criticized that was troublesome, it was the fact that any physical characterstic was ripped apart so mercilessly. Would have been the same thing if she'd been ragged on for being fat.

Yet again it would seem that women can't do anything right because everyone has these restrictions and expectations places upon them.

Don't get naked.
If you are naked, you'd better be tan.
If you are naked and tan you better not try to look coy, you better try to look as innocent as possible.
You can't be fat, but don't get too skinny either.

Dammit JUST LET THEM BE! THIS HAS ALL BEEN SO JUDGEMENTAL IT'S MAKING ME CRAZY!

This whole topic IS the sexism. It's not about what's right for women to do in the eyes of all these people judging these two women. Feminism is all about women's right to choose in any circumstance, whether it be deciding whether to be a working mom or stay home, deciding to have an abortion, or decided to be confident and free spirited enough to show their bodies.

I can't believe how judgmental everyone is being in this section called feminism. Perhaps underneath our strong liberal feminist exterior we all still have proper conservative notions of how women are to act, eh?

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: Emma Francis ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emma Francis:
Yet again it would seem that women can't do anything right because everyone has these restrictions and expectations places upon them.

Don't get naked.
If you are naked, you'd better be tan.
If you are naked and tan you better not try to look coy, you better try to look as innocent as possible.
You can't be fat, but don't get too skinny either.

Dammit JUST LET THEM BE!

---

You forgot: If you are a hot actress just over 18, you are obliged to get naked whenever a director or the 'public' expects you to.

To be fair, a lot of people in this thread are trying not to be judgmental, either of their decision to do this photo shoot, the direction and composition of which was most likely totally out of their control, or of their body type/weight/pallor.

When you say sexism is the topic, I presume you mean it's because the man gets to keep his clothes on? Why is the exposure of young women's bodies as important as keeping the male body under wraps? Is it purely an aesthetic thing (i.e. naked men aren't as nice to look at?) or is there a message here, that (young) women are simply meant for taking off their clothes to be gazed at? I'm not trying to ask a stupid question - I'm just fascinated by the whole damned if they do and damned if they don't scenario. Damned if they do because they face exposure and criticism they have no control over; and damned if they don't because they're poor sports, or too ashamed of their bodies.

As for the photo itself, I'm not very good at visuals, but to my untrained eye the poses appear rather unflattering and awkward. I agree Zoot, about Demi Moore - she seemed to radiate a lot more power and confidence her nude photos. But that was then and this is now...

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: brebis noire ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by brebis noire:

You forgot: If you are a hot actress just over 18, you are obliged to get naked whenever a director or the 'public' expects you to.

[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: brebis noire ]

---

I don't think that's entirely true. There is some level of choice involved. In this instance, Rachel McAdams made the decision to walk out. Other actresses have opted not to get naked -- but lots more have opted to.

You've gotta be white, but not TOO white...

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: Zoot ]

I know many people who are very thin, and it's not because they starve themselves, they just are that way, and people will often comment on it to their faces. I always think it's so inappropriate, no one would ever comment to an overweight person's face that they should lose a little, so why would anyone tell a thin person to put some meat on their bones?

I just wish appearances were not so important.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoot:
You've gotta be white, but not TOO white...

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: Zoot ]

---

Just like finding the perfect paint color for a kitchen!
They should really label a paint chip with that.

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: vmichel ]

She actually could look like a figure from a painting from the past, although not posed quite so cutely. The whole thing is just too cutesy pour moi.

quote:

---

Johnannessen's unconventional beauty - and it is unconventional in North America, where tans are worshipped, God knows why, given how dangerous they are - always catches my eye, actually, although I wouldn't need to see her naked to appreciate her.

---

If it's true that tans became fashionable among the (fair-skinned) elite when they ceased to signify that one worked for a living -- when most of the working class left the land for factory jobs indoors -- then I can't see them going out of fashion in the near future. It's not like there's going to be a mass movement of workers back to the land in the near future.

I'd be curious to read an examination of just why that is. It's a pity we can't ask Susan Sontag back temporarily from that great symposium in the sky.

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: 'lance ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by skdadl:
Johnannessen's unconventional beauty

She actually could look like a figure from a painting from the past, although not posed quite so cutely.

---

I noticed Ms. Johansson in "Ghost World" (with Thora Birch who should get another agent - a "Limp Bizkit" video??? - ferpeezzake!) and I notice that she's been pretty good at picking movies; "Lost in Translation" (self-absorbed and boring but pleasant to watch while high), "The Man Who Wasn't There), and, with regards to skdadl's comments, "The Girl with a Pearl Earring."

link to huge picture

Where she plays the model in the Vermeer painting of the same name.

quote:

---

Originally posted by 'lance:
It stars Colin Firth.

---

[long-suffering]

What's he got that I ain't, etc....

[/long-suffering]

quote:

---

Originally posted by 'lance:
It is interesting, and of course it isn't only in the case of celebrities that people consider pale skin a sign of ill-health and other undesirable things, but in the RealWorld^TM as well. "Pallid" is a put-down, for example.

---

Pallid is a medical symptom, by the way. When a person is abnormally pale, it can be a sign of physical shock (constriction of small peripheral blood vessels), illness or anemia.

Bring up both of thwap's links, one to the studio still of J and one to the Vermeer painting.

Look at the enormous difference in emphasis. In the studio still, all the emphasis is on the beauty and the barely suppressed sensuality of J's face.

In the painting, quite otherwise. That face is just barely individualized. It is much more childlike, fuller, more uncertain, less knowing. That mysterious look - how did he capture it with so little detail? And then look at the beauty of the rest of the painting, the work lavished on the costume, the much greater subtlety of the light.

Blemishes may be more noticeable on the very fair, but many dark skins tend to get keloid scars.

quote:

---

Originally posted by lagatta:

brebis, don't you have to look at the gums of a pussycat to determine if he or she is pallid?

---

Tanorexics like Paris Hilton (is she famous for anything except being rich?) or Jessica Simpson (is she famous for anything except being Jessica Simpson?) probably really don't have anything better to do than lounge around and get skin cancer, but I always find it pathetic to see a formerly caucasian girl who has turned herself the color of a brick or a pumpkin for no reason other than trying to emulate her favorite celebrity twit.

I don't really have a problem with the women appearing nude. Does this even count as nude? It seems as though it doesn't really count unless there's naughty-bits showing. Anyways, Knightley had a successful acting career for years before she appeared nude in a movie, and Johansson, to my knowledge, has never appeared nude in a film. They're very successful and can pick and choose anything they want to work on; I don't think they're exploited. I would tend to save my sympathy for the women who are desperate enough to do just about anything to get into a movie or a magazine... the sad little creature who thinks that if she just lays down on enough dirty mattresses she'll eventually catch that big break...

To me the presence of the sleezy-looking goon in the photo is the disappointing element of the photo. It reminds me of two things.

The first was promos that ran on CTV for the TV series Nip-Tuck. The promos featured a shot of one of the lead characters-- a rich and handsome and egotistical plastic surgeon-- in bed, with an attractive young woman at either side. The look of smug arrogance on his face as he looks straight into the camera seems to say "look at me, see how great I am? Two chicks. Two! Don't you wish you were like me, girly-man?"

The second was a scene in the movie American Psycho, where Christian Bale (as Patrick Bateman) watches himself in the mirror as he has sex with a woman. He poses, he flexes, he admires himself. His self-infatuation is of such magnitude that his enjoyment of having sex with the woman pales beside his enjoyment of watching himself have sex with the woman.

And the thing is, the scene in American Psycho (and I presume the clip from Nip-Tuck) were intentioned as satire of male ego... they make a point about the character of the man in the scene, and the point they make is not flattering. Looking at the Vanity Fair photo, I get the same sense of smug arrogance and self-infatuation from Tom Ford. But what isn't clear to me is whether Tom Ford is aware that he's made himself a subject of satire.

quote:

---

Originally posted by brebis noire:
Pallid is a medical symptom, by the way. When a person is abnormally pale, it can be a sign of physical shock (constriction of small peripheral blood vessels), illness or anemia.

---

Sure, but I suppose what I was getting at was that people will assume a pale person -- someone they haven't met before, that is -- is unhealthy even absent other signs.

And then there's the whole symptom-as-metaphor thing, but I suppose that isn't all that mysterious, these days. It's all in Sontag, all in Sontag -- bless me, what do they teach them, etc....

quote:

---

Also, as a pale-face myself, I've not failed to notice that pale skin is very unforgiving.

---

Likewise. Never mind blemishes: I cringed a few years ago when I heard that a bad sunburn in childhood can, supposedly, double one's chances of getting skin cancer later on. I probably had several. Right, I said, no more sunburns, ever (there being no chance of my getting a tan except in the process of recovering from a burn). And I've worn hats, used sunscreen religiously etc. since.

quote:

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If someone is lucky enough to have simultaneously very pale and unblemished skin all over her body at a given point in time

---

I say the devil's in the details. The 'blemishes' are the interesting bits set against the backdrop of uniformity.

The fact is, there IS something empowering in not being afraid to take your clothes off. Probably has something to do with shucking off societal proscriptions associated with being a Good Girl (TM). To be able to say "To hell with all of you, this is me and I'm proud of it!"

A lot of that has to do with circumstance -- I'm sure that my decision to create a nude self-portrait was entirely different than a woman doing a sexpot centrefold kind of thing. I was in control of the situation. All I can say is that you bet your bippy it was empowering to hang a photo of my bare butt on a gallery wall. So there.

I'm sure it will also feel more than a little empowering when I screen my next experimental project, which features motion picture nude studies of my body from my last pregnancy.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoot:
Oh, bullshit.

The fact is, there IS something empowering in not being afraid to take your clothes off. Probably has something to do with shucking off societal proscriptions associated with being a Good Girl (TM). To be able to say "To hell with all of you, this is me and I'm proud of it!"

---

It IS all about pleasing men. To be naked is to be vulnerable. If it's so 'empowering', why do Muslim women claim just the opposite - that being covered head to toe is empowering for them? Hint: they've been told so by men.

Now get off the feminist thread, brother pucker.

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: white rabbit ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by white rabbit:

It IS all about pleasing men. To be naked is to be vulnerable. If it's so 'empowering', why do Muslim women claim just the opposite - that being covered head to toe is empowering for them? Hint: they've been told so by men.

Now get off the feminist thread, brother pucker.

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: white rabbit ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by white rabbit:

It IS all about pleasing men. To be naked is to be vulnerable. If it's so 'empowering', why do Muslim women claim just the opposite - that being covered head to toe is empowering for them? Hint: they've been told so by men.

Now get off the feminist thread, brother pucker.

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: white rabbit ]

---

Are you accusing me of being male, calling me something rude or accusing me of trolling?

No, not all being naked is about being vulnerable. Sometimes it's about making a point, sometimes it's just about line and form and light -- at least, in my arts practice it can be. It can also be about shrugging off patriarchal societal norms imposed by both men and women who seek to support the status quo. It can be about owning your body.

Maybe you should give it a shot, Prudence.

[ 09 February 2006: Message edited by: Zoot ]

quote:

---

It IS all about pleasing men. To be naked is to be vulnerable. If it's so 'empowering', why do Muslim women claim just the opposite - that being covered head to toe is empowering for them? Hint: they've been told so by men.

---

So -- if I follow -- being naked is not empowering, but being covered head to toe is. At least, according to you, those Muslim women who cover head to toe tell us so; and in any case, you invoke them to refute those who claim nakedness/nudity can be empowering.

So far, so good.

But then you tell us that said Muslim women make the claim because they've been told so by men.

So how are they empowered, exactly?

Nakedness/nudity, you say, is about pleasing men; but covering head to toe, you say, is about obeying men (or, in the alternative, being brainwashed by them).

So, presumably, somewhere in between there's a state of dress that is empowering -- or, at least, adopted neither to please men, nor to kowtow to them.

What, I wonder, could it be? It sounds like it could be a mighty delicate balance. If a skirt hem is significantly below the knee, it's (potentially) demure, and so smacks of obedience. But if it's significantly above the knee, it's (potentially) daring, and bespeaks a desire to please.

Sounds like skirts would have to be right close to knee-level, kilt-fashion. And I'm sure the other ramifications of this could be nearly endless.

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Originally posted by white rabbit:
It IS all about pleasing men. To be naked is to be vulnerable. If it's so 'empowering', why do Muslim women claim just the opposite - that being covered head to toe is empowering for them? Hint: they've been told so by men.

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Reflect for a moment on the poem that Brebis Noire posted in the very first message of this thread, and ponder the article that Shaolin just linked to, which elaborates on the subject. Then perhaps you'll have a better idea of where Zoot is coming from.

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Originally posted by white rabbit:

It IS all about pleasing men.

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Originally posted by shaolin:
The G2's take...

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I am not sure about this part:

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What does it take to get two stars who have absolutely no need to do anything so potentially desperate to take their clothes off for a magazine? First, the magazine has to be Vanity Fair, which persuaded Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson to be photographed naked in bed on its cover. Second, tell them they're not naked, but nude.

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I don't really care either way. But I will say that I had never heard of either of them until now, and stars, small and big always need publicity to continue to tbe stars, just so long as you spell the names right... so let me get this straight... Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson.

Now have they done anything interesting other than this soft porn shoot?

[ 10 February 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson.

Now have they done anything interesting other than this soft porn shoot?

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I had never encountered the name "Keira Knightly" either, until now.

Johansson was in a couple movies that I thought were pretty good: Ghost World and Lost in Translation.

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Originally posted by Cueball:

I don't really care either way. But I will say that I had never heard of either of them until now, and stars, small and big always need publicity to continue to tbe stars, just so long as you spell the names right... so let me get this straight... Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson.

Now have they done anything interesting other than this soft porn shoot?

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(I would assume somebody who hasn't heard of either of them doesn't go to the movies much?)

Johannson has received 4 Golden Globe nominations, and won the Best Actress Golden Globe award for Lost in Translation. IMDB says she has at least 7 movies coming out in the next year or two.

Keira Knightley, of course, is most famous as the female lead in the Pirates of the Caribbean blockbuster. She was also the co-star of Bend It Like Beckham, and of the most recent remake of Pride And Prejudice, for which she received a Best Actress Academy Award Nomination.

Both of them have many credits and many years in the movie business despite being only in their early 20s.

Without a doubt, they are two of the most in-demand women in the movies right now.

-k

[ 10 February 2006: Message edited by: kimmy ]

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Originally posted by FabFabian:
Bacchus makes a good point about Tom Ford, Heath and Jake. That would have been the more provacative cover. Skinny chicks in their late teens early 20s in the nude? How predictable and pedestrian is that? Hell, if we had women over the age of 40 nude that would be a revelation, sad as that is.

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Agreed, agreed, agreed. Very good points, especially on the 3 males. I don't know if the world is ready for that, sadly. Nor is the world ready to accept a nude older woman. Which is a discussion all to itself.

I don't find the "nudity" in the photo too much at all. They look nice, ethereal. It's a very artistic and pretty photo... or it would be, SANS "the grappler".

Alas, I doubt a cover with women over 40 would sell, except in a very few cases who are extremely toned, and as skdadl said, of the "elongated" body type. (And of course I say that as a woman over 40).

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Originally posted by kimmy:

and ponder the article that Shaolin just linked to, which elaborates on the subject. Then perhaps you'll have a better idea of where Zoot is coming from.

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That's funny. While I entirely support Zoot's reading of her own creative work, the Guardian squib seemed to me to be coming from a completely different space.

I could be wrong, but I thought that Jones was being hugely sarcastic there, especially at the end, where he is skewering VF's class pretensions.

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It tells us, subtly and authoritatively, that appearing nude on the cover of Vanity Fair is a very different thing from appearing naked on the cover of FHM.

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Originally posted by skdadl:

That's funny. While I entirely support Zoot's reading of her own creative work, the Guardian squib seemed to me to be coming from a completely different space.

I could be wrong, but I thought that Jones was being hugely sarcastic there, especially at the end, where he is skewering VF's class pretensions.

I'm pretty sure that that is a zinger.

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That mysterious look - how did he capture it with so little detail?

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The Mona Lisa is said to have an enigmatic smile, but I find this painting even more enigmatic. As someone-or-other said, you don't know whether she's just turned her head to look at you, or is about to turn it away.

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posted by lagatta: Yes, it is odd I haven't seen it before, having a certain involvement in Aboriginal arts. Hope i can find a better print - it is very witty indeed, with the men in traditional loincloths and the woman in the kind of casual Western dress most contemporary Aboriginal people wear nowadays, in their daily lives.

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[ 11 February 2006: Message edited by: deBeauxOs ]

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Originally posted by 'lance:

The Mona Lisa is said to have an enigmatic smile, but I find this painting even more enigmatic. As someone-or-other said, you don't know whether she's just turned her head to look at you, or is about to turn it away.

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I think that effect comes from Vermeer's attention to the light everywhere in the painting, which is so much more subtle than the studio photo.

It moves! (Didn't Galileo say that? )