The other day I read a post by my favourite eco-warrior, Jack Harris, talking about Caitlin Moran’s new book. And to be specific, the cover of The Times Magazine (promoting that book) with Caitlin sitting in the centre of the cover surrounded by faceless naked menwith the caption ‘Hello Boys!’.
Personally, I don’t find it shocking. After all, the idea of a woman being surrounded by a bunch of naked male bums is 30 years old (and I bet even then it was recycled!) with Madonna sitting fully dressed in her iconic Marilyn Monroe dress surrounded by way more explicit dancing naked men. I’m referring to her Sex book, obviously.
Here, however, I feel that this message is somehow darker. Yes, I get the basic premise of flipping the tradition of the ‘male gaze’. Yes, women were/are objectified non-stop, everywhere you look.
But the question is: is ‘Tit for tat’ the right way to go about it? Is this going to invite men to the conversation? Or are we just building higher walls?
It was interesting to see the multitude of comments. In fact, there were a lot of nasty, angry comments. It didn’t help that Jack specifically stated at the top of his post: “Conversation Starter”. Because guess what, we collectively lost the ability to make conversation, to debate, to be open to listen to someone else’s different point of view. Like in the book by Ashley ‘Dotty’ Charles (who I coincidently photographed back in 2014 as a backstage photographer during the filming of her ‘Outlaw’ music video’): Outraged: Why Everyone is Shouting and No One is Talking
Yes, I get it, everyone is outraged, everyone is angry. But can we not channel this anger into a more constructive approach?
As Jack puts it: “To me this cover feels a little reductive, ultimately achieving the opposite of what Moran is setting out to do. If we want more men to step into this conversation, we need to make them included.’
And as James Baldwin famously said: ‘Artists are here to disturb the peace’ – the cover of The Times certainly got that. And sometimes that’s what we need to do.
Just like with Just Stop Oil, we reached the point that asking politely is not going to cut it. (And please don’t say that JSO is extreme, The Suffragettes orchestrated a bombing and arson campaign where at least 5 people were killed!).
But I strongly believe that to change the narrative of ‘Toxic Masculinity’ we need to rise higher. Tit for tat, or tit for bum as in this example is not the way. Yes, women were objectified for centuries, but now what? Do we need centuries of objectifying men to make the point?
As Michelle Obama famously said: When they go low, we go high.
コメント