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[feralseraph]

So Vogue Italia has done a pretty intense photo series entitled "State of Emergency". It's interesting- you know something's pretty pervasive when it starts cropping up in photo shoots... And I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the rather (and I'm sure, purposeful) misogynistic attitude present in the photos. A comment on the perceived role of

Comments

[sabrebelle]

Fashion photography can glamorize anything. The fact that they chose to glamorize and sexualize sanctioned violence against women, I think, is just taking the "women as commodity" raison d'etre of the fashion industry to a whole new level. I don't give the photographer/editor the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to make a political statement, especially given the general objectification of women in Italy.

I am particularly disturbed by this spread because I just read an essay about the use of rape in war. Historically, rape in war, as well as rape in times of peace, has been seen as a private matter, one to which the state need not respond. Especially in times of war, instead of women being seen as human beings with inherent rights of their own, they are treated as objects to be defended by their country's men and vulnerable targets to be defiled by the enemy's men in an attempt to inflict pain and dominance over the men of the country, not the women themselves. That was a really long sentence, and it's late, but you get the idea. I just think that it is irresponsible for the fashion industry to use their incredible power over society to glamorize violence against "helpless" women. Why not show the women in actual positions of power, as in shows like Alias, which was mentioned earlier. These women are all being manhandled by authority figures, and I suspect that the one "strong" image of a woman (close-up with the gun) was a fluke and only made it into the shoot because it's a great picture. This inconsistency also suggests that the people behind the spread were not trying to put forth any progressive ideas.