Post by 10wjeremy on Mar 16, 2015 0:12:58 GMT
WARNING! This video contains explicit language and humor. Watch with caution.
I encountered this video a couple weeks ago and found it to be quite funny, and quite interesting. To provide background and clear up any confusion, a couple months ago Marvel Comics released the first issue of Spider Women. Along with the normal cover, Marvel released a bunch of variant, or alternate covers for the issue. Immediately after the cover's release, people went crazy about how they felt the cover was over-sexualized and sexist. The creator of this video, who goes by the online persona Maddox, humorously commented on this scandal while providing some very good points on the issue at hand.
First off, is there anything really sexual about this image? It's just Spider Women climbing a building. In context, she isn't presenting herself for an audience. Nobody goes around and yells at people wearing yoga pants or other tight fitting clothes for being too sexual. Things aren't sexual unless people make them sexual. Maddox used a lovely example, feet. People who aren't aroused by feet have no clue why other people are aroused by feet, yet there is a large number of people who consider feet a sexual appendage. However, people who are aroused by feet don't go around calling every picture of a foot pornography, because most pictures that contain bare feet aren't meant to be pornography. Thus, things aren't arousing unless we make them arousing. Another example Maddox uses is Elle magazine and how they publish covers that are clearly meant to arouse. This makes it humorously ironic when they critic a cover that was not meant to arouse.
Another issue this video brings up is what it dubbed The amazing double standard. One major critique of the cover was that a male superhero would have never been placed in that pose, when in fact Spider Man was placed in that pose nearly a decade ago. Men can be sexualized too. Just look a any advertisement for men's deodorant or cologne. My favorite is the old spice commercial, which beckons women to get their male partner to use old spice so they can be as attractive as the actor. Or Axe commercials, which assure men that their products will help them become the ultimate sexual being. These advertisements never stir up the same controversy as ads sexualizing women. Heck, people love these ads. I'll admit to being guilty and loving the heck out of those old spice ads.
Basically, this video isn't for or against sexualization in media, it's just against people who complain about it. Still, if you choose to be against sexualization in media, you should be against it for both men and women. Or, you can stop choosing to sexualize things in the first place. No one mocks Michaelangelo's David or The Birth of Venus for being too sexual, because it wasn't meant to be. Let art be art, whatever art may be.
I encountered this video a couple weeks ago and found it to be quite funny, and quite interesting. To provide background and clear up any confusion, a couple months ago Marvel Comics released the first issue of Spider Women. Along with the normal cover, Marvel released a bunch of variant, or alternate covers for the issue. Immediately after the cover's release, people went crazy about how they felt the cover was over-sexualized and sexist. The creator of this video, who goes by the online persona Maddox, humorously commented on this scandal while providing some very good points on the issue at hand.
First off, is there anything really sexual about this image? It's just Spider Women climbing a building. In context, she isn't presenting herself for an audience. Nobody goes around and yells at people wearing yoga pants or other tight fitting clothes for being too sexual. Things aren't sexual unless people make them sexual. Maddox used a lovely example, feet. People who aren't aroused by feet have no clue why other people are aroused by feet, yet there is a large number of people who consider feet a sexual appendage. However, people who are aroused by feet don't go around calling every picture of a foot pornography, because most pictures that contain bare feet aren't meant to be pornography. Thus, things aren't arousing unless we make them arousing. Another example Maddox uses is Elle magazine and how they publish covers that are clearly meant to arouse. This makes it humorously ironic when they critic a cover that was not meant to arouse.
Another issue this video brings up is what it dubbed The amazing double standard. One major critique of the cover was that a male superhero would have never been placed in that pose, when in fact Spider Man was placed in that pose nearly a decade ago. Men can be sexualized too. Just look a any advertisement for men's deodorant or cologne. My favorite is the old spice commercial, which beckons women to get their male partner to use old spice so they can be as attractive as the actor. Or Axe commercials, which assure men that their products will help them become the ultimate sexual being. These advertisements never stir up the same controversy as ads sexualizing women. Heck, people love these ads. I'll admit to being guilty and loving the heck out of those old spice ads.
Basically, this video isn't for or against sexualization in media, it's just against people who complain about it. Still, if you choose to be against sexualization in media, you should be against it for both men and women. Or, you can stop choosing to sexualize things in the first place. No one mocks Michaelangelo's David or The Birth of Venus for being too sexual, because it wasn't meant to be. Let art be art, whatever art may be.