Hey again. I think the subject for this week is another interesting one. I’ve taken the time to sit and ponder the subject. As with a lot of things in this class, things don’t really start to connect until I think long and hard about the relationships they have with women and their position in society. Looking up images to share in my blog post really helped me to get a better understanding of what were trying to tackle here. Now, these first three images share a lot of the same imagery.

Firstly, they depict pigs that appear to be more curvaceous and seductive. However we’re all very familiar that the term “pig” is derogatory and I’m sure we’ve seen it thrown around as an insult plenty of times. The dissonance between the connotation we have of pigs and the enticing manner in which they’re drawn is very bizarre. I think feminizing these animal mascots in a way is meant to make them seem more desirable, whether it be in a campy or I would hope that a man wouldn’t be more likely to grab a package of hot dogs with a sexy pig on the label. But hey, whatever.

And that’s another thing; the target audience for images such as these is usually men. We’ve already discussed last week how men are heavily associated with meats. And by depicting this meat as feminine and attainable it furthers this idea that women are meant to be consumed by men. Not literally, of course. More like, they’re at the mercy or disposal of men. You know what I mean.

In Carol Adam’s book The Pornography of Meat, she states “meat is like pornography: before it was someone’s fun, it was someone’s life.” Not only is this a very thought provoking quote, but I have found that it is very true the more I looked into this. It seems like there are more and more reasons why women are depicted in these ways and it all leads back to the idea that men would find it enticing or at least eye-catching and provoking; similarly to pornography. I’m not gonna bother going into pornography cause I’d imagine this blog entry would become tedious to read after a while. That’s a subject for another day.

Okay, this picture on the other hand is on another level. I can’t really describe what I’m feeling when I see this image. I’ve looked through a lot of PETA’s adverts and posters akin to this and this one was probably the one of the worst in my opinion. The image of a black women caged up and painted in animal print is very uncomfortable to say the least. And I feel that this is an underlying issue with a lot of the comparisons between women and animals; its very dehumanizing. I also find that it has a lot of the issues that Carol Adam states in her writing; it depicts people of color as being more animalistic or similar to savages.

I understand that the point of this is to be outlandish and shocking. I suppose in a way, it does work to get its idea across successfully if it is trying to grab attention from the shock value. But I’ve got a lot of problems with this. It is very dehumanizing and obviously meant to be raunchy and enticing. It’s not as if they got a meek and miserable looking women to play this role and exemplify the effects of animal cruelty. No, they chose an alluring bombshell to stand in the spotlight. Everything from the pose she’s in to the look on her face is meant to give a clear message. Again, it concerns me a little to think that there are people who would probably think twice about circuses because of this picture. One would think it would take more than an image of a woman on all fours captioned “beaten, lonely, and abused” to make them think twice about the circus industry and the mistreatment of its wild animals.

I’m rambling a bit so I’ll leave it at that. I hadn’t realized just how prevalent this issue really was!