Pornographic Mainstream Media

Mainstream media promotes individuality, sexuality, and empowerment, largely through the exploitation of the bourgeois. Even worse is when it is the exploitation of an ideology which it promotes, like empowerment. And so frequently this line is crossed within our visual culture of consumerism. Pornography within the mainstream media seems to largely be a method of communicating that message to consumers. Within celebrity culture, we see music artists and actors constantly glorified in advertisements, which can all too frequently be easily received as soft-core porn. These first two photos give much substance to this.




This Lady Gaga photograph is straight BDSM porn. It has elements of role playing and bondage. The black tape over her nipples, the scantily black, leather-type lingerie is the outfit of a dominatrix. She wears light purple wig underneath what appears to be a sort of military official’s hat. Interesting enough, in all her seductive seriousness, this all falls apart when she is wearing the hate of an official, a dog of war, who barks orders which end up in the casualty of innocent lives, saluting the view… exposes a tattoo of peace, an emblem she has branded herself with. The ad is a contradiction, and boils it down to nothing but a pornographic image of a popular female music singer.




So close to a nipple slip… or wait, is that a nipple slip? I think it’s a nipple slip. Here, Christina Aguilera is seen coddling a white blanket… like a classical female would be engrossed by her virginity. But we know this is not true for Christina. She has already been exposed other times in the media, naked, and several months pregnant. Talk about fantasy voyeurism. So she clearly isn’t a virgin, though this image, and especially when compared to classical imagery, would maybe suggest that. So what are we left with here? An unnecessary nipple slip and a highly stylized photo of her with slightly parted lips and big innocent, puppy’ish eyes, gazing sexually out of the frame. So maybe this isn’t as bad as the Lady Gaga ad. Or is it? This ad, is post- pregnancy, and maybe we could sense this from the largeness of her breasts. Or, if that may not be enough, let me share how a website presented this picture:
Milf (Mother I’d Like to Fuck) Monday: Christian Aguilera
Where You’ve Seen Her: We all know Christina Aguilera is one slutty chick we’ve love to have a go with. Singing hit songs for the past ten years, she’s defined herself as one of the best pop singers of our time. Her name is synonymous with talent, hotness, and being a skank.

MILF Status: Christina hopped on the MILF wagon years ago, giving birth to a son whom she named Max Liron, consequently
the name of one of her hit songs that means, in hebrew, ‘The Greatest Song’.

So this is how we influence the male gaze with these types of photos in mainstream media? Wonderful. (Face-palm)



Pornography is also very frequent in advertising for sports apparel and accessories, especially when they are dealing with females. This first one is strange approach that Nike took to create an illusion of female empowerment. They appropriate the voice of women and why they should cultivate their bodies. But, this of course, is in relation to the male gaze… which tends to focus mainly on the “tits and ass” of women. So a healthy big butt is good and women should embrace it. Yes, people should always embrace their bodies; no one should ever tell you how to feel about yourself. But then, parallel to this text, is a female with her head coy and held downward, and her body exposed quite profoundly- especially her butt.



This next photo is an Ab-workout ad of a female who has absolutely no fat on her body at all. And she is as good as naked. Maybe this is to show off her abs… but her tube top and tiny bottom are so skimpy and revealing that it’s incredibly easy to just picture her naked. So presenting the model in this pornographic fashion is not necessarily being used to promote her muscularity, but rather shows her in a sexually empowered position while gripping the metal beams behind her, like a steel worker (a male dominated labor job), but her grip is still fairly lose and sexy. Rawr.



This last photo goes beyond the Freudian suggestion of pornographic imagery; this American Apparel ad is straight blunt about it. Their minimal, flesh-toned spandex ware is almost seamless against real human skin. So seamless, that they recommended this for Halloween, to actually draw on their genital areas. Party time. Men and women can enjoy it, can enjoy being naked and seeing one another naked while still technically playing by the rules of obscenity. No harm done. Even though, gosh, it looks so damned real. It seems to me they are all naked, even if it's all just suggestive drawings. But who cares... it's safe, clean, orgiastic fun. There is no way in hell this motley crew would ever make it to home base… now, would they?

Social critique with sexual imagery.

In a society where we find ourselves inundated with copious imagery, stemming greatly from corporate advertising thrusted into public sphere, we can also find many endeavors of counter-activity, not only to reclaim public space, but as well to contribute to the cleaning of pollution (specifically, for this case, visual and mind pollution) through acts of subversion and culture jamming. Integral to much of these responsive acts is art, sometimes reliant more on concept and theory, where as others are visually simple, meant to provoke the viewer or viewers into questioning and re-thinking the social normative constructed by the ubiquitous images of corporate dominance. "Sex sells" has always been the theoretical base of most advertising, and the bane of consumer culture. This has well molded and manipulated the general pysche of mass culture to see themselves under corporate pretense, whose only initiatives are to increase both power/control and profits. For the rest of society, (most classes, from the bottom up to the higher middle class, and even beyond) we encounter existential issues of our individual image, our genders, our sexualities, and our ideologies of sexual relationships.





Here we have an image, the iconic female sign used mostly for labeling the bathroom door to differentiate between sexes. Though, there are 2 females side by side, where as we frequently see the images of a male and female next to one another upon deciding which bathroom is most appropriate to use. This image doesn't attack an ideology purported by a corporation, but rather a dominant ideology deeply seated in the mind(s) of the masses as to the normative of relationships. Generally speaking, when we use a public restroom, we see 2 choices, one for women, and next to it, one for men. Every once in a while are we given the opportunity to not prescribe to this generalitization, and can use a unisex restroom. But never do we see (and if we do, it must be ever-so-rarely) to female bathrooms side by side. A heavy remark upon the the discourse of LGBT within our culture.





Next, is the re-appropriation of the incredibly famous Quaker Oats man. Here, he has been manipulated to put his gender into question. We are so easily manipulated to see a man or a women and assume their sexuality such as this Quaker Oats man, or Mr. Clean, Ronald McDonald, or Colonel Sanders. They are men, at least this is how they are presented. But what would we really think if we saw these people in the flesh, especially within the context of their environment? A man whose life is featured around food (Quaker Oats), a man who plays with children and wears more facial make up than Ziggy Stardust (Ronald McDonald), a man whose sole obsession is with that of cleaning (Mr. Clean). Society puts generalized ideas on genders, especially through and within mass media. To me, what this ad does is put that idea into question.




Here is a pretty well-known image, a parody on a Calvin Klein advertisement. Such as was stated in the movie Fight Club when the two main characters say to one another "Mommy, is that how a man is supposed to look?" (or something to that effect). Here, we see an overly-chiseled man obsessing over his genitalia with a banal expression. Many things can be assumed- is he questioning his gender? is he questioning what society tells him is masculine beauty? or is he just simply marveling (or depressed) of his own genitalia? Either way, this ad provokingly puts into question the male image in mainstream media.



This advertisement seems quite self-explanatory. Women are heavily targeted by cosmetic companies, and are continuously presented throughout culture wearing make up. What seems to be sold here is lipstick, but more so is the presentation of the model, all in white, surrounded by white, as a divine creature. One could say she must seem empowered, a virgin, and beautiful. This ideology is what the product company is pushing. Just below the model is the word "Feminisn't", a play on Feminism. This model is isolated and her sexuality is glorified. The latter is relevant to feminism, but artist who re-appropriated this image provokes the viewer into deciding for themselves beyond the surface message.



This final image is a photograph by Allen James. The artist may have had many different intentions, but for me, I see as an attempt to point out the social and cultural oppressions pushed onto women, (especially during the time period of its inception, I believe in the 60s) both in the assumption of females as being domesticated wives and sex slaves. The fact that female, a sex toy, is in a submissive position, but she is as also with the benefit of being utilitarian. I don't believe the artist's motive is in-line with these ideas, but to hopefully spark anger and rage into the viewer and maybe push them to think of why this would have been created, with objects and ideologies that already exist within our society and culture.

Objectified and empowered.

Contemporary culture is saturated with pornographic imagery, which isn’t news at all. It gets to a point where a strong method for companies to consider marketing is by sexualizing people in the presence of what is being sold. Or many times, not even at all. What is being marketed so frequently are ideologies, the good old “buy this and you’ll be just as sexy as this virtually nude model (or models).” The object hardly matters at all for so many advertisements because the ad itself relies on sex. This is all too frequently portrayed through objectification or empowerment. Models are easily reduced to a sexual act and a commodity. Empowerment is used very commonly to sell products to women, especially when we consider the long fight that is still without full success against male dominance.

These 2 photos graphs show quite an obvious display of succumbing to male dominance, and in do so, seems to be empowered. The first ad, a female shaving her face, wearing nothing but the designer JBS’s underwear, and a small title that says “men don’t want to look at either men” presents the female as a male, though she is clearly a female, suggests she is empowered by the orgasmic look on her face, and her liberation from her clothing- nothing more than just men’s underwear. An even greater problem with this ad is the title. This adds a whole other dimension to the situation, which enforces the iconic male subconscious, and tells the male that he is to look at nothing but females. It assumes that if you don’t want to look at this female, then you must not be a man. For this ad, the female seems to be empowered wearing the male underwear while performing a “manly” daily function, shaving. For a male viewer, he too should feel empowered, a female appearing pleased in his attire and lifestyle. There are issues that I also see in an odd, Freudian kind of way, dealing with transgender, but I’ll save that for another time.
This next add for Skyy vodka proposes the same idea of empowerment, though this time with two women. One female is black, the other white. Well, it seems they’ve got it covered. Clearly, the photo is organized in a terribly phallic way. The women each gently, sensually, hold a cherry in either mouth, which easily suggests they have got this “by the balls.” For someone to say they “have got the world by balls” is to claim some type of empowerment. For a male viewer, this is insanely rewarding, females of all races, willing to suck on the cherry of your “natural” existence.
Both of the above ads can also be approached from a standpoint that sees the featured models as being objectified… which they are, but this seems to be obvious for more ads. To me, the three ads below are heavier with objectification.



The first, an American Apparel ad, sells nothing but the suggestion of a sexual act. You can hardly tell the little bit of the female’s clothing is what is featured here from the company. The male (also the company’s owner) is only half in the frame, with a shit-eating grin. As soon as that moment the shutter was about to click, he already knew this was gold. Sexual promiscuity, being daring, and be open about sexual endeavors are all this ad says. The first Dolce and Gabbana ad does just the same; it sells a sexual act, an affirmation of lifestyle attributed to the company. The final, an ad for Cabana, a Brazilian rum company, may be selling a bottle of booze, but it easy to miss the nude female in a highly sexualized position. The female is an authentic Brazilian, and so is the rum. Enough said.