Latoya P. of Racialicious sent in a link to a Compari calendar (found at Jezebel), which features Eva Mendes, Salma Hayek, and Jessica Alba. There are a couple of interesting and seemingly contradictory themes in the calendar.
On the one hand, there are several photos that show women in apparent positions of power over men. While many alcohol (and cologne) ads show men in bed with more than one women, here we have the reverse, with Mendes cavorting in bed with several men:
I’m sure the bottle pointing near her crotch isn’t symbolic.
Here’s another. Perhaps she is releasing them into the wild? Or planning to let them drown as the tide comes in.
I find the first ad especially interesting because it appears to put a woman in a position of power and to reverse the more common gender equation in liquor ads targeted at men, the fantasy of having several hot women service a man at the same time (here’s an example). But somehow the image doesn’t seem like it’s targeted to women or meant to represent a female sexual fantasy. To me, the image is still targeting men and the feel is less “men serving women’s sexual needs” than “hot chick who’ll have sex with you and all your friends.” This theme shows up in porn (see the documentary “The Annabel Chong story”) and in the rumors that circulate in most high schools about some group of guys “pulling train” with some girl…rumors that don’t usually portray her as empowered but rather as slutty and/or pathetic (whether or not she feels that way about the experience).
What do you think? Do images such as the first one challenge the power relations found in the more typical two-girls-and-a-guy ads ore reinforce them?
While those two images show women in positions of at least theoretical power, some other images from the calendar seem more threatening. Maybe the guy on the left is just super-broody, but it looks like he’s considering killing her:
Here’s one with a werewolf:
I guess she likes it rough?
And maybe these nice gentlemen are just taking a tired or drunk Salma Hayek home for a cup of tea and then safely to bed for a good night’s sleep:
The image is similar to this ad Lisa posted recently in which a woman looks sort of drunk or off-kilter but the man/men don’t seem to be. Salma Hayek looks concerned. From the Jezebel post:
The tipster who sent these images to us used the words “gang rape.” While that is not entirely clear, you do not, from this image alone, get the idea that this woman is safe, in control, or comfortable.
It’s not obvious that this image is meant to imply any sexual coercion by the men, or that Eva Mendes is in danger in the other two. But it’s also obvious that Campari doesn’t mind too much if you think that’s what is happening.
Thanks, Latoya!
UPDATE: In a comment, Dubi says,
As a concluding remark, I would like to point out that women’s empowerment as it is often portrayed in the media still requires them to be constantly sexual – so it isn’t really empowering at all. A powerful woman in popular culture is a female version of the macho, rather than an articulate, smart, self-sufficient individual (I’d use the word “independent”, but even that word has been subverted to mean “sexually liberated” in most places I see it). The catch is that men easily adjust to see “sexually empowered” women as, yet again, sexual objects, so even though women who seek out Sex and the City-like empowerment may feel liberated, this liberation is false: women are simply being allowed to travel between two points that are still exciting for men (the timid wife or the “strong” temptress).
The question, then, shouldn’t be which party is the “stronger” one in this patently sexual scene, but rather why are women always required to be portrayed as at least potentially sexual (I’d link back to that ad where the woman “scientist” is transformed into a dancing bombshell by whatever it was, but I’m lazy).
I think that’s an excellent point, although I think we’re talking about the same thing in a slightly different way, which is that while the women might be “liberated” to be sexually aggressive, they’re still constrained by sexualization and the need to be appropriate feminine, something we don’t usually see in quite the same way for men (though that varies, of course).
Thanks for putting this in a much better way than I did, Dubi.
