animals

Found here, here, and here thanks to Erin H.  Thanks!

Erin writes:

This brings together the awful hypersexualisation of toys for young girls (recommended: ages 4 – 8 ) with the often bizarre and sometimes disturbing anthropomorphisation of animals. In this case, Bratz dolls (complete with impossible footwear and freakishly large eyes) meet My Little Ponies in an unholy combination of hinted-at cleavage, age-inappropriate costuming / accessories and come-hither glances! So many shades of ick. What would the equivalent for young boys be, I wonder?

Speaking of, is anyone else nostalgic for my little ponies and carebears?  Sigh.

NEW!  In a similar phenomenon, I present you the Tini Puppini (found here via Jezebel):

These images were all used (along with lots of others) in a 2003 campaign in which PETA, obviously, compared modern agricultural practices and eating meat with the Holocaust:

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

I assume it will not surprise anyone to learn that many people were offended by the campaign. I can imagine using these images in courses on food/agriculture, social movements, natural resources and the environment (especially in discussions of what rights non-human animals have), and even lectures about historical memory (for instance, when and how does it become acceptable to use historical tragedies like the Holocaust as symbols in other arguments, rather than as events in and of themselves?).

Thanks to an anonymous poster for pointing this campaign out!

NEW: Elizabeth (from Blog of Stench) sent in this ad (found here) PETA apparently attempted to run in the Portage Daily Graphic in Manitoba, Canada:

The ad references an incident on a bus in Manitoba where a man beheaded a fellow passenger and compares it to the slaughtering of animals.

Thanks, Elizabeth!

Andrea G. in Switzerland snapped these pictures of an ad campaign for TerraSuisse natural agriculture. Their tagline translates as “TerraSuisse guarantees natural Swiss agriculture.” They might be useful for a discussion of doing gender (West and colleagues) or gender as performativity (Butler). As Andrea S. noted, it’s obvious instantly that the bird is supposed to be female and the chipmunk male by their pose alone.

Posed like a chick:

Posed like a dude:

They might, also, be a nice contrast to this one for which a gender is not immediately apparent (to me…but who knows in Switzerland):

Thanks Andrea!

One of my students took a picture of this outfit at the mall–I believe she said it’s for sale at Spencer’s. For the sexy Catholic (?) school-dog of your dreams!

Thanks, Blanca M.!

This is a cover of Vogue featuring LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen. Notice the postures: LeBron as the hulking, angry black man, and Gisele as arm candy. Apparently this issue has a whole section on “the World’s Top Models and Star Athletes.” Hmmm, I wonder what the gender breakdown is?

Notice also the way in which the image reproduces the famous King Kong imagery:

Here is a link to an MSNBC segment on the cover.

Thanks to Carmela Z. for sending this image along!

NEW (Jan ’10)!  Ruth D’R. and a reader-who-wishes-to-remain-anonymous sent us this (highly photoshopped) photo of Kanye West and Lady Gaga, one of the images in her “Fame Monster” CD liner notes.  Some argue that it, too, reproduces the racialized King Kong imagery in which a black man (threatens to) ravage a white woman:

Some may think that this is a reach.  But I think her nudity, plus the symbols of primitivity (the plants, the erupting volcano, and even the khakis) clearly invoke animalism.

This commercial affirms the notion that only women can be expected to do housework because children and husbands are absolutely useless.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fwTtJZ6Db4[/youtube]

I find the wife’s acceptance of her husbands ass-ish behavior (still her “best friend”) particularly disheartening.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Here are two ads for Salesgenie. Both aired during the Super Bowl and both, for no apparent reason, used animated characters with thick accents–in the first Indian, in the second, Chinese.

NEW! (Mar. ’10): Melissa S. sent in this commercial for MetroPCS that features two men with strong accents who I believe we’re supposed to find funny looking and ridiculous:

Melissa says,

There are very few positive depictions of Indians in American entertainment and it really saddens us that this video and these images are the only images that many will see of Indians…I wonder why the commercial couldn’t simply have two men who happen to be brown touting the product? Does having an “Indian” accent automatically make this funnier?

This graphic from the New York Times illustrates the different environmental costs of meat and vegetable production (click on image to enlarge):