violence

Caroline Cossey (also known as Tula) is a British male-to-female transsexual who had a successful career as a model and some small movie roles; Cossey also appeared in Playboy in 1981. In 1982 a tabloid broke the story that she was a transsexual, which ended her modeling career. Here is the cover (found here) of her autobiography, which she wrote soon after being outed:

Cossey was born with Klinefelter’s syndrome, a form of genetic intersexuality.

Here are some other pictures of her:

Found here.

Found here.

You can watch a segment on her that aired on the TV program Hard Copy here.

These might be interesting for discussions of intersexuality, sex-reassignment surgery, and our ideas of the gender binary that everyone must fit into–as well as the outrage people often feel if they’ve been “fooled” by someone who manages to “pass” as a gender different from what they “really” (read “biologically”) are. You might compare this to the story of Brandon Teena, a female-to-male transsexual who was raped, beaten, and murdered by two men in a small town in Nebraska in 1994 after they discovered he was a transsexual (who had not had sex-reassignment surgery). Teena was, of course, the subject of the movie “Boys Don’t Cry,” but there is also a documentary about him, “The Brandon Teena Story,” which includes interviews with his girlfriend and members of the community.

Miguel sent us a link to Galeria: Ellas Mandan, a set of advertisements that reverse the common images of male dominance by showing women in control:

For liquor:

For pantyhose:

Shoes:

Jeans:

Dolce & Gabbana:

A submission from Stumblng Tumblr from the Brylcreem website:

NEW!  A fashion ad from Phillip G.:

These images show women in “control” of, or dominating men, but in a very sexualized manner that often references S&M or bondage. So women can have power, but have to be sexualized at the same time. This fits in well with our cultural beliefs that women have power over men because men want sex and will allow themselves to be manipulated by women in order to get it. So women can supposedly control men by threatening to withhold sex until they get what they want.

And is it not possible to just have some images where men and women are equals and no one has to be dominant? Is that out of the question?

Thanks, Miguel!

Grand Theft Auto is a notoriously violent and controversial video game. Writes Bill Marsh at the New York Times:

Game players inhabit a gangster who is equipped to dispatch scores of rival criminals and others, including police officers and innocent bystanders, on the rough streets of Liberty City, the bullet-riddled stand-in for New York… The latest… allows players to hire prostitutes and then run them over or shoot them right after they’ve performed their work…

Here is a visual that compares the spectacular success of Grand Theft Auto (measured by units sold and profits) with the most successful music and movies:

The propaganda below, from World War II, was distributed by the U.S. government.  In the posters, venereal disease (later known as sexually transmitted disease, and even later as sexually transmitted infections) is personified as a woman. Remember, venereal disease is NOT a woman. It’s bacteria or virus that passes between women and men. Women do not give it to men. Women and men pass it to each other. When venereal disease is personified as a woman, it makes women the diseased, guilty party and men the vulnerable, innocent party.

In this ad, the soldier is made innocent with the label “The Young, The Brave, The Strong.” The first girl is labeled “prostitution.” She says to the soldier: “Two girls I know want to meet you in the worst way.” The two women on the stairs, with the faces of skeletons, are labelled “syphilis” and “gonnorhea.”

Text: “Warning: These enemies are still lurking around.” The women are labeled “syphillis” and “gonnorhea.”

This one is my favorite. A female skeleton in an evening gown walks with her arms around Hitler and Hirohito. The text reads: “V.D. Worst of the Three.”

Here are three more:

At least some of these can be found here. Thanks to the unbeatablekid pointing out a source in our comments.

NEW: Marc sent us a link to these images (all found here):

A matchbook:

A pamphlet distributed to soldiers:

Thanks, Marc!

The Simon Wiesenthal Center just released “iReport: Online Terror + Hate: The First Decade” (pdf) analyzing cyberhate and extremist websites from the last decade. In addition to analysis and pictures of the websites analyzed (I posted some below), the report contains discussions of “cyberhate” and online terrorism, and includes an action plan. See also the NYTimes coverage of the report.

While I would argue that the Internet is no different in terms of composition than the peoples and organizations that make up the Internet (i.e. the Internet reflects and re-creates the racial, ethnic, gender and class divisions found elsewhere), what I think is particularly interesting about this report is how newer Internet technologies (Web 2.0 technologies like social networking sites, collective gaming, blogs, folksonomies) are shaping how these kinds of web content are created and distributed. Just as Web 2.0 technology tailors the information you see about your friends on social networking sites like Facebook, Web 2.0 technology is also making it possible for extremist groups to bring tailored content to targeted groups of interested individuals.

This report has a lot of content that would be perfect for class discussions on the Internet, online activism, how Web 2.0 technology shapes this kind of content, the visibility/invisibility of race, class, gender and other inequalities online, as well as issues of web freedom and monitoring online content. How could this content be regulated and/or censored? Should it be?

Some highlights from the report (p. 3):

• The Internet’s unprecedented global reach and scope combined with the difficulty in monitoring and tracing communications make the Internet a prime tool for extremists and terrorists.

• The Simon Wiesenthal Center has been monitoring these developments for nearly two decades through our Digital Terrorism and Hate Project. Our findings reveal that as the Internet has grown, the escalation of extremist sites has kept pace in number and in technological sophistication.

• In April 1995, the first extremist website went online: Today, the Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terror and Hate 2.0 identifies some 8,000 problematic hate and terrorist websites and other internet postings. This represents a 30% increase over last year.

• Every aspect of the Internet is being used by extremists of every ilk to repackage old hatred, demean the ‘Enemy’, to raise funds, and since 9/11, recruit and train Jihadist terrorists. Of special concern is the use of the Internet used by the Iranian regime to justify terrorism and spread its influence throughout South America.

• Internet-based hate has inspired some of the most violent hate crimes in America. In this election year, the Internet continues to be used to demean and threaten African Americans, Jews, immigrants, gays and virtually every religious denomination.

• Extremists are leveraging 2.0 technologies to dynamically target young people through digital games, Second Life scenarios, blogs, and even Youtube and Facebook style videos depicting racist violence and terrorism.

And some images of sites included in the report (they are described within the report):

Here are two videos from MTV’s Think campaign (both found here):

I am not at all sure what the message is here–just a general “fear your government” warning? A comment on the Bush Administration’s policies? The Patriot Act? Also note that the message is that the Holocaust happened to people like us–not that it was done by people like us, which might be a more interesting message.

Anyway, I think this could be compared to the PETA posters in a discussion about history and who has the right to use it how. Will everyone see these images as offensive? Is any use of the Holocaust as an example or comparison automatically offensive? Would campaigns that use the Holocaust be as offensive to people if they used the genocide in Rwanda instead? Who gets to claim the right to use images and symbols of historical events, including horrible tragedies, and in what ways can they use them?

Thanks to Simone for pointing these out!

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!

Julie C. sent us this clip from a 1987 interview between Barbara Walters and Sean Connery:

In case you think that this is out-of-date, check out the comments.  Here is the first page of comments, in their entirety:

what a ho, sean should’ve given her a demonstration

Big up Sean, he’s from a time when men were still men. Speak the truth.

AGREED

you’ve just been schlapped by sean connery woman!

maby a slap is to far but i believe you need to stand your ground and not let your women have too much power..

Fuck that… no time for half measures. Slap the bitch.

He’s right of course. ‘ a woman a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be’ :)

i love connery but i’d beat the shit outta him if he hit me.

Thanks Julie!