{"id":63061,"date":"2014-12-27T15:00:15","date_gmt":"2014-12-27T20:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=63061"},"modified":"2017-09-17T17:33:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T22:33:51","slug":"trophy-scarves-race-gender-and-the-woman-as-prop-trope-nsfw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/12\/27\/trophy-scarves-race-gender-and-the-woman-as-prop-trope-nsfw\/","title":{"rendered":"“Trophy Scarves”: Race, Gender, and the Woman-as-Prop Trope (NSFW)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2\"<\/a>At the end of last year, Robin Thicke took a lot of heat for both the lyrics<\/a> of his song, Blurred Lines, and the accompanying\u00a0video<\/a>. \u00a0The latter is a\u00a0transparent \u00a0instance of a very common strategy for making men look cool: surround them with beautiful and preferably naked women.<\/p>\n

It seems especially effective if the men in question act unimpressed and unaffected by, or even disinterested<\/a> in, the women around them. It’s as if\u00a0they are trying to say, “I am so<\/em> accustomed to having access to\u00a0beautiful, naked women, I don’t even notice that they’re there anymore.” \u00a0Or, to be more vulgar about it, “I get so much pussy, I’ve become immune.”\u00a0The video for Blurred Lines was particularly egregious<\/a>, but\u00a0we see this all the time. \u00a0Here’s a couple\u00a0more examples, featuring R. Kelly <\/a>and\u00a0Robert Pattinson in Details<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is all to introduce a satirical series of photographs featuring\u00a0performance artist\u00a0Nate Hill<\/a> who, on the mission page of his “trophy scarves” website<\/a> (NSFW), writes: “I wear white women for status and power.” \u00a0And, so, he does. \u00a0<\/span>Visit his NSFW\u00a0site<\/a>\u00a0(and thanks to German C. for sending the link).<\/p>\n

Hill brilliantly combines a tradition of conspicuous consumption \u2013 think mink stoles \u2013 with a contemporary matrix of domination in which white women are status symbols for men of all races. It’s not irrelevant that he’s African-American and the women he chooses are white and, yes, it is<\/em> about power. We know it is because women do it too and, when they do, they use\u00a0women below them in the racial hierarchy. \u00a0Remember Gwen\u00a0Stefani’s harajuku\u00a0girls<\/a>? \u00a0And consider this FHM Philippines cover<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m amazed at\u00a0the\u00a0ubiquitousness of this type of imagery\u00a0and our willingness \u00a0to take it for granted that this is just\u00a0what our visual landscape looks like. \u00a0It’s social inequality unapologetically laid bare. \u00a0We’re used to it.<\/p>\n

Somebody — lots of somebodies, I guess — sat around the\u00a0room and thought, “Yeah, there’s nothing pathetic or problematic about a music video in which absolutely nothing happens except naked women are used to\u00a0prop up our singer’s masculinity.” \u00a0The optimist in me wants to think that it’s far too obvious, so much so that the producers and participants would be embarrassed by it. Or, at least, there’d be a modicum of sensitivity to the decades of feminist activism around the sexual objectification of women.<\/p>\n

The cynic in me recognizes that white supremacy and the dehumanization of women are alive and well. \u00a0I’m glad Hill\u00a0is here to help\u00a0me laugh about it, even if nervously. Gallows humor, y’all. \u00a0Sometimes it’s all we got.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Jezebel<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of last year, Robin Thicke took a lot of heat for both the lyrics of his song, Blurred Lines, and the accompanying\u00a0video. \u00a0The latter is a\u00a0transparent \u00a0instance of a very common strategy for making men look cool: surround them with beautiful and preferably naked women. It seems especially effective if the men […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,8070,218,279,55,2103,2095,2087,2093,2098,778,23695,283,285,1759,1760,20063,1757],"class_list":["post-63061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-artliterature","tag-bodies","tag-objectification","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-gender-objectification","tag-gender-prejudicediscrimination","tag-intersectionality","tag-intersectionality-gender-x-race","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-asianspacific-islanders","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63061"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71696,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63061\/revisions\/71696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}