Horrifically misogynist blog banner being promoted by www.impeachcheney.org, and “courtesy” of Robert Greenwald’s film company, Brave New Films.
Voice your outrage by sending your e-mail to info@bravenewfilms.org.
Thanks to Rebecca Whisnant, Lucinda at the Feminist Peace Network, and the Global Sisterhood Network for the heads up.
Heart
Heart,
The graphic makes no sense to me.
What is the figure in the chair supposed to symbolize, relative to Dick Cheney?
Mary
I had the same reaction:
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=2007
Mary, yeah it is definitely cryptic to muddled imagery, apparently something about Cheney being a mean executioner of … troops? The American way? Or is he trying to say something about the death penalty. Whatever the abstruse message, the front-and-center medium is a bound, pornified, young woman wearing a hood as if about to be executed. There are plenty young leftist dudes who find that kind of thing appealing!
Ann Bartow, great minds.
Heart
It’s weird. I didn’t get the executioner thing at first, thought she was a klans(wo)man with a patriotic hood rather than a white hood. I mean, since she is wearing a tank top–??? Huh?
Maybe I just instinctively think of the kkk whenever I see Cheney.
[...] Earlier this afternoon Jenn Hogg, a member of the Feminist Peace Network, brought to our attention a particularly grotesquely misogynist ad promo being run in conjunction with a Robert Greenwald film to promote the impeachment of Dick Cheney. Now we’re all for that, and the film is pretty good, but we neither understand the relevance or find acceptable the accompanying graphic. As I write this, the graphic is still up on the website, although we’ve heard that after a flurry of protests that it will be replaced. If it is no longer there, you can see it on the Womens Space blog. [...]
Is the person with the flag over their head supposed to be female? This looks to me like some sort of reference to Abu Gharib, at least at first glance. It’s a bit tough to tell. Well, at any rate, the male-dominated left is plenty sexist.
Forgot to add: But I don’t think anyone here really needed me to tell them that.
Hey, Lucinda Marshall says they took the ad down! Heh.
Heart
I’m sure it was a reference to Abu Gharib, although there was absolutely no justifiable reason for Cheney’s victim to be a women. The only iconic hooded figure of that hideous episode was male.
They did take the image off the site. No stupid whining or “what about our sexist free speech” nonsense accompanied the removal either, so kudos to them for that !
Hey, let’s hear it for small victories! . . . I’m actually pretty impressed (or at least surprised) that it was taken down so quickly and, as a commenter above said, without undue whining.
Thanks for spreading the word, Heart!
Gah. Earlier this year Mr. Greenwald directed that video of women reading the original Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870. The partner links listed on that site, http://mothersdayforpeace.com/ , include a number of feminist organizations, including Code Pink, Ms. Magazine, NOW, and the Feminist Majority. Gloria Steinem was in that video. Maybe Greenwald is sensitive to feminist outrage, but if so, why did he see no problem with that banner in the first place? I know, rhetorical question, but now I have to wonder if I ought to remove the link on my blog to that video. Once again an allegedly pro-feminist man proves himself unworthy of trust.
The picture at Feminist Law Professors is much larger and clearer. There is no doubt it is a woman bound to that chair.
I wonder if it wasn’t supposed to be a reference to the movie Captivity, intending to liken Cheney to the villains in that movie and the sick bastards who produced it and will pay money to see it.
A “botched joke” as the Scarecrow might claim?
I am impressed that they took it down with no whining. Is that sad that doing the right thing impresses me?
Is someone collecting “victory” stories of feminist activism? Like the urinal shaped as a woman’s lips at the airport – a bunch of emails and they took it right down. Or the sexist shirt for boys that said “Problem Solved,” the solution being shoving a female figure out of a window to get her to stop talking – took longer and more effort, but Sears Holding Co. finally took the shirts down. More impressive were the other chains that took it right down and instigated policies to screen “message” shirts for offensive content in the future. These stories and more would make for a great book!
way to go, Heart!
Maybe I’m just grouchy today, but an acknowledgement that the site had been changed, and why, would have been something I appreciated even more than the lack of whining…
I would definitely love to have a list of victory stories. It would come in handy when talking to people who don’t understand the power of all of us coming together through blogging and other social networks.
Geez, that ad is really sick.. whether they took it down or not, it’s bad enough that it would have been considered acceptable, anywhere.
Peace,
~Chani
Yeah, Ann Bartow, I had the same thought. Someone should have at least said something like, “Oops!”
But yeah, Rebecca (and all), small victories! Gotta be happy about them!
Heart
I wonder if it wasn’t supposed to be a reference to the movie Captivity, intending to liken Cheney to the villains in that movie and the sick bastards who produced it and will pay money to see it.
I just saw ads for that on MTV this morning. Dear God!
Heart, we need to have a feminist protest against CAPTIVITY next. Where do I sign? Who do I picket?
Disgusting pigs.
[...] Why the Revolution Will Never Come from the Male-Controlled Left [image] Horrifically misogynist blog banner being promoted by www.impeachcheney.org, and “courtesy” of […] [...]
It’s good if we can get them to take stuff down, but it’s not enough. Some asshole needs to get fired or demoted. Somebody needs to lose some money, otherwise it’s just “The humorless feminists got upset again, boys. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!” and back to the same old misogyny.
I wouldn’t say that the image is inherently misogynistic, although it does use imagery that might be deemed so by its viewers. The hood atop the woman’s body does elicit comparisons to the photographs of American atrocities at Abu Gharib as well as the hood present on the victims of execution, but also calls to mind the hood of the executioner himself. That leads me to argue that the symbolic crux of the image lies in the woman wearing the hood. Perhaps she is an updated variation on the personifications of Liberty or Columbia, somehow made tawdry and enslaved by her pride; made victim by political folly. For an apt comparison, one might confer with James Hart’s World War I poster for war bonds “Liberty Bound or Liberty Bond? U Can Change It.” http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/designs_for_democracy/designs_for_a_new_century/articles/liberty_bound_or_liberty_bond.html Hart’s illustration shows a similar image of Liberty wearing a Monteofortino helmet, adorned with the American flag whilst tied to a stake amidst the rubble and debris of war. However she is being freed by personifications of the war bonds, showing that with these bonds, Liberty shall not be held prisoner to democracy’s enemies. However, in the documentary advertisement, Liberty is bound by tyrrany, ironically placed there by none other than a neo-Wilsonite, and wears not a symbol of the Roman Republic, but rather a symbol of condemnation. Thus the image shows Columbia made a whore and defiled by those who sought to guide Her, perhaps even leading to Her demise. I would definitely suggest that this image is not in itself misogynistic, but rather a valid and astute protest to the rape of our nation by parties that are ever more offensive and detrimental to the welfare of Liberty than the PR firm who dreamt up this ad.
Yeah, Kenneth, men always know what rape *really* is and aren’t afraid to tell anyone!
That leads me to argue that the symbolic crux of the image lies in the woman wearing the hood.
Why is a woman and not a man wearing it?????
Thus the image shows Columbia made a whore and defiled by those who sought to guide Her, perhaps even leading to Her demise.
What a load of shit! Kenneth, bite me.