Rolling 'this is sexist' thread

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It seems to me that there is a certain level of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" to complaining about these things, where if you don't propagate the offensive material, the context of your complaint isn't as strong and, if the offending material is removed, people coming to it later won't know exactly what it is you are objecting to. However, if you do propagate the offensive material, you are opening yourself up to "who's the REAL racist/sexist?" dismissals as well as potentially traumatizing people who would have avoided the original posting regardless.

they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:02 (ten years ago) link

DFW (someone whose memory is still fresh in many people's minds) would have really thrown into sharp relief what a shockingly horrible idea it was

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:03 (ten years ago) link

I'm often the only dude in a group of people trying to defend Vice a lot of the time, but, really, fuck 'em.

i keep thinking vice is 'better' now with mcinnes gone but then

Yeah, I've done some "at least Jim Goad isn't still writing 'Slavery Wasn't THAT Bad" pieces anymore" stuff, but - they're all just so gross.

Walter Galt, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:10 (ten years ago) link

fucking vice

i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:12 (ten years ago) link

DFW (someone whose memory is still fresh in many people's minds) would have really thrown into sharp relief what a shockingly horrible idea it was

― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, June 18, 2013 5:03 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they included iris chang, whose son christopher is only eleven years old. it really should have been clear at that point, if not before.

data halls and oate (stevie), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:13 (ten years ago) link

In this case, jez posting a few of the pics kept me from going to Vice's site and giving them the page views just in case I wanted to get an impression of the spread for myself.

Tottenham Heelspur (in orbit), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:17 (ten years ago) link

jesus what the fuck

xp

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:17 (ten years ago) link

Even their apology sucks

The fashion spreads in VICE magazine are always unconventional and approached with an art editorial point-of-view rather than a typical fashion photo-editorial one. Our main goal is to create artful images, with the fashion message following, rather than leading.

‘Last Words’ was created in this tradition and focused on the demise of a set of writers whose lives we very much wish weren’t cut tragically short, especially at their own hands. We will no longer display ‘Last Words’ on our website and apologize to anyone who was hurt or offended.

"We were being edgy and cool. Sorry you squares couldn't handle it, but we humored you and took it down."

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:20 (ten years ago) link

could go in passive aggressive notes thread imo

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:20 (ten years ago) link

yeesh

⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:25 (ten years ago) link

even as far as VICE's editorial direction w/r/t fashion -- this wasn't even a proper fashion spread, it was just ready-to-wear clothes styled as period costuming

⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:29 (ten years ago) link

i'm not going to say "if it was executed better it would be less problematic" but the lack of cohesion and near complete absence of fashion really underlines the basic awfulness of the concept

⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:31 (ten years ago) link

"Who's the REAL racist/sexist" discussions should be pretty simple if one of the choices is Vice, though.

Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:36 (ten years ago) link

haha I don't think anyone here disputes that

they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:37 (ten years ago) link

I think the bigger problem with this than sexism is the complete failure to comprehend what a dark and horrible subject suicide is and how common it would be for their readers (let alone the living family of one of their subjects!) to have been touched by it. But there is definitely sexism in the idea that this would somehow be a "sexy" thing to portray wrt women, whereas I don't think they would have done it with men.

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:44 (ten years ago) link

i thought it was kinda dope.

dylannn, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:05 (ten years ago) link

I love that the biggest companies in the world throw baskets of money at Vice and there's never any repercussions for any of the awful shit they do

PappaWheelie on the zeitgeist (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:06 (ten years ago) link

i thought it was kinda dope.

yeah, i thought it was p cool

Lamp, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:09 (ten years ago) link

i get why it's kinda fucked up but portraying the suicide of artistic figures in a sexy way is a grand tradition!

dylannn, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:10 (ten years ago) link

To market clothes you mean?

Bees Against Racism (Tom D.), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:11 (ten years ago) link

a woman pointing a gun into her own mouth, yeah so sexy

⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:12 (ten years ago) link

to market authenticity

Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:14 (ten years ago) link

fashion editorials aren't really 'marketing'

⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:17 (ten years ago) link

its not really supposed to be sexy? i think its mostly sort of lazily 'commenting' on like vogue photo shoots where tobey maguire and carloyn murphy pretend to have been in 'rear window' and then some empty gesturing towards meaning that doesnt work the minute you start thinking about it, so its sort of lol if you look at other fashion photo spreads and sad if you think about someone saying 'art editorial' out loud at any point. but also it just seems kinda sad to care about this at all really, unless you are a blogger that gets paid to care about stupid stuff like this

Lamp, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:17 (ten years ago) link

I think "people in the process of killing themselves" is a problem, and "women, and only women, in the process of killing themselves" is a problem in an even bigger and probably blinking font. Women's bodies: again just a prop to sell clothes, a look, a magazine, now with 100% more violence and in fact the violence is being done to them by themselves, and that's before even going to the terrible well of these being real people with living children and relatives.

Tottenham Heelspur (in orbit), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:25 (ten years ago) link

its not really supposed to be sexy? i think its mostly sort of lazily 'commenting' on like vogue photo shoots where tobey maguire and carloyn murphy pretend to have been in 'rear window' and then some empty gesturing towards meaning that doesnt work the minute you start thinking about it

uh it's a commentary of the medium of fashion editorials? lol gtfo

⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 17:25 (ten years ago) link

nothing like being above it all

goole, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 18:14 (ten years ago) link

and in true jezebel fashion every image is saved without warning for posterity and page clicks

ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 18:25 (ten years ago) link

I really need to see these objectionable, depressing images to get my ire going.

mh, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 18:30 (ten years ago) link

but also it just seems kinda sad to care about this at all really, unless you are a blogger that gets paid to care about stupid stuff like this

― Lamp, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 1:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Or if you, I dunno, had had family members or close friends who killed themselves, or tried to, that might be a reason to care about it.

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 18:43 (ten years ago) link

or if you're suicidal

ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 18:46 (ten years ago) link

noisey or w/e the music commentary part of vice puts up good stuff sometimes

乒乓, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 18:54 (ten years ago) link

or if you think the destruction of women is horrifying (xpost)

ttyih boi (crüt), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 18:55 (ten years ago) link

feel like "suicidal female artist is a trope in this society, everybody can point to a few immediate examples if they were asked to. [the corollary 'suicidal male artists' are allowed to be an exception rather than the rule.] it's definitely not something worth glamorizing, and that draws i think from the larger subject of suicide itself, unless you're gonna dress up in a frocked petticoat and call yourself werther.

乒乓, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:00 (ten years ago) link

"

(sorry)

they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:01 (ten years ago) link

MODS .... PLEASE close my quotation

乒乓, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:03 (ten years ago) link

vice does lots of good stuff, but since the company itself is totally unstructured and disorganized and theres no real editorial vision there will always be dumb sub-mcinnes horseshit

max, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:05 (ten years ago) link

i feel like yall are reading them like they're autopsy photos, though.

dylannn, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:11 (ten years ago) link

no, we're reading them like they are photos recreating the look/method of suicide for women writers who committed suicide and are making it look visually appealing

I started paging through the rest of the issue (on the web), and I like some of the articles and fiction. Like max said, there's such a mixed bag due to a lack of editorial.

mh, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:15 (ten years ago) link

maybe... i feel like visual representations of women are already so... complicated, and, to be imprecise but only because it feels precise, problematic. speaking as a photography buff. also this kind of stuff gets tied women in a way it doesn't for men, maybe because it seems like a fossilized or vestigial (or maybe the opposite: evolved, dynamic and modern) take of the notion of female hysteria, that just by virtue of being a women one was subject to emotional excesses that might ultimately lead to suicide or worse if not curbed. i dunno.

乒乓, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:19 (ten years ago) link

i get why it's kinda fucked up but portraying the suicide of artistic figures in a sexy way is a grand tradition!

― dylannn, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 5:10 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

imagining the ILVictorianX reaction to Millais' Ophelia rn

✌_✌ (c sharp major), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:23 (ten years ago) link

there is already a troubling relationship between female suicide and the word "fashionable", especially with women writers; a fashion spread based on female writer suicides is (not only passe but) about as heavy a contributor to that nastiness as possible

and yeah as 乒乓 said, also a cruddy relationship with photography itself. visual art in general. piling these factors on top of each other is either sensationalist or highly ignorant or probably both

ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:25 (ten years ago) link

women are more likely to attempt suicide, men are more likely to die from suicide

if this was women dying of old age or disease it'd be a much different photo feature. suicide is, by its nature, highly likely to cause a copycat effect when publicized. I'm more troubled by that aspect than anything.

mh, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:27 (ten years ago) link

I'm imagining an old age photo spread inspiring copycats now

they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:28 (ten years ago) link

the fact that it includes a dorothy-park-a-like slicing her wrists in a sink -- referenced in the shoot, but who did not successfully take her own life -- for me, it uncovers the conceit: these pictures aren't memorial in nature, as the apology claims. a string of pearls is juxtaposed with arterial blood? oh yes, how very glamorous, how very droll.

⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:29 (ten years ago) link

i don't think it's reprehensible to depict suicide or self-harm-- a lot of female readers check for sylvia plath or woolf because they're interested in, i dunno, the particularly female experience of wanting to hurt yourself, and lots of female writers have covered the same material... and not all of that writing makes suicide or self-harm look like a horrible, disgusting path to take but it's valid and important because feelings about suicide are not often unconflicted.

i feel like it's fair game for a female photographer to reappropriate this imagery... to comment on whatever it is she might be commenting on.

dylannn, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:31 (ten years ago) link

out of the context of this being in an issue of Vice dedicated to women in fiction I have no idea how I'd take it, but their juxtaposition of this art against work and interviews with contemporary writers is gross in a way that Vice tries to pull off when they feel like they might be taken seriously

mh, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:33 (ten years ago) link

noisey seems okay to me?

i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:33 (ten years ago) link

the particularly female experience of wanting to hurt yourself, and lots of female writers have covered the same material

see, while this statistically seems to ring true in some ways, this is actually the sexist bit. that women are into self-harm and suicide in a way men somehow are not.

mh, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:35 (ten years ago) link


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