My brain can't reason its usual "it's okay because it's a black guy underneath that cake" argument.
― pplains, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
I am reacting to this like it is an edible, interactive version of the Britney-giving-birth sculpture
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 15:55 (twelve years ago) link
…with Jeff Koons trapped inside.
― pplains, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 15:55 (twelve years ago) link
I think shakey's right, certainly if you saw it by itself in an art gallery it would give you pause for thought. but when the picture is of a smiling white woman cutting into it surrounded by smiling and laughing white photographers - the o_O is overwhelming.
― Touché Gödel (ledge), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, which I'm assuming was, at least in part, what the artist was probably going for.
― wolf kabob (ENBB), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
I'm kind of w/Laurel on this. Even if I give the Swedes involved the benefit of the doubt as a different culture, etc..., I still can't get over the idea of objectifying a victim whose plight one deplores into a red-centered cake.
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
If it's meant to be generate publicity through shock, it's probably relatively good value for money, though
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:01 (twelve years ago) link
what if the cake tastes terrible
― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
well, now the world is aware of genital mutilation. sort of
― HE HATES THESE CANS (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:03 (twelve years ago) link
no way man that red velvet stuff is the bomb
xp
― goole, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:05 (twelve years ago) link
once you go red velvet, you'll never reshelve it
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
I bet that's what it is, too
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
The ”maimed” corpse of an African woman has sparked an outcry in social media.
― buzza, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:09 (twelve years ago) link
Left out the word "delicious".
― pplains, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
did anyone else watch the video
bureaucrat swedes smiling appreciatively thru constant screaming from the cake.
― goole, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
wait what
this is like a Monty Python sketch come to life
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
holy shit
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
it's a very long 47 seconds
― goole, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:31 (twelve years ago) link
The screaming and what she whispered to him make this quite surreal
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:32 (twelve years ago) link
IMO the video answers the "is this racist?" question but raises about a bazillion others (foremost of which is "WAHT?")
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:33 (twelve years ago) link
did not make it through all 47 seconds
― same old song and placenta (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:34 (twelve years ago) link
the thing is though the page we're reading the story from seems to have chosen "nig*er cake" as its own descriptive and then put it in quotes so I suspect there are some levels of Swedish politics here. OTOH I don't know how many levels it takes to get away from HOW IS THIS NOT A TERRIBLE IDEA.
― same old song and placenta (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:35 (twelve years ago) link
After all the many headspinning aspects of this, I am now very curious where the phrase in quotes in that first FriaTider headline came from.
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:36 (twelve years ago) link
mind blown
have to say that it's quite an impressive performance piece/sculpture/conceptual stunt, but i do not think i would have been able to eat any of that cake
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:39 (twelve years ago) link
the recommended youtubes that pop up are pretty O_o
― goole, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
"Let them not eat cake."
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:45 (twelve years ago) link
saw an episode of baseball wives where one wife gets another wife a realistic looking porcupine cake or something that also had red cake inside
― dayo, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:51 (twelve years ago) link
There's lots of Sweish politics going on here: this is going viral because Swedish nationalists are pissed that she's cutting off state funding for their newspaper, so they're sending this around as a "gotcha!" moment.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:54 (twelve years ago) link
― dayo, Tuesday, April 17, 2012 12:51 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Steel Magnolias has a bit about the groom's cake at a wedding being in the shape of a giant armadillo with grey icing and blood red cake. Maybe the b-ball wives were spoofing that. Sounds p similar.
― wolf kabob (ENBB), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 17:03 (twelve years ago) link
100% with aero here; my guess is that the cake itself is a piece of very transgressive and extreme performance art that somehow has federal funding. The original article linked to though only blocks out one of the 'g's in n----- and seems to have some sort of vendetta against one of the attendants for cutting funding to a nationalist newspaper who is known for spouting off 'racist' beliefs, so I'm actually wondering if the article itself is actually more racist than the cake...?
― when will Jesus bring the composition chops? (loves laboured breathing), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 17:06 (twelve years ago) link
yeah TWU otm xxp. Like as shocking as the cake is, it is probably akin to like The Swans playing at George HW Bush's Inaugural Ball
― when will Jesus bring the composition chops? (loves laboured breathing), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 17:08 (twelve years ago) link
As far as I can tell, Fria Tider (the website linked to above) is a right-wing Sweedish Nationalist news organisation.
― HE HATES THESE CANS (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 17:14 (twelve years ago) link
The URL made the cake sound like it came from Niger.
― pplains, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 17:29 (twelve years ago) link
that's what I was expecting
in retrospect, I don't really know why; possibly the clearest example of my subconscious blatantly lying to me in order to preserve my sanity I've had in a while
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 17:30 (twelve years ago) link
just popped up on my tumblr and figured it was relevant here wrt makode's race:
http://thankyoubasedsantorum.tumblr.com/post/21272281605Apparently Makode (the artist behind "Painful Cake") is not a woman.
Can everyone see how this is not okay?
Look, we talk all the time about how black women’s pain is often co-opted or turned into a gimmick for white people’s goals—and we’ve even had great discussion about how people of color will do the same to black people. This is one of those times. I don’t know about Makode’s make-up, but I know they are not white. And this is bullshit.
At the end of the day, I don’t care what they were doing or what they thought they were going to accomplish—they put painful history of black women’s pain (not starting with but including the Venus Hottentot) on display for white people to “teach” them about said pain. I can’t even begin to describe how truly fucked up that is, and how it enrages me. Even within POC spaces, black women are at the bottom of the totem pole. Our pain is hung out to dry for the benefit of white people and when it backfires, it is even more worthless. If it can’t even be used for teaching fodder, what good is it?
I don’t care who Makode is; they are not for us. If they meant to shock, they could have done it with trivializing the pain of black women. If they meant to teach, they could’ve done so another way. I’m tired of our history supposedly being used for the benefit of other POC. Makode was allowed to be there, probably paid, invited to sit under a table and scream for the laughter and enjoyment of white people. That’s all it was. It didn’t do shit.
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
i'm glad i read this thread because having just seen the photo/read the article i was entirely ooooo_0000000
well, i still am, but less kneejerk condemnatory now that i know the political and artistic context, which i think a lot of those outraged tumblrers would do well to find out about.
god the phrase "POC" really gets no better.
― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:26 (twelve years ago) link
well, the article was super suspect just from the headline; that alone made me think there was more going on than those still pictures could convey (the video amplified that even more)
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:31 (twelve years ago) link
which i think a lot of those outraged tumblrers would do well to find out about.
lol @ yr assumption that they don't
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:35 (twelve years ago) link
yeah learning that the newspaper was a right wing one made things make much more sense - if swedish newspapers of that kind are anything like british ones, they'll probably target modern art at every given opportunity, and conflate using offensive imagery with actually being offensive while pretending the context doesn't exist
― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:35 (twelve years ago) link
xp it's right in the paragraph you quoted
― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:37 (twelve years ago) link
I'm not sure how to feel about Makode Linde's performance/conceptual piece. It's clearly transgressive, deeply unsettling, awful in many ways, but it's not entirely without substance.
Perhaps the only acceptable response is to condemn Linde, as the author of that wonderfully named blog does, for representing something other than his own "designated group" and/or personal experience. That's the safest strategy, based on the idea that we're all allowed to comment on ourselves, on the group(s) to which we seemingly belong, and on those we see as our oppressors - but everybody else is off-limits. By this standard, a man simply isn't entitled to make gross, transgressive art about female genital mutilation in Africa, regardless of his race or intent.
This is at least a coherent and morally sensible position. But i don't know... I agree to a large extent and this is pretty much how I try to handle these issues in my own life, but at the same time, I'm somewhat bothered by the puritanical and legalistically rigid nature of this approach.
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:38 (twelve years ago) link
^ i'm responding there to the thankyoubasedsantorum.tumblr that zachylon linked
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
lex "i don't care" does not mean "i don't know"
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:41 (twelve years ago) link
I think the point made by that Tumblr is more that it was an appropriation of an experience that wasn't his and presented in a manner almost guaranteed to be offensive and misunderstood, showing a profound lack of empathy for the issues meant to be addressed by the piece in the first place.
Like, it's okay to talk about female genital mutilation in Africa, but it's not really okay to make yourself into a screaming edible cake if you want the issue to be taken seriously.
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:43 (twelve years ago) link
where is Issues That Can Be Addressed by Screaming Edible Cake poll
― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:45 (twelve years ago) link
Guess I'll have to come up with something else besides my Anne Frank Strawberry Shortcake Surprise for NPR's next remote at the University.
― pplains, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:47 (twelve years ago) link
esp given the nature of a lot of performance art, which is as much about the issue as it is the identity of the performer. it's not really possible for him to separate the two when he goes about it like this. xp to DJP
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:48 (twelve years ago) link
he could have had plausible separation had he hired a woman to be the head of the cake, I think
― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago) link
am I the only one who was reminded of this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucNYLsjKaTQ
― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i get that, but i don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with art that is "almost guaranteed to be offensive and misunderstood", and "a profound lack of empathy" is very much in the eye of the beholder. when you take it down to basic principles, the blogger's problem is that, while linde may be black, he is not a woman, and his piece is therefore unjustifiable. if linde were a black woman, then her criticisms wouldn't hold. her headline makes this very clear:
Apparently Makode (the artist behind “Painful Cake”) is not a woman.
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 18:53 (twelve years ago) link