Porn As We Know It : Putting Porn In Perspective
There are other forms of pornography, besides what it is known to be-sexually explicit material, that contemporary popular culture chooses to see as appropriate or normal when in fact it isn’t any more appropriate than the inside of Hustler Magazine. Consumers are exposed to it through countless mediums, and society’s spectators choose not to see these very common images as pornography…the question is why not? Why is a picture of a bloated, water logged Hurricane Katrina victim floating face down in the water, being rushed down what used to be a street by the current, acceptable to see on the cover of a news magazine? Why is it ok to see pictures of Jessica Alba and her baby swiping her debit card in the grocery store as she is buying diapers and formula, when that is supposed to be her moment, vulnerable and striving for normalcy? What makes these images any different from those that are kept hidden behind the checkout counter because they have Hugh Hefner’s newest set of girlfriends posing, scantily clad and provocatively, on the cover? Is one worse than the other, and if so, why? Who gets to make that distinction, and why do so many people choose to look the other way or to literally buy into this ideology that fuels the media to see these types of materials as acceptable and even worse, as profitable?
In this “Culture Jam”, images that any member of the consumerist culture would see on a daily basis (of celebrities, natural disaster coverage, and sexually suggestive images) were selected and détourned in a way that would reflect the image being seen from different sets of eyes, in different perspectives, and how those different eyes and different perspectives represent smaller parts of a whole. Although everyone is not always heard and not everyone always chooses to voice his or her opinions, every individual still represents a small part of the “whole” of society and every individual image chosen in this project is representative of that. The images were mirrored against one another for the visually aesthetic aspect of the project, but the original images were also altered to embody the concept that nothing is as it seems, especially in the media. The public rarely sees profound truth in any visual representation that the media chooses to unveil to the public. The mirroring affect was also used to represent the instances that one may see the same image that another sees, and that while it holds a particular connection for one, another can foster a completely connection to the same material. From the popular media’s perspective, consumers are simply bystanders who wait for media to feed them the smut that they selectively release to masses every second of the day. The images chosen for this project were selected from the most prominent factions in media; images that are culturally relevant and that are responsible for the pornography that is globally ingested-images captured from natural disasters, paparazzi, and of course, good old fashioned, sexually explicit porn. These three “factions” of the media were elected due to the idea that they are typically the most easily accessible and influential forms of media.
This project particularly holds the significance as a criticism of pornography by seemingly mocking its definition. Porn is defined by Merriam Webster’s standards as: “TV programs, books, or other forms of media, regarded to catering to a voyeuristic or obsessive interest in a specified subject.” A voyeur is thereby defined as “a person who gains sexual pleasure or enjoys seeing the pain and distress of another, especially those who are naked” (http://www.merriam-webster.com). One could see “naked” as being a term of endearment here, and that it can be left open for interpretation as someone who is vulnerable in any way can also be seen as being figuratively naked. Détournement is defined by Tom Vague as “…. within the old cultural spheres…a method of propaganda, a method which testifies to the wearing out and loss of importance in those spheres,” (“The Boy Scout’s Guide to the Situationist International”). In this project, the collection of already amended images that were then détourned, were used as a means of propaganda to signify the “wearing out” and desensitization that society has become accustomed to in viewing these images and automatically dismissing them. The images have literally worn out their intended significance only to come to represent something else entirely, something that may not even embody the reality behind the intended meaning. The media uses pictures of victims of 9/11 covered in soot and ashes, covered head to toe in scrapes and blood, wearing torn clothes and ultimately unrecognizable; they use these pictures to shape what is brought to mind when forced to recall the awful events that ensued that day. Upon recollection, one doesn’t only think of the event itself, but instead they may associate that day with these images that represent the pain and suffering of all who endured loss on September 11, 2001. Although these people who were photographed (and thereby exploited) did experience trauma, it speaks on many levels that what is usually associated with the event itself are the images the media stamped into the minds of so many Americans. What instantly comes to mind for most is not the fact that the day in question was an attack on American soil that founded a deep seeded hate U.S. culture has developed for not only the acts that were committed against the nation, but at an entire culture that seemed to be represented by the actions of the attackers themselves. Pictures of Elin Nordegren are on any given day plastered all over the cover of People Magazine. This is the medium for which she is seen as the victim of infidelities by one of the most famous golfers to ever live, rather than seeing her for who she really is. If anyone wants to know why, it is because the media doesn’t care who she really is, and neither do consumers. The media doesn’t care to represent her as a real woman but rather as a woman who is now a divorcee, financially set, a mother, and an ex-wife scorned and merely a headline maker. She is their front cover story that will sell them millions upon millions of issues, making them more money than they could hope for. Although celebrities do exploit themselves to some degree, the media has to be held responsible for their salacious misrepresentations. They exploit people’s pain and distress so that all of the voyeurs in the world can sink their claws into the grueling anguish that the newest front cover personality is experiencing. Perhaps people buy into this type of “news” coverage because it is a distraction from their own pain or because they take pleasure in seeing someone else hit rock bottom; this way, they don’t have to face their own unattractive qualities. It is a sick, twisted, and insanely coveted form of entertainment that is more perverse than anyone would like to admit.
The representations chosen for this assignment were seen as suitable because as Debord, a man truly ahead of his time, wrote in 1957, “We should not simply refuse modern culture; we must seize it in order to negate it,” (“Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action”). Here, the idea was seized, and it negated the illusion of tolerance and intolerance in the media by the means of mockery. The images were not meant to attempt to revolutionize a spectator’s interpretation of the images themselves, but more so to alter one’s perspective as to what should and shouldn’t be seen as inappropriate, acceptable, artistic, and as graphical imagery or pornography and to leave the spectator to question why the media is given the power to decide what is visually appropriate. The intent of this “Culture Jam,” was to bring awareness to the desensitization that global culture endures at the hands of tactless media outlets in terms of exploiting human emotion and reaction, along with seemingly intimate moments. Debord wrote of revolution, “It must abolish the exploitation of humanity, but also the passions, compensations and habits which that exploitation has endangered. We have to define new desires in relation to present possibilities…. We now have to undertake an organized collective work aimed at a unitary use of all the means of revolutionizing everyday life,” (Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action). If Hustler is porn, then Time, Newsweek, People, US Weekly, and all the rest of the smut-ridden magazines and news programs are in the same genre of publication; sex still sells. Voyeurs are everywhere; it just depends on whose eyes one uses to view them.
The détourned images used in this project were posted in two grocery stores, around the UTD campus, at St. Monica Catholic Private School in the foyer of the school’s entrance, and also at the Dallas Public Library locations on Preston and Royal and on Midway and Timberglen. As had been suspected, the posts at the grocery stores and the Dallas Public Libraries got no noticeable attention, even staying posted for over a week and half. This goes to show a demonstration of society’s desensitization to images like the ones used for this project, or the fact that no one pays attention to anything anymore. In Texas, people pay attention to football, food, Republicans, the NRA, and border jumpers, so maybe one shouldn’t go as far as saying no one pays attention to anything anymore. At UTD, the images displayed were immediately taken down, at least within a day or two…also as suspected. At St. Monica, the posted image was actually written on and then moved to the very front bulletin board at the school. “God bless you,” “good point,” and “Hallelujah,” were written in red marker on the bottom of the page. Upon returning a week later, the image had finally been taken down. Through what is defined as urbanism by Debord, in this “Culture Jam,” a medium of art was used to contribute to the composition of a view of society. In terms of unitary urbanism Debord had this to say: “It must include both the creation of new forms and the détournement of previous forms of architecture, urbanism, poetry, and cinema,” (Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action”). It can be said this “Culture Jam,” accomplished both of those goals in unison. In The Society of the Spectacle Debord noted, “The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.” In this project, the spectacle is truly mediated by images, leaving this as a distinct example of the understanding behind Debord’s teaching of this case and point.
Societal views of how pornography is understood to exist will continually be debated being that the understanding of this medium depends largely upon individual interpretation. Taking that ideology into account, in accordance with the fact that society will never completely agree with any one perspective and that the media controls most of what is exposed publicly, it can be said that porn as we know it is only truly understood by putting it into one’s own perspective. Viewing media and categorizing it through graphical means is an individual as well as a collectivist responsibility, as is understanding the effects that such graphic representations have on culture as a whole.
Works Cited
Debord, Guy. “Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action.” www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/report.html. Situationist International Online.
June 1957. 20 August. 2010.
Debord, Guy Ernest. “The Society of the Spectacle.” http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/16. Nothingness.org. 1967.
20 August. 2010.
Vague, Tom. “The Boy Scout’s Guide to the Situationist International.” The Effect the S.I. Had On Paris ’68 And All That, Through The Angry Brigade And King Mob To The Sex Pistols. http://sami.is.free.fr/Oeuvres/boy_scouts_guide_to_the_s_i.html. Textz.com, sami.is.free.fr. 2001. 20 August. 2010.
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