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I hate this part right here

Have the PCD’s (The Pussycat Dolls) stooped to a new low?  I was watching the film clip to their song “I Hate This Part Right Here” when I was stunned by the scene depicting one of the girls draped in a very suggestive “come and get me” pose over a pinball machine. This appears in a film clip set in the desert (it’s all lone roads, cacti, wolves and deers up to this point) which made the shot all the more bewildering. It’s about 2min 30 in:


 
The first thing that came to my mind was that this was designed to be reminiscent of the infamous gang rape scene in the Jodie Foster film The Accused – a scene in which Foster’s character is gang raped on a pinball machine in a small-town bar. This scene was absolutely harrowing and had me, like so many other cinema goers, leaving the cinema sobbing.

Am I reading too much into this? And if I am, what else are we to make of a pinball machine in the desert decorated by a panting Pussycat Doll?   

Glorifying violence against women is sadly not new. Dolce and Gabbana alluded to gang rape in their 2007 advertising campaign:

And what about the episode of America’s Next Top Super Model that featured the wannabe models posing for shots that depicted them as victims of violent crime?


 
The judges comments were breath-takingly offensive and included: “Gorgeous!”, “Fantastic!”, “Amazing!”, “Absolutely beautiful!”, “You don’t look dead enough” and, “Death becomes you, young lady!”

Loved blogger Venice of Brasil’s post on why we should all be vigilant against any attempt to eroticise violence against women:

It also seems like just one more crime the beauty industry commits against women. This is not a place where women are celebrated. They are scrutinized, demeaned, told they are too old, not thin enough, not pretty enough, etc. just to sell more products. Top Model sells at least one new product an episode through its format. I am sure that this is just another publicity stunt for the show in which media people and feminists get upset, and the majority of the desensitized public sits back thinking, “what’s the big deal?”

I guess that is the question. What is the big deal?
The big deal is that it makes violence against women appear beautiful and acceptable
The big deal is that if a picture is worth 1,000 words, what did we just learn?
The big deal is that it is another media depiction of violence that makes the real thing seem “normal”.
The big deal is that violence against women is real, and this is fashion mocking the reality of so many.
The big deal is that right now thousands of women die everyday around the world from preventable violence while shows like Top Model tell the models that they don’t look “dead enough”.
The big deal is that how many women have died in Iraq? Where are their pictures? Where is “blown up by cluster bombs” crime scene photo? Or is that not pretty enough?

4 Comments

  1. Olivia

    wow! great post danni! bad news tho! wow. you’re so right!! and i can’t believe that dolce and gabana ad! crazy! good on your for making a stand and enabling us to more easily make one too! You are fabulous!

  2. Melinda L

    Only one word comes to mind when I think of the Pussycat dolls and that word is “idiots.” Think about it, anybody else who was as up themselves as they are would be dismissed as vain and stupid, yet these people are glorified!
    But didn’t you know Danni….these women are empowered! That is their claim.
    But the reality that these women are trying to depict as sexy looks much more like this:
    http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/734958/schoolboys-accused-of-sex-acts-with-girl
    I quote from the article:
    “Seven youths, some in school uniform, subjected a 13-year-old girl to sex acts, one of which was filmed and sent to a mate, a Sydney judge has been told.”
    This is all very distressing.

  3. Sonia Lyne

    I don’t think The Pussycat Dolls have stooped to a new low … they have always been LOW. The way in which they normalise and sell the idea that sex, and being sexy, equates to empowerment infuriates me.

    Great blog post Danni! Obviously the “responsible” adults creating the advertisements, you have shared, are not going to stop. Therefore it is important that we stop, deconstruct and “shout out” what is obviously wrong before they go too far. Seriously I think these adverts have gone too far; so it is scary to think what they will sensationalise next in order to sell their product.

    When we “shout out” we could yell positive alternatives!!!

  4. Lucy

    PCD has always been low and live in their deluded world walking aroung thinking that dressing in minimal clothing and looking like living Barbie Dolls makes them powerful and popular. Their audience is aged between 12 and 16 and they think this is appealing? They call themselves role models. I think its disgusting. They look like tarts and their video clips are becoming more and more sexually explicit.

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