Wednesday, July 25, 2007

let's go shoe shopping... um, i think i'll take the ones with the dismembered body parts?

women's fashion mags don't exactly have the best track record, but this ad in v magazine, has GOT to be the oddest, most disturbing one i've seen in a while. boobs and butts in a shoe? i mean, come on! let's cut up some women's body parts and shove them in giant shoes. maybe some women will buy them!

who took these objectifying images? bela borsodi. so i went to his site, hoping to find some justification within his other work. i was disappointed, to say the least. images such as this, this, and even this flooded his portfolio. perhaps even more appalling is the fact that these images are bundled together with seemingly tame photos of accessories with everyday objects, such as this. it's as if he's trying even harder to emphasize the fact that women are nothing more than handbags or shoes. they were simply groped bodies, breasts to be ogled, silhouettes (note the belt that covers her mouth), submissive paintings, or painful-looking drawings.

now, that i'm trying to say there's anything wrong with sexuality in art. i actually prefer and even take part in such artwork myself. there is, however, a definite implied sexism within borsodi's work. there were, in fact, so many offensive pics i stopped looking about 3/4 of the way down the list... what a creep. and he's obviously extremely successful, due to his worldwide listing in all the top mags. i'll leave you with this one lovely image, typical of borsodi's work.

now i wanna pop his misogynistic balloon.


***EDIT*** just wanted to add that i scooted my booty over to feministing, and what's on their most recent post list? mmhmm. said ad. maybe we can all get together and start a boycott?

4 comments:

Rex Libris said...

Implied? You're generous.

That's one of the things that pisses me off about the more mainstream/popular art magazines. There seems to be this trend where artists are thought of as being edgy or brilliant for embracing the use of women's bodies as props, and it's bullshit. It's not clever, and it's not deep. I think it's telling how much more often he uses images of women as props versus how rarely he uses men or men's bodies.

Anonymous said...

sexism...I think not. What happened to artists expressing themselves in different ways. Artists take something they find to be sexy or attractive and put their own spin on it. I dont think these pieces have anything to do with degrading women by "cutting up their body parts and putting them in shoes". The artists are doing nothing than putting a sensual spin on a product.

Sometimes people look at a piece of art and think that the artist must be a sexist, trying to supress women in society by the art that they produce. Why cant you just look at art and accept that it is a form of self expression, a form of ART...nothing more, nothing less.

Just to spin what you were saying
http://scribalterror.blogs.com/scribal_terror/images/dragon_shoe_by_homelyvillain.jpg
I found this picture on google, I think it is extremely degrading to dragons. Damnit, what is the world coming to where we take cute dragons and make them into shoes for someone to stick their smelly feet into, how do you think that makes the dragon feel when he opens a magazine and sees this ad on the inside front page.

http://www.cortina.be/images/cal/2006/september.jpg
Pictures like this just pick at my last nerve. Taking a shoe and decorating it with male genitalia. This has GOT to be the oddest, most disturbing one i've seen in a while. Penis and testicles in a shoe? i mean, come on! let's cut up some men's body parts and glue them on giant shoes. maybe some men will buy them!

wellie said...

What happened to artists expressing themselves in different ways.

there's absolutely nothing wrong with artists expressing themselves in different ways. i even mentioned that i prefer sexuality in art. i do, however, take issue with art that chooses to objectify and degrade women. why is it okay in our society to show random body parts of women shoved into shoes in the name of fashion? it's not artistic to be sexist. if borsodi had shown cut up baby parts in shoes, or puppies, i'm sure it wouldn't've been printed. but women? oh, that's SEXY.


Artists take something they find to be sexy or attractive and put their own spin on it.

that's exactly the problem. when an artist thinks that those random dismembered body parts, or squeezed and grossly distorted women's images are 'sexy or attractive' s/he is not only purporting the idea that women are nothing but objects, but that others should view them in that way as well. women are not props ~ they're human beings.

the dragon shoe is a rendering of a mythic creature. dragons such as that don't exist, and you want to compare an imaginary reptile to WOMEN? your prejudice is showing, and your argument there doesn't hold a drop of water.

the penis shoe is another matter. how interesting that the penis is on the end of a WOMAN'S HEEL. is the artist trying to say that women want to be men? that men dominate their lives? perhaps it's that women are EXPECTED to want a penis. or maybe these shoes are supposed to express the desire that all women want heels, and all women want penises? anyway you um, slice it, it's untrue and, at the very least, in poor taste. it's definitely not conducive to selling product.

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