So The New Yorker has a story online about that Amina Tyler, the topless Tunisian teenage feminist Facebook activist. [Toplessness follows after the jump.]
Because Ms. Tyler’s feminist protest involved the posting of topless photos to Facebook, The New Yorker helpfully included the photo in question. But here’s the funny thing: they blurred out both the woman’s breasts and the word “fuck.”
Why is this funny? Because they don’t actually have a problem with the word “fuck,” and because they don’t have a problem with exposed nipples, at least not when Richard Avedon does the camera work:
Weird, right?
And femen rhymes with…?
Seriously, I’ve never heard of a less productive protest method.
It was also important to get Dawkins’ seal of approval – after all, we can’t have the world thinking feministas might actually be God-fearing.
JOB
Also, with a cartoon, it’s, well, different.
JOB
Are you referencing the image at the bottom with the skeleton? That ain’t a cartoon; that’s a photo.
OK, ew.
No, I was referring to Tilley’s Fuckerfly.
JOB
I was also being sarcastic – you know, like porn isn’t porn if it’s, you know, not real people invovled.
Blagh!
JOB
I should have known that. Apologies.
Your post made me think of this:
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/topstories/2013/04/08/li-putin-protest-topless-04.jpg
Didn’t read the article, but I don’t get it. I mean, I get what the message is, but I don’t get how it’s supposed to be effective.
Judging from Putin’s expression in that photo, I’d say the protest was having quite an effect.
Right, but probably not the intended effect. But then again, I’m not really sure anymore. Same-sex marriage. Topless Muslim women. Then, yesterday, I got invited to a baby shower. I’m only 38, and to quote Garth Brooks, much too young to feel this damn old.
Not to get discriminatory on y’all, but when did men start getting invited to baby showers?
Apparently just now. With confusion as to the roles of men and women, comes uncertainty as to who you invite to these things. To make matters worse, or maybe better, it was an office baby shower. I suppose some brand of equal opportunity and all that.
I’m wondering if maybe you could expand on the Putin point a little bit, Matthew…
The man looks positively gobsmacked with delight.
Also, not to get discriminatory on y’all, but let’s admit it – there’s Stephanie Seymour breasts and there’s Femen breasts – and never the twain shall – well, you know.
JOB
Stephanie Seymour is SO Victoria’s Secret catalog circa 1994. I’m sure they are by now very similar to femen breasts.
The things of youth tend to stay with us.
Seriously, Job, Seymour’s got nothing on Carol Landis. Either get with the times, or forget them altogether!
Duffer, Quin,
The times have not been good for Ms. Seymour, I’m sure.
But isn’t that Ms. Seymour in the NYer pic Matthew cites as exhibit A (and B, I was going to say, but I see B is hidden from view, isn’t it?)? Maybe I’m confusing this pic with another Avedon photo shoot-cum-breasts which the NYer ran at one point.
JOB
“PORTFOLIO: A FABLE, which is a twenty-five page color photography spread showing model Nadja Auermann posed with a skeleton, both wearing different outfits by a variety of designers (des:). Credits for the photographs appear on page 183. The fable begins with Auermann holding a doll and the skeleton sitting. The background environment throughout the photo spread is shabby. Des: Jean Paul Gaultier, Romeo Gigli, Paul Smith, Dolce & Gabbana, Early Halloween… Auermann and skeleton having sex in doorway; des: Issey Miyake. Skeleton painting; Auermann’s face painted blue; des: Lawler Duffy, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons. Auermann shoveling coal into the skeleton’s torso; des: Jean Colonna. Auermann nude wearing net dress, lying on metal love seat; des: Hussein Chalayan, Love seat, Buzz Scrap Metal, East Hampton…”
Yeah, I was thinking of another Avedon shoot…
JOB
He got around.
To answer the original question, it IS weird that they’d block out the “offensive” parts on this picture alone. It’s like they’ve made a judgement on her or something.
Well, in that case, we know what she’d like to do to their morals.