It’s not at all uncommon in this world to see advertising images that are some variation on the message that women are only good for ogling and fucking. But somehow it has a particular sting when the ad in question is supposed to be about why women’s lives matter.
This image was posted on Sociological Images, and was created by BC Cancer Agency. The page where the ad was found has been taken down, but here’s a cache. Further, according to comments over at the Sociological Images post, these ads have been seen all over Vancouver.
To address some of the comments over at that post before they appear here: no, I don’t think the Birth of Venus is a sexually objectifying image. And I’m all about appreciating the beauty of the human body — whatever shape or size that body takes (including the one being mocked above).
But when you take such a lovely image and use it to argue that it’s the reason why women’s lives are worth living? Because men like to look at women and definitely don’t like to look at other dudes? That’s more than just a little bit offensive. Because actually, I’m pretty sure that this world “needs women” because we’re human beings, and we make all kinds of amazing and awesome contributions to society.
And I’m also pretty sure that the reason to prevent cervical cancer isn’t about whether or not “the world needs women” (who don’t all have cervixes, by the way). The reason to prevent cervical cancer shouldn’t be seen as any different from the reason to prevent any other cancer. Which is, as is my understanding, because we value human lives and think they’re worth living just because . . . well, just because.
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I guess I have mixed feelings about this…when I first saw the image it did get my attention and made me smirk at what it presented. But I can also see the other side with the issues you raise.
I think if the main point was to get people to notice the ad, then it most likely worked.
-urdsama
The *really* irritating thing about this is that a picture of a well-toned, youthful, attractive man, equivalent in age and attractiveness to the Venus of the original picture, *would* have been pleasant to look at… it’s as if they’re saying that the archetype of “woman” is Beauty, and the archetype of “man” is Fat Hairy Slob, disappearing all the attractive men and “unattractive” women in the world with a single image… while at the same time, like you said, implying that the world needs women because women are prettier than men. So an overweight woman about the same age as the guy in the picture can just die of cervical cancer, because she’s not the kind of woman the world needs.
I get that “fat is unattractive” is one of the many obnoxious and dangerous messages that this ad is perpetuating . . . but I’d really prefer to not see it repeated uncritically here.
whoah, am i ever feeling a transmisogynist undertow in that ad!
after all, we all know that only “real women” have cervixes (as you point out, Cara, so ty for that), hence all we’d be left with is “fake women” who are really “men”, dontcha know.
And you know, that guy couldn’t possibly have a cervix. Nice cissexism, BC Cancer Agency. Nice.
I’m getting a trasphobic vibe off it simply because it plays into the media image of a big hairy man in “drag” – we’re supposed to find it gross and hilarious that he’s got the wig and the Venus pose. Thank god there are still REAL women around! :-/
Plus everything Cara said. I’m glad to know women’s health matters because we’re just too pretty.
Sorry, my comment should read “transphobic” obviously.
I’m not sure what this image made me feel. At first, I thought it was just gross, then I thought, Yeah, get your pap smear because we need women to breed more men. Ultimately, your vaginas belong to us – one way or the other. I think it’s horrid.
I get that “fat is unattractive” is one of the many obnoxious and dangerous messages that this ad is perpetuating . . . but I’d really prefer to not see it repeated uncritically here.
Sorry, I thought I had enough scare quotes to make the point that *I* am not saying fat is unattractive, but I may have missed some.
I see the transphobic vibe, too.
not only is the image offensive/absurd, but the message i take from it equally so. of course the world needs women. what we certainly do not need is another gotcha image attempting to be clever in hopes of what, scaring women into getting their yearly pap? as if to suggest that (gods forbid) if we don’t then we run the risk of missing abnormal pap results which then put us on the verge of extinction?
using fear as a means to encourage women to engage in active participation of their health is misguided at best. we need to keep demanding better and more from those who seem to think that it is still acceptable for womens’ bodies to continue to be fodder for their own shock and awe failed attempts of cleverness campaigns; especially when they do so theoretically to protect our health.
The message here? Get a pap smear so the poor delicate visual sensibilities of men aren’t offended. I mean, for God’s sake, this is important.
Interestingly, the guy in the reproduction is not that far off, size-wise, from the original.
That guy actually looks a lot like me! My mustache isn’t that thick, though…but still. I had to focus on it a minute before it clicked that it was a man. At first glance I thought they had just fat-ized Venus more.
The image is sure to get attention, that is for sure, but I’m not sure it is going to convince women to get pap tests, and THAT in my opinion would mean that it fails as an ad.
This has got to be one of the stupidest adverts I have ever seen, along with the one promoting organ donation with a model and a caption reading something like ‘this is the only chance you’ll get inside her’. Not sure if I saw it on this website or another one.
I get that “fat is unattractive” is one of the many obnoxious and dangerous messages that this ad is perpetuating . . . but I’d really prefer to not see it repeated uncritically here.
True words
Wow nice fat shaming there. So we know at least one commentator on THIS blog found that man not pleasant to look at.
Oh please, she already apologized for her comment having fat-shaming undertones. It was obviously the INTENTION of the ad to present the man as unattractive, and I think it’s worth addressing how and why they did that.
that’s interested. this is from canada?
health care workers are singing a completely different song down south in the US. i have been told repeatedly by multiple doctors and nurse practitioners that i don’t need a regular pap. their reasoning? queer women are not at risk. i was told by one doc only to get a pap every 5 years, and by one np to only get a pap every 3 years.
wtf.
Umayyah, I’m not sure the people who created this ad realized that queer women exist at all. But yeah, even straight women they consider to be low-risk aren’t ‘expected’ to get paps any more– at least not in my area (northern NE).
Re: transphobic/transmisogynist undertones… well, this is British Columbia, and in my experience of living in Vancouver for over a decade, it has the most transmisogynist queer and feminist communities I’ve come across. Look up Kimberley Nixon and Vancouver Rape Relief if you want a primer on the transmisogyny that divides this city and by extension the province.
Re: transphobic/transmisogynist undertones… well, this is British Columbia, and in my experience of living in Vancouver for over a decade, it has the most transmisogynist queer and feminist communities I’ve come across. Look up Kimberley Nixon and Vancouver Rape Relief if you want a primer on the transmisogyny that divides this city and by extension the province.
So, yeah… I wouldn’t expect a nuanced grasp of gender and cissexism from many people here.
It is my understanding that the concept was to take an “iconic” piece of artwork, in this case the Venus deMillo and replace the iconic woman with a man. Would the response be negative, if the BC Cancer Agency used another iconic piece of artwork, such as Whistler’s Mother or the Mona Lisa. Since it is an awareness campaign, a striking image makes sense. I don’t see it as insulting or telling me that I exist to be beautiful or objectified.
I don’t see how those images would work Amac, or what they would be intended to mean. But I’d like to hear what exactly you would think they’d mean.
Again, my understanding is the idea is to take an iconic piece of artwork that features a woman and replace her with a man to drive home the point that the world needs women. I agree those images would not work, which is probably why they used a stricking image such as the Venus deMillo.
But what in blazes in any of those examples, amac, does replacing the iconic image of a woman with a man, have to do with getting a pap smear? In your examples, just as in this one, it’s still using transphobic imagery to get people’s attention as the central point of the ad.
Again — how doe it drive home the point that the world needs women? I do not understand. Again, unless the message is that women are only good for looking at and only women are good for looking at.
There also seems to be an odd subtext to this image: that no one could *possibly* find a male-bodied person with long hair, visible body fat and a moustache attractive or worth looking at.
Mod Note: Sock-puppeting is not allowed. I actually think that the issue of Alara’s comment has been dealt with and an apology has been issued. But if you want to continue discussing it, you need to do so under a consistent user name rather than changing it for every comment to make it look like there’s more than one of you.
First of all, this is on EVERY single bus I’ve ridden over the past few weeks, and it makes me think every time.
Interestingly, I think that this is not a size-discriminatory picture. You see, when I was in Gr. 10, the original picture of the Birth of Venus (as I think it is supposed to be) was on the wall. Now, my teacher showed it to us to get our opinion. Of course, being teenagers, most of the class went “ew” because she was “fat.” My teacher, however, chastised us, telling us that the picture of Venus actually represented a normal looking woman, as opposed to the sex-bots that are idolized today.
So when I saw that pic we are discussing, I first laughed at its absurdity, and then I thought… well, that probably is a good representation of what a man actually looks like in today’s society.
That being said, I don’t think that’s what they REALLY, TRULY, in all HONESTY meant.
normal looking woman div? Can you define what that is? I’m pretty sure some women who have bodies like the “sexbots” you mentioned have perfectly “normal” bodies for them.
It’s a striking image and it certainly gets your attention. Beyond that, I’m not really sure that it works as a public health announcement.
For sure, Venus was and is an enduring icon of the feminine, and seeing her celebrated in her various forms is always a treat for me. I think the dude replacing her in the image is pretty normal-looking for today, as div said. I didn’t think he looks hideous at all here, just hilariously out of place, due to what you would expect to be in that shell. Botticelli’s Venus is very soft-looking and rosy – an expression of “blurred beauty” (what Nabokov’s narrator said, when comparing Lolita to this Venus), and she stands in a pose associated in art with the feminine, sweet and shy and serene all at once. We’re not used to seeing masculine figures represented like that, so we give this a second glance.
Separated from the image, the tagline is pretty sweet itself – “The world needs women.” I like that.
Putting the two together, once again, creates a striking advertisement. But it doesn’t address the full spectrum of womanhood, and it can certainly be read as a kind of shaming tactic – an implication that women only have value when someone is gazing at them admiringly, for example.
I don’t think it was the intent at all, and as a big fan of the original, I can appreciate what they’re trying to do here. But the doubts linger.
I saw this poster outside a walk in clinic a few days ago.
There was a note at the bottom that said something like “drop in for your pap test today” that struck me as exceedingly odd.
As evidence that the world does not need women (fat or thin) in order to produce fine nude studies, check out Rodin’s 1892 Nude Study of Balzac (with arms crossed):
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/rodin/rodin_nude_balzac.jpg.html
Rodin’s nude study of Honore Balzac features a body quite similar to the body in the pap smear ad, further demonstrating that fat people can be powerful, erotic subjects in art.
Amac, the problem with this image isn’t that they’re riffing on artwork (I think everyone got that right away — it’s a pretty famous painting), but the particular painting they chose. Venus is “important” because she’s a mythological figure of beauty and fertility; therefore, the ad implies that the world needs women for their beauty and fertility. We’re worth more than that. If they couldn’t find a famous enough painting that shows women as having worth outside of sex and baby-making, they should have come up with a better ad concept. It’s not like this concept was so amazing in the first place! Venus is a piss-poor example of a woman the world needs, considering she never existed and we’re still here. So the tagline doesn’t relate that well to the image, and neither relates that well to the point (get a pap smear). Offensive plus nonsensical equals a poorly-thought-out ad, at least as far as my tiny lady brain can figure.
I can think of one off the top of my head right away – the Mona Lisa. Ambiguous, not overtly sexual or non-sexual either way, and people can gaze at her for hours.
Although I would disagree with your assessment of Venus, Meg. She has played, and continues to play, various important cultural roles, and I wouldn’t want to diminish that one bit, personally. Venus represents more than beauty and fertility – she can also represent love, sex, motherhood, spring, even power (a famous Bronzino painting shows Venus kissing Cupid as she simultaneously disarms him).
If you live in a culture that teaches you to be ashamed of nudity in all of its forms, or of even the contours of your own body, Venus can be a kind of guiding light, particularly for artists.
Thank you Natalia – well said. As a side issue, how is the “Veus as a man” image offensive and a little girl with an apparent gun in her hand (re: feministe’s image) inoffensive?
New life plan: I’m going to put $1 into a savings account for every person who complaints about Gun Girl. Bet I’ll be able to retire by 30.
You’d be able to retire the entire damn Feministe crew, is what you’d be able to do.
It’s funny. I understand the concept behind the humor and while it may not have been well thought out I don’t think any harmful message was intended.
“normal looking woman div? Can you define what that is? I’m pretty sure some women who have bodies like the “sexbots” you mentioned have perfectly “normal” bodies for them.”
Sorry Dan, I didn’t see this until now!
Actually, “normal” was the word he used, and I realize now that it’s not an appropriate term.
What I meant by that inappropriate term was that as citizens of this world we are taught what “normal bodies” mean – skinny yet curvy with perfect this and that, etc. What “normal” should represent is not this select picture. My interpretation of “normal” is “average.” Venus was quite normal in those terms. Not as many women have perfectly flat, rock hard abs (Venus’ lack of which my fellow students seemed to focus on).
Plus, how many of these women are 100% naturally “sex-bot” in shape? How many work out for hours and hours to achieve that look? How many undergo surgery? With the “normal” spectrum of “looks” there can only be a small percentage of people for whom that look is actually “normal” without external factors (normal in this case being “natural”)
“Venus represents more than beauty and fertility – she can also represent love, sex, motherhood, spring, even power (a famous Bronzino painting shows Venus kissing Cupid as she simultaneously disarms him).”
Wow! A woman using her sex appeal to distract a man, allowing her to steal from him? What a revolutionary and empowering image!
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