Why don't we do it in the road?
Back in my hometown of Fargo, I was minding my own business. Casual. Driving to get some groceries. I turned on the radio (which I never do) and on the random station I turned to I heard an interesting discussion going on inbetween songs. People were calling in to discuss a billboard they had seen advertising this station. I had not seen this billboard. All of the callers were men and they all said the same thing, "I don;t know what the big deal is" "Its just a womans body" "Don;t you love your body? People need to stop being such prudes" "The female body is a beautiful thing"......blah blah blah.
This seemed like a lot of odd rationalization to me...I became intensely interested in what this billboard could possibly be...
Then, as if the feminist theorists of my past had heard my request, I saw it in the distance, looming like a giant phallic warning, telling me that i really really shouldn't have turned on the radio today...
Just in case you care to look at some more billboards by this "clever" radio station
http://www.rock102online.com/page6_sub.php?id=81
Context:
Who: Rock 102 is a radio station
What: broadcasts mainstream rock music.
Where: In the Fargo Moorhead metropolitan community. It started in 1983 under a different name. It is currently owned by a James Ingstad incorporation.
A Billboard on the Highway.
Content:
The torso of a woman shown only from the back so that her head and legs are cut off. She is standing with her hip out to the left and her left hand is extended to rest lightly on the top of the neck of the guitar. In bold letters next to her it reads, “Now Turn Us On” with the “us” underlined. Underneath the text in smaller letters boxed in it reads “Rock 102.” Under that in even smaller letters it reads “Everything that rocks.”
Form:/reading:
In typical hegemonic fashion, the woman is thin, white, tan, and longhaired, perpetuating the stereotypical physical standards of female beauty. Her hand is balancing herself on the obvious phallic symbol of the guitar neck, she is “leaning” on male dominance. She is shown only from the back, more specifically, only her torso is shown. She is framed in a way that makes her headless and legless. Her ass is eroticized and is the main element of her body that is given visibility. The lighting causes an intense reflection on her lower back. She is wearing a white tankini that is riding up in the back.
I was both insulted and mildly relieved at the honesty of this billboard. They blatantly admit that they are assuming a male gaze, they blatantly admit they are objectifying this woman and using her as sexual advertising tool, and they blatantly admit that in exchange for them providing “you” (the viewer) with visual erotic stimulation, “you” should reward them with your business. If they weren’t serious, I would find it comical.
For me, this is a clear example of “woman as spectacle” and “man as active narrator and story advancer.” All instructions of action are geared towards him. The woman is unimportant for anything other than arousing the male viewer. What are the implications of me as a woman viewing this billboard? The message is not meant for me. The action is not meant for me. This is true regardless of my sexuality. How can women fight this notion of women as passive and man as active? How can women find a sense of active self not in reference to men in a culture that through advertisements blatantly ignores their gaze, deeming them inessential?
“The female, to a greater extent than the male, is the prey of the species; and the human race has always sought to escape its specific destiny. The support of life became for man an activity and a project through the invention of the tool; but in maternity woman remained closely bound to her body, like an animal. It is because humanity calls itself in question in the matter of living – that is to say, values the reasons for living above mere life – that, confronting woman, man assumes mastery.”
-Simone de Beauvoir