Photoshoots and Feminism: The Devil is in the Details

[lierdumoa]

Okay, so am I the only one who found the Details photoshoot disturbing?

I read some fanfiction that made mention of the pictures and I wanted to see what the buzz was about, so I put "details adam lambert scans" into a google search. One of the first links that popped up was this:

Adam Lambert – Poses with Naked Woman on Details Magazine – NSFW ...

I think the wording in the link says it all. She has no name, no identity, and she's wearing no clothes. That's all we need to know about her.

Of course, I wasn't going make any assumptions. I tracked down the photos and took a good long look at them. Every picture in a magazine is designed to sell something. If I were to infer a message from these pictures, I would say they are trying to sell the idea that Adam Lambert, despite being gay, is still a strong suave bad ass manly man. He's got slicked back greaser hair and stubble dotting his rugged jawline and he's wearing a muscle tee. But of course, that's just the icing. So what's the real treat? What image are we using to illustrate Adam Lambert's towering masculinity?

That of him fondling a naked woman in a proprietary manner.

We've come so far! Oh, brave new world!

Now gay men can objectify women too!

The image of a naked woman entwined provocatively with a fully clothed man is disturbing in and of itself. And I know what you're thinking. Hey, wouldn't it be clever and ironic if we turned a misogynist cliche on its head and made the man gay? Look! He's crouched over a naked woman palming her breasts and her ass and he doesn't even want her! She's not really an object of desire at all!

She's just.

An object.

Now these photos have shown us that even a gay man can command power over a woman. In fact, he's even more powerful than a straight man would be, because she commands no power over him in return.

It's all very poetic, isn't it? Details named their article "Idol Worship." And history assures us there's no better way to worship an idol than by sacrificing a naked woman.



ETA: Full article with photos can be found here.

ETA2: Let me clarify. I don't think Adam is a woman hating misogynist now. I *know* he's not. I know because he's a singer, and in an interview when asked to name his musical idols, he named three men and seven women. I know because when his private accounts got hacked into, he automatically assumed the culprit was a man despite the majority of his fans being female. I know because of a million other throwaway comments he's made.

I'm less mad at him than I am disappointed that he gave in to peer pressure. He did the equivalent of getting drunk and laughing along with the rest of the football team at the lonely nerd, or more accurately, spray painting "SLUT" on some poor girl's locker as part of a hazing ritual to become one of the popular kids. I suspect he felt dirty when he did it, and I dearly hope he never does anything like this again.

Comments

[scalesandfins.livejournal.com]

She's just.

An Object.

Fuck, thank you so much for this post. That shoot was horrifying on many levels and you articulated one I hadn't been able to find words for. That woman looked like a mannequin. Jesus.

[niqaeli]

I hadn't looked at it, mostly because seeing it described left me no desire to risk the blood pressure spike that sounded probable.

Maybe when I have some extra spoons, I'll go look, so I can be enraged with a primary source. As of right now, I'm out.

Because -- really, what you said right here.

ETA: So, okay I've now looked at them. I've seen some of the other interpretations of it, and I don't even have an opinion at this point because it seriously took me five seconds to parse her into a human being and not just a blur of light on some of those photos.

[miznarrator.livejournal.com]

Horrific interpretation, but I think I have to agree with you.

/o\

[gelasius.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I think I might be a little sick. I mean really. Guy fondles expanse of anonymous female flesh and it's just "racy"? REALLY?

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

If you read the accompanying article it's Adam who is the object. The article is about how women want to have sex with him and fantasize about him even though they know he is gay. The photos as supposed to illustrate that. It's one of the reasons why the ones that will appear in print show him with his eyes closed and not looking at the camera while she looks right into the lens.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I've read the article, and I reject your interpretation.

Representing Adam's fans as the objectifying femme fatale in this scenario does not make the photographs less misogynistic. It in fact makes them more misogynistic. It's saying it's okay to take away this model's clothes and her name and her power because she's representative of a sexually predatory female fanbase. It's saying it's okay for Adam to be manhandling a naked woman because she's arching her back wantonly and begging for it.

To be frank, I think you're confusing what you'd like the photos to be illustrating with what they are actually illustrating. The woman is *naked* and *being fondled* by a fully clothed man crouched above her in a position of power. I'm stating facts here.

I am mad about this, but let me clarify. I am not mad at Adam for objectifying women. I am mad at Adam for allowing himself to be used as a tool for objectifying women. I'm mad that he lowered himself to such a level as to give this magazine his time and his words. I'm mad he let them use him to dehumanize and demonize his core fanbase and women in general.

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

We'll have to agree to disagree. Maybe it's because I look at the photos as a photographer. The ones in print have the woman in the dominant position in two of the three photos.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

agree to disagree

This is the second time you've used that phrase in my journal. I'm not sure it means what you think it means, considering each time you use it you follow it with yet another statement that you hope will corroborate your argument.

I'm a full time visual arts student. I look at everything from the artist's perspective. Yes, there are some pictures in which the model's face is placed above Adam's instead of underneath, and where she exhibits less passive body language. And I will reiterate, she is still naked in these pictures. He is still completely clothed and pawing her possessively. In fact, he's wearing even more clothing than the picture in which she is placed beneath him.

Furthermore, the centerpiece of the photo shoot, the only shot that takes up two pages, is the one that shows her with the most submissive posture.

No matter how you look at it, the power dynamic is still nowhere close to being weighted in her favor.

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

agree to disagree

This is the second time you've used that phrase in my journal.

It just means I don't agree with your opinion and you don't agree with mine. No big deal, everyone's opinion is valid. Especially where arts are concerned there's never going to be a case where everyone sees it the same.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Honey, this is my journal. We are in my house and you are my guest. Please don't insult my intelligence.

Agreeing to disagree means both parties have agreed to stop arguing and the discussion is over. It only works as a stand alone statement. Making additional comment(s) supporting your argument after having stated "lets agree to disagree" is a passive aggressive attempt to secure the last word.

It's bad manners, plain and simple.

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. To me arguing with you in your own journal would be bad manners. I stated what I thought and you disagree. I don't know what else you want me to say.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I was using the word argument to mean a disagreement in which both parties make statements to support their position and contradict the opposing party's statements. Perhaps a better word would be debate. We were having a debate, according to the definition I've just given you.

I don't believe it is bad manners to have a debate with someone in their journal so long as it remains civil. I'm not offended by that.

In my experience, "lets agree to disagree" isn't a phrase to be used lightly. It's a way of saying "nothing you say will convince me, and nothing I say will convince you, so we should stop talking." Or in other words, "I don't want to listen to your position anymore, and you don't want to listen to my position anymore, so let's move on."

But instead of moving on, you continued to address the subject. You went on to state that you had the artistic authority ("I look at the photos as a photographer") to make an interpretation of the photographs that contradicted my interpretation ("the woman [is] in the dominant position in two of the three photos").

If you tell the other party you're unwilling to listen to their side of the debate, it's only fair that you keep quiet about your own.

So that's why I was offended. But I accept your apology.

[scalesandfins.livejournal.com]

I read the article too, and thought its villainization of the women who lust after Adam was creepy, especially because the article didn't even try to pretend not to be a big misogyny party. Every other paragraph had something ugly to say about Adam's female fans-- the "entitled" and publicly inappropriate Midwestern women; the sinister army of bras; that throwaway line where they made sure to point out that Adam's kicks weren't "girlie".

I think you're completely right about what the photo series is trying to illustrate. The woman in the pictures is objectifying Adam, and if you look at the martyred faces he's pulling, she's victimizing him too. What pissed me off me about the photoshoot in tandem with the article was seeing an already disturbingly objectified prop model being framed as a sexual predator. She might be on her back and naked, but she's clearly the criminal here. In the context of an article that describes teenage girls and their moms as "groupies", I can't see this as a subversion of the traditional woman-as-object scene, just a reinforcement of the same old shit. For bonus girl-hating points, it's just as invested in _vilifying women as it is in dehumanizing them.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

It was one of those "hot yet disturbing" things for me. Artistically it was very sexy. On another level, I hated the idea of a Prop!Woman. Why couldn't they have used a sexy guy?

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Why couldn't they have used a sexy guy?

I suspect because the magazine's target audience is closet-cases.

[thingswithwings.livejournal.com]

yes INDEED. Thank you for this. Really, what that photo shoot reveals to me is that the objectification of women, even (especially) by straight men, is NEVER about sex - it is always about power. The fact that a gay man can do it (too) just makes it clear that it was always an act of control, not an expression of desire.

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one. There's even more skeeze in the context of how the pics were taken. Apparently they didn't tell Adam until the day that he would be posing with a naked woman and they plied him with champagne - but even more importantly, the model didn't know that she'd be posing naked until the photoshoot started. Overall, I'm a little sickened by how they were both manipulated into those photos.

And another thing that adds to her object-ness: She isn't a known person with a name and history and background. Part of hiring a model is that you purchase a blank body with no distinguishing characteristics apart from rigid conformity to (unrealistic) social body ideals.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Oh God, seriously, that boy needs to fire his publicist WEEKS AGO.

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

ITA

[nothingbutgold.livejournal.com]

so i found this post five months later while looking for discussions on the details shoot, and i really really like it. thank you for having written it.