Sunday 11 April 2010

Look at my tits - sorry blog...




"You don't own me. I'm not just one of your many toys"
Lesley Gore 



Dear readers, I have seen the light. I have been shown the way. Yes all this time I've been under the mistaken belief that campaigning should be issue led. How could I have been so naive?


Okay, let me explain what I'm talking about.


This week, some media attention has been focussed on a woman called Polly Tommney, head of a campaigning organisation called The Autism Trust. It seems that the only Ms Tommney, the mother of a child with autism, who she didn't feel was receiving enough government attention, thought to get through to the main political leaders was to take her top off and create a billboard - in the style of the "Hello Boys" wonderbra advert.


According to The Guardian:


"The poster was, she says, simply a ruse to force people not to avert their eyes from the subject of autism, and its success is evident, she argues, in the instant reaction from the politicians she was targeting"


So there you have it kids. The way to promote your cause is to show your tits. Want a new gym for your school? - show your tits. Want to end child poverty? Show your minge. Want to eradicate the slave trade? well you're just going to have to go to David Cameron's house and wave your entire arse in his buttery little face.

I'm glad we've got that cleared up. All that time spent by charities and campaigners trying to explain their causes to people, all those Barnardos ads showing the pain of child cruelty - when all they really needed to do was get Martin Neary, their Chief Exec, oiled up on a podium at the third sector conference, shaking his filthy thang. (Sorry if anyone from Barnardos ends up reading this and feeling like I've just raped their mind. I couldn't think of any other chief execs.)


Now before you pull the "but she's doing it for a good cause" card, let me state that I, by no means, am objecting to a woman fighting for a cause she believes in. Everyone has a right to do that. No one wants to put shit about real real life on telly - the daily Mail isn't going to publish actual facts - and people read the sun for tits, which is why I can understand the thought process behind this shitty poster. Polly Tommney got a reaction instantly, this is a triumph for her.
However, taking your fucking top off to promote your charity is a low low tactic. Autism and a picture of a woman in her bra are not linked.  A woman in her bra is a way of getting her stupid poster into the gutter press. It's a cheap and shitty tactic that plays upon and adds to the commodification of women in our society and I don't think that the ends justify the means in this case.


You know what this ad says to me? It's saying that if all fails, as a woman, you could always just take your top off. You can try talking, you can try shouting, but if they still ignore you, at least you have your body. You'll always have tits and people will want to look at those. Except of course for the women who don't fit that mould, who, unlike Tommney, never worked as a body double, whose campaigns will have to continue to be ignored. Unless, of course, they could just hire another skinny white woman to take their top off - and Bob's your uncle.


I've grown used to the commodification of people's bodies in advertising. That's why I started this blog, part of the reason anyway. I'm sick of looking at smiling women enticing people to buy shit, it's an easy shorthand if you're an advertising schmuck. But I'd like to think that a campaigning organisation would be better than this.


Was I wrong?

Anyway, as a result I've made a new poster advertising my blog. Inspired by Polly Tommney - I hope you love it as much as I did in the five minutes I spent making it in a cheaper, impossible to use, version of photoshop....




This time tomorrow I'll be a millionaire. xxxxx

3 comments:

  1. you know, I had to google Polly Tommney so I could see the picture (pervert I know)... but when you google her, your BLOG is the THIRD thing you are presented with on google - how cool??!!!

    Keep ranting
    peace
    Love Sara XXXXX

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey that's really good news! I did originally put a link up but the formatting on this blog is so very strange and unusual (it seems to love shoving all the words together into one big disco uber-word OR changing the font colour for no apparent reason) that I stripped everything out and failed to put it back in again.
    xxxxx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Here's the link to the Guardian article:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/07/autism-campaign-wonderbra-posters

    ReplyDelete