Dorothy Surrenders: Murder victim chic

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Murder victim chic

Art is beauty. Beauty is art. Dead girls are neither.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...: They're just photographs!; 7:10 PM
Gender Blank said...: While these may be "just photographs" in the sense that the women in them aren't actually dead, they glorify and glamorize violence against women.

We don't need more men thinking it's sexy when they beat the shit out of their partners.; 8:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Thank you for posting those photos--they are a hideous 'glamorization' of physical and sexual abuse, and do nothing to celebrate women's (or anyone's) beauty or power. They prompted me to send a protest email to the CW.

Btw, Dorothy, your blog is all-round fab.; 11:29 AM
Anonymous said...: While I do think these photos are hideous and terrible portrayers of violence against women, and I did send an email to the CW in protest of them, my friend informed me that the purpose of the photos was to teach the girls to use their eyes as expressions instead of their bodies. It was never implied that the women's significant other had murdered her or beaten her up - in fact, the entire plot was the girls killing each other off (so, glorifying female competition vs. male abuse...which is worse?).
I'm not saying it was right - far from it, in fact, but I do think that everyone who watches this and sends a protest to the CW should have the backstory just so they know what they're talking about. It definitely helped me in writing my email.; 4:57 PM
Gender Blank said...: It doesn't matter who perpetrates the violence. The effect of the photos was to equate bloody and broken with sexy. That's a cultural link we could do without.; 7:16 PM
Anonymous said...: I agree entirely with gender blank. I saw this show when it originally aired and my immediate thought was "please don't do this...". As a women's study major we constantly analyze the link between violence and sex appeal, and if you think it doesn't have an effect, you really need to open your eyes a little, because the impact of the media is huge. It was really inappropriate for the WB to sponsor this, and beyond bad choice for Tyra to allow this on her show.

I wish people on TV had to be socially responsible.; 9:50 AM