Designated Sidekick: One Small Case for Steph, One Victory in the ongoing campaign

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Advertising and its Connection to Violence and Abuse, Special issue of Journal of Advertising,
Edited by Nora J. Rifon, Marla Royne and Les Carlson; Deadline 31 Mar 2009

A spate of recent highly visible advertising campaigns using violent themes, imagery, and acts elicited heightened scrutiny after the 2007 Superbowl. There are a growing number of highly successful video games with violence at their core such as Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft, and Halo to name a few, that receive advertising support. There are also a growing number of advertising-based Internet games offered and freely accessible to even young children. Indeed, the success of entertainment vehicles is highly dependent on advertising support systems. The recent intermingling of advertising and entertainment content points to the pivotal role of advertising for defining cultural norms and influencing behaviors of violence, abuse to others and self, and neglect.

Journal of Advertising is one of the A level marketing journals, and they’re traditionally USA-centric in appproach. So, I’d like this call for paper to get a little more attention from outside the marketing academics mailing lists.   There’s a need for voices that aren’t from the usual suspects list (and I say that because on any gioven topic in marketing, we can name the ten most likely authors to respond to a special issue call for papers) and views that aren’t just white male middle class academics* on topics such as the Dehumanization in advertising, Stereotyping and degradation, Symbolic consumption of violence and New media, gaming and violence consumption as a contributor to active and passive child abuse.
Submission deadline: March 31, 2009.
*If anyone needs a WMMC marketing academic to provide the academy firepower as second or third author on a paper, I’m open to collaborations. It is what I do for a day job.

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Image by alfredituzz :B via Flickr

I ain’t all sweetness and light bub

Okay, so I’m not much sweetness or light for suggesting wolvering in a swimsuit. But hey, Wolverine swimsuit in a context so obviously trying for the cheesecake factor was a must say.

That said, the poll showed, most people wanted a swimsuit Nightwing.

Sure, Grayson’s pretty, but hey, Hugh Jackman is prettier :)

Want to place bets if the swimsuit poll happens, it’ll only mention the female characters?

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Image via Wikipedia

“War Machine is in my list as a favourite, and he’s a reason for me to hang out for Iron Man 2″ - DS Post, Apil 18

Rhodey was awesome.  There’s a moment in the film where I was making incoherent squeeeing and fanboy flailing, and you’ll so totally have to see the film to know where and when, and OMG YAY! (A possibly spoilerish pic from IMDB helps with a clue)

In other news, as a Marvel lightweight, and mostly DC fanboy, this film seriously left me feeling that it’s pretty much over for DC now.  After Christian Bale hangs up the Batcape, the DC comics cinematic tour is over.  There’s nothing or no one in the stable that’s going to compare to the strength of the Marvel movie making machine.

There’s enough hat-tips and subtle cues in the Iron Man movie for deep level fanboy reference, and a damn fine ride of movie for the rest of the universe.  All up, it’s nice to have a comics movie that made me feel happy about comic books.

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Free Comic Book Day celebrations and activities with Girl-Wonder

The Links

Keep up with Girl Wonder Blog posts about Free Comic Book Day :

You can discuss the upcoming festivities at our forum topic here. A roll call of possible participants would be great!

• Large Ask Me About Girl Wonder graphic, suitable for stickers, shirts and other large items
• Small Ask Me About Girl Wonder graphic, suitable for online use.
• Superheroine printable Girl Wonder flyer
• Flying Girl Symbol printable Girl Wonder flyer
• Printable Girl Wonder tear off tags to tape to the back of your wall flyers if you want to give people something to remember us by
• Free Comic Book Day official website
• A store finder for participating comic shops
• A list of the Free Comic Book Day free comics available to stores (supplies may vary).
• The Girl Wonder Free Comic Book Day flickr group

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For the record: I am opposed to the Open Source Boob Project because the entitlement principles that underpin it, and the attitudes that seek to validate a view women are property or code are reprehensible, wrongheaded, and thoroughly counter to my belief as a feminist.

I have a moderate suggestion.

Let’s put our male entitled view of women’s bodies as our property to use, modify, open source and otherwise interact with into a neatly closed source wrapper, bundle it in DRM, load it on an iPod and repeatedly strike our narrow minded selves in the face until the bleeding starts, and continue until the ability to stand upright stops. Then let’s have a good hard consideration of the idea that what we’re suggesting is utterly unacceptable conduct, and then let’s retrace our steps, say “Fuck, that was stupid”, apologize for the mindset that lent itself to believing that we have any rights to touch another person, or to request it of strangers, and then learn, evolve as a species and move forward.

That goes double for the first one of you to tell me that I’m taking this too seriously. You know why I take this seriously? Because it’s serious. If you don’t think it’s serious, you’ve not been on the receiving end, or you’ve not thought through the consequences of being on the receiving end.

Accosting a random stranger to ask for a grope is an utterly fucking reprehensibly aggresive and hostile action. It is a validation of the belief that women are property, then men are graced with some right to ask a women, and that there’s some form of magical mystical power dynamic off-switch that means if you asked, then hey, none of the rest of society’s pressure on women to conform apply. Let’s not forget the various dynamics of social pressure, group dynamics, and the need for conformity and belonging, and how there’s a long long history of that being used to put pressure on women. Particularly if the women would be made to feel outsiders in the first place.

As for the fundamental idea that it’s okay if you ask, and that asking isn’t a threat? That has been dealt with by society, listed as workplace harassment if they’re employed at the same place as you.

So, repeat after me

Women are not code.

Breasts are not open source.

Verbal harassment is not harmless

This is not acceptable.

If you can’t follow the logic, I’d recommend reading around the experiences of people who have been sexual harassed, bullied, forced to leave their jobs, threatened for the crime of having breasts, and generally treated as disposable playtoys for overentitled men. Then ask yourself if you’re willing to support the consequences of those actions by supporting this particular movement. If you don’t like those consequences happening, then here’s where a stand can be taken, opposition mustered, voiced and raised.

It’s not acceptable, I do not support it, and I will not support it.

ETA: There has been a retraction and apology posted on the original post.  Someone want to tell me that shouting doesn’t have a place? Guess what convinced the change of heart - loud, obvious vocal dissent.