scholarly journals Contested Images: Debates on Nudity, Sexism, and Porn in The Body Politic, 1971–1987

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Mezo González
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Gay Community ◽  
Building Project ◽  
Over Time

This article examines debates on nudity, sexism, and pornography in the Canadian gay and lesbian newspaper The Body Politic, tracing its use of images and people’s responses to them over time. In the 1970s, concerns about sexism and the objectification of the body shaped discussions over sexual and erotic imagery. In the 1980s concerns about pornography were more current, since they mirrored the then-contemporary debates over pornography and censorship. Drawing upon archival sources and oral histories, the article argues that TBP’s visual culture—particularly its sexual and erotic imagery—played a key role in the paper’s community-building project. The article also shows how responses to images reflect a deep ambivalence, and the conflicting perspectives shaping the paper’s production and reception. While liberationist politics, feminist theory, and ideas of a “gay community” influenced the paper throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the meanings that people ascribed to such concepts were diverse and sometimes incompatible.

scholarly journals Shaping the Body Politic: Mass Media Fat-Shaming Affects Implicit Anti-Fat Attitudes

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (11) ◽  
pp. 1580-1589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Ravary ◽  
Mark W. Baldwin ◽  
Jennifer A. Bartz
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Association Test ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Implicit Association ◽  
General Increase ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
The Media ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
Over Time

The human psyche is profoundly shaped by its cultural milieu; however, few studies have examined the dynamics of cultural influence in everyday life, especially when it comes to shaping people’s automatic, implicit attitudes. In this quasi-experimental field study, we investigated the effect of transient, but salient, cultural messages—the pop-cultural phenomenon of celebrity “fat-shaming”—on implicit anti-fat attitudes in the population. Adopting the “copycat suicide” methodology, we identified 20 fat-shaming events in the media; next, we obtained data from Project Implicit of participants who had completed the Weight Implicit Association Test from 2004 to 2015. As predicted, fat-shaming led to a spike in women’s (N=93,239) implicit anti-fat attitudes, with events of greater notoriety producing greater spikes. We also observed a general increase in implicit anti-fat attitudes over time. Although these passing comments may appear harmless, we show that feedback at the cultural level can be registered by the “body politic.”

‘Good enough for a spot of lippy anyway’: Rape and the Body Politic in My Brother Tom

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-373
Author(s):  
Louise Wilks
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sexual Violation ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Hollywood Movies ◽  
Contemporary Cinema ◽  
Rape Narratives

The representation of rape continues to be one of the most highly charged issues in contemporary cinema, and whilst many discussions of this topic focus on Hollywood movies, sexual violation is also a pervasive topic in British cinema. This article examines the portrayal of a female's rape in the British feature My Brother Tom (2001), a powerful and often troubling text in which the sexual violation of the teenage female protagonist functions as a catalyst for the events that comprise the plot, as is often the case in rape narratives. The article provides an overview of some of the key feminist academic discussions and debates that cinematic depictions of rape have prompted, before closely analysing My Brother Tom's rape scene in relation to such discourses. The article argues that the rape scene is neither explicit nor sensationalised, and that by having the camera focus on Jessica's bewildered reactions, it positions the audience with her, and powerfully but discreetly portrays the grave nature of sexual abuse. The article then moves on to examine the portrayal of sexual violation in My Brother Tom as a whole, considering the cultural inscriptions etched on the female body within its account of rape, before concluding with a discussion of the film's depiction of Jessica's ensuing methods of bodily self-inscription as she attempts to disassociate her body from its sexual violation.

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

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