Uugh. I think many things when I look at this week’s 210SA cover … none of them have to do with environmentalism — the issue they’re purportedly trying to call attention to — but several begin with “half.”
Half-Martian.
Half-leprechaun.
Half-She-Hulk
Mostly I can’t get over the fact that this publication is edited by a woman: Julie Ann Vera. Now, I’ve lived in San Antonio long enough (um, forever) to know that not every woman here considers herself a feminist; in fact, the word “feminist” is often perceived as a negative, thrown around with other words like “dyke” and “Nazi.” I wonder about Vera and I wonder how much control she actually has. What did she think of the cover?
The Current is no stranger to flirting-with-nudity cover images — perhaps you recall our last two “Texas Books” issues. Yes, edgy is part of who we are; yes, the whole point is to make people look; but I would argue that in creating each cover, our goal is also to create a piece of artwork. We’re no prudes, but neither of the covers in question was intended to appeal to anybody’s prurient interests, necessarily. They are very simply thought-out, intrepid images.
It is quite another thing, I think, to grab what appears to be a stock shot of a woman with no ass, Photoshop in some green and pretend that what you’re doing isn’t 1) cheap and lazy 2) using what is essentially a dismembered female body to sell yourself. (You see the dismemberment technique a lot in advertising, where the desirable part of a woman are featured free of the less sexy bits — think Victoria Beckham’s Marc Jacobs ad.)
When 210SA’s latest issue got passed around the Current, we all wondered where the model’s vagina had gone. This, truly, belongs on photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com. Don’t worry, virginal readers, we’re canning our planned environmental issue in favor of a cameltoe issue, with artful representation of what female anatomy actually looks like — not an upside-down plateau.
