CHRISTY TURLINGTON This picture from vogue for Calvin Klein is Christy Turlington, a typical picture of models for underwear. The use of sex appeal in this picture is open and straight foward. This lady is lying in a specific position with a particular look and body language for the camera. In every sense of the phrase the sex appeal is very effective because there is very little of other elements of the picture that comes to mind other than the sexual content at first glance.
The other glaring way this advertisement makes use of sex appeal is the the fact that is an underwear ad with the model barely covering herself beyond her waist down. It is striking the way the her upper part is covered sending the attention of the audience directly to the lower section of the body.
In the light of the foregoing this is effective is portraying a sexual appeal. Whether the advert is appropriate or not depends on who is looking at it. Many cultures around the world have different views about nudity or exposing certain parts of the body of a woman. While others seriously frown upon such images others do not see anything wrong with pictures such as the one of this model above. Quite apart from the cultural factor there are many religion that expressly consider such images immoral to look at regardless of whether it is an adult looking at it or a child.
For the writer any kind of advert that exposes a woman and her body in a manner like the above is definitely inappropriate.This is just from the point of view of culture as well as being a muslim. African cultural ethics do not allow such images to be exposed and in Islam the lowest level of immorality a woman could get to is not care about how much of her body parts can be shown to the public. This may not fall in the category of the lowest level of immorality but it is without doubt not moral by Islamic standards.
It is inappropriate in the sense that if an underaged child or teenager is watching this the signals it may send will not be right. It is the responsibility of society and community to instill good morals in your youth and especially growing adolescents. There are very few parents who would allow their children to view sexually suggestive images like the one above.
The use of pathos works out very well in this image because it directly places the emotions of the audience towards feeling that there is something sexy about the underwear the model is wearing. And this is done by the way the model is lying towards the camera while giving a look that can be termed as a "sexy look". The image also exposed specific parts of the body that clearly has sexual connotations to it.
2 comments:
It is very interesting to read your post and to learn that the lowest level of immorality in Islam in exposure of one's body for all to see. I am not Muslim but would absolutely agree that this is immoral and highly innapropriate for the general public to be exposed to. I find it interesting that you mention if a child or teenager stumbles upon the picture it can do much harm. It is also interesting though that society has come so far that there is some what of a sense of being numb to seeing naked women all the time, that we too are not shocked to see this as a child would be. It is a blatant disregard for any value or worth being given to the human body.
"It is striking the way the her upper part is covered sending the attention of the audience directly to the lower section of the body." This is exactly what happened to me when I first saw this photo. I thought you did a great job with this post because you added something that no one else did when you talked about what is appropriate in your Muslim culture.
It seemed as though every post I have read says about the same thing, except for yours! I always like to hear what you have to say.
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