Kapag may isang taong sumigaw, “May taong hubad or May naka-bold”!! Lahat lilingon at magsasabi ng, “SAAN?” We cannot deny the fact that nakedness catches attention. This is one of the reasons why a number of naked protests emerged to catch the attention of society, to make them listen to their cause or advocacy. According to Ms. Vener, apart from the reason of catching attention, protesters go naked because of their fundamental right, narrative desperation and transparency, and symbolic image of vulnerability. They protest naked because it is a form of resistance to the social control of the state. Moreover, their mere nakedness says that they are willing to be vulnerable and non-violent just to get their message across. Being naked is a narrative in which the personal (body) becomes political (social movements).
Posted above are two pictures and two videos of organizations which have different advocacies. The first one is an almost nude picture of Maggie Q posting for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals with the hope of stopping animal cruelty by being vegan. The second one is a picture of Greenpeace in which naked volunteers expressed the vulnerability of glaciers and human life in a warming world. In relation to this, the first video is by Greenpeace which talks about global warming; whereas the second video, also by Greenpeace, talks about F-gases. I posted these advertisements because I believe that these movements are comparable.
According to the PETA website, their “mission is to get animal rights message to as many people as possible. They use colorful and "controversial" demonstrations and campaigns because they rely on getting free "advertising" through media coverage. Also, with the inclusion of celebrities in their campaign, their kind of advertising grabs headlines”. On the other hand, Greenpeace conducted “protest disrobing” in their campaign to stop global warming. In their website, Spencer Tunick compared the vulnerability of the naked bodies to the vulnerability of the global situation with global warming. “Without clothes, the human body is vulnerable, exposed, its life or death at the whim of the elements. Global warming is stripping away our glaciers and leaving our entire planet vulnerable to extreme weather, floods, sea-level rise, global decreases in carrying capacity and agricultural production, fresh water shortages, disease and mass human dislocations.” In this light, I would like to say that the politics of the body is reflected more on the Greenpeace advocacies. According to Ms. Vener, the politics of the body is similar to protecting the motherland. In my interpretation, the motherland can be Mother Nature who is in need of protection. Moreover, it can be noted that in eco-feminism, the oppression and subordination of women are paralleled in the devastation and destruction of nature. Moreover, their naked body is a form of narrative which paints a canvass for politics. As mentioned earlier, it emphasized their vulnerable bodies on the vulnerable ground.
Though both PETA and Greenpeace use naked protests to push their advocacies. PETA is different in a sense that they objectify the body. Instead of you knowing more about animal rights, you are drawn in on the almost naked picture of celebrities. The focus of the audience is drawn into the sexy pictures of men and women rather than on their advocacy itself. Moreover, the video that was shown to us really was ….WOW it was something. It was a video that practically screamed SEX SEX SEX. At the end of the video, it says that vegetarians have better sex. With this video, PETA is really trying to make people vegan at the expense of objectifying women. The PETA strategy is commodification and sexualization of the body. In viewing this through feminist eyes, there is indeed a loss of intended meaning and the prevalent male gaze upon women. The male gaze happens when women are portrayed as commodities that help products get sold. Moreover, as Laura Mulvey puts it, “women are assigned the passive status of being looked-at, whereas men are the active subjects who look (Mulvey 1989)” This male gaze is evident in the video because it seemingly appeals more to the males. Since men are more sexually active, they are the main target of the video. The women are commodified as the agents to “sell” their advocacy. The heightened sensationalization of the media also adds to the scene.
At the end of the talk, we also talked about nakedness as empowering and liberating the body. The Indian naked protesters are examples of such movements. The naked movements such as PETA, the Indian movement and Greenpeace can be empowering or otherwise based on the social meanings attached to it. An empowering movement can be the Indian movement wherein they really rallied for their rights. The Greenpeace can also be an empowering movement in terms of calling the attention of the politicians to do something about climate change. PETA, on the other hand, is not empowering at all (most especially to women) since the social meaning attached to their nakedness is of commodification, objectification and sexualization. Like Ms. Vener has said, there is a need to understand the different layers of skin. There is a need to understand the different social meanings attached to the different natures and behaviors of various organizations that go naked for a cause.
References:
Korsmeyer, C. (2008). Feminist aesthetics. Retrieved from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-aesthetics/
People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. (2011).
People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. (2011).
Why does PETA sometimes use nudity in its campaigns?. Retrieved from
Greenpeace. (2007).
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