Beauty vs Sex

There is an ongoing discussion about what constitutes art and what is sexual exploitation.  Maybe the following two portraits will shed some light on this.

Portrait 1: Emma Hart, the future Lady Hamilton, painted 1790, by Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun

Portrait 2: Miley Cyrus at her Vanity Fair 2007 photo shoot with Annie Leibowitz.

If art is in the eye of the beholder, I call them both art.

Your mileage may differ.

Now, onto sex.

Video 1: Madonna’s Justify My Love (johninca, you may want to look away)

Video 2: Britney’s Spears’ self directed Gimme More

Ok, here’s my take.  The Madonna video is definitely shocking.  It’s almost too much.  But in the end. can you really tell who was using who?  Well, it’s clear to *me*.  She even ends the video with this: “Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of others”.  Um, yep!

Britney’s video is disturbing.  The first time I saw it, it struck me that she is not at all confident about her sexuality.  She seems almost desperate to reclaim it but it is all about her being a supplicant.  Like she is trying to deny the fact that she is now a mother and wants to just be a sex symbol.  I dunno, maybe it’s the lyrics.

There is a way to be a sexual being, to take charge of your sexuality and not be exploited.  Madonna seems to know what she’s doing though she really pushed the envelope.  Well, the envelope needed pushing.  Britney is a lot more insecure and a lot more exploitable and it comes through on this video with a bullhorn.  I don’t think we should be at all surprised by her inevitable breakdown which happened shortly after this video was shot.

Once again, your mileage may vary.

So what does this have to do with Hillary?  Nothing, really.  Jon Favreau’s infamous picture had everything to do with power and disrespect of physically less powerful people, many of them women. The physically more powerful can do whatever they want to the bodies of others.  Jon Favreau and his buddies have been taught that it is OK to behave like tribal males because no one has held them accountable for their behavior.   He is just the most visible manifestation of the whole Obama movement.

But in general, we need a whole lot more Annie Leibowitzes and Madonnas and a whole lot less pre-institutionalized Britneys.