Sunday, April 19, 2009

My-Bloody-sogyny (I tried for ages to think up a punny title and this is the best I could manage)

I was flicking through festival websites and I came across this advert for 'Nightmare before Xmas' , an All Tommorrow's Parties event curated by My Bloody Valentine. 




For anybody not cool enough to know what is so special about ATP, it's a festival where bands get to pick the line up and it's at Butlins. It's more indie than a comic book version of Juno printed on a T shirt. Your £300 ticket gets you chalet accommodation and the knowledge you are gonna be at the frickin coolest festival in all of coolsville. It's in the name- not only are you cool enough to go to all the parties, you go to the parties of the future. 

I've never been, I'm sure it's very good.

Anyway I thought I would put this ad up here to express my annoyance and invite comment at their use of a corpse like woman surrounded by twee indie creatures. 
A woman floating who is looking away with her legs spread apart? WTF ATP?
Twee owls do not negate the horrendous 'rape- like images as dark and edgy' bullshit that is going on here; infact to me it seems even more horrible. Yes, let's have a smiling blob playing with a rocket over a woman who looks like she has been murdered or sexually assualted (or both). Good work.

Sinister trivialisation/objectification inherent in the image aside, the ad itself could not seem any more contrived. It's as if someone swallowed a mashed up copy of Vice magazine and a box of crayons. 

'Well, let's call it nightmare before christmas - Tim Burton, he's cool and dark and all the hipsters love him, and cartoony twee things, that's very indie, got to be indie - and a woman looking as if she might have been raped, well that's really very dark and edgy. Can't have enough edge now can we. No it's not sexist, look there's a cute monster and a bird holding a wilted tulip'

Pathetic. 
Hipster, 'ironic' indie sexism - still sexism. 


http://www.atpfestival.com/Feedback.php if you want to complain. 

2 comments:

Su said...

I lol'ed at you "WTF ATP".

Don't worry, I'm not going to rant about the ad again, I just felt the need to tell you that the above amused me.

Btw, I complained last week as well, no reply yet. x

twirlingmynci said...

:) yay for lols. I did worry that particular joke might rely on people noticing that a lot of people call it ATP (and thus be too stupidly indie-specific)

complain not about ranting.