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Lydia Guevara para PETA
Being a high profile revolutionary managed to worry enough people to get Lydia Guevara’s grandfather killed. So it's never in the best of interests to sensationalize one's causes. In the case of her semi-nude print ad for Peta, there are apparent metaphors for non-violence, and compelling implications to the complicated relationships between revolutionary ideals and establishment mores. There also appears to be a sexist side effect.
As art, the poster succeeds because it stirs emotions, and there is a more direct appeal by eliminating the element of clothing between her body and the food. One could argue that the poster should have been even more outrageous, if the goal is to attract attention.
But is appealing to the lowest common denominator right? Is there a moral conflict between the clean standards of veganism or the ethical treatment of animals - and sex in advertising, or the brutality of guerilla warfare? Does the use of Machiavellian tactics, such as the exploitation of women, in order to capture people’s minds for a noble purpose, have the unwanted side effect of dumbing people down? Is this pattern of incessant advertising based upon mankind’s most fundamental motivators such as sex, greed, hate, fear and violence resulting in the unbridled expansion of a sociopathic civilization?
Well yes it is. Let’s say I’m running for senator. Is that what things have come down to now, if I need to employ a campaign of vengeance and hatred against another culture, or have a hooker on each arm, to motivate voters? It would seem that if this is a recruitment poster for heroic young women who might be attracted to righteous ideals, then it would be better if she had her shirt on.
I knew a young woman once, back in the time not too long ago, when establishment spin masters had succeeded in derisively labeling all the young people who were making real statements, as “hippies”. The real human rights message of that era was lost. That kind of thing has been going on for a long time. For instance, history refers to a wonderful culturally advanced Celtic civilization, as “The Barbarians”, merely because western history was written by their enemies the Romans.
Anyway, not to get sidetracked, the beautiful young woman that I knew turned out to live in a flat right above the merry go round on the Santa Monica Pier. She envisioned herself as a freedom fighter. She wore camo fatigues at a time when you could only buy them from the Army - Navy Store. One day she got up on the table and started striking various heroic poses with her Uzi machine pistol strapped over her shoulder. Same thing. No shirt. Didn’t shave her under arms either. “How about this?” she said, as she struck another stance.
She was certainly entertaining, though at the same time I became a little afraid. You see, I believe in just causes, but I wanted to live to fight another day, and it was apparent that she was only asking for trouble, just like the concept of Lydia Guevara in that PETA advertisement. So I couldn’t hang, even though I understood how she felt, and why she was compelled to provoke a confrontation with injustice.
Turning to a related, but hopefully less controversial aspect of advertising, I just finished reading a blog by Carol J. Adams, the renowned activist and author of books on veganism, and on the ethical treatment of animals. She mentioned driving through Georgia with a friend who remarked that people in the United States actually worship gasoline. He pointed out that people always build the tallest monuments to the things they worship, and he began to note all the tallest signs and billboards along the way, put there by Hooters, and the gasoline corporations.
Well, I understand the fixation upon breasts alright, and see how sex is exploited to sell just about anything. But the concept about people in the United States actually worshiping gasoline, really hit home. See, I had a crazy thought like that just yesterday, and I assumed I must be far away from the norm, and ought to just keep it to myself. But now I am so gratified to learn that someone else has thoughts like me too.
I had been thinking about going out to get a bite to eat, and I realized I would have to first get some gas. So I thought about going down to the gas station… and I just didn’t feel like it. Of all the things I wanted to do, paying the station for the right to pump gasoline was low on the list. As a matter of fact, it seemed like psychological torture. And it occurred to me that another concept of a “Gas Station” could be the name for a new Station of the Cross – the perfect Station for a modern day Jesus to pay his dues, as just one of the many things he has to do along his way to crucifixion. The perfect penance for 21st century martyrs, who, nearly immobilized by annoying little chores and restrictions, become eventually paralyzed... akin to something I read about by Alexis de Tocqueville:
“Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated…”
So I ended up fantasizing along those lines, how 21st century martyrs ought to have a 15th station of the cross… and I ended up not going out at all. I thought about the concept of service stations. I remembered that at one time they were really something. My gang used to meet at one to socialize and work on our cars. It was almost patriotic. And service stations actually used to provide some kind of service too, like changing the oil, tune up or repair. But now all that was gone. Now, it was suddenly apparent that consumers are the ones doing the serving.
So the more I thought about it, the last thing I wanted to do was go down to the service station to serve my masters in the corporations, and to pay my money so I could shake the filthy hand of a robotic looking gas pump. I bet that for the rest of my life, when I go to a service station, or see sensationalistic advertising, it will be not only in the context of what my role is, in that I’m the one who is doing the serving, but in the context of who is really being serviced.
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