From "Jocelyn Lee’s Older Women in the Nude/Is nakedness invisibility’s opposite? Maybe not, but, if it’s unapologetically displayed, it can be a kind of antidote to erasure" by Margaret Talbot (The New Yorker)(photographs at the link).
३ नोव्हेंबर, २०२१
"Some clichés about the cycle of life are true.... And when you’re a woman, you will, at about age fifty, become invisible.... Is nakedness invisibility’s opposite?"
"Maybe not, but, if it’s voluntarily, unapologetically displayed, it can be a kind of antidote to diminishment and erasure. A nude portrait of a woman older than, say, sixty is an unusual image—even a taboo one. To make such photographs, and, even more so, to pose for them, is an act of defiance.... 'The camera can be very cruel depending on how you use it.... There’s a whole tradition of photography that’s based on criticality and cruelty. Diane Arbus—whom I love, by the way—looked for unflattering moments to create a sense of drama. Sometimes that can be done with the juxtaposition of elements in a space, the exaggeration of the appearance of wealth or poverty, harsh lighting.' Lee said that, by contrast, her work had sometimes been criticized for being 'too earnest or romantic.'"
याची सदस्यत्व घ्या:
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा (Atom)
५४ टिप्पण्या:
Is Christie Brinkley the exception that proves the rule?
Or is the article just more feminist self loathing?
My wife at 64 is not invisible.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
Meade, sometimes women use subtlety and intrigue to get their points across.
This is not one of those times.
Are we running out of taboos to break?
Always an exception to the rule...some of the most beautiful women I've known were 50-60...
The final photo, “Bebe in the Blue Room," could be an Edward Hopper painting. The model even looks a good bit like his wife, Jo Hopper -- “every woman in every Hopper painting from 1923 until his death in 1967.”
I've heard many a time how problematic it is for men to sexualize women. That wicked male gaze and all. Yet the subtext here seems to be it's a problem when men stop sexualizing women as they age. I take it that's a variation on it's better to be rejected (or is it hated?) than ignored.
This is also one of those things that has the exact opposite of the intended effect. Maybe it feels empowering to the women involved in the project, but to me it looks like a desperate attempt for validation. Which is particularly sad for anyone over the age of 50.
Having glanced over the article, I noticed all the women in the photos appear to be white. That's a prime cancelling offense right there. I hope Jocelyn Lee is prepared for that potentiality.
Is nakedness invisibility's opposite?
Nakedness sounds more like desperation to me.
https://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/musee/collections/oeuvres/she-who-was-helmet-makers-once-beautiful-wife
I think that "The Book of Jerry" is all one needs in life.
"there is good naked and bad naked."
https://youtu.be/Wx5ZVgxH0zE
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Gospace said...Is Christie Brinkley the exception that proves the rule?
Look at her hands. As someone who was a fan as a ten year old I was disturbed by her being involved with John Mellencamp, because she looked so good and he's a jerk. Then a co-worker pointed out her granny hands and all was suddenly okay.
I look forward to the future where people can look like whatever whenever they want.
Being sexually attractive and able to reproduce is a core biological drive. It makes people happy and there are good reasons for it.
Hormone replacement therapy works very well for women too.
Age gets all of us, men and women alike.
Lance said...
Are we running out of taboos to break?
What taboo are you talking about?
What dreadful photos. Dreadful in the sense that they're just bad art. They say nothing. Nothing is done in the photos to frame the naked bodies or make them interesting. They don't even feel like the focus of the photos - they're just rooms or scenery which happen to have old naked women in them. If that's actually what she was trying to do, fair enough, but if one is going to complain about the alleged invisibility of older women, why make art that purposefully accentuates that invisibility?
Is it safe to say feminist complaints about 'invisibility around age 50' wouldn't get attention without a disproportionate number of age 40-60 feminists in positions to influence cultural messaging?
The other end of the Balthus spectrum.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
Whenever I see an article that offers up something unapologetically I have a feeling I'm not going to want to stroll down that street.
My wife is most definitely not invisible. I can guarantee you that I am much more invisible than she. Though I work at it.
I think women can be beautiful at all ages. I mean, real women. Ones with vaginas that came with the manufacturers original equipment. Though I'm sure there are some trans-women who are beautiful. And I'm sure there's some unapologetic pictorial giving us that show as well. And by all ages I don't mean under...well...I'd better not even list an age or I'll become even more suspect. Let me start over...
I think that all women are all beautiful...(grumble, mumble...off)
This male became invisible at 45. I knew it when it first happened. I walked by a small cluster of stores in my then neighborhood, a place where "kids" would hang out, and no one noticed or said anything. Not even a head turned.
C'est la vie. As Hyman Roth would say in terms of living and aging, "This is the business we've chosen."
A nude portrait of a woman older than, say, sixty is an unusual image—even a taboo one.
Are there many nude portraits of men older than, say, sixty?
Asking for a friend.
Invisible to who? Catcallers and other men? I thought THAT was a problem...
This concern over 'visibility' is just another flavor of females caring too much about what other people think.
Getting old is a sad fact of life, particularly for women, who on average use their physical appearance for manipulation more than do men. Some people think men retain some degree of attraction longer than women, and maybe that's true, on average. But it won't be much longer after the age at which these photos were taken that men and women will look equally unattractive in their coffins. Solidarity.
My conclusion, based on these photos, is that when women pass a certain age, their penis shrivels to almost nothing. I couldn't make out a single one.
A woman can look young and sexy with pictures. A woman can be old and sexy, but communicating it usually requires personal contact.
Only one woman is openly smiling. Most of them, including the younger pregnant couple, seem sad, with one apparently bemused and one curious. That does not reflect what I've seen at the pool at over 50 communities in Florida.
I remember about a decade ago getting my first glimpse of how the "beautiful people" experience life:
I was walking next to a stunningly attractive coworker, talking about some sort of work-related thing, down a busy office hallway, and was shocked at the number of head turns, smiles, waves, and people parting to the sides to let us through unimpeded.
I can understand how the fading of this kind or reaction over the years would be difficult to adjust to.
I'll take Shit I Don't Need to See for $2,000 Alex. Besides, Pornhub has had this sick, twisted fetish covered for several years now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7qd7UrR5ic
"Hormone replacement therapy works very well for women too."
Sure, until the breast cancer sets in.
Ah yes. It doesn't bother me or surprise me that men no longer look on me with desire---that passed somewhere in my 50s.
What bothers me is although I am MORE interesting and personable than I was when I was younger, people who are ten years or more younger than I am are seldom interested in what I have to say.
I think I was guilty of the same thing until I myself got old enough to become a social non-entity.
Also, I would like them to invent a mini-Taser that would deliver a very minor Zap! I will use this solely against those individuals who have started to call me "young lady."
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-lucian-freuds-obsession-skin-inspired-powerful-nude-portraits
In my 68 year-old mind, I am still pretty hot stuff, or so my wife says.
However, when I run across an attractive younger woman, she invariably calls me "sir" or just completely ignores me as if I were invisible. That is life. Learn to live with it.
I have never had a need to get nekkid publicly, even when I had the 6-pack abs. Why would I want to do that now. It does nothing to "affirm" me or men my age. It is just an attention getting stunt.
The adolescent cry of "look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!" filtered through an adult's ability to write for periodicals read by women. No more interesting than teenagers crying for attention.
TL;DR - Ok Boomer.
my ex-GF is 52 and is about as far away from invisible and one can get at that age. Striking.
Older women are no more "invisible" than older men are. How does she feel about naked 60+-year-old men? Not enticing? Not terribly alluring? Then get over yourself, lady.
We could put her on Joe Biden's Secret Service detail, and see how she likes his skinny-dipping . . .
I laughed out loud at the 18-year-old standing naked next to the 78-year-old. The girl covers her face with her hair and probably thought, "I can't believe Gramma talked me into this...!"
Well I'm an older man (60s)... shall I pose naked? Will ya look at that to? My privates can by your privates to or you can just keep it private.
Most men are just invisible their whole lives.
"I demand the male gaze!"
I thought the collection of photographs was interesting because it was a peak behind the curtain, literally. Bodies have so much variety, it's amazing. True, that one's self criticism and vanity is one's worst enemy. Note that the 18 year old appreciated her elder aunt's body because the aging was not a personal matter, the older person was/is appreciated with love.
I appreciated warmth of light in the photos and the gentleness of nature and the grace with which the photographer reminds us that from earth we come, to earth we return.
The only thing that would make this more edgy would be menstrual blood.
Did I say "edgy?" I meant to say "boring and predictable."
"My wife at 64 is not invisible."
So is mine, and I ALWAYS notice when she's in the room, with or without clothes. Some things never get old. :)
Gaudeamus igitur,
Juvenes dum sumus;
Post icundum iuventutem,
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus.
Let us therefore rejoice,
While we are young;
After our youth,
After a troublesome old age
The ground will hold us.
Vita nostra brevis est,
Brevi finietur;
Venit mors velociter,
Rapit nos atrociter;
Nemini parcetur.
Our life is brief,
It will shortly end;
Death comes quickly,
Cruelly snatches us;
No-one is spared.
In other words....quit yer bitchin'.
My wife is still visible, and she just turned 67. Soft lighting helps, of course.
I only saw the skinny redhead in the swimsuit. Why go to the New Yorker when I can 'GILF" all day if that's my pleasure? (It's not--I'm not that kind of perv.)
An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl she used to be. A great artist can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be... more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive, prisoned inside her ruined body.
--R. Heinlein via Jubal Harshaw, on 'La Belle Heaulmiere' by Rodin,
I don't think Margaret Thatcher had an invisibility problem. What on earth are these people talking about? If I, who pays so little attention to popular culture, can come up with that faster than I can type it, how the hell are they making a living as a writer?
Not a thinker, apparently.
A nude portrait of a woman older than, say, sixty is an unusual image—even a taboo one. To make such photographs, and, even more so, to pose for them, is an act of defiance....
Yeah, yeah, yeah ... and making a sex tape or a porno is even more empowering, grandma ...
What art? I hope nobody paid too much, because you can get this free on...the Internet. Look up "GILF."
So feminists are saying that becoming invisible, to the male gaze no less, is a problem that has to be solved, right?
More evidence that modern feminism is simply "look at meee" bullshit now that equality has been achieved.
My mother got more beautiful as she aged. She didn’t notice. When she was dying and deeply altered from brain cancer, I saw her naked for the first time in my life. She opened the door completely nude, and she was radiant, though I’m positive she thought she was clothed.. All those baggy Sears t-shirts and elastic-waist pants had been hiding her. She had the body of Sofia Lauren and the demeanor of a dying housewife. But no more did externality matter: she was more than halfway gone. We don’t really shrug off the mortal coil. We become more interesting by keeping it. If we’re that lucky, our bodies catch up. Young women are shiny and boring. I could not look away. Surreal as it was, she offered me a cup of tea, as always, and we sat at the table, as always. She was her usually witty, acerbic, ironic self; then she wasn’t there and talked gibberish, back and forth and back and forth. Her body was a total surprise to me.
Maybe this is why the Bible has so many stories about nudity. We don’t wear clothes when we are to face God.
These women look disingenuous, except for the woman with breast cancer. It reminds me of this dreadful film called Eating, which is a calorie counting feast of bad feminist cliches. At least it’s better than Leonard Nemoy’s coffee table erotica of obese naked Jewish women posing seductively. But not by much. The photos are amateur hour, hoping to be saved by mere shock value, like the subjects. In general, I don’t find elite seaside aging hippies any less shiny and boring than young women. They’ve both managed to deflect knowing so much from life.
When you get that old does your face break? Nobody can get even close to a smile.
Vanity… Exhibitionism…
My wife (married 46 years this January) is more beautiful to me as time passes. I’ve seen her in action… the many ways she shows she cares about those she loves, her big heart, her generous spirit, her sense of humor… our children.
I’d be lost without her.
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा