icanseenewyorkcityfrommyhouse:
by Dee Dee Meyers
“What’s bugging me is his intention. He isn’t putting his hand on her ‘chest,’ as most of the articles and conversations about the picture have euphemistically referred to it. Rather, his hand—cupped just so—is clearly intended to signal that he’s groping her breast. And why? Surely, not to signal he finds her attractive. Au contraire. It’s an act of deliberate humiliation. Of disempowerment. Of denigration.
And it disgusts me…
Imagine how different the reaction would be if an important aide to John McCain had been caught in similar picture featuring Michelle Obama? Or if the picture had shown a cutout of Barack Obama and, say, a white hood? Why is it when ideology and race are eliminated, so is the outrage?”
Fuck yeah, Dee Dee Meyers.
It’s a tough subject. To give Favreau the benefit of the doubt, it was at a party, they were obviously drinking, and although I’m a guy so my thinking on the whole thing may be flawed, I don’t see this as the visual equivalent of hanging a cardboard Obama from a tree, or whatever. If his dick were jammed through her cardboard mouth while the guy with the beer was peeing on her cardboard body, then yes, outrageous. But — and again, this is probably the guy in me talking — it’s just his hand, and it’s just on her cardboard boob, and it’s obviously a joke. If some photo surfaced of Chelsea kneeing Barry in the cardboard groin (or whatever the male equivalent would be, if there even is one, because women are so easily denigrated and men are invincible, apparently) we’d all chuckle and move on. In all fairness to Dee Dee Meyers, save the “it disgusts me” shit for when something actually disgusting happens.
All that having been said, I’d be interested to see how the thinking on this incident splits down gender lines.
