Egyptian blogger exposes herself for freedom (nudity)

We are used to seeing all kinds of nudity in the West. But in the Muslim world, it is much different. Even fairly secular countries censor nudes in art as well as advertising.

20-year-old Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy wants to change that. Last month, she started a new Google blog, called "Nude Art" which features full-frontal nudes of herself and an unidentified male, as well as a cat and some artsy underwear and embrace shots.

They're not great art shots. They look like 1940s amateur pornography. But like that, what they do have is a certain authentic and defiant naïveté from someone who wants to own her own body in a culture than denies that freedom.  The most political of the pictures features self-censorship: “The yellow rectangles on my eyes, mouth and sex organ resemble the censoring of our knowledge, expression and sexuality,” she explained.

“I have the right to live freely in any place… I feel happy and self satisfied when I feel that I’m really free,” she said.

Nothing particularly shocking to jaded Western internet eyes. But in Egypt, where the post-Tahir atmosphere is one of increasingly conservative religious influence, this is practically treason.

The responses on the blog on Twitter (#nudephotorevolutionary) are in both English and Arabic. One negative comment is translated as “a desperate act of social political suicide by a young woman”. And another: “We are defending secularism from innuendos & then we get this #NudePhotoRevolutionary Stop shocking people to the point of repulsion.”

But the comments also show that there is a new generation, globally informed, who want more than an end to political oppression. They want total freedom. Said one English commenter:

"I'm very impressed and inspired by your courage. The revolution in Egypt needs to be a catalyst for greater freedom of expression. If somebody wants to wear a hijab they should be free to do so without facing discrimination but you must also be able to express yourself any way you choose without fear. It's your body and it's entirely up to you how you choose to express yourself."

Is this how a sexual revolution begins?

Link and Arabic translations via Almasri Ayoum
Tip via FEMEN

FEMEN take on the Pope (nudity)

Not quite as outrageous as Sinead's attack, but still newsworthy.



According to their Livejournal (via Google Translate):

"Alexandra Shevchenko, past the police and security services, made ​​her way into the center of the Vatican in St. Peter's Square and staged topless just share during Sunday Mass under the balcony of the Pope, deploying a banner reading 'Freedom for women.'

In this way, activists protested the papal patriarchal propaganda manipulated by the medieval idea of a woman's social and cultural mission. Condemnation of the use of contraceptives, the international ban on the abortion lobby, the correction of clothing and appearance of women, the ban on women in the ordained - a fetid belch a witch hunt. Sexist policies Vatican has its downside in the form of a wave of sexual crimes committed by clergy against children and women. The women's movement FEMEN favor of a free woman, devoid of prejudice, despising all forms of patriarchal slavery, blatant of which was and remains a church!  

FEMEN  caused panic among Vatican intelligence. Journalists were brutally dispersed, the Italian journalists dutifully adopted a ban on shooting, and were not only arrested the activist movement FEMEN, but also a journalist from Australia. The promoters of the movement had more than four hours in the Roman police, and only under pressure from the media escaped deportation."

 Originally from Ukraine, FEMEN are on a tour of Europe to promote women's rights and stick it to the man.

How would ad agencies prefer to depict women's body issues?

Copyranter shared a link about a challenge South Africa's Marie Claire put out to agencies there:

"We asked six advertising agencies to design posters that challenge our perceptions on what the perfect body is. Would any of  these campaigns alter the way you feel about your body? ‘We don’t all have the same body type but, regardless of this, we are all perfect. So, what is it going to take for you to love your body?’ says ed Aspasia Karras. What are your thoughts on the various campaigns?"

Here are mine:

This one by Jupiter Drawing Room is pretty good.

This other one by Jupiter seems a little weak.

TBWA's seems like I've seen it on a T-shirt or video a poster or something

Jesus, TBWA. Come up with something new already.

Not bad, Canvas Lifestyle. Not groundbreaking, but at least it tells a story.
(Fun fact: I did not know Barbie had pink permapanties)

Cool one from King James RSVP. Very Dovesque, but I like the copy.

Morbid and uncalled for, M&C Saatchi

Ogilvy, meanwhile, let a Client Services intern write and design their entry.

Which ones do you like? Which ones do you hate? And has any of these agencies come up with a new insight?

Casting without seeing

Here's an interesting marketing stunt: BareEscentuals, a premium cosmetics company, cast its latest campaign by evaluating models from an open call based first on their written words, then by their voices and interview responses. The client and agency never saw a face until they made their final selections.



Here are the winners:

What, you expected them not to be this beautiful? Perhaps a little older, in some cases, than the average cosmetics models. Perhaps brainer. (Andrea is an environmental scientist and entrepreneur, Melanie has an engineering degree, and all are very accomplished.) But wouldn't you have expected a "blind" casting call to have at least turned up someone more average looking? Or older? Or larger?

Only the client, or perhaps TBWA\Chiat\Day, LA can answer those questions.

Nevertheless, a good marketing tactic. I'll bet Dove wishes they had thought of it first.

Via IBIA

Arab world gets its first sexy magazine cover. But is this progress?

The Daily Mail reports that Lilac, a fashion magazine based in Israel but distributed to a broad Arab market in the Middle East, has decided to break taboos against showing female skin with this cover:

While it wouldn't get a second glance at the supermarket checkout in the West, this photo of 22-year-old model Huda Naccache would get you arrested in Saudi Arabia.

Lilac Editor in Chief Yara Mashou says it's all about women's rights.

"Since I established [Lilac] in Nazareth, Israel 10 years ago, I set out to break taboos regarding women in society... I worked on empowering and liberating [women].

...

I have been working for a decade on changing society so Arab women can have more rights and freedom in the Middle East."

The model herself, who comes from Haifa, had to struggle with her Christian Arab mores to take on the job:

"At the beginning, I was reluctant to appear on the cover in a bikini, because of concern to our society's norms.

...

Later I realised that if I want to be successful, I can't [sic] choose what I want, and I talked to my parents, who became convinced by my view. I would never do something without their blessing.

I consider myself to be bold and full of self confidence. I am not afraid to be the girl who takes the first step and opens the doors of opportunity to the other Arab models, to represent the liberal and independent young Arab woman."

I looked for conservative Muslim reaction to this, but I can't find any with my English Googling skills. Perhaps because the magazine is Israeli, and the model (who was also crowned Miss Israel Earth) is a Christian, it hasn't actually broken any serious taboos yet.

But religion aside, let's take the publisher's word for it, that this is a huge breakthrough. Is the objectification of a young model's body to sell magazines really social progress?

Where I live, some women's groups see these kinds of media images as our own form of sexual social oppression. The presumed typo in Huda's quote above, "Later I realised that if I want to be successful, I can't choose what I want" serves as a warning about the other side of the argument. Women choosing to exhibit and celebrate their physical sexuality is a wonderful freedom here; being coerced (subtly or otherwise) into doing so is an ongoing problem. Especially among the young.

Pushing the boundaries of women being able to own their sexual choices is important work in this part of the world. I'm just not sure that the fashion industry is the saviour they need.

American Apparel's "Next Big Thing" is obviously not "growing a pair"

Last month, American Apparel impressed nobody when it launched it's "Next Big Thing" model search for plus-sized amateur porn fashion models.

But then it got good. Nancy Upton, a size 12 model with a wicked sense of humour, entered the following pictures in an attempt to lampoon the contest with the disclaimer, "my good friend Shannon Skloss came over to take some "booty-full" photos of me... but I just couldn't stop eating."

Nancy, in a public tribute to her awsomeness, won the contest by popular vote. But AA refused to crown her as their new booty queen. More than that, they responded with the following insufferable whine:

Dear Nancy Upton,

My name is Iris Alonzo and I am a Creative Director at American Apparel. Along with four other women, I conceived of the Next BIG Thing campaign for American Apparel. Firstly, we are very sorry that we offended you. Our only motive was to discover and celebrate the many beautiful XL women around the globe who enjoy our brand, and to promote the recent size additions to our collection. Nothing more, nothing less. We would also like to assure you that no one is getting fired over your stunt, as you expressed concern about in a recent interview. We are fortunate to have a great boss who trusts and believes in our instincts and ideas, and we are still very excited about all of our Next BIG Things and looking forward to meeting our new XL brand ambassadors.

It’s a shame that your project attempts to discredit the positive intentions of our challenge based on your personal distaste for our use of light-hearted language, and that “bootylicous” was too much for you to handle. While we may be a bit TOO inspired by Beyoncé, and do have a tendency to occasionally go pun-crazy, we try not to take ourselves too seriously around here. I wonder if you had taken just a moment to imagine that this campaign could actually be well intentioned, and that my team and I are not out to offend and insult women, would you have still behaved in the same way, mocking the confident and excited participants who put themselves out there? Maybe you’ll find it interesting that in addition to simply responding to customer demand and feedback, when you’re a vertically-integrated company, actual jobs are created from new size additions. In this case, for the XL women who will model them, industrial workers that make them, retail employees that sell them and beyond. That’s the amazing reality of American Apparel’s business.

Though I could spend hours responding to your accusations and assumptions, this isn’t the appropriate forum for that, so I will only briefly address a few issues here. In regards to April Flores’ “that’s not our demographic” experience, I don’t recall the name of the confused employee credited with saying that, but he or she was sadly uninformed, and our company certainly does not endorse their statement. For as long as I can remember, we have offered sizes up to 3XL in our basic styles, and as far as adding larger sizes to the rest of our line is concerned, if there is the demand and manufacturing power to support it, we’re always game. There are thousands of brands in the market who have no intention of supporting natural - and completely normal - full-figured women, and American Apparel is making a conscious effort to change that, both with our models and our line. If every brand that tried to do this was met with such negative press, we may have to wait another decade for the mainstream to embrace something so simple.

In the past, American Apparel has been targeted for various reasons, many times by journalists who weren’t willing to go the extra mile to even visit the factory or meet the people in charge. Dov is a great executive director and American Industrialist, but there are hundreds of other decision-makers in our company, over half of whom are women. I suppose you have read a few too many negative pieces about us that have helped to form your opinion of who we are and what we stand for, and perhaps this has clouded your ability to give us a chance. I get it. I read some of it too. As a creative who isn’t always the most tactful and tends to stay away from the limelight, maybe I haven’t spoken up as much as I should have over the past 8 years that I’ve worked at American Apparel. Perhaps I could have shed some light on some issues that have been left cloudy over the years. However, sensational media will always need something to latch on to and success, spandex and individuality (and mutton chops circa 2004) are certainly easy targets. And who knows - maybe the PR ups and downs are all part of our DNA as a company. What I do know is that after all the years I have been working for this company I can wholeheartedly say that American Apparel is an amazing and inspiring place to work. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can represent of a ton of people I know when I say that we really like Dov and we passionately believe in his vision for a beautiful factory with sustainable practices. We are the largest sewing factory in North America, after all…10,000 jobs is nothing to sniff at. A lot of people would be very sad if this company wasn’t around.

That said, we realize that we are in no way perfect and that we’re still learning. We want to do better or differently in many areas, and we are actively working on them every day. You’re literally witnessing a transparent, sincere, innovative, creative company go through puberty in the spotlight of modern media. It’s not easy!

Oh - and regarding winning the contest, while you were clearly the popular choice, we have decided to award the prizes to other contestants that we feel truly exemplify the idea of beauty inside and out, and whom we will be proud to have representing our company.

Please feel free to contact me directly anytime. If you want to know the real scoop about our company before writing a story, I’ve got it (or if I don’t, I can put you in touch with the person that does!).

Best of luck,

Iris Alonzo
Creative Director
American Apparel

PS: You suck.