All right, we have a volunteer! Everybody aim at his crotch, let’s see how many hits it takes to shoot that warrior spirit down…
Hardly. Staged or real, hoax or not, these videos and the “hunts” being advertised all convey the message that this is an acceptable way to treat women. Put quite simply, it isn’t. Would this be acceptable to you if it were a video of Blacks being hunted in the same manner? How about Jews? Or Arabs? Is simply agreeing to be paid to be a target enough to make it all OK?
Quantitatively, yes - they have one more thing they can choose to do. Qualitatively? Christ, no. There’s certainly far less dignity in being a naked target than in, say, waitressing in a restaurant or tending bar.
The fact that these videos are a huge step backwards as far as sexual equality is concerned, and that simply stating “the women agreed to do it for money” doesn’t render it any less morally repugnant.
bullfighter, if you can’t see any connection between these videos and men who hold bigoted views concerning the sexes, I humbly suggest you’re not even close to looking hard enough.
Olentzero, you said:
I’ve looked at it pretty hard. Consider this: If you disliked some group, say bigots or telemarketers or men who beat their wives, would you want to shoot paint balls at them (naked or otherwise) given that they do it voluntarily and get a good chunk of the money you pay? I wouldn’t.
My guess is that you are concerned about the unfair treatment women have suffered through the ages which still exists today. Good. Any caring person ought to. But my fear is that you buy into the rhetoric of radical feminists, who portray sexism as some kind of hatred men have for women or desire men have to exploit women. I have never seen any serious grounds for this. In my opinion the real problem of sexism is ignorant laws, traditions, and stereotypes that limit women to certain roles and behaviors.
I’ve given reasons that I think are sufficient to explain why men would pay to play this game which would probably also apply to why they buy the video. If you think the reason is actually “bigotry” please explain why and clarify what specific attitudes you think that bigotry involves so we can examine this question further.
Well, you’re making a faulty assumption, then. I don’t think men inherently have some sort of hatred for women, nor do men naturally desire to exploit women. Sexism is an attitude, a set of ideas. Those ideas have consequences, however, and they influence people’s actions. Which thus makes it possible for some fuckknuckle to think organizing paintball “hunts” of naked women, videotaping them, and then selling the tapes is a good idea. It’s entirely possible to view this kind of thing as degrading to the women involved without buying into some sort of biological theory of sexism.
Define “OK.” You seem to be flipping alternatively between meaning “this is bad for society as a whole” and “this is bad for these particular women.”
And like I said: I agree the whole deal is unseemly. Were this real, I would agree that the fact that enough people were willing to dole out cash to do this to sustain a business would be a sign of society going to hell in the proverbial handbasket.
I disagree with you about the hoax, though – hoaxes like this rely on our sense of propriety; they work because they provoke outrage. The fact that they succeed is actually a good sign of society’s moral health. I don’t think this hoax says any more about acceptable treatment of women than the Bonsai Kitten hoaxes said about animal cruelty.
But I think your argument that these women are worse off for having participated in this video is fallacious. They are better off then they were before; if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have consented to be in the video. You assume that you can judge what makes these women “better off” than they can on their own. **
Trading dignity for cash is a perfectly legitimate choice. Hell, Madonna and Jerry Springer’s respective careers are wholly built on that tradeoff.
If you’re going to sneer, perhaps you should sneer at these women, who, after all, decided voluntarily to forgo waitressing and bartending careers in favor of pretending to be bimbo paintball targets.
It has nothing to do with the degrading of women. They’re all adults - hoax or not.
The problem is that there are men (presumably) who get pleasure out of seeing / doing this.
We’re about one headline away from a wacko that grabs his gun and acts out this whole sick-shit fantasy…
Missing the point of the whole paragraph, as usual. Would you be outraged if someone were selling videotaped paintball “hunts” of unarmed Blacks or Arabs? Would the fact that the “targets” accepted money for it serve to alleviate your outrage, as it has done here?
It’s getting more coverage than before - a couple of friends and I saw footage of it on ESPN last night. Either the guys behind it are very thorough hoaxsters, or the entire American media as a whole is a bunch of suckers, or the damn thing is actually real.
We’ll need to actually come up with a strict definition of “better off” if we’re going to continue this line of thought. Better off how? Financially? Sure, that’s arguable. They get a couple grand for a day’s work. Better off spiritually (for lack of a better term)? Doubtful at best. Can you guarantee those women will never ask themselves “What the hell was I thinking?!” later in life? Can you prove that none of those women felt the least bit humiliated by being a naked paintball target in any way?
I assume nothing - I’m expressing an opinion.
Singing songs and telling jokes are nowhere near as humiliating as being a target, and it’s completely foolish to even try to equate the first two with the third.
What the hell does physical age have to do with anything? Are you saying only underage women can be degraded, or that only underage men can degrade women? This is a very confusing statement.
Right, but they can’t get that pleasure unless they get women to participate. You can’t admit that the men participating in these “hunts” are subjecting the women to humiliation but then claim that the women aren’t being degraded. They’re two inextricably linked aspects of the same act.
Speaking of missing the point, did you even read what I wrote?
To answer your questions in order: yes, no. Which is perfectly consistent with what I’ve been saying. As I’ve noted, I think this whole thing is unseemly. The fact that the women in the video were paid does not make it less unseemly. However, the fact that they were paid does mean that the women in the video were not unfairly exploited. **
I still get incredulous emails about Bonsai Kittens. P.T. Barnum had it right. What’s your point? **
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We’ll need to actually come up with a strict definition of “better off” if we’re going to continue this line of thought. Better off how? Financially? Sure, that’s arguable. They get a couple grand for a day’s work. Better off spiritually (for lack of a better term)? Doubtful at best. Can you guarantee those women will never ask themselves “What the hell was I thinking?!” later in life? Can you prove that none of those women felt the least bit humiliated by being a naked paintball target in any way? **
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Whatever humiliation they felt at being naked was obviously offset by their desire for financial gain. I’m sure many Hollywood actresses are embarrassed by being naked in front of the camera, but they deal with it because they get paid well for their efforts.
As for later-in-life regrets – well, we always wonder about the road not taken. The waitress who turns the gig down may wonder about how she might have improved her life with the money she earned. **
Jerry Springer tells jokes?
I did, and it’s needless hairsplitting. There are much larger points that need to be addressed, such as the one below.
So if Blacks were paid to appear as unarmed targets in hunts organized for white supremacists, and they were paid similar amounts to what these women are being paid, then they’re not being unfairly exploited? Where does money get this magical power to wash away the exploitation but not the degradation?
That it hasn’t been comprehensively dismissed as an out-and-out hoax, so there’s no solid basis for dismissing it as such with statements like “Were this real…”
Well, there’s a lot more to this than just being naked, as I’m sure you’re aware. They’re being shot at with paintpellets, which hurt like a demon if you don’t have any protection at the impact site. And I speak from experience on this one. Add to this the fact that they’re being shot at by people who think the whole thing is not only morally acceptable, but fun - and the potential for real humiliation becomes a lot more obvious.
The actresses are not appearing naked for the benefit of people who believe their main purpose is to be naked, or to be treated by said people as more of an object than a human being. There are real qualitative differences between being a “Bambi” target and appearing nude in a movie. Your arguments become that more specious for ignoring them.
Again with this magical power of money that trumps all other considerations. You’re fetishizing the almighty dollar.
I saw “Jerry Seinfeld” in there. Oops.
No, assuming they are grownups and are fully appraised of what the job involves. **
I agree that such a hunt would be an ugly, unseemly, racist activity. But the participants aren’t being taken advantage of. They know the score going in. **
Suffice it to say I would be very surprised to find out this is real. Don’t be so gullible **
So there’s some pain and humiliation involved. So what? The guys behind Jackass have taken that concept to the bank. Are they being exploited too? **
What if it’s a Joe Eszterhas film?
You’ve absolutely blown my mind with this statement, Dewey. If I understand you correctly, anyone can treat anyone else as they see fit as long as money changes hands? It shouldn’t be condemned for the ugly, unseemly, racist activity it is because one party was paid for its trouble by the other party? That, sir, is unbelievably disgusting. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s the end of this debate.
You should really brush up on your reading comprehension skills. As I noted, the activity would be ugly, unseemly and racist. It is perfectly appropriate to condemn that activity as ugly, unseemly and racist. Indeed, in this thread I have specifically described the whole Bambi hunt concept as unseemly. Where you get the idea that I think the activity as a whole shouldn’t be condemned just because all parties are paid is a real mystery.
What is foolish is the suggestion that one party to this nefarious little affair is being taken advantage of. They aren’t. They know the score going in. They aren’t helpless babes in the woods (pun intended). One can certainly condemn an activity as immoral while at the same time recognizing that the individuals involved have gained from their participation.
In short, if you’re going to condemn the Bambi hunt, condemn it on general moral principle, not on spurious notions of harm to the hired help.
All right, the weakness here is over the term “exploited”. You assert that since money has changed hands, no exploitation has occurred. Let’s turn to the OED for a moment, and look at definition 4b under the verb ‘exploit’:
Using that definition, certainly plenty of us are exploited - our skills and abilities are used in someone else’s employ to help them turn a profit. But the case at hand is even more exploitative.
What, exactly, are the job requirements here? Simply nothing more than being a woman, i.e. having a certain set of primary and secondary sex characteristics. What skills and abilities these women may also possess - computer training, bilingualism, an MBA - are irrelevant. They have breasts and a vagina (or in some cases, apparently, just the breasts); they’re qualified. In other words, it’s not what this person can do that’s being treated selfishly as workable material, it’s what gender this person is - a factor people generally have no control over.
To Burdick, a woman’s body is a means to generate a couple grand in video sales. To the guys doing the shooting, a woman’s body is nothing more than something to fling high-velocity projectiles at while forking over several grand to a third party for the “privilege”. To the bigots who buy the tapes, a woman’s body is nothing more than something to look at and laugh over should she get hit. Women aren’t people to them; they’re mobile sacks of flesh that trigger a physical response. Treating women as such and utilizing that treatment for one’s own end of positive cash flow is exploitation, and no amount of wages paid to the targets, even if they’re willing and consenting participants, is going to erase that.
I would hope we could agree that the terms “exploitation” connotes more than the dry dictionary definition. Yes, most of us work at jobs where we are paid to help another turn a profit and yes, that comports with the OED definition. But I think most people would consider it frankly insane to say they are “exploited” by their jobs. My prior employer paid me an obscenely high wage to have my labor put to their advantage, but I hardly think anyone would consider me “exploited.” **
How is this any different from, say, a fashion model? That whole gig is determined by body type and gender, neither of which the model has direct control over (yes, they must stay slim, but so must the Bambi hunt participants – no one pays to shoot a Roseanne Barr). The only difference is that models get paid a hell of a lot more. Are Stephanie Seymour and Daniela Pestova “exploited”? **
The editors of Sports Illustrated put together a “making of” video for their annual swimsuit issue. No one is buying that tape for insights into the creative process of putting out a magazine. Are the editors of SI “exploiting” their models? **
Ever paid to take your shot at a carnival dunking booth? **
Remember “American Gladiators”?**
Again, the notion that these women are exploited is misplaced. I would agree with you in condemning this sort of thing on general moral principle, but these women simply are no worse off for their participation in this program.
Olentzero, your comparison to shooting at blacks or Arabs was a thought provoking one. It seemed to me that the case is not analogous, but it took some reflection for me to understand why. I think the reason is this: There are quite clearly a substantial number of people in this country that hate blacks and Arabs (and gays should no doubt be on the list) who might genuinely buy analogous videos because they enjoy seeing such people hurt and humiliated. My impression is that the number of people who have a similar hatred for women is close to zero. I personally have never met anyone who seemed to have this sort of attitude towards women. There are certainly men who dislike particular women for very bad reasons (like because they attended a military academy) and treat them badly, but women have never been lynched or tarred and feathered or dragged behind a truck just because they were female.
I regard sexism as the serious problem that women are expected to conform to specific limiting roles. Certain feminists, however, portray sexism as some sort of hatred men have for women that might be similar to the hatred the KKK has for blacks or Nazis had for Jews. I think that this is a distortion of the idea of sexism that is entirely inconsistent with reality and distracts from the far more real problem of dealing with stereotypes. While they may have stupid ideas of they way women should behave, men almost universally like women. The idea that men enjoy seeing women shot at, or they enjoy seeing women humiliated is for the most part a myth. The main appeal of these videos, outside of the nudity, is probably the outrageous political incorrectness.
Another stupid tradition that is, unfortunately, perpetuated by radical feminists, is that being seen naked is something to be ashamed of - that it is something degrading. This is something our society should reject. As far as I am concerned the women in those videos have done nothing they should feel bad about. Do you think they should be ashamed?
Another problem in your “exploitation” argument is the assumption that because somebody is attracted to a woman’s body, that she is nothing but a body? Does it apply to the body of one’s spouse? If I like someone’s singing voice, are they nothing but a voice? I find that this argument makes sense only if the attraction involves the violation of a sexual taboo. The same argument applied to other situations seems absurd. Personally I think we ought to fight sexual taboos, not promote them.
You know, as someone who could probably be quite accurately described as having at least a few “sick-shit fantasies,” I can assure you that there is a quite clear line between “fantasy” and “reality.” If someone were to enjoy shooting women with paintball guns, it does not necesarily follow that they would enjoy shooting them with real guns. For that matter, if a guy enjoyed watching videos of women getting shot with paintball guns, it does not follow that they would want to go out and do so, as well.
Another point about Olentzero’s “exploitation” argument: note how it completely absolves the women in the video of any responsibility for their role in perpetuating the gender stereotypes he otherwise rails against. It seems to me the participants in the hunt are every bit as guilty as the businessowners of trading on deviant sex fantasies for monetary gain. Why should they get a pass on moral condemnation?
Quite simply, Dewey, because my sympathies lie with the exploited.
Right. Because the wide-eyed innocents hired for the tape are just too stupid to understand exactly what they’re being hired for and to appreciate what their participation means. Gee, Olent, stereotype much? :rolleyes:
Nowhere near as often as you assume you know exactly what I mean without bothering to ask for clarification first. Where have I stated that innocence, or lack of intelligence, is a precondition for exploitation?