My name is Ciara. I'm a lot nerdier than I look. Actually, I'm a lot of things that I don't look like.
(YAHYAHYAH+) Pretty Little Liars, Supernatural, Jensen Ackles, Blue, The Ocean, true friends, chocolate, plans, music, singing, dancing, school, video games, RPG FTW, hippies, books, reading, watching movies, HTML, pens, swimming, computers, FOOOOOOOOOD.
(NAHNAHNAH-) fake people, liars
March 11, 2013
-
-
Reflections on a Reflection on Domestic Violence
So recently a young photographer, Sara Naomi Lewkowicz, took a series of 35 photographs of a young couple named Maggie and Shane, and her two children. The photos were eventually featured in TIME’s Lightbox as “Photographer as Witness: A Portrait of Domestic Violence”. (If you click the photos, you can see them full size with the TIME captions). She had originally intended to follow Shane’s struggle to find work as an ex-felon with facial tattoos, but ended up taking these pictures instead as she witnessed a fight following a karaoke night that turned violent.
There was some controversy after the photos were published, blaming the photographer for making the “unethical” choice of not stopping the fight, and instead using the fight as material for her story. There’s been a lot of fighting, name-calling, and rage - basically all directed at the photographer.
There are elements of truth to their criticism; she could definitely have done more. She did call 911, a detail that the TIME feature decided to not include. We’ve seen similar criticism, to a different extent, of different photographers covering everything from the recent death of the man pushed in front of the oncoming train in the NYC Subway to the Pulitzer Prize winning photo of the starving African child photographed by Kevin Carter. In the case of Carter, the toddler he photographed was close to death, and collapsed on the ground trying to crawl to a food center in Sudan during the 1993 famine. A vulture perched in the background, and it was pretty clear that death was imminent. Carter took the photo, but didn’t help the child after because journalists had been instructed not to get involved because of the risk of disease, etc..
One thing that personally bothered me about the negative response to Lewkowicz’s photographs how much blame was being thrown at her. She should have stopped the beating, she should have helped Maggie, she should have kept the fight from happening. Realistically, as a young female herself, Lewkowicz, a young woman with a small build, probably wasn’t physically strong enough to take Shane on. She did actually call 911. There were also two other adult male friends of Shane’s in the house who did nothing. While there are certainly ethical implications for photojournalists like Lewkowicz and Carter who end up profiting on suffering, I think it’s interesting how much of a villain Lewkowicz is in people’s minds. (There’s a Salon article that deals with this much better than I can.)
Personally, I think this is another reflection of our society’s mad insistence on blaming violence against women on women. While only idiots and extremists are actually willing to blame women for being physically beaten, we often see sort of caveat-blame along the lines of “She should have known better than to be with a violent man”, “She knew what was coming”, “She shouldn’t have let herself get in that situation”. As a society, we are very willing to blame women for their own beatings by telling them that really, they should have seen it coming. This is harmful logic that ignores the factors that contribute to the helplessness of these women. There’s lots of overlap here with rape culture and the victim-blaming mentality.
I think that in Lewkowicz’s case, we’re seeing an extension of victim-blaming mentality onto the third party, and it makes me a little sick to my stomach that we’re so willing to blame everyone but the abuser for the abuse. Personally, I feel ethically conflicted about photojournalists as potentially exploitative observers of suffering, and that definitely taps into my own feelings about domestic violence. However, I think it’s important for us to take a step back and deconstruct our reactions to domestic violence and issues/stories surrounding it, and I guess that’s what this post has been about.
let’s also talk about how important it is to bring true photographic evidence of domestic violence to the public eye outside of just the before and afters!!!!
(via plo-koon)
-
Wut
March 8, 2013
-
If they can ban animal testing, why can’t everywhere?
(via plo-koon)
-
Hey everybody,
So, as you might’ve heard already, I wrote and directed a movie last year, and it’s coming out later this year. Which is absolutely crazy, and I still kinda can’t believe it. Anyway, I’m posting this today to let you all know that I’m changing its title. It’s now called… DON JON. I decided to change it, first of all, because DON JON is just so short and simple, and if you know me, you know I’m a fan of brevity. Second of all, it felt to me like the old title, “Don Jon’s Addiction” was throwing some people off a bit from the point of the movie. People were assuming it was a film about porn addiction and sex addiction, which really isn’t true. That’d be sort of like saying “The Maltese Falcon” is a movie about a statue of a falcon. DON JON is a comedy about how men and women treat each other, and how the media we consume can create unrealistic expectations that we put on one another. That’s why the story centers around a relationship between a young man (played by me) who watches too much pornography and a young woman (played by Scarlett) who watches too many romantic Hollywood movies. It’s a topic I personally find fascinating and hilarious.
And while I have your attention, I figured I’d show you the first production still we’re releasing of Jon’s father, played by none other than Tough Tony Danza. More to show soon. We’re just starting to work on the trailer now. And I’m heading down to SxSW with Tony this weekend with the film, so I’ll see some of you in Austin!
thanks again..
J
Like our new Facebook page: facebook.com/DonJonMovie
Follow DonJon on Twitter: @DonJonMovie
(via kittenturds)
-
Aaaaah can we fornicate yet
(via kittenturds)
March 6, 2013
-
(Source: trembling-in-the-voices, via mayanmafia)
-
(Source: winebitch, via mayanmafia)
-
The Best Birth Control In The World Is For Men by Jon Clinkenbeard
If I were going to describe the perfect contraceptive, it would go something like this: no babies, no latex, no daily pill to remember, no hormones to interfere with mood or sex drive, no negative health effects whatsoever, and 100 percent effectiveness. The funny thing is, something like that currently exists.
The procedure called RISUG in India (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) takes about 15 minutes with a doctor, is effective after about three days, and lasts for 10 or more years…
Oh, and when you do decide you want those babies, it only takes one other injection of water and baking soda to flush out the gel, and within two to three months, you’ve got all your healthy sperm again.
The trouble is, most people don’t even know this exists. And if men only need one super-cheap shot every 10 years or more, that’s not something that gets big pharmaceutical companies all fired up, because they’ll make zero money on it (even if it might have the side benefit of, you know, destroying HIV).
signal boost
BURN PATRIARCHY.
(via plo-koon)
