What Are We Looking at?

The “Say cheese” grin directed at the lens feels as contrived as that of a frog's—when contemplating a juicy fly. While, ordinarily, this might lead to a discussion about a deficit in an image because of the over-evident awareness between the subject and the photographer, this becomes overwhelmingly predatory in this case. No small feat, since the audience is looking down on a naked woman on a gaudy red spread. How would this image read if it consisted of just those elements and visual structure? This matters maybe most in so far as this humiliating visualization is turned on its head. The body is de-sexualized with makeup; makeup not for beautification, but makeup for war. Then there is the matter of a gun being pointed at the audience. Selavy turns the tables between victim and predator. With any luck, most of us will never have a gun pointed at us. We know that this is not an experience we would likely forget and would mostly go to considerable lengths to avoid.

Yet here we are. Even though it's just a photograph, this still elicits a form of consternation, a feeling of being threatened. We did not choose to find ourselves in this one-sided dialogue and yet the totality of everything that is being suggested is likely linked to opinions we feel quite passionate about. For example, portrayals of women in the adult entertainment industry are suggested, as are those of women in army combat units. There is also the impudence of threatening to blow our heads off with a semiautomatic with no way for the audience to know whether the slide has been racked and a round chambered. If this situation were real, the likely fight or flight response would have to be recognized as futile in equal measure.

How Can the Image Be Interpreted?

As an audience, we are as good as checkmated. Selavy gives us all the time in the world to contemplate this; and while we may simply turn our backs on the image she has already made her point. What about those who can't? What about those who can't walk away? What about the ones for whom the circular abyss of darkness becomes the last? What about them? The victims of murder, every day, everywhere, all the time.

If you connect the outermost points of Selavy's outline and connect those with lines you can end up with the Star of David. Israel is among the few Westernized democracies that conscripts women as well as men. So we are looking at a cultural phenomenon that is increasingly a reality around the globe where women are deployed in active combat roles. This may represent one of the greatest changes occurring in breaking down gender roles around the world at the beginning of this millennium.

Selavy also looks like a frog about to pounce. So what happens if we kiss her? Will she turn into a princess?

Indeed she does (Figure 30.2).

What Are We Looking at?

Now she conflates our addiction to fast food with body type and body image. The convenience, comparable affordability, and nutritional deficits associated with regular consumption of fast food and accompanying soft drinks flood the media as do the equally unhealthy, often-unrealistically slim body images that at times come close to depicting someone suffering from the illness of consumption. Again it's already too late by the time we turn our backs on this image. The association game she plays with us here makes us think of bodies that either consume too much or consume themselves. From B.E.D., binge eating disorder to anorexia, Selavy places her Happy Meal between her thighs, unabashedly doubling down on stereotypical sexual desirability and how this consummation contradicts the consumption. She makes the point that people who predominantly eat fast food or people who starve themselves, or subsequently make themselves throw up put their health at great risk.

How Can the Image Be Interpreted?

By borrowing from what looks like a variety of exotic accoutrements associated with Far Eastern dancers, deities, and myth, this princess holds no allegiance to a sole culture and thus references many, if not all traditional diets that now compete with Happy Meals.

FIGURE 30.2 Untitled. © Sherry Selavy

The military camouflage has now been replaced by the gold standard of money. Whether Selavy is referencing the Golden Arches, which are of course actually yellow, or Asian deities covered in gold, seems less important than the reference to money whether out of reverence or the expanding food industrial complexes. The gold nugget in her right hand is in fact a chicken nugget, the thoroughly abused goose in this fairytale that nevertheless keeps laying the golden egg each time it's slaughtered and replaced by the next.

Obesity can kill, anorexia can kill, and the unsanitary conditions when chickens are killed to become nuggets can sometimes lead to fatal Salmonella infections.

Conclusion

In combination then, which is the more violent picture? What kills more people? Diet or bullets?

What undermines more cultures? Money or war? Not simple binary issues, I know. This is intertwined, convoluted, and complex. What is not difficult to predict is that more people with less food is not likely to lead to a good outcome.

We are again reminded of those who can't walk away. It could be argued that Selavy seamlessly asks us just when we've eaten a happy meal? A meal prepared with love for that which we consume and love for ourselves. We often seek in love what we think has been denied us most: equality, respect, safety, fun, trust, acceptance for who we are, and the recognition of all the multifaceted aspects of our being. If we learn to treat ourselves well, we may in turn expand our empathy to encompass others and, like Selavy, may even have fun making work about it.