Finds ads offensive
Editor,
I am a liberal, 23-year-old female who considers herself to be largely impervious to the blatant sexualization of today’s society. Even so, everywhere we look, girls are being told that they must look a certain way, weigh a certain amount, and posture becomingly before the ogling eyes of the masses. This is a sad fact of life in our world today.
But imagine my disgust upon opening the front cover of last week’s Connect issue to be confronted by a waif-like girl posterior angled obscenely at the unprepared viewer’s face.
Ever since American Apparel first opened its doors in downtown Savannah, they have consistently utilized the sexuality of young girls for their prominent, half-page ads in the Connect. I have flipped past jumping girls in bras, in leotards and girls in the act of pulling down their single item of clothing (which just happened to be a pair of colored leggings). But this shot took the cake; pie and all.
Shouldn’t some standards be in place for a weekly publication that is so easily available to such a wide public audience? I have always enjoyed reading the Connect for its informational and entertaining aspects. I do not wish, nor expect to be given an anatomy lesson shot by a less than savory individual who appears to enjoy demeaning those girls who make up a goodly portion of his sales clientele.
Is the money too good for you to impose some sort of sense of decency in what you will print for your clients? Please, do tell, because I am all ears and hope that you have a great reason for objectifying and disturbing half of your reader base.
Jessica Aurora Ugarte
Editor’s Note: My job is to manage our content, not our paid advertising, so I only have two perhaps tangential thoughts: 1) Yours is the second complaint we’ve received, which is significant but hardly amounts to half our reader base; and 2) it seems the whole intent of the ads you mention is to provoke a reaction, which was accomplished in your case.
Art review is right on
Editor,
How refreshing it is to see the art criticism of Ms. Bertha Husband. In Ms. Husband’s Feb. 28 article, “Art from the Permanent Collection: African American art, works by Nancy Hooten at the Jepson Center for the Arts,” she astutely points out the needs and challenges that face the new Jepson Center in the years to come.
Ms. Husband says: “... I am hoping soon to see international contemporary art of the quality of, say, sculptor and installation artist, Mona Hartoum, a Palestinian born in Beirut; or maybe the fascinating South African, William Kentridge, who used video drawings, special techniques of animation and mixed media paintings to express his complicated visions of the past and future of his country.”
Then Ms. Husband concludes, “The artists in town would certainly benefit enormously by a dose of cold water from the world outside, and we would one day see the results.”
As an artist living in this local community, I too await and seek the inspiration of art, created by artists working on an international stage. The benefits of opening up our local art scene to include artist of international stature would be enormous; with the new Jepson Center for the Arts, we have both a grand and impressive art center, the perfect venue, with which to exhibit many of the world’s finest and established international artists. Thank you Bertha.
Marcia Neblett
Don’t shoot the messenger
Editor,
When the message is backed by fact, attack the messenger. That has been the strategy of the Bush administration in its ruthless assault on the truth.
Take a look at Plamegate, one among several such “-gates” of late: former ambassador Joseph Wilson countered Bush’s Niger uranium claim in the build-up to attacking Iraq. In a New York Times op-ed Wilson denied there was any sound basis for that claim. And in retaliation the Bush administration attacked Wilson by outing his wife Valerie Plame, a CIA agent.
Now there is an attack on Al Gore who has been warning us of dire consequences of global warming. Science backs global warming: There is ample evidence of temperature rise linked with ever increasing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
So the tactic is to attack Al Gore, the messenger. Even once reputable news sources like the New York Times and Washington Post have seen fit to print sarcastic digs on Gore. These attacks have very likely been orchestrated by big oil and coal corporations seeking to undermine global warming. It seems business has taken a cue from the government by attacking the messenger now that global warming has by and large been conceded as true by the vast majority of scientists.
I describe the NYT and Post as “once reputable” for the following reasons: not only are they attacking Gore as well as publishing questionable science disputing global warming but they are also guilty of publishing propaganda promoting war in Iraq without fully investigating the Bush administration claims.
William Strong
