OPINION
Commercial culture focuses attention on men
or years, wormm have
bemoaned the female image
JL that is presented to them in
our i.ommert ial culture
Women in advertisements are
tall and slender, vet full
bosomed, and their skin is
smooth and free from blemishes
They never sweat, not even when
they exercise. and they seem to
be able to climb mountains in
high-heeled shoes with the grace
of an African gazelle. You never
see them walk down the aisle in
the gr»x;ery store, putting TV' din
ners and nachos into their carts,
or emptying the dust bin or scrub
bing the bathroom floor. The
women in Cosmopolitan don’t
have time for things like that,
because they're too busy with
much more important pursuits,
such us being beautiful and wear
ing the latest collections from
Christian Dior.
Heal women, the kind of
women you'd see if you peeked
up from the glossy magazines and
the television soap operas, aren't
like that, of course: they're some
times skinny, sometimes a little
Marius Meland
hit on the heavy side, anti they
frequently exponent* waking up
with an unsightly pimple right
between their eves Anti, would
you believe it. they sometimes
become pregnant, so that they
won't fit into those French
designer clothes, which they
couldn't affortl in the first plat*
We all know the result of the
enormous discrepancy between
the ideal expectations perpetu
ated by our commercial culture
and the less-than-glamorous
reality. Anorexia has become a
common disorder among voting
women, even among girls in
their pre-teens The rate of sui
cides among young women has
LETTERS
Guns ‘N Roses
Are you a newspaper? Dave
Charbonneau devotes one little
paragraph out of \2 that the new
Guns 'N Roses album includes
music by an unrepentant mass
murderer who will profit by the
purchase of the album. Charbon
neau is so out of touch with real
issues. Get a clue.
Henry Keller
Eugene
Good music
As 1 road the latest on the
KVVVA debate in tfit* |an. 10.
Emerald. I noticed that a few
things were worth commenting
on
Bret l.andess' suggestion for
cutting down on airplay for hands
not already aired by MTV, /.
Rock. KDUK and KRV'M is to
require DJs to play two songs .in
hour by some of those recogniz
able alternative sensations
KVVVA play s at least two songs
an hour by the bands l.andess
specifically mentions, or those
with a similar level of populari
ty, Furthermore, if you really
want to hear "No Rain," for
example, ( all in and request it.
Not only will you get to bear it.
but so will everyone else who
loves that particular song. There's
no need for alternative crud
above and beyond what the DJs
want to play and the callers want
to hear
KVVVA is the only station I can
listen to Blind Melon on without
getting nauseous. Lovers of Stone
Temple Pilots and Depeche Mode
can get it anywhere but KVVVA is
the only station you can turn on
any time of the day and hear
something new and. more often
than not. worth listening to.
Nick Johnson
Eugene
Voltaire
Salman Rushdie was not the
first, and probably not the last to
ridicule Islam lie did it in his
best seller, Satanic Verses.
Two hundred fifty years ago
French historian and dramatist
Francois Marie Arouet. a.k.a.
Voltaire (1694-1778), satirized
islam in his play .Mahomet
IMohammadl. When Voltaire
wrote the play his target was not
Islam but the Vatican, which he
could not ridicule directly
Instead, he chose a safe scapegoat
for Christian Kurope. Oriental
"other" ns a surrogate target
Much to the ire of Muslims,
France and Switzerland, among
other countries, are greeting
Voltnires' 300th birthday later
this year with a new production
of Mahomet. Should one billion
Muslims feel threatened by this
production?
In a world when* islamic holy
places are occupied by Israelis
and corrupted by regimes like the
House of Sand and Saddam Hus
sein's. the choice of this play to
celebrate Voltaire will, perhaps,
inadvertently further demean
Islam Shouldn't there in* some
discussion, at least in the m ad
emit world, of the choir e of this
particular play instead of others
in Voltaire’s repertoire' How t an
we end the continuing derision
of the Islamic world in literary
circles as in popular culture in
the U S and Kurope'
M. Roza Behnam, Ph D
Eugene
Responsibility
In a na cut opinion pit* w titled
"Not all forms of life are equal"
(ODl:. Jan 12), Dave Thorn
asserts that the concept of uni
versal equality of all lilt* "doesn't
hold up to any serious scrutiny "
Regardless of whether or not this
is true, the arguments which
Thorn uses to support Ins claim
are less than compelling.
Thorn cites the unique intel
ligence of the human animal,
which allows us to manipulate
our environment, as proof of our
"superiority" over other forms of
life. In reply to this I would ask
is it intelligent to pollute and
degrade one's environment to a
point at which it becomes barely
habitable? If so, then Thorn is
employing a very narrow defin
ition of intelligence.
I propose that our unique intel
ligence engenders not superior
ity hut rather a very solemn
responsibility. Until we stop
thinking of our world, and the life
which it supports, as playthings
upon which to practice our
manipulative ability, we will
never mature as a species.
Brad Wright
English
inc reused rapidly over the past
twenty years, no doubt part I \
be» auso of tin* intense pressure
to conform to society s unattain
able ideals
But revenge is sweet Now a
days, chances are that if you
open the pages of one of the
high-fashion magazines, the
two-page advertisement from
Calvin Klein won't feature an
outlandishly beautiful Venus de
Milo dresser! in the latest variety
of the maple leaf Rather, it will
be Marks Mark, a rapper-model
with well-documented mental
deficiencies, but one redeeming
quality a well-sculpted body
Guys like Marky Mark, how
ever slow-witted and politically
incorm t they may tie. ant giving
normal guvs an inferiority com
plex And he's not alone today 's
magazines are full of tanned,
scantily dressed. mu $4 ular men
advertising everything from
Levi's jeans to Obsession
cologne. Last week, as |
skimmed through a ris ent issue
of Vanity Fair. 1 saw a nuked
male demerit that was supposed
to promote - of all things • a new
lino of low-fat yogurts
And if you go to the movies
these days, you'll probably see
more naked men than naked
women up there on the silver
screen. Last year belonged to
Sylvester Stallone, whose naked
body bedecked the cover of Van
ity Fair after Ins performance in
two of 1993’s most popular
action films And tins year's /'he
Piano devotes it kirv.it deal of it*;
timv to ii homage of the the male
body, ns represented in the
hrawnv shape of Harvey Keitel
I urn on MTV. and you'll see a
music video with an artist called
lereinv Iordan He's not wearing
his T-ahtrt because he's got a
well sc ulpted upper hodv to
show off to his audience, pri
manlv consisting of teen age
girls In fai t. even Sting, whom
people one e regarded as a seri
ous artist a cut above singers of
Mr Iordan's caliber, has pulled
off his T-shirt in the video
where he sings ironically - the
title music from the film IVmo
htmri Man
It's enough to make you won
der, as you stand in front of the
mirror in votir underwear in the
morning, whether you're abnor
mill (list because your chest
doesn't bulge out like Mnrky
Mark's
These days, many men are
experiencing pist the same
anguish and anxiety that women
have suffered for decades
because of the i ontorted ideal of
lieauty found in i ommen lal i ul
ture |ust like the women of the
turns sought to at hieve the sii k.
skeletal figure of Twiggy. men of
the 10‘Mls may strive toward the
abnormal, steroid fueled hodv of
a Markv Mark or tt Sylvester
Stallone
As our culture shifts its foe us
from female In male sexuality,
many women will indubitably
derive some pleasure from the
fin 1 that moil now are lining
fori oil to suffor tho samo nnxi
otios and inferiority complexes
that hnvo agonized thorn over
tho yoars Perhaps women
should ho allowed to relish in
their vengeance for a while. It is,
after all. considerably more
excruciating to lie coerced into a
corset than a Calvin Klein
undergarment.
Hut ultimately, the way adver
tisements portray beauty - mule
and female isn't good for any
one It gives rise to insecurity,
lack of self-confidence, and
unhealthy eating habits among
young people And worse than
that: it makes people with per
fectly normal bodies think that
they're somehow abnormal
Perhaps it would ho too much
to expei t to find a Calvin Klein
advertisement featuring I.vie
l.ovett in the next issue of CQ
( amimeri lal culture is. after all,
a hazy dream world, separate
from the world of real, ordinary
people.
Hut the latest cover of Vanity
hill' may gise us some hope It
features Kosonnue Arnold,
dressed in sexy lingerie and sit
ting in a provocative position
She's shed some pounds, that's
for sure, hut she's still consider
ably larger than, say, a waif
model sin h as Kate Moss
And you know what? She's
not altogether unatlroi live
Manus Mrlantl is a roluiu
mst fur tin• Kmerald
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