So when does art become exploitation?

[Shaviv]

Garek Maxwell got me thinking about this when he said,

Quote:

Aesthetically... [women] can be lovely. But that's treating a woman as an object of beauty, and generally people don't like that. This would be no different that looking at a couch, poster, or website.

It reminded me of a short film I saw recently, the insane, headache-inducing Cremaster 3. One of the actresses is Aimee Mullins, a Paralympic athlete who gets around in her daily activities by putting on the appropriate pair of legs: legs with regular feet for walking or standing, legs with springy paddles for running, legs with shock absorbers for skydiving, etc. Apparently, if she's not wearing odd-looking legs, she appears merely to be a perfectly ordinary woman who just has a slightly odd swaying walk. She happens (paging Garek again) to be lovely.

In this film, or at least in part of this film, she plays a cheetah. Her legs look like modified running legs, but instead of ending in paddles they end in digitigrade cheetah paws. The legs are painted in a cheetah pattern, she's wearing a tail attached to the harness that keeps the legs in place, and her face, too, is painted with cheetah-inspired paint. Other than that, she's naked.

In the film, she's lazing about all catlike, until at some point she ends up chasing one of her co-stars through a Guggenheim Museum-esque building, and eventually catches him and takes several bites out of him.

This and other of her public appearances (e.g., as a fashion model) have raised a question: is this exploitation of people, or a person, with disabilities, or is it art that works with the object (an actress or model, in this case) rather than on it? Where's the line?  

[Sunegami]

Oooo, I like topics like this. X3

My feeling on the matter comes down to consent of the person involved and the manner in which they were approached about the project. If the only reason she was in the film was because she had the special leg contraptions (for lack of a better word) and the director wanted to save costs in their production, then yea, that's exploitation, but if she was in the film because she's a good actress, then I think it's a matter of, like you said, working with her disability to her advantage.  

[Pom Graines]

As much as I would like to add something a bit more relevant I'd say that Sunegami took the words right out of my mouth on this one XD

So really it just depends on the situation and how everyone involved with the decision and production handle it.  

[Psycho Lee]

Depends on if the woman wanted to be in the movie or not, and understood exactly what was going on. Perhaps she thought it as a way to show that people with disabilities are normal people, or she though it would be awesome to play a cheeta.  

[Sunegami]

Mameoyashi

As much as I would like to add something a bit more relevant I'd say that Sunegami took the words right out of my mouth on this one XD

Does that mean I win the thread? XD  

[CodyDudeTm]

Sunegami

Mameoyashi

As much as I would like to add something a bit more relevant I'd say that Sunegami took the words right out of my mouth on this one XD

Does that mean I win the thread? XD

> 3>
Yep... what I was going to say... as soon as I understood what was going on rofl I'm generally innocent until I get a bit more focused on the problem.  

[Jungle Boots]

i dont think consent has anything to do with whether it is exploitation. most models dont know what they are doing to the perception of self worth to other women when they pose for advertisements. the models can consent to it but does that make it any less exploitative of the other women? no.

So far i dont think the Cremaster situation is exploitation.

but at the same time im not sure what you mean by exploitation of people, how do you see exploitation as apparent in the film? in which way does it function as exploitation? and specifically who is it exploiting? the actress/model, or the female viewers?  

[Sunegami]

Jungle Boots

i dont think consent has anything to do with whether it is exploitation. most models dont know what they are doing to the perception of self worth to other women when they pose for advertisements. the models can consent to it but does that make it any less exploitative of the other women? no.

So far i dont think the Cremaster situation is exploitation.

but at the same time im not sure what you mean by exploitation of people, how do you see exploitation as apparent in the film? in which way does it function as exploitation? and specifically who is it exploiting? the actress/model, or the female viewers?

I think in this particular sense he's talking just about the actress. I can't speak for him, of course, but that's what I inferred from the way he worded his post.