How is a Bikini Empowering for Hannah Davis?

Hannah-Davis-Sports-illustrated-coverThere’s apparently a big controversy about the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover picture which shows a model named Hannah Davis pulling down her bottoms so that they almost, but not quite, reveal her genital region.

The reason it is causing such a stir is because it is apparently a little too sexy and some people think that Hannah is degrading herself by posing in such a fashion. Davis states that she finds the experience to be empowering in this article and there are nearly 7,000 comments indicating a great deal of interest in the story.

The argument that she is degrading herself generally seems to be that because she is using her beauty to titillate the target audience of the magazine she is essentially betraying all the women who through tremendous efforts gained many freedoms for women. Freedoms like voting and being able to practice medicine or law.

First off, let us not fool ourselves. The cover is designed to arouse. Davis is an attractive young woman with a figure that inspires lust. She is not on the cover for any other reason.

The real question becomes if Davis is degrading or empowering herself. To answer this we must look at the historical role women played in the world and the place they now have in nations where women are still treated as objects. The reality is that throughout history women were largely objects to be owned by men. They derived most of their power through their influence over devoted husbands and loving sons.

The underlying reason for this lies in the simple and undeniable fact that women both give birth to children and provide them with sustenance for the first years of life. This meant that women could not participate as actively in activities of the tribe. Their mobility was handicapped by being pregnant or caring for a child. This began to change very recently and the advent of safe and reliable birth control was certainly the most important factor in the emancipation of women. There is no doubt that strong and capable women fought long and hard for more rights in the world as well and they deserve much credit also.

Is Davis trying to recreate a world where women are once again treated as chattel? I don’t think so. It’s my opinion that she is the beneficiary of all the work done by her predecessors. In nations where women are treated as property they are not allowed to use the allure of their faces and bodies to make their own money. Davis makes a lot of money. She can do with her life what she chooses, not what any man tells her. Because of her financial success she is more free than am I. She is, in a word, empowered.

There is no doubt she is empowered by the money she gets from working as a model but the next question is if she is degrading herself by doing it. It is a legitimate question. Do I degrade myself when I beg my boss for forgiveness when perhaps I wasn’t to blame for the original mistake? If I apologize to a client for their error in order to keep the job? What if a client asked me to serve cocktails at their office party while wearing almost nothing in order to get a job? I think it’s quite fair to characterize such behavior as degrading.

People can and do use their money to lure others into degrading behavior. That such behavior is despicable there is no doubt, but we cannot pretend it does not happen. Is Davis degraded in that cover picture? Is she degraded elsewhere in other magazines, other photo-shoots?

My opinion is no. She seems to be in control, not being controlled. She seems to be enjoying herself. She seems comfortable with her own body. No one appears to be coercing her into doing the modeling. To me it is not the nature of the image itself so much as the power in which she whose image is on the cover feels she has. A young woman kidnapped from her family and forced into such a pose would be degraded. A woman with little money and babies to feed who was lured into a photo-shoot in which she was coerced into showing far more of herself than she desired would be degraded.

Davis, not so much. Good for her. She is comfortable in her appearance. Confident in her figure. She makes a good living doing something she enjoys. That’s empowering. If only the rest of us were so lucky.

Tom Liberman

I hope so too, Movie Monday – Vision Quest

Shute Vision QuestI happened upon a movie, Vision Quest, I saw long ago and realized it has more to say to me now than when I was a foolish young college student. Not to say I didn’t love the movie then, I did.

Vision Quest is a movie about a young man on a mission. It was filmed in Spokane, Washington in 1983 which was just down the road from where I was attending college at the University of Idaho from 1982 to 1985. So people were pretty hyped up about it. I was a cynical and unhappy person back in those days and I wanted to dislike the movie because all my friends loved it. Even then I came out of the theater realizing it was a good movie, now I realize it is a great movie.

It’s the Journey

It tells the story of an accomplished young wrestler named Louden Swain, played by Matthew Modine, who wants to wrestle against the reigning state champion from a lower weight class. An already legendary wrestler named Brian Shute. Modine’s character must make-weight to wrestle in the lower class but this is not the driving force of the movie. During the course of the movie he falls in love with a young woman, played by Linda Fiorentino, who is staying with he and his father as she makes her way to San Francisco.

There are a couple of things in this movie that make it a Libertarian story. In the beginning of the film when Modine states his intention to drop a weight class and wrestle against Shute they do not gloss over the fact that this means he must displace the current wrestler at that weight class. This wrestler is played by Michael Schoeffling as Kuch. Here we have the first fantastic message of the movie. Louden defeats Kuch but Kuch does not go off into a corner and weep. He does not plan and plot against Louden. He helps his friend in the quest. He realizes he was defeated and goes about his business like a man. That’s a fantastic message. A message which doesn’t focus on revenge but simply doing the best you can despite any setbacks life throws your way.

The movie, based on a book by Terry Davis, slowly and beautifully shows us that it is Louden’s attempt that makes him a winner. He sees something that will be very difficult and takes the steps necessary to succeed. Will he succeed? Will he fail. In the book we don’t find out because it ends just as the match begins but the movie, of course, had to give us closure. I prefer the book’s ending. It is the journey, the Vision Quest, that makes us better. Not winning or losing.

I Hope So Too

The greatest and most important point in the movie, from my perspective at least, is when Louden and Kuch go to visit Shute as he is working out. Louden shouts out to Shute who looks up and they engage in a short but astoundingly powerful conversation. Shute asks Louden if he will make weight, thus enabling the match between the two. Louden says he hopes so. Shute replies, “I hope so too.”

That right there is everything I try to convey in all my blogs, in all my novels. “I hope so too.” In most movies Shute would be portrayed as the bad guy. We’d see him hitting his girlfriend or bullying a smaller kid. Not in this movie. In this movie Shute, the bad guy, is looking forward to the tough challenge as much as is Louden. Why? Because he also knows that to be strong you must test yourself against others who are strong. Man, what a scene! That’s the kind of writing I strive to achieve.

That’s a motto to carry forward in life. Welcome the challenges and strive to win but don’t be despondent in defeat. You will live to fight another day, another battle, and you will be the stronger for it. This message that victory is everything corrupts. It is a bad message, a wrong message. Fight hard, fight fair, do your best and you’ll be a winner, even in defeat.

Tom Liberman

Rich Ross aims to Fix Discovery Channel

Discovery Rich RossThere is an absolutely fascinating event taking place in the world of entertainment in that the new president of the Discovery Channel, Rich Ross, plans to take the network in a different direction.

The Discovery Channel has recently aired episodes which are geared towards the sensational and play fast and loose with reality. These episodes have generated some of the largest audiences the Discovery Channel has ever recorded. You see, my loyal readers, sensational nonsense is much more popular than boring reality. Of this there is no doubt but it is this very fact that makes Ross’s decision so incredibly interesting to me.

I’ve written on numerous occasions about the perception that the media is destroying our country when in reality it is the viewing habits of the denizens of our country that drives the media. Idiotic Megladon nonsense gets better ratings than shows about the natural beauty of North America. Not by a little, by a lot.

Ratings are what drives the amount a network can charge advertisers for sponsorship of a show. The reason being that if more people are watching a show then the advertisement reaches … more people! It doesn’t take a degree in Aerospace Engineering … er … I mean Rocket Science to figure out people like it sensational, they like it dumbed down, they like it mostly naked, and they like it with a bit of the naughty stuff.

So here we have it. Mr. Ross is looking you right in the eye United States of America citizens. He’s saying we’re going to give you some reality because we think you are ready for it. You complained vociferously about our nonsense shows and therefore, despite their great ratings, we’re going to pull them off the air and give you what you claim you want to see, not what our market research and reams of evidence tells us you really want to see.

I stand here ready to watch more of the Discovery Channel. I’m on your side Mr. Ross. I wish you the best of luck in your attempt. I desperately wish people would click on Science Articles in their various media outlets rather than stories about the Kardashians. I’d love it if people decided to read balanced and factual stories about the Keystone Pipeline rather than reading political motivated rhetorical lunacy. That being said, I’m not holding my breath waiting for it to happen.

I’ll be very interested to see the overall ratings for the Discovery Channel this time next year. I’ll be happily surprised if they are trending upward.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition