Oh My

[ricevermicelli]

Entirely non-work safe link to a statue of Brittney Spears in labor.

Some nutcase has gone and done a statue. Of a naked popstar in labor. On a bearskin rung. Because she's a "pro-life role model" and might help women wavering on whether to have an abortion "make the right choice."

And it's so wrong and awful that I can't possibly fail to write about it.

First: Brittney had a C-section.

Second: Brittney doesn't appear to have consented to this statue, which depicts her in an intensely private moment (which never happened), but that might not matter, since it doesn't particularly look like her. I don't have a lot of respect for Brittney Spears. I'm fairly sure I'm spelling her name wrong. She is my favorite argument in support of gay marriage rights. However, she'd be justified if this made her rippingly angry.

Third: The bearskin rug. Who in her right mind would choose to labor on a giant fur thing, which various byproducts of labor (blood, fecal matter, amniotic fluid, placenta, and so on) will stain forever? Everyone I have even heard of giving birth at home has opted for cheap sheets with a shower curtain underneath.

Fourth: The position in which this statue depicts her is absolutely mucking useless for childbirth. Women give birth on all fours, yes, but giving birth is best accomplished with the birth canal below the uterus, not above, and the spinal arch depicted pains me to contemplate, and I'm not heavily pregnant. The position depicted rots for labor. It is, however, real spiffy for sex. The statue looks like a pregnant woman reading the newspaper while waiting to be sodomized.

This is the crux of the problem for me. This is not a depiction of a woman in labor. This is a depiction of some whackjob's fantasy about what a labor might look like, if the woman involved was dead sexy and totally unconcerned about what was going on. It's pretty sick. More sick than pretty. It's also a lousy argument for the pro-life cause, an insult to women dealing with unplanned pregnancies, and unforgiveably bad art.

Comments

[deadwinter.livejournal.com]

It's really hard to write code when your eyes are bleeding.

[dindin.livejournal.com]

Dude, I saw that somewhere yesterday. It's all bizarrely sexualized. Is BritBrat even Pro-Life? Does she even know what that means?

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Well, they're claiming her as an anti-choice heroine because she got married and had kids so young - "it's so unusual in Hollywood!" No one's pulled up anything she actually had to say about it.

I'm not really sure why having children actually makes you anti-choice anyway.

[dindin.livejournal.com]

Um. Right. Setting aside the fact that she used to smoke, and walks around barefoot in gas stations and got a hypodermic needle stuck in her foot and had an elective c-section and her skank-o-rama husband writes songs about pussies, she's freaking mother of the year.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

If that's the best the anti-choice movement can do for a heroine, I'm shockingly unimpressed.

(Not to mention, OMG FUGLY ART!!!)

[naomikritzer]

I read on Pandragon that the artist is a prankster. I think this statue makes a lot of sense if you view it as a piece that combines an allegedly conservative theme with about every pornographic element you can come up with thrown in, as a statement about conservative politics and its willingness to embrace pretty much anything if it arguably serves a conservative end.

In that light? It's not bad.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Good ol' P.T. Barnum is just more correct every year.

[drwex]

The statue looks like a pregnant woman reading the newspaper while waiting to be sodomized.

See, I had this exact thought, at which point two trains of thought went racing off in my head. Aboard train 1 are thoughts like "I wouldn't sodomize her unless paid to do so." And "Yeah, but think of the BRAGGING rights" followed by "Yes, but could we do it in such a way as to guarantee she never actually sang a song again?" "What makes you think she's sung any up to now?" OK, trainwreck there.

Meanwhile, Train 2 is off meta-comenting "That's a spoof. A hack. A parody." "How do you know that?" "Because if it was real there'd be a Jesus in there. Somewhere." "So, no God, no pro-life?" "Nope, and come to think of it, the prankster missed a REAL opportunity for insult there."

Then I had to close the browser window before I actually sprained any neurons.

[cos]

I know, I know. Do you read coslinks? All I could think to say at the time was *boggle* that pose! - thanks for actually writing it all out :)

If this does turn out to be a prank, I may be in (mixed feelings) awe.

[zellandyne.livejournal.com]

gods, that thing is ugly.

[superfinemind.livejournal.com]

...She's meant to be giving birth?

Doesn't that involve, like, babies coming out?

This is-- as you said-- just a pregnant woman presenting her orifices.

There are african tribes that've done lovely statues of giving birth, though most of those women were standing up. (It strikes me that'd look really strange if the baby were breach...)

But, honestly. Until I read your commentary, I figured it'd be the on-the-back knees-bent pose with a baby coming out. And the statue set on a bearskin rug.

...Wow.

People these days. Wow.

(The way she has her hands on the bear's head, if cropped properly I might believe it was a statue of her pegging a bear...)

[(Anonymous)]

It's not surprising an anti-choice type would miss the ugly details; they live in the sort of fantasy world where "a raped woman doesn't get pregnant because the juices don't flow".

The gross outline of the pose actually resembles one described in Paul Gallico's Scruffy -- but I don't know whether Britney has anything in common with a Barbary ape beyond her voice and manners.

/CHip