Newsweek’s Tasteless Cover

Last updated on: August 17, 2012 at 6:00 am by Rachel Marie Stone

Newsweek’s Tasteless Cover 2012-08-17T06:00:43-04:00 Rachel Marie Stone

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I have a new post up at her.meneutics on the tasteless Newsweek cover. Here’s a taste:

The Old Testament book Song of Songs is pretty racy. And not infrequently, its sexual imagery is expressed through food metaphors:

As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,

so is my beloved among the young men.

With great delight I sat in his shadow,

and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

Similarly, a Sumerian poem “The song of the lettuce” (lettuce, believe it or not, was considered an aphrodisiac in the Ancient Near East; when lettuces goes to seed, it shoots up tall and, ahem, releases a milky white sap), is all about, well, eating “the honey man”:

“. . . my lord, the honey man of a goddess, his mother’s favourite, whose hands are honey, whose feet are honey, will make me sweet, whose limbs are honey-sweet, will make me sweet.”

These poets—as well as the writer of Like Water for Chocolate—remind us of the similarities between eating and sex, which are both sites of “bodily interfacing” (a place where a body meets something outside itself) and which are both potentially life-giving and community-forming

A recent Newsweek cover (which appears to have been totally plagiarized from a 2008 issue of the British Observer Food Monthly) depicts a sensual female mouth waiting to receive some very phallic-looking asparagus. It’s not particularly original (nor, I think, tasteful), but as a piece of food porn, it speaks volumes about our culture’s view of women, food, and sex.

At first glance, what bothers me about the image, aside from its crudeness, is the fact that it involves a woman and some vegetables, and not, say, caramel or chocolate cake. As scholar Susan Bordo explained in Unbearable Weight, while it is acceptable for men in advertisements to appear sensually, almost sexually enraptured in food of any kind; for women, things are more complicated: “female hunger as sexuality is represented in Western culture . . . with terror and loathing.” Women, she argues, are often only ‘allowed’ to be sensual with regard to food only if it is diet Jell-O or a Weight Watchers frozen dinner or a vegetable or a dessert in a pre-measured, calorie-controlled portion. So by rendering an image of a woman as passive in the sexualized reception of a vegetable, the cover reflects–rather than challenges–dominant cultural ideas about women’s appetites. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so daring (if it ever did).

But what do we make of the larger phenomenon of “food porn”—of stylized, close-up, sensual food photography, and its use that, in the words of FoodPornDaily.com, involves a lot of “click, drool, repeat”?

{read the rest at Christianity Today’s women’s blog: here}

Uncategorized

Previous Post

August 16, 2012

Happy 100th, Julia Child!

Next Post

August 20, 2012 Everybody's Trying To Change Somebody (or, What Google & Siri Can't Tell You)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "health" activism agriculture animals anorexia Anticipating anxiety art autumn Baking beauty beer Bible Big Food binge eating blogging body image Books Bread of Life breastfeeding brokenness candy cartoons celebrity chefs children chocolate Classical Duckfaces Connecting consumption cooking creation care creativity current events death Dessert diabetes Dieting Eating Together Emotional Eating fair trade Faith Family Fannie Farmer fast food fat talk Films Food Food Policy formula feeding Gardening gluten free Grace gratitude guest posts guilt HIV/AIDS holiday hospitality housekeeping Jesus Joy just for fun Justice kindness Local media moment of joy north fork, long island OI parties personal pharmaceuticals photo photography plumpy'nut popular culture poverty pregnancy Preserving real food recipes rest restaurants School Food Seasons spring starvation summer Table Talk taste television theology travel Tuesdays With Fannie Uncategorized winter

Select a Month April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 August 2014 May 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Romans teaches that we are justified by works of the law.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE