Shame on you, Century Media
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Century Media is selling a 2009 calendar called "Maidens of Metal." It's supposed to be "sexy." (You can see the calendar images here.) I'm not surprised the label would do such a thing, and I appreciate the female form as much as anyone - but this gives me pause.
Perhaps one could liken these women to Suicide Girls, who've dealt with the "exploitation" vs. "female empowerment" issue for some time. But this feels different. Unlike Suicide Girls, these women don't seem "real." They've been airbrushed, windmachined, and Photoshopped into settings that aren't even sexy so much as kitschy. That's fine; some people think Playboy is erotic. To each his own.
But ostensibly these women are musicians. They shouldn't have to sell their bodies. I realize this was a conscious choice for them - at least I hope it was - but what little respect I had for them as musicians has vanished. Hooters girls have more integrity.
Metal has plenty of sex appeal from men and women alike. The greatest sex appeal comes from those who don't try to show it. This tries too hard, it's poorly executed, and it demeans everyone - the women, their bands, their fans, and the label who preys upon them all. Shame on you, Century Media. What are you selling, exactly? Music, or women's bodies?
29 Comments:
ugh.
Right on Cosmo. It's poor judgment by CM, and sadly, it diminishes the artistic integrity of the musicians who posed.
And I won't be a hypocrite - I enjoy seeing attractive women playing metal, but I'm primarily interested in their ability to write killer songs, play their instruments in ways that I never could, and produce great art.
I say if you want cheesecake with your music, put on a Britney Spears video. (And mute that shit!)
On the other hand, I realize these women are metal musicians, probably struggling to make money, and they have to eat too. If they got paid well, I guess I could hold my nose and turn away...
Remember when Revolver started that "Hottest Chicks of Metal" thingy? I was like uuuuh what? Century Media has been like that for the past few years, really. How many Gothencore bands can you really stomach really? I do give them credit that they are releasing good stuff from credible bands like Napalm Death and Nachtmystium in recent years, but this is just a really badly done cash cow. I saw Winds of Plague open for Danzig: they were horrible. Ditto for The Agonist when I saw them with Enslaved last year. That's just my personal opinion though. But using image as opposed to the actual music to sell the music is just too lame.
At least Decibel did it right when they did Hottest D00ds of Metal. I hope they do that again, with more dudes with hairy chests and beards.
After the Amanda Palmer/Roadrunner issue, I have little faith that the girls here had any choice.
And please, please don't use SG as any sort of paragon of virtue. They did have a reputation for being feminist-y, circa 2004, but they've exploited that, and become as bad or worse than the sites that girls once chose them over.
Maybe it's because I used to work in the actual porn biz, but I don't have a problem with this. I really doubt the women were roofied and propped up before the camera, know what I mean? It's a tough business, and whether or not this calendar will directly boost record sales, it will contribute to Century Media's continuing existence, which will in turn offer all these women's bands the chance to potentially sell more records in the future.
This kind of shit is just total cheese.
Wow. I'd think (or hope) Century Media would be above the barrel-scraping antics of Revolver's "Hottest Chicks in Metal," but I guess not.
In fairness, Century Media has to make money, and if there weren't people who buy this, CM wouldn't sell it. But it's disheartening nonetheless.
The calendar is only part of the problem.
I didn't know about the Amanda Palmer/Roadrunner thing until seeing sunburntkamel's post, but that illustrates almost perfectly the status that women have in music (note: not just metal). They aren't viewed as equals to men. So you have, for example, The Hottest Chicks In Metal Tour because apparently musicianship and songwriting alone isn't enough to sell these women. Maybe part of the problem is that these women are being sold as "women in metal" instead of just as metalheads, because I can't think of similar discussion about, say, Amber Valentine or Liz Buckingham. Who knows.
For what it's worth, while I have no interest in this calendar, I would pay money for an "Ugly Dudes of Early 1990s Death Metal" Calendar.
bacon - Image has always been used to sell music. Metal, especially, is quite rich imagewise. It all depends on how the image is wielded.
sunburnt - Thanks for the Amanda Palmer link. Interesting to see "independent" labels acting like majors.
I haven't followed Suicide Girls in a while, so I don't know how things are over there. I don't necessarily see exploitation in things like that if the girls know what they're doing and have control over it.
pdf - I don't have a problem with merch sales and labels making money. In fact, I support that - see previous posts. But I do have a problem with what labels will do to make money. This isn't the same business as Britney Spears...though Century Media seems headed that way.
Ben - Yes, Century Media has to make money. But they don't have to do it this way.
Graeme - I would shell out in a heartbeat for an "Ugly Dudes of Early 1990s Death Metal" calendar, though the "Ugly" would probably be redundant.
I think I'm with pdf on this one, this is a tempest in a teapot. It's a little tacky, but still pretty tame compared to the levels the music industry will stoop to. And I've talked to lots of the female singers on CM, and they've never said that they felt exploited or that their image was being manipulated the wrong way.
And I didn't know about the Amanda Palmer situation until now...what Roadrunner did to her was far worse. (her album's great, by the way)
Two thumbs down. I agree with whomever said they should be viewed as 'metalheads', not 'women in metal'.
Suicide Girls also uses photoshop on its 'models'. I know three Suicide Girls I went to school with and, mate, that is not just good lighting and great make-up. I will even go so far as to say that some of those girls were much prettier in real life.
I think I'd be more okay with this calendar if women weren't such a minority in metal in the first place. But anomalous they remain, so seeing something like this just reinforces the notion that women in metal are de facto sex symbols, or at least that their sexuality is just as important as their talent, if not more so.
Some of the girls in this calendar ARE more sexy than talented. But that's beside the point.
It feels like metal is moving backwards - I know that there are still a lot of issues with sexism i metal, but this seems almost neanderthal.
First of all, every one of these bands sucks...seriously.
Second, Suicide Girls has become an airbrushed lady wonderland as well.
Third, Roadrunner is a major owned by Warner Brothers.
And lastly, this stuff is tacky and embarrassing...not to mention stupid. I, like "most" dudes, enjoy photos of scantily clad attractive ladies...but I don't need to feel like I'm in a Motley Crue video circa 1986. There's a thin line between sexy and stupid, empowered and exploited. This is what it must be like to go to a goth stripclub with the morons in Slipknot!
Century Media are selling both--music *and* sex.
Here's my reasoning--these women are capable of making their own choices. No one forced them to do this. Any blame has to be shouldered on both parties--Century Media and the girls that did this.
I have no real issue with it. Part of music has revolved solely around sex appeal--whether it's guys jamming cucumbers doing their extremely tight jeans or women showing cleavage.
I'll admit--most of my favorite bands when growing up had a certain fantasy factor. Music, in general, does for me, as well. I like to look at guys that fit the bill of mortal gods who I can never be. I still look at guys that play music as living gods, I live in this platonic, naive fan world in that sense. But I can see why some women would say, "oh he's so hot!", rather, than, say, "man, he REALLY nailed that phrygian 5th note scale". Male musicians have long had their skills tuned out in favour of mobs of women--in the Stones and Beatles' case in the 60's--tearing out their hair, tearing off Mick and Keith's clothes, etc. Is it fair? No. But it's a part of selling records in a mass mainstream way.
In a sense, every rock musician--male or female--becomes objectified; less renowned for their musical talent, than, say, looking great on the cover of Spin. I've had plenty of issues with style over substance bands that were comprised solely of males. But an image can be exploited far further than the converse; talent and skill with no real image to sell. The former is extremely harder to sell than the latter.
I think that if it's fair to say that I started idolizing bands with guys in them that looked cool that could play a mean guitar; that I can enjoy a good looking woman that plays a mean guitar that *also* looks good while doing so.
On top of that, women in rock are so few and far between, that it's hard for me NOT to respect them, just because they're surviving in a typically male dominated business. Yes, it is kind of a drag for them to have to succumb to the visual aspect, but like I say, rock music and pop music has always functioned on a sex appeal factor, and record sales usually go up in the cases of those that choose to do so. In alot of cases, this is at the record companies' request...."change your image and you could be megastars!" type of thing.
Plenty of artists, from Alice Cooper, to KISS, to David Bowie, GG Allin, David Yow (nudity) have used image to sell records and push boundaries with audiences and create shock and outrage. To a certain extent, it's more accepted that they "objectify" themselves, because they're guys, and guys are like, supposed to do that or something.
On top of that, I find it funny that the female body, when put in the same position to sell records and create shock and outrage, can still create mass controversy. If Robert Plant can go onstage in Zep's heyday with his schlong practically poking through his way too tight jeans, I think that it's fair for women to push their cleavage up and do essentially the same thing. On one hand, it's perfectly acceptable to accept male sexuality and bravado; but then on the other, it's not okay to do the same to accept women's sexuality and bravado. At a certain point, we, as a listening audience, have to come to an equality of that, because the only solution is to say that male sexuality in music is fine, whereas women's sexuality. What if gay women want to attract other gay women with their sexuality in music? Joan Jett has long swung the other way, and I doubt that women, themselves, would say that they don't want to see another hot woman in tight leather rocking out a guitar.
We have to consider all angles here.
Also, responding to Astral Zombie's comment, perhaps if these bands were better, maybe these girls wouldn't have to resort to this? I'm not really a fan of any of the bands that i've heard, and I just outright haven't heard of the others. I didn't see Liz Buckingham on there, nor Katie Lynn Campbell--women that are tastefully sexy and rock the rock/ metal without going overboard on their image.
To a certain extent, any musician will do themselves in (male or female) if they choose to go the route of style over substance, without actual substance to back it up.
Personaly, if I had a chance to sell my body in exchange for my band getting recognition and me maybe not having to have a day job, I would do it in a second.
As a black female metal writer and fan - not that really makes much of a difference, but just giving my perspective - what bothers me is that these women - whom have the right to objectify themselves if they want - decided to objectify themselves! On one hand, if they feel that they will get press from doing it, then so be it, even though they are getting press for the wrong reasons - as they would be pretty friggin stupid to think that hard rock/metal fans are going to rush to buy their album because they showed some thigh. It's 2008/9, and I wish some women would realize that the psuedo-catholic uniforms are alluring. Sigh.
I think true fans of this genre of music really only care that as a musician, you bring it. Real fans couldn't care less what you look like or what is between your legs. Women in the scene should realize that, market their talents to that demographic and put the titties away.
Hear, hear.
All I can say is thank god I don't own any of these albums. In fact, never heard of any of the bands these ladies are in. To tell the truth, I could barely read the font on the pictures. Maybe they did that on purpose.
"To tell the truth, I could barely read the font on the pictures."
Great point! I was thinking that but didn't mention it here.
Lainad brings up some good issues. Part of my problem about the world is that women still don't get paid and compensated fairly....at least not compared to their male counterparts.
See, i'm torn. On one hand I think that for women to succeed, they have to play the man's game, but really, there's always been a double standard: that it's okay for guys to sleep around and use their sexual aspect, but not for women. Women can't play the man's game, because they lose. Women, in alot of cases, get labelled "homewrecker" or whatever, while the guy is generally absolved of guilt or wrongdoing. It's the ostracization from both the female and male community that makes it such a double edged sword.
But on the other hand, as guys as we've been growing up, we've always been lured in the second that the girl bats her eyelashes in the playground or whatever. So then they sort of have to resort to those tactics, because they realize that it gets the most immediate results. I'm not fully sure that many in this world--male or female--realize the difference between being liked and respected. The two are often connected, though often never quite in equality to each other.
Bitches look like total whores in these pics, but there's a reason for this. I've never heard of any of these women OR the bands they supposedly exist in. I have on the other hand seen "goth metal" album covers, music vidios and promo photos and they look exactly like this bullshit. I doubt whoever put this calendar together had to shoot much of the pics, they were probably sourced straight outta the promo packages of the respective bands. I'm sure they'll sell 14 extra copies to some poncily-built twelve-yearolds who should know better than to drool over a Theater of Tragedy picture disc all night.
That said, I would fuckin' totally fork out $25 for a "Dudes of early 90's death metal" calendar for sure, and I would not be surprised if it outsold the "Slutty-looking fluffy-haired wind machine-gawking pseudo-goth, pseudo-metal, new age phone sex vocals/elevator music boredom festival 'chicks'" calendar. I'm just sayin'...
I think there's enough blame to go around here (not just CM). None of these ladies were forced to pose like this. CM probably thought it would make the label money and the ladies probably thought it would make their bands money. It took so long for women in metal to be appreciated and now we have this.
However, no matter how good she looks, I'll never spend money on In This Moment.
Also, give me 12 months of Grace Perry of Landmine Marathon clothed over these ladies.
If they think that their bands are a job and this is just promotion for their bands and that perhaps they'll do better now that they've flashed some skin, then that's their [the women who posed] issue. Century Media I am sure has a lot of idiotic suggestions for everybody on their roster, they don't have to go for them. I'm just saying, integrity is something people have to fight for, we shouldn't just blame the label because they suggested this to these women.
If they faced contractual obligation towards these photoshoots then they should break contract. Heavy Metal is about transgression, overwhelming pride, carving your own way against all resistance. It isn't a fucking dayjob. Hugh is saying above that HM seems to be taking steps backwards... yes, you are right. We're heading right back to glam metal land.
I don't know how it is in your country, Helm, but here "breaking contract" has consequences - consequences that are often even more unpleasant that remaining under contract. Of course, bands shouldn't get themselves into bad contracts in the first place, but if legal disputes arise between labels and bands, labels have much more muscle.
Yes, as far as I know breaking contract has legal consequences even in Greece, and people shouldn't sign on for things they're not prepared to do. But people also are allowed to change their minds about what their limits might be and a court can side either way were such a breach of contract to be presented (would also make for interesting law, musicians forced to objectification).
Heh, you know, as attractive as these ladies are, I keep on thinking that it's women that will buy this calendar more....call it a hunch....
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