Very proud of my good friend and occasional Hynd’s Blog contributor, Mike Assenti, for this wonderful response to the Daily Mail when the paper approached him asking to use one of his photographs.
Follow Mike on twitter @ClipOnMike.
Tag Archives: Daily Mail
When The Daily Mail asks to use a photograph you’ve taken this is how you respond
Filed under Media, Photography
The Sun’s barefaced hypocrisy on baring boobs
Today, The Sun published the ‘shaming’ story, ‘New sex game shame for topless Brit birthday girl in Magaluf’.
Putting aside whether or not it is in any of anyone’s business what a girl does on her 18th birthday it is worth just taking a moment to highlight the paper’s barefaced moral hypocrisy when it comes to baring breasts.
The Sun goes to great length ‘to celebrate’ the ‘bare-breasted beauties’ (see this 40th anniversary ‘celebration’) that they have daily on their page 3, but don’t seem to hesitate to talk of the shame that this girl is supposed to have felt for choosing to get her boobs out for a drinking game.
So which one is it – is The Sun celebrating natural beauty, in which case I personally look forward to the page 2 cock close-up juxtaposed next to the boobs, or, are we shaming people for getting their naughty bits out?
Of course The Sun is not the only paper to sink into a moral hypocrisy as they try to appeal to both middle-England’s sense of perpetual outrage and to the dispiriting fact that half naked pictures sell papers.
The other example that springs to mind is The Daily Mail’s obsession with fighting the ‘sexualisation of childhood’ whilst at the same time running pictures of 14-year-old Kylie Jenner in a “tiny wetsuit” and “skimpy bikinis”.
For what it is worth I personally feel a lot of sympathy with the ‘celebrating natural beauty’ argument but just feel that is not, and indeed, cannot, be properly ‘celebrated’ in a society and newspaper industry that is so depressingly dripping in overt sexism.
Perhaps even more importantly though, I just feel that this sort of barefaced hypocrisy deserves to be highlighted.
Daily Mail’s defence, we’re not as bad as George Galloway…
The Daily Mail isn’t letting the furore over their article on Ralph Miliband die down (see yesterday’s Hynd’s Blog article).
Stephen Glover has taken to the pages of the Mail to say, “How typically hypocritical of the Left, who danced on the grave of Mrs Thatcher, to be upset about debate over Red Ed’s Marxist father.”
Well, where to start?
Firstly, it isn’t just the left that were upset with the Mail’s hatchet job on Ralph Miliband. David Cameron said he “completely understood” why Ed would want to get his point of view across while Nick Clegg (let’s not pretend he is on the left) tweeted:
Secondly though, I feel obligation bound to point out that as someone who self-identifies as left wing, I didn’t take to the streets to “dance on Thatcher’s grave” and nor did most people who self-identify as left-wing that I call friends. I accept though that thousands did, and that was distasteful. But at the time I repeatedly wrote articles arguing for respect, see:
- Thatcher is dead, but Thatcherism is alive: If only it could be the other way round
- Celebrating Thatcher’s death is wrong both pragmatically and in principle
Thirdly, as I argued before, these debates are not rooted in left or right wing politics but notions of respect and decency that are found across the political spectrum. Trying to make this about political affiliation is a desperate attempt to use in/out group mentality to defend the indefensible.
Lastly, it has to pointed out that Glover’s crass attempt to draw in Thatcher’s death into this argument is a desperate attempt to shield their original article with the unacceptable actions of those who metaphorically danced on Thatcher’s grave. The moment an argument rests on “well George Galloway said/did something worse” you know you’re on a slippery slope into the cesspits of journalism.
UPDATE:
Talking of cesspits of journalism, this story is just breaking: “Mail on Sunday reporter gatecrashes Miliband family memorial service“.
The ban of the incandescent light bulb – Draconian tokenism or well thought out policy?
It is now illegal throughout the EU to manufactur 60-watt incandescent light bulbs. This is an effort to encourage (force?) people to use energy efficient bulbs in order to help reduce our CO2 footprints. Is this a good idea or the EU being too draconian again?
The first thing to point out is that it won’t actually affect most people. To illustrate, hands up if you noticed that the 100-Watt or 75-Watt incandescent light has ceased to be produced for quite a while now? Exactly, if you don’t notice something is no longer there then it can’t be that important to you. All those who protest this piece of policy, remind me of those boyfriends when they suddenly find out their ‘favourite’ t-shirt had been thrown away by their girlfriend 6 months previously.
Yet, there are those such as Labour MP Sheila Gilmore who claim that these ‘new’ (and of course they are not new their design is just not hundreds of years old like Edisons) have detrimental health affects such as causing migraines. It is estimated by some that these new bulbs will have a detrimental affect on 2 million people, so the daily mail tells us. Even if this is true (and I would question what is deemed a detrimental affect) then the potential health consequences that may occur if the ban is implemented is minimal in comparison to the potential health consequences if we do not take measures to tackle climate change (at this point I would encourage anyone who hasn’t to read my blog on the human impact of climate change).
Ahh, but (I hear you cry) – by banning lightbulbs you are not going to tackle climate change. I would concede this point – you will not. What you will do though is reduce our total carbon footprint which will reduce the inevitable detrimental consequences of climate change. I have said it a million times before and I will say it again – climate change is not something that will either happen or not happen, it is something that IS happening. We are just trying to reduce the negative consequences by keeping average global temperature increases to a minimum. In other words what we experience will be a lot worse if we heat this planet up by 5 degree from 1990 levels than if we stuck to more modest 1.5 degree mark.
By banning incandescent light bulbs we will do this in a manner that has minimal negative consequences.
Every piece of social policy has negative consequences – there is no such thing as a perfect piece of social policy. The smoking ban for example (a piece of policy I strongly support) is A) illiberal, B) contributing to the closure of countries pubs (although not to the degree the tobacco lobby would suggest) and C) has forced some smoking bars to close costing communities central meeting places. Yet, in the grand scheme of things we can see it is broadly having a positive affect on society. I would argue – so will the ban on the manufacture (not use) of the incandescent light bulb.
Simply, this piece of policy, although not perfect, doesn’t cause significant harm – but has the potential to help us remove the threat of a potentially very serious form of harm. In my mind at least, this means it can be justified.
Filed under Climate Change, EU politics, Politics
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