Tayari's Blog: Making the News, Or Just Reporting It?

Comment #1, by j

yeah-- it seems both argument are unconvincing. sorry to be so facile, but i think that the "Killing us Softly" filmmaker and folks that do work on subliminal advertising and images [which you would think this author has studied] told us the likely answer... . yes, it is the oval of her open mouth and the cylindrical lip gloss poised at her lips that turns up what you call the "skeeve factor." Image instead the same model with lips closed, a compact or something in her hand, with the same expression--perhaps with a music video on , just inside the frame-- or a bunch of magazines littering her floor.

Comment #2, by Tayari Jones

good point, j.
i am about to run out the house to get my hair done. (wish me luck. new place.)

anyway, i was putting on my lip glass and i realized that nobody opens thier mouth like that when putting on gloss. then i got sort of creeped out imagining the photographer giving directions to model.

before i was sort of in the benefit-of-the-doubt range, but now....

Comment #3, by Honoree

Well, I'm usually the most reactionary woman in the room, but first, I have to say that I open up my mouth when I put on lip gloss:-) (Seriously, I do.) Second, while I do think the cover is tending toward erotic, I also think, WHY is it tending toward erotic? It's a young girl putting on lip gloss, that's it--in the same way I put on lip gloss (and, I strongly suspect many other women). The cover is erotic because we've sexualized and fetishized certain images of young girls in America; that's exactly the writer's point. The cover disturbs us and perhaps it should. What bothers me is that the writer doesn't "keep it real" and say that--she comes close but not close enough, in my opinion. I don't think she's as naive as she pretends. I'm thinking of the recent hllabaloo over the Miley Cyrus (Vanity Fair) pictures of her in a sheet; while I found the image sexy (which then grossed me out because she's a kid), was it sexy because I made it sexy, or was it truly sexy? Because it was simply a young girl with a sheet held up to her chest. That was it. She didn't even have a certain look on her face; it was more a pleasant, though blank, expression.

But before we go getting too outraged here at this author, let's not cast the first stone. Let's all go in our make-up bags (this includes perfume)--and our clothes closets--and throw out all the products we've bought made by companies that use little provocatively posed girls in their ad campaigns. After that, we'd be walking around in Miley Cyrus's sheet--barefoot, smelling funky with bad skin.

Comment #4, by rebecca

that was my first thought, too: nobody opens their mouth that wide to put on gloss. it's a very posed photo meant to elicit a certain emotion from viewers. i'd hate to see the other shots she axed because they were too sexy!

Comment #5, by Jackie

I'm mostly with Honoree on this one. The cover likely disturbs us because we have been sufficiently socialized by such images. Next time you are in a mall, look around you at the way young girls are dressed and I am not talking about the teenagers. Young children are dressing like grown women (music videos come to mind). Who chose and bought those clothes for them? Did that midriff baring, jewelry wearing 7 year old actually buy those short shorts, shoes with heels and crop top?

I just pulled out my lip gloss and yes, i open my mouth when I apply it. To me the cover shows a young girl doing what she has seen done by the women in her life. And cable TV, of course.

I don't like the cover because it makes me uncomfortable. If that is what the author intended, mission accomplished. Will it get me to buy it? Probably not, though I might pick it up in the bookstore and see what it is about.

Note: if the author is reading this, I wouldn't buy it because I am looking for mystery books and biographies right now and not books about how we are messing up little girls. OK, I'll check it out. I owe you that.

Comment #6, by j

first let me withdraw my comment about how my point was "facile." it ain't, not really. and i am not suggesting being reactionary-- nor do i think this is just a matter of how anyone puts on lipstick. i am suggesting some analysis beyond letting everything pass without comment simply because everything else is 'like that' or 'this is just the world we live in.' & i must say that i do not disapprove of lipgloss, or even the notion of adolescents exploring their sexuality. Nor am i saying that the author must change her cover-- just her tune [the refrain to which i hear here in the comments] or that folks should not read it. my overall reaction is "come on...." how can we act as if we do not see precisely what the marketing folks at her press are selling? And do you really make that particular oval with your lips when you apply gloss? do you look longingly into the camera after it is perfectly done [by the professional makeup artist on set]? do you allow the tube or cylinder or --applicator to linger there? if so, under what circumstances? I'm just sayin'.