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The Balenciaga Controversy

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Re: The Balenciaga Controversy

#161

Post by RickJWagner »

thepasswordis wrote: post #3

Here’s Balenciaga’s 2023 video showing off their styles for the year. This is from their own YouTube channel. Fair warning: the children shown appear to be dolls, not actual human children, but it is still disturbing: https://youtu.be/Yh_1K9s6UV0 These seem to be adults dressed as literal demons (one of them has horns on their head) many of whom are carrying (probably fake) children, and all marching through the mud.…

Groomers gonna groom. It's part of a campaign to ever so slowly sexualize children.

Re: The Balenciaga Controversy

#162

Post by badcppdev »

chrischen wrote: post #159
badcppdev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The photographer was hired to do a job and he did it. I doubt his reputation will be damaged by this. Nevertheless I think he showed poor judgement. I doubt he could pretend that he didn't know that the teddy bears were sexually themed as BDSM styling is not that obscure. And it really feels to me that he should be paying attention to what he is photographing. So I stand by my point that I hope that other professiona…

The photographer literally posted on instagram saying they had to say something because they were receiving death threats... Imagine getting death threats for a photo of a child holding a banana because some people in the world happen to be fruit-sexuals and like to have sex with fruits, only to be overcome by shame and trying to deflect it onto someone else when seeing their banana butt plug in the hands of an innoc…

You stated, "I don't know what BDSM looks like so it looks innocent enough to me". So you're stating that you're not informed about the background context of the imagery. It's really unfortunate that the photographer also did not know, research, or think about the imagery in their photoshoot. And specifically the juxtaposition with children.

At the risk of going close to Godwin's law I would say that a photographer publishing pictures of anti-semitic symbols is going to face negative feedback if they don't understand what they are photographing and present it appropriately. I'm not justifying threats of violence but criticism is definitely valid.

I was trying to talk about the photographer not having shown good judgement and how we should learn from that. If it involves sexuality, race, ethnicity, children, disabilities, or politics then professionals should probably think about whether they are qualified to do it appropriately.

Re: The Balenciaga Controversy

#163

Post by drewbug01 »

krapp wrote: post #150
drewbug01 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the life of me, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around this particular obsession. The satanic panic sadly never went away, I guess.

It has its roots in old anti-semitic conspiracy theories, particularly beliefs about blood libel (that Jews would kill Christian children in diabolical rituals) and "Cultural Marxism" (a Nazi-born conspiracy theory that academia is filled with ranks of Jews conspiring to indoctrinate people into Marxist/Communist ideology, which feeds into general conspiracy theories about "the elites" plotting to change/take over th…

1. Worse than I thought, somehow. Yay. 2. I really shouldn’t be surprised at anti-Semitic roots, but here I am surprised yet again.

Re: The Balenciaga Controversy

#164

Post by 2devnull »

p0pcult wrote: post #112
2devnull wrote: post #104

Art critics and other “intellectuals” (non artists) are to blame. They spread the false notion that art should be provocative not pretty. So the tasteless imitators who pose as artists have churned out a bunch of cringy beevis and butthead level “art” with pentagrams and blood and sexual perversion, etc… These are edgelords not artists. The public lap it up because they’re uneducated and have no aesthetic sensibiliti…

Please enlighten us...since you seem to have cornered the market on art criticism!

A bloody pentagram is not good art. It’s juvenile, and frankly cringeworthy. The famous “Twinkie” bust [1], maybe. Baby dolls in red paint is just silliness.

[1] https://www.sfgate.com/art/article/SFMOMA-to-display-divisiv...

Re: The Balenciaga Controversy

#165

Post by p0pcult »

2devnull wrote: post #164
p0pcult wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please enlighten us...since you seem to have cornered the market on art criticism!

A bloody pentagram is not good art. It’s juvenile, and frankly cringeworthy. The famous “Twinkie” bust [1], maybe. Baby dolls in red paint is just silliness. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/art/article/SFMOMA-to-display-divisiv...

I take no particular stance on your examples of what constitutes good or bad art. I agree: bloody pentagram? Cringeworthy.

What I vehemently disagree with is this assertion:

>the false notion that art should be provocative not pretty.

Why should art be pretty? Why "should" art be anything specific? I would even go further to say that to require art to have (nearly?) any specific quality is the antithesis of art.

Re: The Balenciaga Controversy

#166

Post by lordfrito »

orwin wrote: post #156
lordfrito wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looked for the photos, yikes. There's a reason people look at this stuff and get morally outraged. It is absolutely outrageous. I guess this is what they set out to do. Mission accomplished. Great. Fooled me again! They got free marketing and I've lost a little more faith in humanity. If you've experienced this kind of abuse, this kind of stuff is beyond "triggering". "Feels" are supposed to matter, right? I guess wh…

Nah, I went to an old slaughterhouse turned temporary art gallery when I was like ten (and my brother 8), I saw more disturbing art than that. I also was into the 'danses macabres' at some point and went in four different museum to appreciate the art, in three different countries. I kinda like those photographies, they're not great art, but one or two could have their place in a museum (art show called 'danses macabr…

I've seen disturbing stuff too... I can see the artistic value in the proper context... and 100% it's the context that matters. What's the message here?

When you go to an art show like the one you describe, you're prepared ahead of time for this stuff. You have some idea of what you're getting into. COUM Transmissions in the 70's comes to mind, shock was a part of the point of it all. Or if you're into death metal, a disturbing album cover is sort of par for the course. Its part of the overall artistic message.

To have this stuff mixed in with commercial fashion, or whatever you want to call that nonsense, is much stranger. And the kiddie bondage stuff... in a commercial space? It's just too far for something targeting mass awareness and consumption. We're not all open minded people with an artistic bent who want to contemplate these kinds of things. This is stuff that belongs in the fringes, and I don't see how any normalization of this stuff has a net upside to society at large.

If they tried to show this stuff to schoolkids I'd be in the long line of people asking what the heck the administration was thinking. Anyone who has had kids knows what I'm talking about.

Also, to be clear I'm talking about the Lotta Volkova pictures, not so much the BDSM bear stuff which is in poor taste but not nearly as outrageous. The relationship between Volkova and Balenciaga isn't clear, but that's what I found first when I went down this particular rabbit hole. Examples here [1]. The kid taped to a chair and the bedroom full of blood stand out as particularly disturbing, the message of child abuse is clear.

[1] https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/who-lotta-volkova-ba...

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