Spare the Wasps

Generally speaking, people don't think of wasps with the same degree of affection as they do bees, even though both can sting. It might simply be a public relations issue, but I suspect there's something more to our collective spheksophobia on the one hand and our melissophilia on the other. 

Trying to explain her fear of wasps and fondness for bees, my friend Deborah insisted the latter were kind and hardworking: "They never wilfully hurt anyone, they pollinate the flowers and they make honey - what's not to love?" 

In contrast, she said, wasps were vicious and unproductive: "They sting you for no reason and they don't do anything except make a pest of themselves whenever you're sitting outside having something to eat."  

And thus: "If you came across a bee in distress, you would instinctively want to help. But a normal person only ever wants to swat a wasp!" 

It's undoubtedly this kind of attitude that sanctifies the wanton destruction of wasp nests whenever people find them in their gardens or houses. One recalls, for example, the widely reported case from 2014 of a giant nest housing some 5000 creatures, built atop a bed in a Winchester woman's rarely used spare room, the wasps having entered through an open window and chewed through the mattress and pillows.

Even the pest controller who was called in, couldn't help but admire the amazingly beautiful nest that the insects had taken at least three months to construct. But this didn't, alas, deter him from destroying it and exterminating the entire colony with his poison spray, at the woman's request.

One also recalls the cruelty of George Orwell, who confessed to once cutting a wasp in half as it enjoyed some jam on the side of his breakfast plate; watching with gleeful fascination as a tiny stream of jam trickled out of its severed oesophagus and laughing when the insect tried to fly away and at that point realising the dreadful thing that had befallen it.

Whilst the exterminator was simply doing his job - not that this morally excuses his actions - I can't see any justification for Orwell's juvenile sadism. His intellectual point about modern man's obliviousness to having had his soul cut away, doesn't make one forget the heartless brutality that gave rise to the analogy.        

Thankfully, there are those in the world, such as Thom Bonneville, Director of the Animal Interfaith Alliance (AIA), who call upon us to spare the wasps and show care, concern and compassion for all living creatures, regardless of their size or whether they benefit us in any way.


Note: readers who wish to know more about the AIA can visit their website by clicking here.

     

Pan Comes to Hampstead: Reflections on D. H. Lawrence's 'The Last Laugh'

Pan - by Thalia Took on deviantart.com

Written in 1924, 'The Last Laugh' imagines an appearance of the goat-footed Greek god Pan in Hampstead on a snowy winter's night and the tragic consequences of this. I'm not quite sure what genre it belongs to, but we might best describe it as an example of sardonic paganism; a mocking and malevolent form of queer gothic fiction directed towards a dark god who is always coming, but who never quite arrives or reveals himself.

By setting the story in a leafy north London suburb, Lawrence relates his onto-theological vision to everyday experience, whilst, at the same time, demonstrating how the latter unfolds within a wider, inhuman context that is resistant to any kind of moral-rational codification. He thereby attempts to loosen the aura of necessity surrounding categories of the present and restore a little primordial wonder to NW3.

How successful he is in achieving this, I'll leave for readers to decide; the following is essentially just a summary of the nightmarish and at times surreal tale for those who are unfamiliar with it, rather than a detailed critical analysis (although there is some degree of commentary) ...

Never one to pass up the chance to exploit cliché - if, as here, for comic rather than dramatic effect - Lawrence opens his tale at midnight, the church clock having just struck the magical hour when, for a short period, there's an opening between our electrically-luminous civilization and the world that lies outside the gate; that unexplored realm of dangerous knowledge where things go bump in the night.  

Three figures emerge from a handsome Georgian house: "A girl in a dark blue coat and fur turban, very erect: a fellow with a little dispatch-case, slouching: a thin man with a red beard, bareheaded, peering out of the gateway down the hill that swung in a curve downwards towards London."

The light covering of snow on the ground has created the impression of a new world; but it takes more than a few flakes to really change things, as we'll discover. The man with the beard, Lorenzo, says goodnight to the couple and goes back inside. Now the slouching man in a bowler hat, Mr. Marchbanks, and the erect, sharp girl who was somewhat deaf, Miss James, were all alone in the street; "save for the policeman at the corner."

She looks at her companion: with his "thick black brows sardonically arched, and his rather hooked nose" he seemed to her "like a satanic young priest" - or a "sort of faun on the Cross, with all the malice of the complication". As they walk together, past the trees and the loneliness of the Heath, toward the local Tube station, he hears somebody laughing. Turning on her Marconi made listening machine, Miss James lifts her "deaf nymph's face", but hears nothing until, that is, he suddenly "gave the weirdest, slightly neighing laugh, uncovering his strong, spaced teeth, and arching his black brows, and watching her with queer, gleaming, goat-like eyes".

Marchbanks is - seemingly without his knowing it - possessed by the Pan-spirit. Looking at the girl in an almost diabolical manner, his face gleaming and "wreathed with a startling, peculiar smile", he again gave "the most extraordinary laugh ... like an animal laughing".

This attracts the attention of the tall, clean-shaven young policeman who comes over to see what's occurring. The Pan-possessed man glared at the bobby and asked if he could hear the laughter that came out of him but didn't belong to him. At the sound of this diabolical laughter, "something roused in the blood of the girl and of the policeman" and they edged closer to one another, their bodies touching:

"Having held herself all her life intensely aloof from physical contact, and never having let any man touch her, she now, with a certain nymph-like voluptuousness, allowed the large hand of the young policeman to support her ... And she could feel the presence of the young policeman, through all the thickness of his dark-blue uniform, as something young and alert and bright."

Was that his truncheon, or was he equally happy to be pressing up against her ...?

The religious mania spreads: Miss James thinks she can see someone hiding among the holly bushes. This makes the Pan-possessed man in the bowler hat get even more excited and, "with curious delight", he broke into laughter again, stamping his feet on the snow covered ground, dancing, before running off like a madman.

When he finally comes to a halt, Marchbanks finds himself at the house of a beautiful Jewish woman whom Lawrence encourages us to believe is a prostitute. She has dark hair and large dark eyes. She is standing in her open doorway, believing that somebody knocked (as a working girl, she is, of course, always anticipating a knock at her door).

Asked if it was he who knocked, Marchbanks says no. But then he admits that perhaps it was him after all - but without his knowing it. He asks her if can come in and she agrees. So he enters the house, trailing after the woman "like a hound" that follows a bitch on heat, tail wagging and tongue lolling.

Meanwhile, Miss James and the policeman had arrived on the scene, just in time to see the man in the bowler hat enter the house with the woman in high heels. The girl decides there's no point waiting about and so sets off back down the hill, burning with thoughts of murder and strange superhuman power:

"Her feet felt lighter, her legs felt long and strong. She glanced over her shoulder again. The young policeman was following her, and she laughed to herself. Her limbs felt so lithe and so strong, if she wished she could easily run faster than he. If she wished she could easily kill him, even with her hands.
      So it seemed to her. But why kill him? He was a decent young fellow. She had in front of her eyes the dark face among the holly bushes, with the brilliant, mocking eyes. Her breast felt full of power, and her legs felt long and strong and wild. She was surprised herself at the strong, bright, throbbing sensation beneath her breasts, a sensation of triumph and rosy anger. Her hands felt keen on her wrists. She who had always declared she had not a muscle in her body! Even now, it was not muscle, it was a sort of flame."

It's precisely this kind of writing that Lawrence's critics object to, finding it fatuous and bombastic; a dubious mix of lurid sexual fantasy and sulphurous theology. But for those of us who love him, it's his idiosyncratic narrative style which most appeals. Of course it risks becoming ludicrous, or sometimes losing its way in a semantic fog; for it's not easy to articulate unconscious thoughts and feelings, or describe those things which lie outside conventional language. But that's why speculative and experimental writers and thinkers, like Lawrence, who attempt this should, I think, be praised for their courage.

Anyway, let us return to the story ...

It begins to snow heavily and, despite her deafness, Miss James hears voices all around her. She knows that he's come back, although the god who has returned remains nameless in the tale. The snowstorm intensifies; there are flashes of lightning and she laughs at the young policeman whose state of nervous panic made him look "like a frightened dog that sees something uncanny".

They come to a church with its doors flung wide open, allowing the wind and the voices to enter and whirl about, howling and calling. Now, for the first time, she too hears the "strange, naked sound" of laughter. The policeman was silent and fearful. He stood cowed, "with his tail between his legs, listening to the strange noises in the church".

The demonic forces that have been set loose wreck the interior of the church and amidst all the chaos of snow, wind, and laughter, there is the gay sound of pipes playing and the marvellous scent of almond blossom, like that of a Mediterranean spring.

Finally, the girl and the policeman arrive at her house. He is frightened and cold, so asks if he may come in and warm himself. She agrees, telling him he may make up a fire in the sitting-room, but to kindly not disturb her in her bedroom.

Upon waking the next morning, Miss James, an artist, inspects her own paintings and laughs at their absurd, almost grotesque character. Miraculously, she can now hear the birds singing without the need of her mechanical hearing-device. But the poor policeman, however, is distraught, having become mysteriously lame overnight. Not that the girl seems overly concerned with his condition, preferring to sit down before her window, in the sun, and to reflect on the fact that the world had now been genuinely transformed:

"Suddenly the world had become quite different: as if some skin or integument had broken, as if the old, mouldering London sky had crackled and rolled back, like an old skin, shrivelled, leaving an absolutely new blue heaven."

She also reflects, as Lawrentian heroines are wont to do, on love and sex and decides that she doesn't want either. For modern men, she decides - at least those of her acquaintance - are all a bit doggy and infra dig; either messing around with prostitutes, like Marchbanks, or incapable of acting with any real courage and authority - despite wearing a policeman's uniform - when confronted by life (and proud womanhood) in all its savage splendour.

She vaguely wishes that the laughing god had ravished her as he had ravaged the church, so that she might have emerged "new and tender out of the old, hard skin". But at least she had her hearing restored, so she couldn't complain.

At this point, Marchbanks arrives, as it was his habit "to come and take breakfast with her each morning." He asks her about the young policeman and she interrogates him about the Jewish-looking woman. They are friends, not lovers, she and he, but clearly intimate and concerned with one another's affairs.

When they eventually, decide to check on the young policeman downstairs they find him understandably upset because of his sudden lameness. Slowly pulling off his sock, he reveals "his white left foot curiously clubbed, like the weird paw of some animal". Looking at it makes him cry: "And as he sobbed, the girl heard again the low, exulting laughter."

As if the situation weren't already disturbing enough, Marchbanks now lets out a strange, yelping cry, like a wounded animal: "His white face was drawn, distorted in a curious grin, that was chiefly agony but partly [the] wild recognition ... of a man who realises he had made a final, and this time fatal, fool of himself."

And then, "with a queer shuddering laugh he pitched forward on the carpet and lay writhing for a moment on the floor", before lying completely still "in a weird, distorted position, like a man struck by lightening." Miss James stares at the body in a somewhat nonplussed manner and enquires of the policeman if her friend Mr. Marchbanks is dead. The officer, however, was trembling with such terror and his teeth chattering so violently, that it took him some moments to finally stammer that it certainly looked that way.

A faint smell of almond blossom once more filled the air - sweeter, certainly, than the foul stench of sulphur, but just as infernal in nature it seems ...


See: D. H. Lawrence, 'The Last Laugh', in The Woman Who Rode Away and Other Stories, ed. Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn, (Cambridge University Press, 1995). 

Note: thanks to the University of Adelaide, the story can also be read online: click here.

This post is dedicated to Catherine Brown: may she always have the last laugh ...

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D. H. Lawrence: The Reluctant Londoner

Unused design for the 14th International 

D. H. Lawrence Conference (London, 3-8 July 2017) 

by Stephen Alexander 

(Based on a 1929 film poster by the Stenberg Brothers)

Asked to name places associated with D. H. Lawrence and his fiction, many readers will say Italy, whilst others immediately mention Mexico. Those familiar with the novel Kangaroo often fondly recall his descriptions of the Australian bush. Mostly, however, they think back to the dreary coal mining district in the East Midlands from out of which Lawrence rather miraculously extracted himself. 

One thing's for sure: not many readers will say London - even though he and a surprising number of his characters have interesting connections to the capital. In fact, according to Lawrence scholar Catherine Brown, Lawrence visited the city around fifty times between October 1908 and September 1926 and not only did he live and work there at certain periods, he even married Frieda at a registry office in Kensington. 

Of course, given his aggressive anti-urbanism, it's not surprising to discover that Lawrence didn't much like being in the Smoke and that many of his comments and fictional portrayals of the city tend to be negative - although he does admit in a newspaper article written in 1928 to having found it exhilarating upon arrival as a young man:

"Twenty years ago, London was to me thrilling, thrilling, thrilling, the vast and roaring heart of all adventure. It was not only the heart of the world, it was the heart of the world’s living adventure. How wonderful the Strand, the Bank, Charing Cross at night, Hyde Park in the morning!"

But today, says Lawrence in the same article, all the excitement seems crushed out of the city - not least by the sheer weight of traffic, massively rolling nowhere.

Thus, I suppose Lawrence might at best be described as a reluctant Londoner; one who quickly grew tired of its charms - including the West End girls who had at one time fascinated the Eastwood boy as they paraded along Piccadilly, displaying their non-provincial beauty. Not because he was tired of life, as Samuel Johnson would have it, but, on the contrary, because he found it lacking in vitality and full of deathly dullness and the noise of endless chatter ...

And speaking of endless chatter - though hopefully it won't be deathly dull in character - the 14th International D. H. Lawrence Conference will be held in London this summer (3-8 July). Readers interested in finding out more can click here.

Notes

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Why I Don't Like Living in London', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22. 

See also Catherine Brown, 'London in D. H. Lawrence's Words', which can be found as an article on her website - catherinebrown.org - or accessed directly by clicking here. 

Readers interested in a related post to this one might like to click here.

Reflections on The Strange Death of Europe: A Book For Thinking, Nothing Else

Bloomsbury (2017)

Douglas Murray's new book, The Strange Death of Europe, addresses very contemporary concerns to do with immigration, identity and Islam. But it's in some ways a rather old-fashioned read, as one might expect from a neoconservative who continues a long (peculiarly German) tradition of cultural pessimism - Oswald Spengler anyone? 

Far from being an incendiary text full of urgency and the visionary promise of a future beyond the ruins, it's a nostalgic, somewhat lugubrious work oscillating between world-weariness on the one hand and a sense of loss on the other; less angry call to arms, more solemn eulogy. But perhaps that's its strength and what distinguishes Murray's work from that of far-right nationalists; he's not demanding that Europe awake! but suggesting that Europeans take time to quietly reflect and, in so doing, rediscover not just old forms, but find new feelings.

Never going so far as to renounce entirely the need for action, Murray nevertheless understands the importance of engaging in what Nietzsche terms invisible activities and which Heidegger relates to a notion of transcendence (the human capacity to reshape and revalue the world via an essential form of contemplation).

In other words, The Strange Death of Europe is a book for thinking, nothing else.

Thus, whilst Murray discusses in detail the large-scale events unfolding all around us and clearly indicates the problems these events bring in their wake, he wisely refrains from offering any final solutions. Critics who pour scorn on the book for failing to provide such answers have missed the point.

Similarly, when they laugh at Murray's suggestion that the fate of Europe might depend on our attitude towards church buildings, they fail to grasp what he means is that our singularity as Europeans is made manifest in our art and architecture. And, of course, in our literature; one of the nicely surprising sections of Murray's book is his discussion of the novelist Michel Houellebecq.    

Having said this, there are aspects of Murray's book that disappoint. For example, whilst I broadly accept his political analysis of postmodern Europe, I don't find what Lyotard termed incredulity toward metanarratives paralysing in the way Murray suggests. Nor do I feel ravaged by decades of deconstruction and desperate to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Although an atheist, one gets the impression that Murray is moving towards the Heideggerean conclusion that, ultimately, only a god can save us. But if only he stopped thinking nihilism in such dramatic nineteenth-century terms and playing the crypto-theologian, Murray might recognise that our loss of faith and inability to act with absolute certainty paradoxically signifies our spiritual superiority to all fanatics and fundamentalists who daren't ever doubt or deviate from scripture.

For me, it's infinitely preferable to live in a secular society that delights in shallowness and gay insincerity, than in a theocratic society plumbing the depths of religious stupidity. In order to counter Islamism, we need to become more ironic and irreverent, not less. And a little bit more Greek; superficial out of profundity.          

Gaby Hinsliff Versus Douglas Murray: You Pays Your Money and You Takes Your Choice

In her review of his new book, The Strange Death of Europe, political journalist and commentator Gaby Hinsliff accuses Douglas Murray of gentrified xenophobia; a phrase by which she means a "slightly posher, better-read, more respectable" form of racism.

The implication being that if you scratch away the smooth exterior, then Murray is revealed as simply a more articulate (thus more persuasive, more dangerous) version of Katie Hopkins, appealing to the kind of people who "wouldn't be seen dead on an English Defence League march", but who nevertheless fear Muslims are coming to rape their loved ones and destroy their way of life.

I don't think this is a fair characterization of Mr Murray, or his readers. And nor can such fears be dismissed as entirely irrational or groundless; not after Rotherham. In fact, I would say concerns about the three i-words around which Murray weaves his text - immigration, identity and Islam - are perfectly reasonable.

Nor do I think that Murray's book - which Hinsliff rather bizarrely disparages as a "proper book, with footnotes and everything" - is "so badly argued" that she can dismiss it without addressing any of the factual data that is carefully documented and detailed in those footnotes, even if she chooses to interpret it differently from the author and play down the seriousness and legitimacy of his concerns. 

Hinsliff insists the work "circles round the same repetitive themes" and "regurgitates the same misleading myths" concerning immigration that UKIP like to peddle. But, ultimately, it's she who bores us by repeating the well-worn platitudes of liberalism and her feigned ignorance - at least I hope its feigned - of what makes European culture uniquely precious and worth defending.

In a tweet, published on the same day that her review appeared in The Guardian, Hinsliff jokes that she'd read Murray's book so that her readers wouldn't have to - hardly an inspiring model of criticism. But, in that same spirit, I'm writing this so that you'll not waste your time clicking on the link below - whilst at the same time strongly recommending Murray's text.


Notes

Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, (Bloomsbury, 2017).

To read Gaby Hinsliff's review of the above in The Guardian (6 May 2017): click here. 

To read my reflections on Murray's text, click here.  

Photo of Gaby Hinsliff by Mark Pringle. Photo of Douglas Murray by Matt Writtle. 

Uranus

Uranus photographed by Voyager 2 in 1986

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken

One of the things I like about being an Aquarian is that I have Uranus as my ruling planet. Some love Venus, some love Mars - but, for me, the electric blue ice giant that is Uranus is the most beautiful of all the bodies orbiting the sun.

Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system and multiple moons. But - and this is what makes it so attractive to me - images taken by Voyager 2 revealed the planet itself to be almost featureless; there's nothing overly dramatic about it - no storms, no scenes, no nonsense. It's just cold and blue and perfect in its neutrality.    

That's how I like my planets and gods to be; completely impersonal; neither attention-seeking nor awe-inspiring.

In fact, so unshowy and content was Uranus to remain outside the classical solar system, that, although visible to the naked eye, it didn't allow itself to be recognised as a planet by ancient observers. It wasn't until 1781 that the astronomer and composer Sir William Herschel took a long look through his telescope and declared it to be such (and even he initially mistook it for a comet).

As for the name, Uranus, the Latinised form of the ancient Greek Οὐρανός [Ouranos] - meaning sky or heaven - this was given by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode, after Herschel failed to come up with a catchy suggestion of his own.

(His proposal that it be known as Georgium Sidus, in honour of his patron King George III, wasn't well received and so Bode's name for the new planet quickly gained wide - eventually universal - acceptance).   

Interestingly, on this subject of names, fans of a certain cinematic space opera might be amused to hear that in one of its Thai translations Uranus is known as Dao Maritayu or Death Star. Indeed, as a thanatologist, this pleases me too ...

Zulus on a Time Bomb (On the Politics of S. Africa from the Perspective of a Disillusioned Duck Rocker)

South African President Jacob Zuma 

wearing traditional Zulu costume 
(apart from the footwear)

I remember how excited Malcolm was to have visited Soweto in South Africa and to have recorded several tracks with local musicians for his Duck Rock project (Charisma Records, 1983), combining the spirit of punk with the sound of mbaqanga; a style of joyous, energetic dance music with rural Zulu roots popular in the townships, particularly amongst migrant workers.

He used to love to talk about King Shaka and tell the story of how red-coated, well-armed British soldiers were defeated at the Battle of Isandlwana, not by superior numbers, but by the magical power of song and dance; by native warriors who, armed only with spears, put on a big beat sound and stomped, barefoot on the ground, terrifying their pale-faced enemy.

How factually accurate McLaren's retelling of the above was, I'm not entirely sure. But his romantic anti-imperialism was something I found very appealing and convincing at the time and whilst I didn't go on protests or join the Anti-Apartheid Movement, I suppose I was vaguely sympathetic to the plight of black South Africans.

Times change, however, and our political sympathies (and prejudices) also shift ...

Now, two of the idiots I despise most on the world stage are Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, and Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa. One might have hoped that the latter would have observed the former and learned precisely what not to do if at all concerned with securing the future of his nation. But, alas, it seems that Zuma is as intent on wrecking his country's economy and inciting violence along race lines as Mugabe.

In March of this year, for example, Zuma called on the South African parliament to change the constitution in order to allow the expropriation of white-owned land without any form of compensation.

His fantasy, it seems, is of returning the country to a pre-colonial paradise. But this resorting to racist populism is also to divert attention from his own dismal record as president since 2009 and the fact that his party, the ANC, has been losing votes to the more radical Economic Freedom Fighters, led by Julius Malema, who advocates a far more aggressive taking back of land from those he terms white invaders and Dutch thugs.

Comments such as these have triggered understandable alarm among the minority white population and activist groups such as the Boer-Afrikaner Volksraad, which claims to have 40,000 armed members ready to fight, says it would regard any attempt to seize land and property as a declaration of war.

Disappointingly - but perhaps predictably - it seems the so-called Rainbow Nation is on the brink of catastrophe; that today, all South Africans, not just the Zulus, are sitting on a time bomb ...


The Malcolm McLaren single Soweto, produced by Trevor Horn, was released on Charisma Records in 1983. The video, directed by Ian Gabriel, can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here.

The 'B' side, Zulus on a Time Bomb, also produced by Trevor Horn and with an accompanying video again directed by Ian Gabriel, can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here.  

To Have Done With the Judgement of Judy

If you live to be a hundred, 

you will never be as smart as I am.

Like millions of viewers worldwide - particularly female viewers aged between 25 and 54 - I feel a lot of love for Judith Sheindlin, or Judge Judy, as she's known when dealing with real cases, real people in a Hollywood film studio mocked-up to resemble a courtroom and full of hired extras performing as instructed. 

For twenty years, this fast-talking, no-nonsense New Yorker, has presided over the airwaves in her award-winning reality show, clocking up almost 6000 episodes in that time. She's the acknowledged queen of daytime TV and one of its highest earners. An icon of popular culture, a poll once revealed that a majority of Americans trust her more than any of the Supreme Court justices.

However, despite my fondness for Sheindlin - an attractive and intelligent woman in her seventies - I've found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the spectacle of a well-educated, highly successful, extremely wealthy individual in a position of authority instructing people who are markedly less fortunate to put on their listening ears just so she can berate and insult them for the amusement of viewers such as myself.

It's not her abrasive manner per se that concerns me and I don't believe like one of her most ferocious critics and fellow judge, Joseph Wapner (the first ever star of an arbitration-based reality court show), that she's a disgrace to the profession who purposely demeans those who appear before her. Sheindlin's schtick is mostly performative; she understands that the show is intended to entertain and generate ratings, not provide an accurate portrayal of the justice system.

It's just that it can be a bit galling when a woman earning $47 million dollars for 52 days work a year tells someone struggling to pay their debts about the necessity of living within their means, or suggest they they might make extra money collecting cans. And, what's more, just because you don't have a law degree, doesn't mean you're stupid; just because you don't have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, doesn't make you a loser.        

Having said that, those who appear on Judge Judy - described by hardcore fans as the endless parade of idiots - are consenting adults and must have at least an inkling of what they sign up to. Further, both plaintiffs and defendants receive an appearance fee, plus all expenses are paid for them and their witnesses, including flights and hotels.

In addition, it should be noted that the award for each judgment is also paid by the producers of the show and not the losing party - a fact that blows a rather large hole in the conceit that Judge Judy is about making individuals acknowledge their responsibilities and not allowing them to benefit from acts of wrongdoing, no matter how small in scale their infringements of the law may be.

This is why Lady Justice lifts her blindfold in the opening credits and winks to the camera; she knows perfectly well what's going on and it's the viewer who is expected to turn a blind eye to the truth of events in Sheindlin's fantasy courtroom.  

Three Portraits of Naomi 3: Naomi's Fruit Passion

Introductory Note

The three portraits of London-born supermodel Naomi Campbell that I wish to discuss were all taken by David LaChapelle for an issue of Playboy magazine (1 Dec 1999). As one might expect, all are visually stunning and typical in terms of composition and content of LaChapelle's aesthetico-erotic obsessions at this period. Unfortunately, these obsessions - such as his very obvious black girl fetish - rest upon rather questionable sexual and racial politics  ...     

Naomi Campbell: Fruit Passion (1999)

By David LaChapelle

In the third portrait, Naomi is displayed as the ripest, sweetest and juiciest centrepiece in an exotic fruit salad. Lying passively and provocatively, the object of masturbatory male gaze, she invites us to squeeze, taste, and consume her soft, smooth, easily bruised flesh.

The afro wig serves to remind us of her blackness and of the exotic origin of much of the world's fresh produce. But it also adds an element of nostalgia; the photo has a funky seventies feel to it, a period when Playboy was at its peak in terms of circulation and cultural relevance (the November 1972 issue was the best-selling ever edition of the magazine, with sales topping seven million copies).

The seventies was also the decade during which the sub-genre of exploitation movie known as blaxploitation emerged in the United States. Featuring a mostly black cast and originally developed for an urban black audience, the appeal of these movies quickly spread across racial boundaries as white movie-goers learned to love films such as Shaft (dir. Gordon Parks, 1971), and Foxy Brown (dir. Jack Hill, 1974).

The latter starred the undisputed queen of the genre, Pam Grier, in the title role. Foxy was a whole lot of woman whom you wouldn't want to mess aroun' with, seeing as she was the meanest chick in town; a sexy mix of brown sugar and spice who, apparently, would put on ice any man who didn't treat her nice. As one might gather, the film relied upon and reinforced a number of racist stereotypes concerning black women, their sexuality, their sassiness, and their all-too-ready involvement in criminal violence, prostitution, and drug abuse.

Having said that, there are feminist film critics who feel a good deal of respect and affection for Foxy Brown, not least of all because she was a strong and independent African-American woman, fearless in confronting male power, seeking justice, and attempting to protect (or avenge) loved ones to the best of her ability in extremely trying circumstances.

Whilst we might discuss this further in a future post, I'd like to return here if I may to LaChapelle's portrait of Naomi and his pornographic imagining of the female body in terms of fruit ...

There is, of course, a long established tradition in the arts in which this metaphorical comparison is made and sex is equated with food. Indeed, it quickly became a cliché for (predominantly male) poets and painters to compare breasts to melons, nipples to dark cherries, and moist cunts to ripe figs that show crimson through the purple slit, as D. H. Lawrence would have it.

So, LaChapelle is certainly not doing anything groundbreaking. Far more innovative and provocative are the fruit-fingering videos of the artist and vulva activist Stephanie Sarley, which last year caused a viral storm on social media. The less-than-innocent but technically blameless videos depicted a range of fruits, including oranges, limes, lemons, strawberries, apricots, and kiwis, being gently caressed, rubbed, and poked by Sarley until their skins split and juices oozed out.

Ever prepared to act the censor-morons, Instagram ludicrously removed the videos and disabled Sarley's account on several occasions, informing her that they infringed the company's rules governing 'sexually suggestive content'.

You have to smile, for it seems that when a celebrated male photographer places a naked black woman in a fruit bowl and invites the male consumers of a pornographic magazine to objectify her body and ejaculate over her image, before then discarding it - as Kant would say - like a sucked dry lemon, that's socially acceptable. Indeed, the photo is reproduced many times in art and fashion magazines and deemed either a work of stylish eroticism, or a harmless and ironic piece of kitsch.

But when a woman simply posts a short film of her finger penetrating a pomegranate and, in so doing, subtly challenge tired clichés and sexual stereotypes with humour and absurdity, then she can be assured to receive a shitload of vile abuse online and have her work removed by the self-appointed moral guardians of Instagram in the name of defending public decency.        

It's no wonder women - of all skin tones - sometimes get angry ...


Note: those interested in watching Stephanie Sarley's fruit art videos can find them on her official website: stephaniesarley.com  

To read part one of this post - Naomi as Playmate, Bunny Girl and Jezebel - click here.

To read part two of this post - Naomi in the Cat House - click here. 

Three Portraits of Naomi 2: Naomi in the Cat House

Introductory Note

The three portraits of London-born supermodel Naomi Campbell that I wish to discuss were all taken by David LaChapelle for an issue of Playboy magazine (1 Dec 1999). As one might expect, all are visually stunning and typical in terms of composition and content of LaChapelle's aesthetico-erotic obsessions at this period. Unfortunately, these obsessions - such as his very obvious black girl fetish - rest upon rather questionable sexual and racial politics  ...     

Naomi Campbell: Cat House (1999)

By David LaChapelle 

In this second portrait we find Naomi in the cat house ...

I don't know if LaChapelle supplied the title to the picture, but it wouldn't surprise me, for a 2006 book published by Taschen featuring his work was called Artists and Prostitutes, so his ideal of womanhood is clearly rooted in the porno-moral imagination and perpetuates a philosophy not so much of the bedroom, as of the brothel.

It's not, however, the stereotype of woman-as-whore that I wish to discuss here, as fascinating and as important as this is. Rather, I wish to comment on the idea of woman-as-animal; in particular, the white male obsession with portraying the sexuality of black women in bestial terms - as here, where Naomi is depicted naked and on all fours, like a wild jungle creature in need of taming (try to kiss her and she'll claw you to death).

Whether we are supposed to imagine Naomi being mounted by a leopard and interpret this photo as a zoosexual fantasy, or understand that she is herself some kind of cat-woman, marked with the curse of those who slink and mate and kill by night and whose femininity is distinctly feline in nature, I'm not sure. Either way, it's understandably troubling to women of colour who have to deal with the consequences of such dehumanising mythology - and I sympathise with those who object to being thought of in animalistic terms that have sexist and racist overtones.

Having said that, I have to admit to still finding LaChapelle's photograph of Naomi extremely seductive. In part, this is due to the glossy technical brilliance of the picture and Campbell's astonishing beauty; she wasn't one of the original five women branded a supermodel for no reason. But it's also due to the fact that German actress and model Nastassja Kinski was very much the object of my teenage desire; particularly in her role as the ailuranthrope Irena Gallier, in the queer erotic horror Cat People (dir. Paul Schrader, 1982).

For better or for worse, this film - and the equally disturbing 1942 movie of the same title upon which it was loosely based - forever fixed the fetishistic (and occult) idea in my mind that there are rare and exotic women in this world who turn into black panthers when sexually aroused; their melanism being a crucial component of their allure. 

And so, whilst hopefully sensitive to the politics at play within representations of women - particularly women of African origin - that portray them in a primitive, fetishistic, hypersexual and inhuman manner (as wild animals in a state of perpetual heat and undress), I suspect I'm always going to be ravished by them.


To read part one of this post - Naomi as Playmate, Bunny Girl and Jezebel - click here. 

To read part three of this post - Naomi's Fruit Passion - click here.