30 May 2008 | Americas
Coffee chain Starbucks has come under attack from a San Diego based Christian group after it changed it’s logo from an innocent mermaid, to a more graphic bare-chested, open-legged mermaid.
The group, called the Resistance, has called on it’s 3,000 members to boycott the coffee chain.
Mark Dice, founder of the Resistance said: ‘The Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute…The company might as well call itself Slutbucks.’
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29 May 2008 | Comment, United Kingdom
Mary Whitehouse was a shrill provocateur on a relentless crusade to stifle, oppress and scare, writes
Padraig Reidy
Mary Whitehouse has always been a peripheral idea in my life — one of those puppets on Spitting Image I never really recognised as a child, but laughed at anyway, because if I didn’t seem to be paying attention, my parents might revoke the ‘being allowed up late to watch Spitting Image’ licence they had so generously granted.
Later, in my smart-arsed adolescence, came the Mary Whitehouse Experience, the apotheosis of smart-arsed comedy. I don’t think I really knew where the name came from, save from the notion of some batty old woman.
That batty old woman turned up again last night, in the BBC’s Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story. Whitehouse herself was played by Julie Walters, which, to me at least, immediately makes her a sympathetic character: everyone likes Julie Walters, not least because she generally plays likeable people. The casting directors might claim they merely picked a great actor (and Walters is a great actor) but I can’t help being reminded of the casting of Brad Pitt as an IRA volunteer in The Devil’s Own: back then, the producers furiously rebuffed notions that they were “glamorising” the IRA, but, being honest, the very fact of casting Pitt had to imply glamour. Pitt is intrinsically glamorous, and Walters is intrinsically likeable.
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13 May 2008 | Comment, Middle East and North Africa
Eugenie Dolberg and Maysoon Pachachi remember a brave activist and journalist killed in Iraq earlier this month
Sarwa Abdul Wahab Al Darwish was a 36-year-old Iraqi journalist from Mosul. On 4 May, Sarwa was in a taxi, returning from the market with her mother. The car was stopped and she was dragged out by two men attempting to kidnap her. Sarwa screamed and struggled against her would-be abductors. They shot her twice in the head and drove away.
We first met Sarwa in December 2006 when she came to Damascus with 11 other Iraqi women from five different cities — Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk and Falluja. They were there to take part in Open Shutters Iraq, a UNDP-funded participatory photography project.
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8 May 2008 | Comment, News, United Kingdom
Visual artists and even pop stars could face prosecution under new British legislation, writes John Ozimek
Collectors looking to make a fast buck by investing in erotica had a nervous awakening this morning. And fans of Madonna were left wondering whether they would need to mutilate one of her most famous books.
The Criminal Justice Bill, which received royal assent today, includes new laws on ‘extreme pornography’. This makes it illegal to possess images that depict ‘explicit realistic extreme acts’ that are also ‘grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character’. The penalty, if found guilty, is up to three years in prison.
Supporters claim that the target of the bill is very clear. Others are not so sure.
Sex, by Madonna, caused controversy on its publication in 1992. It was shot by respected photographer Steven Meisel. But critics accused it of including hardcore images of sado-masochism and even bestiality. In one photo, Madonna appears threatened by a knife. In another she appears in a sexually suggestive pose with a dog. Sex was banned in Japan.
Up to 100,000 copies may still be owned in the UK. Mint copies of this work are being traded for up to £700 on Amazon.
Confusion reigns. A barrister with expertise in this area argues that at least one of the images in Madonna’s book could pass all three tests set by the new law.
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