The ever-classy lad magazine Maxim is “pranking” the Bush twins in the April issue by featuring a heavily doctored photograph of the twins in lingerie. The faces are theirs, the bodies…not so much.
Now, I hate Bush as much as the next feminist and I’m not exactly a fan of the twins either. But “pranking” Jenna and Barbara this way seems more like total humiliation than a harmless jab. (Did they take a cue from She's All That? I wonder...)
Should the Bush twins decide to bare all themselves, I'd be fine with it; but Maxim ripping their clothes off (i.e. doctoring a bunch of photos) is just plain degrading.
And this is a minor point, but the cultural fetishism of twins and sisters has got to stop, too. Hello, it’s frigging incest!? Actually, Shari Waxman did a piece for Salon on the twin fetish via that gross Coors advertisement a while back…good stuff.
Any thoughts?
Contributed by Jess Wakeman
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This isn't new. "Celebrity fakes" have become so commonplace that one man actually actually managed to draw international attention and paychecks for his ability to determine which images were real (google for "Fake Detective").
It's done with men as well as women, actually, though the vast majority are done with women. I keep waiting for one of those images to draw a libel case, but it never seems to happen, possibly because once you're a celebrity, you lose a lot of legal protections. I find that a lot of things done to celebrities dishonest and degrading, but there's a valid concern that attempting to constrain it will also catch a lot of important, if uncomfortable, political speech aimed at public figures (a direct equivalent of pasting someone's head on another's body is the cartoon of the Pope as the Harlot of Babylon, dating back to the 1400s, which is indisputibly political speech).
As a side note on incest, since the basis for the taboo lies either in abuse of power within a family (generally intergenerational or against minors), or in the genetic damage to any offspring, I have a hard time caring whether consenting, non-interfertile adults are related to their partners.
Entertaining addendum: apparently, this has just been done to Dick Cheney as well:
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/politics/61680
somebody's jealous ...
Twin fetishism amuses me because it reminds me of those old psychological theories that homosexuality is narcissism because, uh, apparently if someone's genitals are configured like yours they're exactly like you in every way....
Wonder what it's called when you like to watch two people who actually do look alike being narcissistic?