half-naked women

I found it very interesting in class the other day when we were analyzing the Guess jeans ad. We talked about what the sexy model represented and said to our subconscious when we looked at the ad. What I thought was interesting was as we were transitioning into a different topic, the prof casually referred to the model as a "half-naked woman." However the woman was fully clothed, with capri jeans on and a t shirt that covered her shoulders and her chest. The only abnormal skin showing was a few inches of skin at her midriff which is common to see on teenage girls at the mall. The woman was fully clothed and lying on her stomach but the fact that she was beautiful and on a billboard caused her to be classified as a half-naked woman. I just wonder what this says about the idea of sexiness in our society. It seems like you can't be beautiful or sexy in advertising without being put in the category of half-naked sluts who bare it all. This begs the question of whether or not there is a middle ground. Can a woman only be plain and dowdy or a hussy? Why is an attractive woman, fully clothed, referred to as "half-naked" by a socially conscious intellectual?

role of a critic

The role of a critic is to be able to study and analyze something through the lens of objectivity. A critic should be able to remove themselves from their own feeling and emotion and objectively make observations about whatever it is they are criticizing. The role of a critic of popular culture specifically should be able to analyze popular culture to see why it is popular, what the underlying aspects are of whatever it is they are looking at that cause people to be attracted to it and take it up, and understand the effects that popular culture has on a person or a group of people. I believe in the class I am supposed to be objectively learning. Learning about methods of criticism, about other people’s ideas and theories and deciding my own, and learning the lenses of criticism through which to study popular culture. I think that we study popular culture in order to better understand ourselves. By studying popular culture we see inside people to what they desire and what they respond to and by knowing what people in general desire and care about, we are able to discover what we ourselves care about and respond to. Understanding the why behind the popular nature of different aspects of popular culture not only offers a lens of insight into society or a subset of society but also into oneself and I believe it is very important for every person to know themselves. I hope to get out of the class a little more insight into the mass mindset of society and a little more insight into myself and my own innate desires and respondents.