Alabama: 19th Century Too Risque
The drawing below is a vintage 1895 bicycle advertising poster, featuring a nude nymph flying alongside a winged bike. The ad appeared at the height of the European bicycle craze, which liberated women to leave the house without petticoats, chaperone, or horse-and-carriage for the first time.
Hahn Family Wines bottles its Cabernet with the famous ad as its label.
The State of Alabama has now criminalized the sale of wine in these bottles, citing the law against alcohol advertising featuring “any person(s) posed in an immodest or sensuous manner.”
Some say that censorship is a slippery slope. But the slope isn’t slippery: those who censor run as fast as they can to attack life wherever they see it. That’s why we have to identify and resist censorship in all its forms, even when we don’t want the specific right being challenged (I’m a Chardonnay guy, myself). We don’t defend this label (or South Park or disgusting stories about violent sex), we defend the right to create, buy, sell, or see this label (and various other creations).
For centuries, lawmakers around the world have seized the power to criminalize immodesty, sensuousness, immorality, indecency, decadence, lewdness, licentiousness, eroticism, depravity, debauchery, and (ahem) crimes against nature.
These subjective states are impossible to define, easy to label, and a wonderful target for anyone uncomfortable with their own sexuality. They’re a great way to attack anyone with a shred of life in their bodies or souls. It’s absolutely impossible to defend oneself against such a vague-yet-fundamental attack.
It’s easy to pick on the little minds in Alabama who fear, hate, and ultimately try to destroy what this 110-year-old drawing represents. But that erotophobic culture thrives in every American state: In California, where a hotel was prevented from hosting a swingers’ convention; in Wisconsin, where attempts were made to publicly burn a children’s book; in Kansas, where a doctor was murdered for aborting fetuses; in Pennsylvania, where people were jailed for making adult movies; in Iowa, where the government has closed strip clubs; in Florida, where seniors are now prohibited from acting in porn films.
I don’t care where you live: when it comes to sexual expression, we all live in Alabama.
Of course, Alabama is also the state that criminalizes the sale of sex toys. Its lawmakers are clearly obsessed with sex. Too bad they don’t care as much for education. This guarantees that Alabama will stay Alabama—where sexuality is feared more than ignorance.
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Comments
Not a sex censorship issue - an alcohol issue
I like this site a lot sometimes, but every now and again an article will blow its topic way out of proportion. For all the other faults of the lawmakers of Alabama, this ban really isn't so bad. They have *not* censored sexual expression as such in this case - the image *itself* is still perfectly legal, yes? It's merely the image *as used to market alcohol* that's disallowed. Given all the problems that irresponsible consumption of alcohol causes in our societies, any reasonable measure which prohibits marketers from (ab)using sexuality to advertise a potentially harmful product isn't a measure I'm going to criticise. The informed adult choice to consume or not consume alcohol is an important decision, not to be trifled with.
Which is not to say you shouldn't cover the topic. If you can tone down the opinionated ranting, I think there's a real opportunity for debate here. Is it always OK to use sex to sell non-sexy products, regardless of the potential harmfulness of the product (if abused)? If not, where do we draw the line? Should it be legislated? Is enforcement desirable? An article which explicitly asks these questions (even if it then provides the author's opinion in response in order to kickstart the debate) is, to me, much more interesting than one which merely rants about Alabama.
There's my 2c; take 'em or leave 'em.
It IS censorship
The image is being censored - you can still buy chardonnay.
Please don't make excuses for the tyrannical evangelicals who do their best to abuse government and make life hell for the rest of us in the South.
I live in Alabama where we watch our citizens spend money on Florida's lottery and drive to Missiussippi casinos instead of supporting our own state because it'sd not allowed here.
We put people in jail for selling dildos here.
Prohibiting the use of this 1895 poster as a label will not save a single person from alcoholism.
It just encourages our home grown Taliban.
I disagree with the use of
I disagree with the use of sexual images to sell alcohol and suddenly I'm complicit in jail terms for dildo users! There's no halfway with you, is there? It's exactly this kind of black and white thinking that causes this nonsense - I mean the illegality of dildos and so on - in the first place. I sympathise with your plight - honestly I do - but you're not going to dig your way out of it by frothing at the mouth and likening Americans to the Taliban. No matter how apt the comparison might be!
I had hoped to spark an intelligent debate around the use of sex in advertising, but clearly any attempt to think deeply rather than react violently would only lend succor to the enemy. So I guess I'll be going now.
The issue is censorship
I didn't come here to discuss your obviously high opinion of yourself.
Again, if the exact same wine company were to replace its label, they would be legal.
Therefore, whatever the motivation, this is censorship.
Oh well....
Censorship = nazi.
fuck.
Do-as-I-sa-not-as-I-do ignoramouses telling us how to live...
In your last post you said goodbye after some well written responses to your original post successfully negated your ignorant claim that this wasn't censorship. You initially said you wanted to debate the issue intelligently, but what is there to debate? The issue as to weather a basic 100-year-old drawing can be used on a bottle or wine or not is either censorship by ignorant southern christian do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do hicks or it is not. I say that it IS censorship by a bunch of ignorant southern christian do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do ignoramuses.
How can anyone believe that this drawing adds to alcohol abuse? I think you are just uncomfortable with the human form. You'd probably have a heart attack if it was a drawing of a nude male.
There is a historical bronze statue that was brought to to our city by a well-to-do and respected architect and put on display over 100 years ago in a beautiful fountain in our town center. The statue is of two little boys playing in a stream of water with a few turtles spurting water at them. They are naked and innocent. About 15 years ago a group of people had the penis removed with a blow torch and a bronze "cloth" was then melted over the offending region between the boy's legs. The statue's meaning has been totally corrupted because of the backwards mentality of these people - from a modern Massachusetts community no less! Our town is just a 45 minute drive outside of Boston and even here these backwards people push their views on others. Who cares that 98% of the town loved the statue the way it was.
If you don't like what you see on a bottle of wine then don't buy it. If you are offended by the human form then you need to get laid.
-Charles
Alabama's fear of porn
I can't think of a better way to take the glitz out of porn than mandating elderly porn actors.
This isn't a problem in search of a solution
This isn't a problem in search of a solution, this is about "final solution" mindsets causing a problem.
Unless Talibama allows alcohol to be sold in places other than liquor stores, who exactly is going to be seeing the labels? Adults over 21, that's who. Under 21s can't enter the stores, so who the hell is going to be "offended" except for prissy and uptight fundamentally retarded...I mean, fundamentalist christians?
This isn't an issue of "censorship", "offensiveness" or "nudity", this is about uptight morons pretending to be offended by something.
In Alabama alcohol is sold in
In Alabama alcohol is sold in places other than liquor stores, such as grocery stores, etc.