Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Emma Sulkowicz, Pornformance Artist

Now that she has graduated Columbia University Emma Sulkowicz, aka Mattress Girl, is seeking new frontiers to conquer.

You will recall that Sulkowicz accused a fellow student of having raped her. And you will recall that her complaint was dismissed by the relevant university authorities. The police investigated and could not find reason to file charges.

Unwilling to accept these judgments Sulkowicz asserted her truth through performance art. Better yet, she has been martyring herself for it.

By carrying around a mattress, up to and including at her graduation ceremony, she was protesting a verdict. And of course, she was defaming the man she had accused: Paul Nungesser.

Now, Sulkowicz has taken the next step to advance her career as a performance artist.

She has done a performance porn. Specifically, she re-enacted her version of the event in question and posted it. Apparently, the male performer who has sex with her was himself a porn star. Identifying yourself as mattress girl probably does not improve your dating prospects.

I will spare you the link, but you can find it through Lizzie Crocker’s column on the piece.

Sulkowicz has gone from performance art to pornformance art.

Perhaps you have to be of a certain age to think this way, but when I first read about the pornformance I had a fleeting thought, to the effect: “Mom and Dad must be proud!”

Sad to say, but Mom and Dad are proud of their progeny. In fact, Sulkowicz’s mother, named Sandra Leong posted her daughter’s pornformance on her own Facebook page. Happily, Crocker’s article has a screen shot.

You will naturally ask yourself: What kind of parents feel a surge of pride when their daughter becomes a porn star?

And you will not be surprised to know that these parents are psychiatrists. In fact, Sulkowicz’s father is not only a psychiatrist; he is a psychoanalyst. And a prominent figure in the field. Her mother, as best as I can discern, is merely a psychiatrist.

Perhaps the parents are thrilled by the thought that their daughter has martyred herself for a cause. Perhaps they think she is going to be the next Picasso… or the next Belle Knox.

Apparently, they have given no thought to the consequences that befall porn stars or to the reputational price a young woman will pay for identifying herself as the mattress girl turned porn star.

For those who doubt that the therapy culture promotes shamelessness and puts the good of an ideology over what is good for children, here is some living proof.

4 comments:

  1. Read the unbiased truth: The complete Emma Sulkowicz timeline: http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sooo, THREE (COUNT THEM, THREE!) messed up people.

    ReplyDelete
  3. re: And you will recall that her complaint was dismissed by the relevant university authorities. The police investigated and could find reason to file charges.

    It looks like a "not" is missing from the second sentence above.

    It does seem like "artists" are people who feel a need to express their inner suffering outwardly, and I can imagine their motives contain some sort of heroic rationalization, that showing their suffering to the world will help others in pain, but keeping quiet, so far?

    Speaking of feelings I just heard of a new animated film, personifying 5 emotions inside a young girl, Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Out_(2015_film)
    ----------
    Inside Out is a 2015 American 3D computer-animated fantasy–comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film is based on an original idea by Pete Docter, who is directing the film. The film will be set in the mind of a young girl, Riley Anderson, where five emotions—Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness—try to lead the girl through her life.
    ---------

    Adding disgust is an interesting one for a top-5. I listened to an NPR interview and the director said he took from a list of 6 primary emotions, but dropped surprise. He said that after the interviewer asked about guilt, and the director said some didn't consider it an emotion.

    Apparently the 6-list comes from facial expressions, so this is what we communicate to the world, even if we don't know it.

    http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/basic%20emotions.htm
    Ekman, Friesen, and Ellsworth: Anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise
    From
    Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Ellsworth, P. (1982). What emotion categories or dimensions can observers judge from facial behavior? In P. Ekman (Ed.), Emotion in the human face (pp. 39-55). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Like mother like daughter

    ReplyDelete