What is the purpose of the right to bear arms? In my opinion it is an extension of the right to self-defense which itself is an extension, or remedy in extreme circumstances, of the right to life. I don’t think that a component of the right to bear arms has to do with the “coolness” of weapons or with flippantly relating sex and violence to one another in an advertisement.
I believe it is important to critique images that promote the use of weapons for harm and especially images that imply harm to those who are often the victim of such harm.
This week Hawthorne Cutlery ran an ad in the Willamette Week that says “Give Dad what he really wants for Father’s Day.” The image behind the text shows five knives covering the pubic region of a naked young woman’s lower body. The knives are pointing upward toward her belly, as though they are thrusting up through her pubic region.
The image itself would be extremely disturbing, but with the added text the collage becomes even more disturbing. The image metaphorically expresses an extremely violent sexual act, but by saying “Give dad what he really wants,” as though what he really wants is sex (implied by the naked woman and by the implication of the phrase itself), the ad implies molestation. The image might be interpreted: “Instead of giving your father sex, give him a new knife that will then be turned against you in violence.”
The woman in the picture is the person I would hope can get self-defense training (through firearms training or other means, should she be uncomfortable with firearms) so that should a weapon be used against her, such as the knives depicted in this ad, she could act quickly and decisively to protect her body, her psyche and her life.
I believe the commercial was designed by unskilled designers and that it likely doesn’t express the intentions of the shop owner. If you go to their website http://www.hawthornecutlery.com/ you can see that they don’t have any other similar aesthetics. Most of the aesthetics are in a Japanese theme, which is admittedly quite a misogynist culture, but Japanese motifs themselves do not necessarily carry discriminatory cultural practices. In America these designs most often represent the kind of calm that Zen Buddhism promises.
Often the arts use weapons to help develop a story. A character is forced out of his or her usual lifestyle by hoodlums who chase and try to kill the main character, but he or she ultimately prevails through prowess, mental agility, strength or chance. This use of weapons and violence is part of a kind of cathartic storytelling, but it is myth. It is not related to the use of actual tools and weapons in every-day life. A story closes at the end, so the reader or viewer puts down the book or walks out of the theater with closure. One thing that is disturbing about the ad is that I think the designer is trying to draw on the myth and storytelling tradition, but the call to action the ad makes is for viewers to buy these particular knives. Rather than offering closure it calls the viewer to enter the world of the violent story rather than showing that the particular knife is a well-crafted tool for use by ordinary people.
I do believe it is worth sending the shop owner an email to indicate that the designer that put together the image is being offensive rather than edgy.
Here's the ad:
