Glam happenings: an update

Just finished my first attempt at a radio documentary.

And what did The Sun do as soon as I had just completed work on my News Not Boobs documentary? Remove page 3 of course! Well, in Ireland anyway. Ireland is now page three-free, a move its editor, Paul Clarkson, has put down to ‘cultural differences’. Is this a bit of a dig at us English? It almost suggests that bare breasts in a newspaper are a part of English cultural identity, like bangers and mash or incorrect use of the word ‘literally’.

So why have these cultural differences only just been noticed by Paul Clarkson? The paper has featured nipples for years. Seems to me that he’s actually just feeling the pressure of the anti-page 3 brigade, and their many tweets, blogs, tumblrs, YouTube videos and Facebook posts.

Social Media 1- Irish Sun boobs 0

But there have been more developments.

The glamour girls too have taken to twitter, and they’re taking on the boob blockers. Lucy Collett, The Sun’s ‘Ravishing red-top red head’, appeared in the paper yesterday in a barely-there black lace bra, with suspenders and a matching black suspender belt, staring seductively at the camera through heavy false eyelashes. A provocative image. But this glamour girl, the paper claimed, ‘has a lot of front – that’s why she’ll be appearing on telly tomorrow standing up for the Sun.’ Lucy Collett seems untroubled by the irony of ‘a lot of front’, a phrase undoubtedly connected more to her bulging bosom in her picture than her debating skills.

Nevertheless, as the article warned, and as she promised on twitter, Lucy appeared via a skype link to argue her case. As a larger than average model (a whole size 12!) Lucy says she is promoting a curvy shape and good self esteem by appearing topless in a menagerie of magazines and papers. And she’s also joined in a conversation taking place amongst various glamour models on Twitter, responding to the @NoMorePage3 crowd with questions like, ‘how would you feel if I was campaigning to take away your financial security?’

It reminds me of a tweet model Emma Kuziara sent out after we met for an interview for my documentary: @Emma_K_Model ‘Just done an interview with a student doing her dissertation on No More Page 3- got to get our glamour girls’ point of view in there!’ This was responded to by a couple of other glamour models, who tried to get the hash tag #GlamourGirlPower going.

This is what social media is all about. Not lecturing singular points of view, but a two-way street, where anyone can add to the discussion and become part of it. This way the discussion really takes a life of its own and can be quite powerful, as we’ve seen with the sudden removal of page 3 from the Irish Sun.

But what I think is really important, is that social media has allowed the glamour girls too to join this discussion, and by giving opinions and arguments, prove that they are rounded personalities, and celebrities: not just de-humanised sex-objects.  This has got to be a step in the right direction,  albeit a defeat for those No More Page 3-ers who have argued that the models are nothing more than exploited objects.

News not Boobs

I’m sorry. A blog cannot be just for the Easter break. And not having posted since March is not exactly fulfilling my news years resolution of blogging frequently, but I’ve been a busy girl. I’ve been working towards a rather unusual dissertation that actually has an awful lot to do with social media. I’ve been creating a 12 minute radio documentary about the No More Page 3 campaign.

It’s big news. It’s had everyone from Rupert Murdoch, to the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, to Woman’s Hour listeners tweeting, blogging and instagramming.  And I was fortunate enough to meet the campaign’s creator, Lucy Holmes, at a demonstration she organised outside News International in May. I wanted to chat to her about her inspiration for trying to remove the infamous page from the Sun newspaper. Page 3, she said, ‘Just kind of weirded me out’.

Her campaign has an online petition that has more than 106,000 supporters, plus a twitter account followed by nearly 17,000. But it has to be said, the ’70s inspired flash mob did not have a great turn out. A few bewildered looking passers by and my incredibly uncomfortable looking boyfriend (who had been dragged along to hold my bags while I ran around trying to get interviews) made up about half of the spectators.

Nevertheless, the campaign has some very reasoned arguments, and has received a huge amount of support online. This has included some rather interesting and creative tokens of support. My favourite is this spoken poem by Sabrina Mahfouz. Well worth watching, despite me feeling that certain sentiments overstate how difficult life actually is for a young woman in 2013. The flash mob featured the slightly less creative ’70s theme though, to align with one of its main arguments that  page 3 is a ’70s creation that is outmoded and outdated. They came complete with flares, tie-die and a protest song sung to the tune of YMCA.  But they seem to have had a set back. The new Editor of the Sun, David Dinsmore, has categorically said that the Sun’s future will involve page 3.

So why does page 3 have such staying power? I also spoke to Emma Kuziara, a 19 year glamour model and student at my alma mater, the good old University of Nottingham.  She argued that many Sun readers’ motivation in buying  the newspaper is to view the images of these young women, many of whom she counts as her friends, not just its famous sport and news pages. Emma was very interesting to talk to. She struck me as determined, driven and focused on her studies. A self-confessed limelight hogger, her choice of profession was an easy one she says. It’s hard not to empathise with her. I could tell she loves what she does. She finds in empowering, not belittling, as Holmes would suggest. She was incredibly frustrated when I mentioned Holmes had told me that the girls were disrespected because of what they do, and even exploited. In fact, it seems to me that Emma has a lot of power over what she does; she chooses which shoots to do and how and when, and for which publications.

So I feel like I’ve heard both sides of the story. And to tell the truth I would be on the fence. Except for one very important fact. The Sun describe themselves as a family newspaper. But how can family orientated material co-exist with, let’s face it, soft porn? I don’t believe young children should be able to see such images on the kitchen table. And it can pop up in so many other circumstances. I’ve experienced it whilst sitting on a train, as the woman opposite me innocently read her copy of the Sun. Suddenly, there they were. She flipped over the page for the next article, and Page 3’s boobs were pointing at me. Me, and any kids who happened to be facing that direction. This is a concern. We’ve already heard about oversexualisation of children with kids shops selling posh bras to 11 year olds, but page 3 is far more ubiquitous than any of that.

So maybe there’s a middle ground. Maybe we don’t need to get rid of page 3. We just need to put it somewhere else, where only people who really want to see it have to see it. Like…the internet! In a few months, the Sun will be charging for all its content like many other papers. So how about popping it out of harms way?

What do you think?