About five years ago, comedian Marcia Belsky (on the right) noticed something funny about movie posters.
Can you see it?
How about now?
Could it be that the women in the posters are HEADLESS? Marcia noticed this trend after an advertising class in college. When you look, you'll realize that many women in movie posters are depicted as headless — or faceless — beings.
"The trend was pointed out to me by a professor in college. I started seeing this trope everywhere and couldn't stop," she told BuzzFeed.
"Around the city, on TV, at bars, on book covers, album covers, in movies. When I would point it out to people, people for the most part didn't believe that these images were still so normalized and common."
She started uploading all the movie posters she could find and started The Headless Women Project. "When you fragment a woman's body into sexual parts, it not only takes away her individuality, it takes away from her humanness," Marcia said.
"By taking out the woman's head, you also remove completely the question of her consent or pleasure. She is there to be looked at, and that is her sole and unquestionable value."
"We are numb to this type of imagery of women, and we see it so much that we don't really see it at all. It blends into our daily lives. But, these images do have [an] effect on women, and all of us."
"It affects how we see ourselves, how we define our value, and how others both see and treat us. I want girls to realize that they have value outside of their appeal to men, and to decide their value for themselves rather than letting it be defined by men. I want them to think and have a conversation about it."
And she's noticed the same trend with men, too.
Though she recognizes this kind of advertising probably won't stop, Marcia just wants people to recognize "when we see lady bits still being cut up and used as sexual bait."
"I'm not naive enough to think these marketing practices will ever fully stop. And as long as they believe objectification sells, they will sell it. But people should know exactly what it is they're looking at and should at the very least ask themselves why women continue to be so often treated as pieces of meat."
"A couple people have told me it's like a car wreck. And that's all I wanted really. I wanted people to be disturbed, but also to laugh at how ridiculous it all is."
