February 10, 2007

To Future Spa, or Not to Future Spa?

In the interest of the Furdell brothers becoming the next big thing in advice columns, James and I will now respond to commenter Tanya, who writes...

So, this is unrelated but seeing as you are interested in pinball machines and appear liberal, I'm after your opinion. I am on the board of a local planned parenthood. We have a fundraiser coming up and a friend of planned parenthood said he would refurbish and donate a pinball game for us to raffle off. Great! Right? However, it is Bally's "Future Spa" which features nipples, naked women and women with spread legs. I find it hilarious but I'm in my thirties. I am concerned about the first wave of feminists of the 50s, 60s and 70s who will be there and take offense (objectification of women; bordering on pornography, etc)

Any thoughts? My instinct is to have it at the event and still raffle it off but to come up with some kind of funny sign to put on it that ties in with Planned Parenthood. Anything clever come to mind??
Thanks

Tanya chose us for advice because of our past history of excellent internet advice-giving1, and not because we're relevant Google hit #5.

First off, Tanya, let me say that if you do choose to raffle off Future Spa, I will personally pledge to buy as many raffle tickets as I can afford on a local TV news director salary2.

Secondly, as a hip young liberal who thinks that hot leftist chicks should have full rights over their bodies, I think it would be awesome if you raffled off Future Spa.

On the other hand, as I understand from my nonprofit-organization-managing lady love, you're probably not interested in courting broke twentysomethings.

In any case, it seems that your main fear is that you'll offend the older-school feminist in the hizz-ouse. Remind them that by reappropriating the sexist images and words of the past, we point out their inherent silliness and take away their power. (You know...like Womanhouse.3)

So we gotta come up with a funny sign. First rule of thumb: the pinball machine itself is the punchline, so the sign needs to be deadpan. (And that pinball machine is one hell of a punchline.) Tying it into Planned Parenthood adds a difficulty level. Here's my bid:

"Note that this startlingly accurate 1979 vision of today's spa makes liberal use of latex. Even then, pinball designer Jebediah Bally recognized the importance of safe sex in the spas of the future."

Maybe that's too wordy. Coming soon: James's response.


1 Link not available.
2 Expressed in mathematical terms, "five."
3 Judy Chicago? The C-U-N-T Cheerleaders? Anyone?


(Click the "read more" link to see photos James took of the art on Future Spa.)

Andrew - 11:54 AM
Comments

Aaaand there's the C-word in my blog. There's no way I'm going to be able to let my kid read this damn thing.

Response here.

James F - Feb 10, 2007 - 10:11 PM

But it's a reappropriated C-word, so it's okay...right? Hmm, this is why I put it in a footnote in the first place. Womanhouse is a much less relevant example of feminist performance art of the early '70s. Weak Andrew! Very weak.

Andrew F - Feb 11, 2007 - 12:10 AM

None of those examples are all that relevant... just because it appears in some obscure performance art doesn't mean it's been reappropriated. It's going to take a lot more mainstream exposure to accomplish that. (e.g., Part of a Harry Potter book title.)

James F - Feb 11, 2007 - 8:54 AM