Not Trenchant As Hell: NYTimes.com Features Exclusive Sexist, Racist, Transphobic Content

by Shaker EastSideKate, a feminist teacher/scholar/mother/partner/derbygirl from Upstate New York.

[Trigger warning for voyeurism, transphobia, illusions to trans panic.]

I still haven't figured out the New York Times' "Opinionator" section. As far as I can tell, it's a catch-all for material someone at the Times thinks readers might like, but doesn't want to take responsibility for. While the section has had its highlights, Alec Soth's April 1 photo essay [warning: creepy] "Ash Wednesday, New Orleans" (part one in a dude-part series) was not one of them.

Here's my quick summary. According to the text, "Soth explores cycles of sin and redemption in the aftermath of Mardi Gras." In the opinion segment, we learn that Soth will spend the afternoon in his hotel room. There's a photo of his bare legs spread on a hotel room bed, followed by shots of the TV, followed by a photo of cans of lite beer in the hotel sink.

Soth goes out after midnight, where he shoots photos of "the aftermath." Many of these photos consist of passed out people, including several photos of women's disembodied legs. The photos look like they might have been shot by a guy who just spent the day in a hotel room drinking beer.

Soth follows this with a series of Wednesday afternoon portraits of people with ashes on their foreheads. The last segment includes photographs of a Latina woman he re-encounters that evening. He invites her up to his hotel room, where he takes some awkward video. The montage ends with the text "while I was taking her picture, I realized R. was a man."

Okay then.

Shorter summary: Soth is a dudely dude, here are drunk and/or poor people, here's some Jesus stuff (which is totally profound), here's a Latina woman (how exotic!) who turns out to be a Latina trans woman (too exotic! ewwwwww....)

First, as someone who plays with cameras, I have to say I'm unimpressed with most of the photographs (maybe it's a hipster thing). Then there's the whole "cycles of sin and redemption" thing. How do the passed-out folks fit into this? Did Soth get their consent? If they were drunk, could Soth get their consent? Why do I get the sense that this is the point? It's like hipster, rape-culture inspired, poverty porn.

The setting in New Orleans (or at least the French Quarter) doesn't strike me as particularly original or comforting, either. BTW, the audio during the hotel scene included a segment of a newscast about Haiti's infrastructure. Get it?

And the trans woman. In the hotel room. Who Soth proceeds to out. This apparently also has something to do with "sin and redemption"? What, precisely, am I supposed to make of a photo essay that ends with a trans woman in a hotel room with a strange man who is eerily fascinated with taking her picture, and then is shocked to discover that she is, in his words "a man"? I've heard stories of that sort of thing happening, and, yeah... I really didn't need to see that.

In any case, the whole thing was very hip and edgy and profound and not at all sexist, racist, transphobic, or otherwise exploitative.

I can totally wait to see the next installment of Soth's project. Also, I'll be asking the Times what the hell they were thinking, and requesting that they reconsider Soth's place in Opinionator lest I cancel the subscription I cancelled years ago.

[Via Helen and Gina.]