The cover for this year’s Hartsville High School (South Carolina) yearbook reproduces the vulnerable (white?) woman/threatening men (of color?) narrative:
Some are even suggesting that the black figure in the hood is the grim reaper come to collect her soul after they murder her.
What kind of reflection of school pride is this?? Having been my high school’s yearbook editor back in the day, I can’t even imagine how or why anyone would have approved such a cover. We had the school mascot on our cover!
Egads, I just realized how old I sounded saying “back in MY day”… *sigh*
-The person on the right in the “menacing” trio is a woman.
-The picture as a whole is simply an attempt at noir, with perhaps some post-apocalyptic action movie tropes thrown in.
-The Grim Reaper is holding the mascots of the teams the Red Foxes beat.
-Have we learned nothing from Buffy Summers? Perhaps the woman in white is not a victim.
I grew up in a rural area. From experience, I’ll bet it gets really boring in Hartsville.
Personally I wouldn’t like this as my high school year book cover, even though the artistry of it is cool. I loved the movie “Brick” but the noir style is not how I would want to portray a high school that I attended. That being said, I don’t attend this high school, or live in South Carolina. I think that the students themselves are doing a great job debating this cover among themselves: http://www.hvtd.com/?q=node/6633. Read the comment posted Friday the 8th by Stacie – she points out that this imagery on this cover might be gloomy but it is better than the outright hostility in the name of school spirit that you see on other covers.
This is just bizarre. What happened to artsy arrangements of photos of school events on the cover? WTF?
As for the vulnerable white woman being stalked by men of color… that was the initial feeling of this for me, but when I looked harder I noticed that the men aren’t all men (as was already mentioned), and they are all smiling and wearing what looks to be the school’s letter jacket. I’m really not sure what the point is of the worried looking woman in the foreground.
The girl in the white shirt isn’t necessarily caucasian. She could just as easily be Hispanic.
I can see the narrative your suggesting-the fox-mascot dressed up like an old school gumshoe detective, full of dash and waiting to save the nice white damsel in distress from shadowy villains that include death and a black dude. But I can also think of at least three other things they could have been going for with this, including the trio of students in Fox High letterman jackets, the ones who look to be menacing, but could actually be representing cohesion and community at the school (but are really, shockingly poorly lit). Fox is this shimmering city with kids in letterman jackets where the athletic teams of other schools are not just defeated, but annihilated. The girl in this situation would be an apprehensive freshman?
Though I agree with your basic point, erm…, I have to point out that “Caucasian” and “Hispanic” are by no means mutually exclusive terms.
I gotta say that the “woman in peril” doesn’t even look particularly worried to me. Also, now that yikes has said it, I am seeing her as a Slayer, though that probably wasn’t the artist’s intention.
And yeah, it is pretty obviously an attempt at noir style. Of course, noir in general is pretty immersed in sexism, but that’s another story, I think. I’m guessing that the truth of this cover is that it does get pretty damn boring in Hartsville.
It occurs to me that this can be seen as how (at least some) teenagers see life in a post-9/11 world. What would they have been, around ten in 2001?
Also: it reminds me a bit of the works of Lois Duncan. By the way, I attended a South Carolina high school in the 80s, although I was nowhere near Hartsville.
I for one am up in arms over this highschool yearbook cover. As far as I am concerned, it is rape, and everyone involved should be jailed.
South Carolina, geez…something I’m not proud to have come out of my state. what happened to a good, old-fashioned, plain black binding on a YEARBOOK? with perhaps the year and the name of the school on the front and spine. Jesus, Jesus…
Aside from the fact that the mood/tone of the cover is negative…it’s just unbecoming to have all this ugly clutter on the front of it.
I attended high school in Hartsville (though not this particular school) not so long ago. So, yes, it can get pretty boring.
I think this is just an image that doesn’t quite work, with the red and the black and those traffic barriers making the overall tone darker than was intended. Considering this was put together by high school students, getting a little carried away with the film noir isn’t such an offense. I don’t think they intended to imply any threat to the female student in the foreground.
That sky nicely captures the oppressive haze of pollution over the town. And those pillars of smoke from the factory? Nice touch. The more I am looking at it the more it is taking me back. So really, not a bad yearbook cover.
“I for one am up in arms over this highschool yearbook cover. As far as I am concerned, it is rape, and everyone involved should be jailed.”
See, this is why a lot of people don’t take feminists seriously. I’m just going to pretend that someone set you up as a strawman in the hopes that people would buy into it and say “those silly wimmenz!” That’s my hope anyway.
Does anyone think that the “woman in peril” looks just like Lauren Conrad from the Hills? And we know the economy is in bad shape when the grim reaper has to do dog-walking gigs to make ends meet…
One very interesting aspect of this is that, while it is set up in accordance with a highly negative stereotype, the high school is identified as the gang rather than the woman. The sign says “you’re now entering Red Fox territory”, and they’re all wearing school jackets unlike the woman in white.
I’m not sure what sociological theory says about nihilistic identification with the “negative” side of a dichotomy like this. Anyone care to enlighten me?
@ Ashley: I don’t think you have to pretend. Please don’t assume that kind of reaction is typical of feminists; it only typical of the stereotype.
Personally I think they only did this for artistic purposes, its not like its totally showing male violence against women. Its just the film noir trope in effect along with their mascot in the foreground.
They were attempting to be creative and do something besides the mascot emblazoned on the cover and the school name running under it. I have to applaud them for that. They wanted something memorable, I doubt they were expecting people to react this idiotically over it.
Aka chill out, someone wanted to do something artistic. Thankfully they didn’t really do a ‘GANGSTAR’ attempt and make everything as stereotypical as possible to match the scene.
I agree–this is extremely bizarre. It looks like the poster for a bad thriller movie. Or maybe a “Christian” novel.
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[...] #sociology As a sociologist, I’m embarrassed by this post at an ASA blog: http://tinyurl.com/oug2rd Great story from last week’s NYT Magazine on life in the Dutch welfare state. I’m [...]
Horrible. Awful. Just sickening.
Film noir. Especially reminiscent of the post-apocalyptic cities like Escape from NY/LA, The Warriors, or City 13, things like that. The school is representing itself like a Gang in such a world dominating the other school/teams/gangs. They did the style very well.
i think this is a good book cover yall hatein on dat girl class of 20 12
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