Lady Gaga’s controversial choice to wear a costume apparently constructed of meat at the MTV Video Music Awards is not the first time that such images have been used to promote musicians.
As long ago as 1966, the Beatles released the album Yesterday and Today which was first printed with a controversial cover featuring the band dressed as butchers and draped in joints of meat and decapitated baby dolls.
The image, although apparently not originally intended as an album cover, was said to reflect the group’s feelings on the Vietnam War.
Advance copies created such a backlash that the record label’s management ordered the “meat” versions destroyed, however, many survived and are now collectors’ items.
In 1983, the punk group the Undertones released a singles compilation titled All Wrapped Up with a female model covered in meat – chiefly rashers of fatty bacon held to her with what looks like Clingfilm.
A few years later, in 1988, the rock group B.A.L.L., fronted by US musician Don Fleming, released a pastiche of the short-lived Beatles cover with their album Bird.
However, the use of meat to promote music has remained controversial.
Ingrid Newkirk, the president of animal rights campaign group PETA, said: “Lady Gaga’s job is to do outlandish things, and this certainly qualifies as outlandish because meat is something you want to avoid putting on or in your body.
“No matter how beautifully it is presented, flesh from a tortured animal is flesh from a tortured animal.”
A spokeswoman for the Vegetarian Society said: “It just seems totally unnecessary.
“Enough animals die for food and they should not be killed for stunts like this.”
No comments:
Post a Comment