The Pioneer Plaque…
Not really transphobic, because hey, it doesn’t say who is which or how anyone identifies.
Anyway. Ignoring Satiria’s satir, I’m mildly intrigued by the image. It was launched in March 1972. It’s a little odd that they chose that nice young couple from Connecticut to represent all of humanity. No infants, no children, no old crocks, and no people from Shanghai or Kolkata or Mombasa.
Also, down to finer detail…it’s only the man who is doing something, the woman is just standing there passively. The man stands solidly while the woman is pointing her toe for no apparent reason. Advertisers do this – if a woman’s bare feet are visible in an ad she has to be pointing them. No relaxed neutral-position feet for them, no sir, it’s ballet-style pointing or gtfo. And then the hair – since the intended audience is Beings From Spaaaaaaace you’d think the plaque-makers could have put a little more thought into the hair. Also the raised hand is out of proportion; it’s as big as his head.
Comments
19 responses to “See Bob wave”
The “woman” is obviously trans. The stance. The new, firm breasts. The lack of visible genitals. Even the hair and the vacant stare.
The male hand has developed excessive size as the trans woman he is with identifies as a lesbian, so he has had to rely on self-service for close to 50 years.
Talking seriously, I’m pretty sure the designer said he wasn’t sure they’d accept the woman having visible genitals, which annoys me because the man gets to. Also the way the woman turns toward the man seems deferential to me. I honestly don’t see what’s offensive about the hair – or are you just calling it badly drawn?
Anatomical correctness and political correctness have taken very different paths. :P
Wow, yes, these subtle little sexist things. Yup! You are right, and the artist probably did this entirely unconsciously, but it’s certainly there.
Almost certainly correct, and this one was probably even conscious.
Well female genitals aren’t visible in that position unless they’re shaved, and shaving was decidedly not the done thing in 1972. What’s missing is pubic hair. But yes, a lot about the woman’s stance is deferential and/or passive.
It’s not that the hair (on the head) is offensive so much as unimaginative. The idea was to show generic humans, right? As basic and comprehensible as possible, because anyone who saw the plaque would not be human. The hair reflects 1972 American customs – the man’s is short, the woman’s is long. Very short hair on both would have made more sense, I think.
The outcry against this image on the Pioneer plaques (sending porn to the stars), resulted in a dumbing down of the more ambitious Voyager interstellar record. Photos of a naked man and woman were changed into silhouettes to protect human modesty and placate outrage taxpayers who were footing the bill. More info here:
Pioneer plaques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque
https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/
and inCarl Sagan’s book Murmers of Earth.
I always thought it was too bad that NASA wasn’t able to secure the rights to the Beatles’ recording of George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun for inclusion amongst the musical selections on the disc. They did manage to include a song from a Humpback Whale, though,, which is neat.
The guy doesn’t have pubic hair either though.
Does no one remember the difference between subjective and objective anymore? How is social justice scientists not an oxymoron?
Not to mention they are both duck footed. As humans go, they don’t have exemplary conformation.
Did anyone say that or satiria just being satirical?
I never noticed that about his hand, but now I cannot unsee it. How did that get past whomever was supposed to review the image?!
I remember back in the day plenty of people pointed out that if this was supposed to represent an ‘average human’ couple they should have been portrayed as Asian.
Yes, but this was an American space probe…
The ‘woman’ is shifting her right hip to the side. A classic cringing, height-diminishing move you’ll see in group photos all the time. An alternative to the ‘cheerleader’ thing with the front foot touching the ground with the toes in front of the back foot. Both poses make women look smaller, and are actually impairing in real life.
That’s what I meant by “The man stands solidly while the woman is pointing her toe for no apparent reason.” She has to shift her weight in order to point her toe. Man gets power stance, woman gets deference stance.
As well as the problems already noted there were criticisms at the time that any alien species that came across the image might interpret the man’s stance as a signal of aggression, the raised open hand poised to strike rather than greet.
AoS, that’s so true. I was reading that in Greece, the open handed wave is seen as a sign of hostility, that they use a closed-fist wave. Which most of us here in the USA would see as a sign of hostility.
Cultural awareness was at an all time low…and sometimes I worry it’s gotten even lower.
iknklast, if you haven’t already read it, Manwatching. A Field Guide To Human Behaviour, by Desmond Morris (Harry M. Abrams Inc. 1977) is a fascinating look at the cultural differences in the everyday things we do.
Common gestures are a minefield among varying human cultures, so when it comes to how alien species might interpret them, one guess is as bad as another.
I think at least the bared-teeth smile is universal (monkey brain shit). Sure we do that for photographs but if you see someone doing it in IRL it tends to at least *feel* intimidating.