Philippians 2:15, “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”
I had known since 2007 when the New York Times first reported that Leonard
Nimoy of Star Trek liked to photograph fat naked women laying across his
dining room table; but I nearly fell out of my chair when I went to my local
Christian bookstore, bought the Biblical movie of “David,” and then saw
Leonard Nimoy playing the prophet Samuel. Go figure!
Leonard Nimoy -- a paladin for the plump
Ex-actor's images sing out in praise of naked plus-size body
Abby Ellin, New York Times
New York Times | Sunday, May 20, 2007Before we begin, let's get one thing out of the way: Yes, Leonard Nimoy is more than happy to do it -- the Vulcan salute, the gesture that launched a thousand spaceships. He does so easily, effortlessly: palm outward, fingers extended, the index and middle finger smashed together, the ring finger and pinky touching, the thumb sticking out on its own.
"People ask me all the time," Nimoy said, carrying saucers of coffee and tea into his art-filled living room off Central Park West. He placed them next to galleys of his forthcoming photography book, which sat near a copy of "Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West," by Margaret R. Miles, and a folder of news clippings on obesity.
"You see what I have here, about the health guidelines for models?" he asked, pointing a long, tapered finger toward the file.
The basso profundo voice was unmistakable, his words occasionally clipped with his native Boston accent. "They now have to have at least a certain weight to qualify," Nimoy added. He looked pleased. This is a subject that speaks to him.
He knows that he is an unlikely champion for the size-acceptance movement; body image is a topic he never really thought about before. But for the last eight years, Nimoy, who is 76 and an established photographer, has been snapping pictures of plus-size women in all their naked glory.
He has a show of photographs of obese women on view at the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Mass., through June; a larger show at the gallery is scheduled to coincide with the November publication of his book on the subject, "The Full Body Project," from Five Ties Publishing. The Louis Stern Fine Arts gallery in Los Angeles and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston have acquired a few images from the project. A few hang at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York. (Their explicitness prevents the images from being reprinted here.)
These women are not hiding beneath muumuus or waving from the bottom of the Grand Canyon a la Carnie Wilson in early Wilson Phillips videos. They are fleshy and proud, celebrating their girth, reveling in it. It is, Nimoy says, a direct response to the pressure women face to conform to a Size 2.
"The average American woman, according to articles I've read, weighs 25 percent more than the models who are showing the clothes they are being sold," Nimoy said, his breathing slightly labored by allergies and a mild case of emphysema. "So, most women will not be able to look like those models. But they're being presented with clothes, cosmetics, surgery, diet pills, diet programs, therapy, with the idea that they can aspire to look like those people. It's a big, big industry. Billions of dollars. And the cruelest part of it is that these women are being told, 'You don't look right.' "
Nimoy, who divides his time among homes in New York and Los Angeles and on Lake Tahoe, admits that before he began this project, it had never occurred to him that beauty might be culture driven, that a fat body in Africa is treated quite differently from one in the United States. "In some cultures their weight is a sign of affluence: Their husbands can afford to feed them well," he noted.
His enlightenment came about eight years ago, when he had been showing pictures from his Shekhina series -- sensual, provocative images of naked women in religious Jewish wear -- at a lecture in Nevada. Afterward, a 250-pound woman approached him and asked if he wanted to take pictures of her, a different body type. He agreed, and she came to the studio at his Tahoe house. She arrived with all sorts of clothes and props, "as if she were playing a farmer's wife in a butter commercial," he said.
His wife, Susan, who was assisting him, said, "No, we want to shoot nude." So the model removed her clothing and lay down on the table. At first Nimoy was very nervous, he said.
"The nudity wasn't the problem," he said, "but I'd never worked with that kind of a figure before. I didn't quite know how to treat her. I didn't want to do her some kind of injustice. I was concerned that I would present this person within the envelope of an art form."
But soon he relaxed into it, lulled by the clicking of the camera and the woman's comfort with her body. He placed some of the shots in various exhibitions, and they invariably garnered the most attention. "People always wanted to know: 'Who is she? How did you come to shoot her? Why? Where? What was it all about?"'
He decided to pursue the subject further and was led to Heather MacAllister, the founder and artistic director of Big Burlesque and the Fat Bottom Revue, a troupe of plus-size female performers in San Francisco. MacAllister died in February of ovarian cancer, but something she said to Nimoy in one of their first meetings struck a chord. " 'Any time a fat person gets on a stage to perform and is not the butt of a joke -- that's a political statement,' " he recalled. "I thought that was profound."
Initially, he was interested in replicating Herb Ritts' popular image of a group of nude supermodels clustered together on the floor, and a Helmut Newton diptych of women clothed and then unclothed in the identical pose. MacAllister and some of her friends agreed to be his subjects. He then posed the women to simulate Matisse's "Dance" and Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase."
The responses have ranged from joy to horror. One formerly obese woman said the photos terrified her; she said they recalled a picture she kept in her wallet as a reminder of her former self. Other women have thanked Richard Michelson, the Northampton gallery owner, for displaying the images, and even asked if Nimoy wanted to photograph them.
"I am actually amazed at how little negative reaction there has been," said Michelson. "I attribute this in part to the gallery setting, and the fact that Northampton, Mass., is perhaps the most liberal city in the most liberal state in the nation.
"We do overhear some reductive 'Is Nimoy into fat chicks' comments when the gallery room is first entered," he said, "but in fact the fun nature of the work and the quality seem to shut people up by the time they leave. I've had a few crank e-mails with snide remarks, but not a one from gallery visitors."
The Big Fat Blog, a Web site devoted to fat acceptance, wrote about Nimoy's photographs in 2005. A woman calling herself Nellicat wrote in response: "I'm 5'5" and weigh between 130 and 135. But I don't feel as comfortable in my own skin as I should. I look at those women strutting, posing, laughing, and I feel real envy towards them. There they are, posing for a man (!) knowing that the whole world will be able to see them naked (!!) and they are LOVING it. Oh, to be that free! To be that comfortable and beautiful in your body -- I truly envy them." ...
READ MORE: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/20/MNG5VPS5F71.DTL&feed=rss.news#ixzz0xpYpsPj6
This world is getting crazier and
crazier every day. I mean no unkindness to Mr. Nimoy, it's just disturbing
that nothing is held as sacred and holy anymore by this world.
Porn Queen Plays Jesus in The Passion of Christ!
Filth and Smut in Falsely Labeled “Christian” Films
Sad to say, some of the most heathen, inappropriate and sensual movies on the market today are so-called “Christian” movies. The movie “Joseph” shows Potiphar's wife seducing Joseph and you can clearly see her naked body under the negligee she is wearing in the film. The film's producers are very deceitful by NOT rating the so-called “Christian film.” In fact, very few films labeled as “Christian” are rated for that very reason. There are some really suggestive scenes in these movies. If they were rated, it would have to be R-rated for violence and sexual content. Religious films are some of the nastiest trash on the market.
Underneath any superficial goodness, Hollywood is rotten to the core. In the well-known Christian film, A Walk To Remember, which apostate Christians praise so much, there is an evil spirit of sensuality at work. When Landon Carter (played by Shane West) approaches Jamie Sullivan (played by Mandy Moore) in her car, he asks if she's “feeling Christian,” because he needs a ride home. The camera immediately focuses between her legs, which are moving in and out under her thin dress, which creates a sexual invitation type of scene. It is definitely sensual and sexually suggestive. This is Hollywood at work. They can't even make a good movie without adding something sensual and sexually suggestive to it.
If you want to really get mad, then read my review of the filthy, smut, trashy film, SAVED; starring Mandy Moore and Macaulay Culkin (Marilyn Manson's buddy). Mandy Moore is a genuine loser. Anyone who attacks my precious Savior is a loser. The entire movie mocks and desecrates Christianity. At one sick point in the movie, Cassandra looks at the crotch of Jesus on a cross and makes the statement “Now, that's what I call being hung on a cross.”[1]
In the movie Pilgrim's Progress, Christian's wife stands up at the kitchen table with a thin white skirt on and you can clearly see her buttocks line thought the dress. It is a sexually suggestive scene that does not belong in an alleged “Christian” movie. Any moron knows whether something is inappropriate or not. This filth is deliberate, because it's a well-establish fact that any type of sensual content or scantily-clothed women boosts a film's ratings in this wicked world.
Perhaps you say, “Boy, you have a dirty mind.” No, I have a man's mind. And you are either a homosexual or need to go see a doctor if you can view a scantily-clothed woman and it doesn't affect you as a man. I am sick and tired of heathen producers labeling sensual garbage as being “Christian.” In case you don't believe a preacher like me, who loves Jesus Christ and is trying to live right, then maybe you'll believe the Chinese government...
China Bans Sexually Suggestive Ads on Radio, TV
by Sreeraman | September 27, 2007China's broadcasting watchdog has banned all sexually suggestive advertising on radio and television.
Commercials featuring sexually suggestive language or behaviour or featuring scantly dressed women were "detrimental to society," the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said in a circular on Tuesday.
All stations are prohibited from broadcasting commercials and programs involving drugs, sex-related health supplements, drugs for sexually transmitted diseases, sex toys, as well as "vulgar" ads for breast enhancement and female underwear, according to the circular.
Commercials in which celebrities testify to the effects of products are also banned, reports Xinhua.
The SARFT also ordered an end to programs with names including sex-related drugs, products or medical institutions.
"Sexually suggestive ads and bad ads not only mislead consumers seriously and harm public health, but are socially corrupting and morally depraving, and directly discredit the radio and TV industry," the circular said.
In July this year, the SARFT released a notice to stop ads with inappropriate content or sex implications from appearing on TV screens.
A total of 1,466 ads involving two billion Yuan (US$267 million) have been removed since August, statistics from the SARFT showed.
The administration warned stations that failed to monitor the quality of commercials and programs would face severe penalties.
Since September 5, China's broadcasting watchdog has punished ten radio stations for talk shows involving sexual topics.
Source-ANI
SOURCE: http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=27024
Did you read that? ...
Commercials featuring sexually suggestive language or behaviour or featuring scantly dressed women were "detrimental to society," the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said in a circular on Tuesday.
SOURCE: http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=27024
Now why is it that the Chinese Communist government recognizes that scantily dressed women are detrimental to society; but ChristianityToday and church groups all across America are defiant on the issue. No one is ignorant in this matter. Hosea 4:6 says that God's people were destroyed for a lack of knowledge; knowledge that THEY REJECTED from God.
The average churchgoer and American today have their heads buried in the sand? Can you believe that the Communist Chinese have more morals than Americans do? Would to God that our nation would sexually suggestive filth from TV, not allowing scantily dressed women. All of the smut and filth being used in advertising today and movies is corrupting our society.
