Friday, February 8, 2008

SO Good Posters Cause Campus Stir

By Mistress Kris

A bit of campus controversy arose this past week over posters asking for submissions for SO Good, the Chester College Annual. The posters, designed by two female members of the SO Good staff, were distributed around the college grounds and employed a rather ironic and punny use of the word “submission.” Three pictures were featured, two small ones- one of a meek looking woman kneeling a corner and another of cows behind a fence- and one larger picture of a 50’s style pin-up girl dressed as a dominatrix wielding a riding crop. The title announced “Submission: It’s not just for livestock and women anymore,” while the bottom of the poster stated that the Chester College Annual was now accepting submissions of work of all kinds.

The two women who made the poster, and the rest of the staff, felt it was obviously meant in jest since one, it was just too absurdly objectionable to ever be taken as seriously misogynist and two, the largest picture depicted a woman in a sexually dominant and powerful role. Still, just a few days after being hung up, an anonymous counter-poster appeared. The response flyer utilized the same layout and color scheme as the SO Good poster, but its intention was quite different.

Featuring the heading “Domination: It’s not just for Fascists and CCNE [Chester College of New England] anymore,” the counter-poster also sported the Chester College logo, a clip art of an irate cartoon cow, and a large scanned photo of dictator Benito Mussolini.

The Annual staff regrets that anyone was offended by the posters.

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