Simulacra, Depthless and Meaningless of Images
most of these photos are usually found the objectified or close-ups of female body part like cleavage or legs. These photos of the body parts do not carry any meaning originally in a cognitive meaning, but they do carry symbolic and cultural meanings.
This could well be understood as the product of the reproduction of the male-gaze, after how female has gazed themselves from the male perspective in order to reproduce the image that is ideal and favored by male. It is a restriction of a comprehensive and diversified representation of female, the image with cropped body parts of the female is again stereotyping of the emphasize on female’s body and physical appearance under the binary opposition with male in which their intelligence and mind is emphasized comparing with female.
These so-called “J Photo” has substituted the image of female in authenticity or what they deserved as simulacra[1], they are constituting a new reality and discourse on how female should be presented through the means of images, to reinforce and instill how the new generations in viewing female by simply the appearances meaning of the image.
[1] Baudrillard Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. (Ann Arbor: Michigan, 1994), 15.
Image is reduced to appearance, it is just functioning as a source for satisfying the visual pleasure and satisfaction of the pornography users. By reviewing the case of Emilia Wong, although her original intention of uploading they “sexy” photo of her is to promote the liberation and self-governance of the body, empowering the rights of female through exhibiting her body in the social media; the focus of the netizens are contrarily focusing on the appearance of the images -- her body as a means of satisfying their voyeuristic pleasure and an objectified sexual body that helps them to relieve their sexual desire. Images have become depthless and lack of meaning as the discourse on the objectification of female is being reinforced and emphasize out of the original purpose of Emilia. Netizens are neglecting the authentic image or personalities of the “subject” in the “sexy photo”, that “subject” appeals to be deprived of their rights in speaking for themselves.
Furthermore, there are numbers of “sexy photos” in LIHKG named “ J Photo” (which stands for the function of these photo is only for masturbation, and J is a cultural symbol that represents male’s genital, it is again reinforcing the photos are mainly for male-used and privileged by them ) by the netizens,