Their nudity is a protest against objectification, specifically the feeling that women have been "stripped of ownership" of their own bodies [5].
Comic performance art was also in on the act, with Figs in Wigs taking an off-kilter look at female objectification in We Object, while in the charming but disturbing show Credible, Likeable Superstar Role Model, Bryony Kimmings and her nine year old niece Taylor, created an alterative aspirational pop star – complete with dance moves – to look at the sexualisation of tween girls.
And if you're thinking it is all rather innocent and not objectification, consider that some (almost without exception) middle-aged, male director is sitting in a control room somewhere, scanning shots of the crowd, until he chances upon one and thinks "Phwoar!
Out of the mouths of babes, as the saying goes, and such objectification seems quite the news to Harington, who says that it is demeaning "in the same way as it is for women".
Objectification, whatever its form, is not something anyone should have to "just deal with".
Is the casual objectification of women so commonplace that we should all just suck it up, roll over and accept defeat?
Those of us who grew up watching Don Francisco also grew up having to accept his persistent objectification of women to enjoy (or endure) his show.
If true, it smacks of the worst kind of objectification.
The video for indie rock quartet Wraith by Peace also depicts racialised sexual objectification.
It does little to address the herd of elephants in the room – the objectification of women's bodies, the spread of misogyny that the internet has facilitated, the poison of online porn beyond Hugh Hefner's wettest dreams, the real-world consequences for human relationships of the endless parade of naked bodies beyond Roger Ebert's anti-puritanical hopes across computer screens.
Behind the dancing girls and schmaltzy lyrics that usually characterise pop songs, these men act as the all-oppressing eye of the industry: telling female singers that weight loss and sexual objectification are the only feasible routes to stardom; stripping down women in music videos to their underwear while leaving their male counterparts untouched.
