Yes of course there’s a Polanski Tumblr. But it isn’t quite what you think. It’s just a series of pictures of scantily clad and naked (young) women in various poses of recline and objectification.
Returning to my central thesis: Tumblr as a cultural phenomenon is doing something weird and interesting and (I think) it’s crucial for us to understand – or at least discuss.
The thing that I’ve been arguing for some time is that Tumblr only works within the overdetermined glut of images that ‘define’ postmodernism. In this instance, you have a series of images that are either: a) artistic, erotic, arousing, or; b) grossly offensive and sexist – all operating under the shadow of a figure who is either: a) a man dedicated to art, or; b) a rapist who happens to make great art.
So it’s only through this pastiche-like (but not) presentation of images that any of this ‘makes sense’. At the same time, there is nothing that prevents this Tumblr from being read as soft-porn. That’s the point. There is no reference point and, while that’s a tired point about ‘postmodernism’, Tumblr is one of the most perfect forms for the expression of the idea.
So there you go. Visit the site. And on the first image you’ll feel very clever. And by the 12th a little creeped out. And that - that inextricability of desire, the image and a broader ideological context – is exactly what Tumblr brings to light.
