Earlier this week, transgender “Orange is the New Black” star and international activist Laverne Cox posed nude for Allure magazine, along with four other actresses.
Of course, it hasn’t all been glamorous red carpets and adoring fans for Cox. As a gender-nonconforming teen, her feminine attire and mannerisms drew intense criticism and bullying and pushed her into a depression that resulted in a suicide attempt.
As a survivor, Cox has vowed to share her message of self-love and empowerment with as many people as she can reach. Her appearance in Allure was another groundbreaking achievement to add to her collection as the first transgender woman to pose for the magazine since the nudes feature was launched in 2000.
But responses haven’t all aligned with Cox’s goal to inspire and empower; one need only scroll through the comments on her Instagram post of the photo to collect examples of criticism for posing provocatively and offering her naked body for objectification.
It may seem initially counterproductive to post without clothing due to nudity’s long history of perpetuating the objectification of women, and Cox’s critics are frustrated by the seeming incongruence of advocating for transgender awareness and participating in a nude photo shoot.
However, the photo itself dispels such qualms within Cox’s pose. She’s on her stomach and turned slightly toward the camera with her eyes closed and face uplifted into the light, half-covered by her hand. All the pain and suffering of the populations she embodies are mixed with a sense of awareness and inner strength on her face.
This photo is certainly about her figure, but there’s nothing exploitive about it.
In this portrait, Cox’s ?message is conveyed through the lighting. The black-and-white exposure allows certain areas of her body — namely her breasts and forward thigh — to receive emphasis and attention. As a transgender woman who fought hard and survived much to bear these physical aspects of femininity, it follows that those parts of her body are given a voice.
For most of her life, what lies behind that prominent thigh has been a source of private and public turmoil, conflict and pain. Cox’s portrait draws the viewer into a conversation with her history, which is as much a history of nationwide ignorance and intolerance as it is a story of strength, self-affirmation ?and individuality.
When she posted the photo on Instagram, Cox remarked that in both of her most recent groundbreaking photos — this and her portrait for Time’s 100 Most Influential People — her eyes are closed. I believe she does not feel the need to look at the camera because, in both photos, she is continuing a tradition of allowing her body to speak for itself, just as loudly as her mind.
By removing the element of eye contact from a portrait, the viewer is forced to find another way to connect with the subject, and the eye is drawn to Cox’s body for communication rather than the inner self accessed through the eyes.
She wants us to look at her body and think about all its been through, and her nakedness makes it impossible for us to avoid an intensely communal experience with the pasts, presents and futures carried within her intersectional form.
sbkissel@indiana.edu
