"Injustice For All"

This morality picture on the death penalty blatantly represents the biased, underlying problem of the criminal justice system. To the left of the picture is Lady Justice, representing the whites put on trial. To the whites, Lady Justice is blindfolded in order to be impartial to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The sword of Lady Justice represents the enforcement of her convictions, which are supposedly fair and just to all. However, this is not the case seeing as the whites on trial for the death penalty end with their lives, unlike the people of color, who end with the looming prospect of death. The right half of the picture is the Grim Reaper, representing the other side of Lady Justice as the personification of death. This Grim Reaper side of justice, unlike Lady Justice, is not blindfolded, seeing everything and judging everything. In his hands is the scythe, the weapon with which the Grim Reaper harvests the souls of the lives he takes and transports them to the afterlife. This just adds to the suspense of imminent death that awaits people of color. In the bottom right hand corner, barely visible, is a seemingly out of place bird, looking onto the scene of supposed "justice" and realizing that, in reality, the death penalty is "injustice for all," posing the question in the viewers mind: is the criminal justice system actually fair for all? The title of the picture is "And Justice for All (a study in black and white). This satirical play on the words “a study in black and white” means not only that the picture is in black and white but represents study of whites vs blacks when it comes to who gets death, unjustly, more often than the other. This picture accurately represents biases of the criminal justice system through the two sides of Lady Justice: the seen and the unseen. 

Welcome to the Plastic Beach

The beauty of this album cover for the Gorillaz’ plastic beach is its ability to mix a playful artistic flare with a public plea for environmental and ecological safety and preservation. It hits at the center of and brings awareness to our world’s problems; through it’s playful representation of the tackiness of modern culture. The hazy atmosphere and brownish orange color pallet speak to the mistreatment of the environment in the modern world. The only green in the entire piece is a few sad-looking palm trees and a bit of brownish grass on the mushroom shaped island, which confirms that there is bad air quality and lack of oxygen in the air around the island. The mushroom shaped island is symbolic of psychedelic drugs and that in a world as far-gone and desolate as this, consolation could only be found in escape. The humans in this world are trapped. They are trapped in the bird-shaped house that looks like it is trapped inside the island. A bird with only one wing forever attached to the island and the world it destroyed, only able to escape in its mind, unable to escape the horrors of what it has done to its own world. Humans have become these flightless birds entirely alone and isolated on small islands, having already destroyed everything we needed to be happy, namely our environment. It is most effective in communicating its message of environmental awareness because of these unusual images.

Personal Space

This advertisement deftly creates a juxtaposition between consumer and product, allowing no room for separation in the mind of the man or woman filling their car with gas. The identification of the common nightmare – to be poor, dirty, and unhealthy, judging by the cigarette – and the artistic iconic representation of that job relates on a psychological level with the consumer, who seeing their own stance the same as the man pumping gas in the picture, searches for some means out of the comparison to the poor. The placement of the ad is vital for effectiveness because the direct positioning of the dirty, common working man next to the average all though poverty dreading person creates a psychological situation in the mind of the consumer that they wish seek refuge from, in the form of the product being advertised.

My Body Is My Body

This image works to combat slut shaming, or the societal idea that women must cover their bodies in society's standard of modesty to maintain dignity. Stylistically, the photo’s black and white coloring adds a tone of drama or seriousness while the simple backdrop hones the viewer’s eye onto the written words. The capital letters and thick black paint express the message clearly. The image also effectively communicates the woman’s comfort in her own body. Her bare upper torso appears as something natural instead of dirty or sinful, relaying the message that the naked body is not inherently “wrong”. She exudes confidence with a slight smile and straight posture. The effectiveness of this underlying message comes from how out of the norm it is. Naked women usually appear in ads or age-restricted movies, not in such a toned down environment. This change in setting takes away the scandal associated with the female body.  

Purity Already Lost

Nirvana’s sophomore album, Nevermind, depicts a naked baby underwater, reaching blindly for a dollar bill—a disturbing illustration that denotes humanity’s corrupted motivation and greed even at the stage idealistically deemed most innocent (namely, infancy). Like mindless fish swarming to bait, humans are blindly drawn to the dollar, seeking it desperately as sustenance, and ignoring the larger implications—for instance, who is pulling the hook? Is this greed a self-inflicted wound, society as a whole with the line in their hands, or is their something else at work? The image functions logically by offering viewers two focal points—the naked infant and the money on the hook—and asking them to select which one is more disturbing, which one to focus upon. Most note only the baby’s nudity, which caused controversy following the 1991 release. But this nakedness, coupled with the baby’s vulnerability—bare and submerged in an enormous swimming pool—is, in fact, a manifestation of complete, untainted innocence; so starkly natural that society deems it unacceptable. Blinded by this conception, most viewers ignore what’s truly disturbing at hand—the message that even at this young age, there exists this incessant lust for money, this insatiable greed. In presenting this experiment, the image forces viewers to question what we, as a society, will accept and ignore and what extremes we are willing to go to to protect our purity—purity “Nevermind” indicates is already lost to the pursuit of the dollar.

“Nevermind” depicts the terrifying reality of a consumer world that begins even at birth—the baby instinctively choosing to pursue the money, rather than returning to the surface for breathe, a decision that will ultimately destroy. It imparts this reality through fear—through gritty, disgruntling starkness—the juxtaposition of innocence and greed that most do not feel comfortable with, that most would rather not consider.