RE: Hellfest x Girls

So, here are some thoughts on Hellfest's recent decision to launch what they describe as a 'sexy project' alongside French porn culture mag Le Tag Parfait... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaJaxwRks8o)

Last year I wrote about women being pressurised into exposing themselves at last year's Download Festival in the UK (http://www.thrashhits.com/2013/06/tits-download-festival-2013/). One of the major responses to the piece was that these women were 'not being forced into doing anything' and that 'they make the decisions themselves'.

There are two ways in which this new scheme throw light on that argument:

1) The language used in the promo video for Hellfest's project is disturbingly aggressive. They announce that they are going to 'exploit' the girls at the festival and finish off their message with a cheeky reminder that they are 'coming for them'. Regardless of how they actually act on the ground on the days they are there, this is not exactly promising rhetoric to say the very least. I am not anti-pornography per se but there is a decidedly predatory air about the tone of Proxy Paige's words and that is not OK. Nope.
2) Part of the reason things like women being pushed to expose themselves at festivals like Download is because of the normalisation of the sexualisation through idiotic stunts like Hellfest's. The pervasive sexism of yelling at a girl on someone's shoulders to get their funbags out is borne of the more overt commodification of girls that the French festival are engendering. The commentators on my original piece were absolutely right, of course everyone has a choice to do what they want – but no one exists in a cultural vacuum and if knuckle-dragging sexism becomes the norm then both men and women will begin to act accordingly.

Female metal fans have the right to enjoy one of Europe's premier metal festivals without the fear of harassment or objectification. They ought to be able to go and enjoy what the rest of us privileged men can do without batting an eye - the music they love. Women in metal are not here to be bought and sold for the titillation of the rest of the group, they are our sisters and deserve a lot, lot better than this. We all make mistakes of course and I hope Hellfest swiftly realise that this venture is one such error and knock it on the head at the earliest possible opportunity. That way we can all go back to focussing on what people are actually heading to Clisson this summer for. Fingers crossed, huh.

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