They Cut That Bit Out: The Feminist 'Carcass' Revisited

The Guardian

July 24 1993

A press advert, headlined "Break The Dull Steak Habit", for a record by the band Manic Street Preachers, featured a photo of the back of a woman, wearing only a Stetson hat, her body marked into cuts like a butcher's carcass. One person (who saw the ad in Melody Maker) complained to the Advertising Standards Authority of the portrayal of "woman as a piece of meat". Sony Music Entertainment UK responded, stating that the image was "intended to draw attention to" sexism (as addressed on the record), rather than to promote a degrading view of women. Sony also explained that the image was derived from and designed by American feminists in the Seventies. However, "the authority concluded that the approach was nonetheless offensive", upheld the complaint, and the image was withdrawn from advertising.