Ok, so this rant isn’t actually about Earth Day. Rather, it’s a rant about an image I found when I was looking for images to go with my Earth Day post. Honestly, I had no plan or desire to write a rant. I just wanted to say hey everybody, it’s Earth Day, think about what you can do to help the environment, here’s a little history of Earth Day, thanks for reading.

But when I scrolled through the images that popped up when I did a Google search on Earth Day, I saw this:

Hey everybody! Let’s use an image of a basically naked woman to save the earth! (Caption mine)

Really? It’s the 21st century, and that’s the image some folks are using to celebrate Earth Day? First of all, who is the intended audience of this image? Probably not a classroom full of 3rd graders. (However, certain members of a middle school environmental club might be very excited by this picture.) Is this an image somebody thought would get men interested in Earth Day? Even if this illustration is aimed at men/teenage boys/lesbins/fairy fans of any gender, will it actually influence anyone? I can’t imagine someone saying, I used to not give a fuck about the earth, but then I saw a picture of a naked chick covered in flowers, and now I CARE!

Is the woman in the picture supposed to be Mother Earth? I can halfway accept the image as Earth Day propaganda if someone can make a case that the woman is Mother Earth. But wouldn’t Mother Earth be fatter? Super models and actresses aside, most mothers do not have bellies that flat or breast that perky and full. Perhaps I’m mistaken and this is not Mother Earth, but Maiden Earth. (But really, have you ever once heard one single person refer to “Maiden Earth”?) Give me a picture of a chubby gal with stretchmarks (and extra points for body hair) representing Mother Earth on Earth Day, and I’ll get behind that.

I think this is yet another example of using a socially acceptable, beyond natural (and I’m not talking about the pointy ears and the flowers for hair), “perfect,” skinny, young woman’s body to sell something. I don’t think this is an acceptable way to sell anything, but especially not Earth Day.

This gal is more what I have in mind when I think of Mother Earth.

(Both images from http://www.magickalgraphics.com/earthday2.htm, where they “offer beautiful free Earth Day graphics, animations, comments, glitter, pictures, Images and codes.”)