Womanpower?: Analyzing Glamor and Violence in a Charity Calendar

This paper explores visual language employed by women in a provocative charity calendar produced to transmit a positive message of female empowerment. The Moe Girls Calendar was created in 2002 by a diverse group of local women in the Australian township of Moe. The project was an unusual and bold attempt to deflect ongoing, offensive publicity directed at the township, especially its female population, after the murder of a small child. Through use of visual semiotics this analysis examines whether the logic of a glamorized charity calendar can uphold a positive image of female identity. It also asks whether the calendar inadvertently resonates a violent landscape that is its genesis.