“This is only a bunny boy but he is quite nice really” Margaret Harrison ,graphite on paper, 2010 (AnOther and Mathieson, 2011)
Margaret Harrison is an artist who was heavily involved in feminism, creating the Women’s Liberation Art group in 1970(Tate, n.d.). Harrison famously had a solo exhibition of her work in London at the Motif Editions gallery in 1971, which was opened for only one day before being shut down by police for being too “indecent” (Tresadern, para 20, 2017) specifically for her depiction of the famous playboy bunny owner Hugh Hefner. The above image is a recreation by the artist of her original drawing from 1971 as it was stolen during the closure of her exhibition. To quote Harrison in an interview reflecting on this collection 40 years later “but obviously the work was not thought of as suitable for an art gallery and they didn’t like what I had done to the male body” (Margaret Harrison, AnOther and Mathieson,2nd para, 2011) The hypocrisy in how gender and sexuality is treated was laid out bare by this blatant stance against Harrisons art, sexualising and feminising a man was considered indecent and unfit for public viewing yet you can walk into any shop and buy a playboy with a woman’s body exposed. There is a clear uncomfortability with female sexuality as when the roles are reversed and it is a man then people are uncomfortable, the female form is consumed and distributed yet when a woman embraces her own sexuality and gender she is shamed by society. Harrison flipped the roles to show the ludicrous male gaze’s oversexualisation and overconsumption of female bodies to highlight issues of gender and the sexes by way of humour (AnOther and Mathieson, para2, 2011) to appeal to the public but was poorly received. Harrison believed in the fluidity of gender and referred to her own art as an exploration of her own ideas of gender identity. To be presented in a feminised manner as a man was seen as demeaning rather than the playful way Harrison meant it as an obvious connection between Hefner and his bunnies, showing the complicated societal relationship with gender and rigid at the time against fluidity.
