In “It was the moment he was glad to meat her,” the depicted woman’s mouth is suggestively open, as if awaiting an oral meat injection. The pun employed in the title pertains to the hamburger in the diptych—delectable in its larger-than-life depiction—w/c overtakes the woman’s gaping mouth. The overtaking here is crucial: While the woman is also desirable, emphasis is put on the hamburger to make it the object of desire. But what is about to pork her in the mouth is not so much the burger itself but the lavishness of this burger, unrealistic the way photos of burgers are unrealistically good & juicy at the nearby fastfood joint open 24 hours a day. (After all, when was the last time you got a Double Cheeseburger at McDonald’s that looked as good as the Double Cheeseburger in its menu or in its ads?)

W/c is to say that what really penetrates isn’t the burger but the sign of the burger, its image of lavishness: what we are hungry for is not at all the cock but the sign of the cock. For this is what holds true power; what deep-throats you—what impregnates you w/ meaning—is the phallus. That Caringal makes use of a banana in “It was the moment he found out Fellatio wasn’t her surname” is not surprising; the banana after all is one of the most popular phallic symbols, if not the most popular. Given this recurring use of images of various women juxtaposed against images of food—is this finally what the show is about, is it a critique of phallocentric societies bent on objectifying women as if delicious items for consumption at patriarchy’s diner?   Continued...