I am an A Level student currently studying at Hautlieu School. My subjects include, Media Studies, Photography and History. My blog includes updates of my current work in both media and photography where I am able to show research, planning and experimentation. I update this blog weekly with different posts relating to my subject topics.
This is basically my current thought process of what I want to include in my essay and to see what is relevant to my findings. I want to develop further in my essay the work of activist groups and organisations as well as incorporating the work of Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman. I find this the most interesting and want to find out more about a lot of it. I also want to add in some media theorists like Laura Mulvey who talks about the male gaze and what audiences and spectators will expect to see in film, photography and art. I am still unsure as to what question I want to ask as there is so much to talk about. I think that I will need to pinpoint one specific part of the whole topic and focus on that and give an in-depth understanding of this rather than giving a more generalised essay about the entire movement of feminism as it is such a huge and broad topic.
Title/opening quotation:
title ideas – ???
– possible opening quote – “some people have told me that they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all.” – Cindy Sherman
– possibly use a quotation from my mother when interviewing her
– find a quote from a feminist activist
Introduction plans | What’s in it?
– brief synopsis of what I want to find
– artist references (Cindy Sherman and Claude Cahun)
– possibly mention the Pussy Riots and Femen (add own opinion)
– what are my goals for the whole project
(make sure to have a clear argument or opinion that remains strong throughout)
– focus in on one or two specific areas of feminism [housewives and fashion]
Paragraphing | What to focus on
– make individual paragraphs about Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman as well as cross referencing and comparing the two to one another
– mention modern day (present) movements within feminism especially in Russia and Ukraine with Femen and Pussy Riot – talk about the controversy within these movements and with other feminists
– talk about my own work and how I have responded to all of this [shoot of my mum and then re-staging those images myself to parody them in a sense and the work of gender equality within the fashion industry]
– link in my own work and its relevance to the movement of feminism
– mention the movement of feminism and how it all started with the Suffragette movement and now into the third/fourth wave of feminism
– has my work been influenced by my chosen artists or does it contradict/go against their work
Conclusion | Creating a final judgement
– come to a final judgement about everything and refer to the question and hypothesis
– give a final judgement similar to what I was trying to say in the introduction
– talk about if my initial thoughts and judgement are the same now as they were before. Have I proved the point I wanted to make or disproved it?
Lynn Gumpet has been director of NYU’s Grey Art Gallery since 1997 and she has developed and overseen exhibitions, educational activities and collections. Previously Gumpert had served as a curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City from 1980 t0 1988, she was also a senior curator there in 1984. Since Gumpert has worked as an independent curator and consultant organising a variety of shows in museums in Paris and Tokyo. Gumpert has a fast knowledge of art history and has industry experience in the arts.
About | Lucy R. Lippard
Lucy R. Lippard
Lucy Lippard is an American activist, feminist, art critic and curator noted for her works and books on contemporary art. Lippard earned degrees from Smith College (BA) and New York University (MA) before she began her career as an art critic in 1962. She began contributing to publications such as Art International and Artforum. Lippard set the standard for post minimalism, or antiform art, when she organised an exhibition entitled ‘Eccentric Abstraction’. This exhibition was hugely successful and this was to do with the quality of its sculptures, including works from Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman. Lippard is a well known art critic and is noted for her contributions through exhibitions.
Jonas Mekas
About | Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas is a Lithuania philosopher, born during the war and taken to a forced labour camp by Nazis in Elmshorn, Germany. After the war ended he went to the University of Mainz where he studied philosophy. He was later moved to New York City where he lived with his brother. Shortly after this move Mekas bought his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. In 1954 Mekas and his brother started Film Culture magazine soon to become the most important film publication in the United States. Mekas continued to write poetry and make films, and has published more than 20 books on poetry and prose translated into over a dozen languages.
About | Ted Mooney
Ted Mooney
Ted Mooney is an American author, born in Dallas, Texas and grew up in Washington D.C. In 1973 Mooney moved over to New York and still lives there today. He has pursued two parallel careers in the literary and art worlds. Mooney’s first novel won the Sue Kauffman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters entitled ‘Easy Travel to Other Planets’ in 1981. He was also a full-time Senior Editor at Art in America magazine which he held from 1977 to 2008.
About | Shelley Rice
Shelley Rice
Shelley Rice is a critic and historian who has lectured on photography and multi-media art in the USA, Europe, South America, Asia, Australia and Africa. She is a co-author of numerous catalogues and books including Landmarks [1984], The Art of the Everyday [1997] and many more. Rice has also been an American Consultant for, and a contributor to, Michel Frizot’s La Nouvelle Histoire de la Photographie [Paris, 1995 and in the USA in 1999]. Rice is also a photography and arts critic with many essays published in Art in America, Art Journal, Ms. Magazine, Etudes Photographiques, The New Republic, Bookforum, Aperture and more. Rice is currently working for an online magazine of the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris. Here she served as the Invited Blogger in 2012 and where she has been since 2014 as the host of the radiophonic talk show, The Meeting Point.
About | Abigail Solomon-Godeau
Abigail Solomon-Godeau
Abigail Solomon-Godeau was a freelance critic, curator and photographic critic and now working as an art historian. She has produced many books including; Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions and Practices which was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1991. Other books include; Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation; The Face of Difference: Gender, Race and the Politics of Self-Representation. Solomon’s work and essays have appeared in such journals as Art in America, Artforum, The Art Journal, Screen, Afterimage and more. These essays have been widely translated into various languages. Currently she is working on a book entitled Genre, Gender and the Nude in French Art.
Mulvey’s main theory was entitled “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” and she made great political use of the theory Freudian psychoanalytic theory:
– in a patriarchal [society dominated by men] society ‘pleasure in looking’ has been split between active male and passive female. In other words the females are there to be looked at while the males are the ones doing the looking.
Mulvey believes that Hollywood not only traditionally focuses on a male protagonist but also assumes a male spectator. They expect that males are the only ones in the cinemas actually watching these films and that women would have no desire to be a lead role such as James Bond. Mulvey coined the term ‘the male gaze’ presenting ‘woman as image’ [or ‘spectacle’] and man as ‘bearer of the look’. This basically means that women are there to be looked at and visually enjoyed by men who are there to objectify and watch the women. In film women should be shown as sexy and more of a love interest or to be sexualised rather than a character with a proper background and personality, she is only there to be looked at and so doesn’t need to have a name or personal story or background.
– the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ is given to both men and women. For example, the man will identify with the lead protagonist who is a strong and independent male that uses women and is cool, his comes across as the most masculine. The females will identify with the pretty love interest and happily watch her and see themselves in the position of the beautiful woman.
– men identify with the man who is using the woman as a fetishistic [the focus of an obsession] object.
– women gain pleasure from identifying with the beautiful woman in the film.
David Gauntlett | Born 1971
David Gauntlett
Gauntlett’s is a sociologist and media theorist who’s work expresses that creativity stems from self-identity and self-expression. He was a media professor at Bournemouth University and in 2006 he joined the School of Media, Arts and Design at the University of Westminster as Professor of Media and Communications. Gauntlett uses the depictions of masculinity, femininity and sexuality in a variety of media such as men’s and women’s magazines, television, film, popular music and self-help books. This is in attempts to explore how these representations impacts women’s and men’s self-identities in both the UK and the USA. Gauntlett presented debates on the power of the media providing an overview of past and contemporary representations of gender and sexuality in the means of media coverage; advertising, magazines, television and film.
A David Gauntlett essay:
Anthony Giddens | Born 1938
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens is a British theorist. He grew up in a lower middle-class family in London. Giddens completed a Bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology at the University of Hull in 1959 and completed a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics and he got a Ph.D at the University of Cambridge. Giddens came up with the theory of structuration exploring the connection between individuals and social systems. He is a prominent contributor in the field of sociology and has 34 published books that have been translated in at least 29 languages. From 1998 to 2003 Giddens was the Director of the London School of Economics and still remains there as a professor. Giddens suggests the theory of structuration, a social theory of the creation and reproduction of social systems. This is based in the analysis of both structure and agents. Meaning that peoples social lives are more than just random individual acts and that there is in fact a social structure. This is in the traditions, institutions, moral codes and have established ways of doing things but it also means that these social standards can be changed when people start to ignore them, replace them or reproduce them in different ways.
Butler is a professor of Comparative Literature and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. She is well known as a theorist of power, gender, sexuality and identity. Butler came up with the “Queer Theory”, this grew out of feminism and gender studies in the 1990s. Her work combats negative representations of gay sexuality in the media and challenges the idea that gender is a fixed, immovable part of the essential life, as male or female. She suggests that male and female gender or sexual preference does not control all aspects of our identity, or how we perceive other peoples identity. Someones sexuality shouldn’t be/isn’t the most important aspect of a person and should not define what kind of person they are.
I agree with this theory as I think that stereotypes tend to scare people and make them think in a narrow-minded way. This theory develops stereotypes and simply states that this side of a person doesn’t define them and that audience’s shouldn’t judge someone just because of their sexual preference, this isn’t a definitive aspect of a persons personality, nor should it be.
Michel Foucault | Born 1926
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault was a French historian and philosopher and is associated with the structuralist and post-structuralist movements. Foucault has had strong influence not only in philosophy but also in a wide range of humanistic and social scientific disciplines. Foucault was a major figure in two successive waves of the 20th century. The structuralist wave in the 1960s and then the poststructuralist wave. His work can generally be characterised as philosophically oriented historical research. Towards the end of his life he insisted that all his work was part of a single project of historically investigating the production of truth. Foucault tried to find a way of understanding the ideas that shape our present not only in terms of the historical function but also by tracing changes in their function throughout history.
Amelia Jones wrote a piece on feminism titled ‘Feminism, Incorporated – Reading “PostFeminism” in an anti-feminist age’. Here Jones goes into detail on our particular culture and the rise of anti-feminism. This was really interesting to read and I found out a lot more about the politics and negative aspects of being in politics as a woman.
Amelia Jones: ‘Feminism, Incorporated’ –
Postfeminism | What is it?
Postfeminism isn’t well defined and is used in inconsistent ways so the accurate definition does not exist. The term in general suggests that feminism has succeeded in its aims and its goals of making life better for women and getting rid of sexism opposing the intention of broadening feminist struggles.
First wave feminism
First wave feminism happening in the 19th and early 20th century throughout the world, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands. This stage of the movement focused on the legal issues, primarily on gaining women’s suffrage (the right to vote). This is where the term Suffragette came from and spread across women in Britain and across the world who fought and protested simply for the right to vote. Women died for this cause just to get women seen but one individual in particular got the whole of Britain talking. This individual was Emily Davidson who went out onto the race track at a Derby in 1913 to raise the flag of the Suffragettes in front of the cameras that were broadcasting the race. She was struck down by one of the King’s horses and was killed. She made news history with thousands of people going out to attend her funeral and many more shocked at the death of this Suffragette. This is when people started to listen and for many it was even more reason to ignore them but the women of Britain were finally given the vote in 1918 women in Britain over the age of 21 were allowed to vote. This was one part of the first wave of the feminist movement.
Suffragette movement (Britain)
Suffragette movement (Britain)
Suffragette movement (Britain)
Second wave feminism
The second wave of feminism first began in the early 1960s in the United States, eventually spreading throughout the Western world (and beyond). This movement saw women as equals to men to get them out of the house and into the offices, for women to be able to have jobs and bring their own money into their own home. Women no longer wanted to be stay-at-home housewives that basically lived to serve the men. This worked as it is now common for women to be working in many different kinds of jobs and working just as hard as men. However, we are still struggling with the rights to equal pay in many parts of the working industry and women are still faced with unfair inequalities which belittle the women and make them seem less capable than their male counterparts which is completely wrong.
Feminist protests (1960s)
Feminist protests (1960s)
Feminist protests (1960s)
Third wave feminism
Third wave feminism began in the 1990s and is continuing to this day. This refers to several diverse strains of feminist activity and study. This is the fight for gender equality in all sense of the words. It is to raise the issues that women face through stereotypes and unfair stigmas. This movement still carries on today and many activist groups across the world including Femen and the Pussy Riots are still very much involved in ridding the world of inequality.
Femen is a group of topless female activists who originated from Ukraine. They have become internationally known for organising some controversial topless protests against homophobia, sexism, religious institutions, sex tourism and other social topics internationally and nationally. The group have recently relocated and are now based in France, Paris. These women have regularly been detained by police due to their activism and are using sextremism to protect women’s rights. Inna Shevchenko is the leader of the Femen movement, demonstrating topless against what these women perceive as manifestations of patriarch, dictatorship, religion and the sex industry. Shevchenko has a higher profile than most members in the group as was one of the three Femen activists who were kidnapped and threatened by the Belarus KGB in 2011 (Soviet Union security) and also brought around more attention when in Ukraine by cutting down, with a chainsaw, a 4-metre high Christian cows in central Kiev in 2012.
The article above talks more in-depth about the Femen movement and their methods of topless protest to try and emancipate women and to liberate them. This has much controversy around the world and especially throughout the Muslim community where Muslim women go against the claims that they are to be liberated and free by being naked. I feel that this will forever be an ongoing debate as so many women feel differently about what freedom means to them. I believe that Muslim women can do and where whatever they please but the whole point of them coving up is so that they are ‘saved’ for their husbands and are only allowed to show their bodies to their husband because they belong to them. This is why I have somewhat of a problem with Muslim culture as women are treated as second class citizens and are expected not to work or have jobs that the men have and the fact that they raised to believe that their body should only be seen by their husband. The whole controversy with Femen is that these women want freedom in the sense that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body and shouldn’t feel trapped by the clothes that she wears or she shouldn’t wear certain clothing as her husband or partner won’t like it or allow her to do so. The whole message behind the movement of Femen is to do what YOU want with your own body and to choose whether you want to wear layers of clothing or wear barely anything and not be judged by other people and bashed or shamed.
“Where the female body – through its societal projections in media, art, politics and religion – has always formed the first port of women’s oppression” – Zoe Holman
What is sex tourism?
Sex tourism is where someone will go travelling to engage in sexual activity, mainly prostitutes. A definition of sex tourism given by the World Tourism Organisation states that sex tourism is made up of trips that are organised from within the tourist sector, using its structures and networks, with the primary purpose of effecting a commercial sexual relationship by the tourist with residents at the destination. This is basically using women [and possibly men] as objets and using their bodies to have a ‘better’ time and experience while travelling. This is absolutely ridiculous and disgusting that people actually go out and do this. Sex tourism also brings in lower costs for sexual services in the destination country, this is because prostitution is either legal in those countries or there are indifferent law enforcements and access to child prostitution. I think that this is seriously awful and am so glad that the women part of the Femen movement are strongly against this and are fighting for this to end.
Above is a short video of the women from Femen peeing on an image of Putin. This is such a strong message showing complete disrespect towards that man and that they don’t care what he thinks because in their eyes Putin is running a dictator ship and they hate him. This work really stands out one because the women are topless with messages written across their bare bodies and the second being them peeing on the President of Russia’s photograph. I’m unsure how I feel about this as I am all for equality of the sexes and women should be able to peaceful walk around topless without being objectified or ridiculed in public etc yet some part of me thinks that peeing in public on the streets is a step too far. There are many ways to get the message across to the media and to Putin about their strong hatred towards him but there is a certain point where I would have to draw the line as this isn’t going to get through to him or anyone else any more than burning a photograph of Putin would.
Phelps was an early feminist American author who challenged traditional Christian beliefs of the afterlife, challenging women’s traditional roles in marriage and family. She was also an advocate for clothing reform for women. Phelps went against convention and married a man 17 years younger than her. Later in life she would urge women to burn their corsets in protest against the stereotypes and norms faced with women. Her later writing focused on feminine ideals and women’s financial dependence. She became the first woman to present a lecture series at Boston University. Phelps work aims to challenge the view that women’s pale and fulfilment resided in the home. Her work instead depicted women as succeeding in less traditional careers taking on jobs such as ministers, artists and physicians.
Bra Burning | 1960s
The 1960s was the beginning of a new era for women where protests for equal rights really began. Before the 60s women were always known to be housewives and mothers without any other sort of titles, they were simply there to serve. Many women were aggravated by this and still are today, this made women feel the need to reform this stereotype. With the 60s came the bra burning phrase were some women would literally burn their bras as they felt that it made a statement and a stand for Women’s Rights. Few women actually did this but many women supported the movement itself. They burned bras as a symbol showing independence of men at the time. Other women would often walk around wearing no bra at all again to show independence of men. To many women this meant freedom. The Femen women took inspiration from this and have taken it to a new level where they walk around topless and have things written on their bare bodies.
This approach is what got the women of Femen noticed as simply wearing colourful clothing or underwear seemingly didn’t excite journalists and so the only way to get noticed was to go around topless. One founding member stated that “journalists weren’t interested… we realised we had to do something more radical”. These women felt that they needed to do something out of the ordinary to actually get noticed and for people to consider them. This is an interesting idea as these women show confidence and strength being able to show themselves out in public when many other women would be too afraid of others shaming them or getting dirty looks from them.
Femen at a Muslim conference (France):
Overview | What I Think
I get what the women of Femen are standing for and what their message is but that is only because I’ve researched into it at bit more otherwise I don’t think that I would have got what they are doing. I’m really unsure where to stand in this situation as I completely agree that women should have the freedom to do whatever they want with their bodies and can do whatever they want with their own bodies but again not a lot of people would see that. All they see is a bunch of Ukrainian women going against the government and Vladimir Putin. They do have strong and easy to understand messages but I just don’t think that many people will see it that way and won’t really care to find out more about these women and the movement behind their activism. Their bare skin is more of a statement and what stands out most over any writing that may be on their body and I just think that peeing on photographs of Putin is a step too far and cutting down a sacred stand is also a bit much as that is where it becomes disrespectful of other peoples views and it will make them blind to the Femen women’s opinions and make people less inclined to actually listen to what they have to say. I do know that their circumstances are very different and they are living in a completely different world to me and people living in Britain and America where women’s rights are actually taken more seriously and people are starting to start the push for equality, in Ukraine and Russia women are still very much second class citizens and the women of Femen also focus on Muslim women and ‘freeing’ themselves by taking their clothes off etc. Feminism is such a huge topic and movement where women all over the world are being suppressed and different parts of the world are at different stages of equality and different levels of knowledge and understanding on the subject. The women of Femen and Pussy Riots seem to be on the same wave length and a lot of their work blends well together and they are able to relate to one another.
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist punk rock protest group based in Moscow. They were founded back in 2011 consisting of 11 women from the ages of about 20 to 33. These women stage unauthorised and provocative performances in unusual public locations, they are edited into music videos and are posted over the internet. Their work within music contains themes including feminism LGBT right and political messages in opposition to Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. They see Putin as a dictator and very much bringing back socialism and the dictatorship rule of Lenin and Stalin back in the early 1900s. Two members of the Pussy Riot band faced imprisonment without bail and were unable to see their young children the entire time that they were there. One of the pair went of hunger strike due to abuse by police while in prison. They were released in December of 2013 due to the Winter Olympics being hosted by Russia in February of 2014. This was done to save unrest and possible protest. This didn’t stop the women, as soon as they were released from prison they went out to make another music video and performed under an Olympic sign only to be pepper sprayed and hit down by police. This just makes the group stronger and give them more to fight for.
Researching more into their work I came across this video showing five female members and one male member of the band doing an impromptu performance under a sign for the Olympics. Basically, these members were attacked by police officers, pepper sprayed and whipped. It was actually shocking to me because it is so obviously that these supposed law enforcers were trying to silence these people for standing out and not even doing anything wrong at all. Police brutality is such a huge part of American news reports showing how police are taking their power for granted and abusing it. Yet in Russia I don’t even think that they get any media or news coverage at all because so many people are against their movement and anti-Putin protests.
This video is very interesting to me. It is a video where two members of the Pussy Riot are being buried alive and are wearing Russian riot police uniforms during the violent clashes between police and protectors in a fight for change in Russia. Towards the end of the video is also a quote from an American black man who was taken by a police officer and killed. This video emulates police brutality and shows two women actually being buried alive with the expectation that they are just supposed to lay there and allow for them to be buried alive which symbolises the suppression that people are faced with every single day in countries all over the world. This was the Pussy Riot’s first english song to be released and by doing so they have given more room to freely express themselves and branch out to a wider audience especially people living in America where they have made the link near the end of the video with the quote from Eric Garner shortly before his death. I do think that reaching out to other countries like America and Britain the Pussy Riot’s will gain more following and backing as from watching many of their videos and reading comments I have found how backward a lot of Russian people’s views are and how they seem to hate feminism and this band and anything that is anti-Putin or against their beloved orthodox church. This video also helped me to realise how politically driven these women are and how much their work is against their own countries way of life. I think that these women are very strong and courageous to be standing out against what literally everyone else believes in and the fact that they are even going against their leader Putin. I hate that these women have to do stuff like this to be noticed and to try and make a change but I guess nothing will ever change if people don’t stand up and acknowledge that there is a problem and that something needs to change. The two women featured in the video seem to have become the face of the Pussy Riots who were originally supposed to remain faceless yet this had to come after their prison sentence where they were named and photographed without their balaclavas on.
This is another of the Pussy Riot’s music videos showing the brutality they are faced by the police. Their work is strongly politically driven and they remain faceless wearing balaclavas to hide their identities. To me this becomes more of a representation for women so that people follow the movement rather than any individual involved within the movement. This video also shows how these women get physically abused and just take it, this reminds me of peaceful protests made by Ghandi on the rights of the Indian people. It is so strange to see these people being hit down in the streets with passersby just watching and filming, allowing it all to unfold. Police brutality is so known and common in America where black citizens are usually targeted but in Russia the women are targeted and anyone that thinks differently. There are always going to be people that defy your views and people are always going to disagree with you no matter what so protesting is always going to be going on and people are always going to be fighting for change. Peaceful protest seems to work and it makes more of an impact if these people are going about making their music videos and with the police acting violently they are giving them exactly what they want. This is more likely to push for change and get the rest of the world talking about issues such as violence against black citizens for being the colour that they are and against women simply for being born a woman.
Pussy Riot and Femen article:
Madonna’s speech in Russia, Moscow on the rights of human beings:
This is probably the best thing I’ve ever heard Madonna say. I feel that there are so many supporters of the Pussy Riot’s but they are in fear of standing out or showing their support because they will be faced with police brutality and a never ending veil of hatred. Support comes more from those who understand what feminism is. I feel that a lot of Russian people hate the Pussy Riot group because they see their movement as a crime against the orthodox church when in reality they are actually against Putin and the support that the orthodox church has given him in his rule and have almost been taken over and corrupt by Vladimir Putin. Their lyrics are explicitly against Putin and talk about the “virgin birth-giver of God” taking him away and ridding Russia of him. These women weren’t making a music video against the Russian Putin. They are very politically driven and the messages within their music is strong and clear but so many Russians choose to ignore their message and are ignorant to what they are really trying to say. Reading more into the lyrics of this song the women are begging almost the virgin Mary to become a feminist and to take away from the church who praises “rotten leaders”. Their words and lyrics portray Putin as ruining the purity of the church and the Virgin Mary as a feminist who is with those women when they are protesting.
“42 percent of Russians consider the punk prayer an attack on the Russian Orthodox Church.” – Levada Center
A couple of years ago a film came out starring Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and James Franco about a bunch of teenage women who went out on Spring break and things went very differently and wild radical things happened. I haven’t seen the film myself but have researched into it and been told by friends that the film is very radical and crazy with the women attempting a heist and eventually being arrested. Images coming from the film really remind me of the Pussy Riots with the colourful and prominent balaclavas being a huge part of the film as well as an iconic symbol of the Pussy Riot band and movement. I feel like the creators of the film took inspiration from the radical women that are the Pussy Riots and found them so interesting and they really do stand out and have a clear and strong message which the producers and director of the film could want to adopt for their characters. This could be a happy coincidence but the colourful balaclavas are associated with the Pussy Riots and so it does remind me of the film Spring Breakers. Also, in the film Spring Breakers the young women are constantly just wearing bikinis and balaclavas which is also similar to the movement of Femen where the women go out topless with writing all over their bodies in protest. I think that the film Spring Breakers can be related to these two movements within feminism as I think of them when I see images from the film.
Spring Breakers (film)
Spring Breakers (film)
Spring Breakers (film)
Overview | What I Think
It has given me a lot to think about after researching the movement of the Pussy Riot band and it interests me how their world is so different from mine and the fact that they get beaten down and just take it in order to show the world what is going on in their own world and their lives as women living in Russia. This is a really strong movement with a strong group of women who stand up for what they believe in and are unapologetic. Their work shows a different side to police brutality from what I am exposed to as a young female showing that not only police brutality in America against black citizens but also police brutality targets women too. To me this shows how far a country and government will go just to silence people and to try and stop them from going against the norm and for thinking differently. It is crazy the lengths a government will go just to stop people challenging them or becoming opposition to them.
Hate comments
With news coverage and acknowledgement comes hatred and trolls. After watching one of the Pussy Riots videos I scrolled through the comments and found nothing but hate for those women. People were actually saying that they women deserved to be beaten and whipped and were ‘feminazi’. That is such a strong accusation and completely stupid as they women aren’t killing anyone and don’t believe in a superior race, they believe in equality and they are the ones being thrown about and beaten to the ground. I understand that there are many people in Russia and other countries that have been brought up to believe that women are second class citizens and are to be treated less than men but somehow they have lost all sense of respect for others opinions and views. They seem to think that they are the only ones that can feel and they have succumb to thinking in the same way and these women have dared to stand up against that way of thinking and are expressing their own views and those views are for the equal rights of women to men. The main reason these women are hated is because they go against the rule of Vladimir Putin and are seemingly against the Russian Orthodox Church. I get that people can be really strongly religious and keep to their beliefs but others are allowed opposing opinions and should be able to voice those opinions just as those who are religious are. I don’t really know where I stand in this situation as I am completely against the hatred and stupidity of anonymous online accounts yet I do think that disrespecting someone else’s belief’s or religion can be a possible step too far just for some attention and to go against Putin.
I realised that students rarely make a fashion magazine when doing the A2 coursework so I decided to make one. I wanted my work to be different from everyone else’s and to showcase it in a different and unique way. I came up with a relevant topic to impact my spectators which I also have strong views on, I wanted it to have an underlining message that is obvious to the spectator and that they are able to see clearly throughout. For this idea I want to carry on my work of self-portraiture and dressing up as both the male and female characters in my photographs. I aim to make advertisement images that almost mimic images that I’ve seen of models making ad campaigns and also exaggerating it and somewhat making a joke out of it. Also, I wanted to make fashion inspired images in the magazine dressing as both the male and female characters wearing the clothing that both men and women wear. I really like the idea of having no boundaries in fashion and feeling inspired by fashion from both men and women I feel that it is important for people not to feel restricted in how they can express themselves in their own clothing. I believe that men should be able to wear skirts and dresses without feeling embarrassed or being labelled as ‘gay’, Scottish men wear kilts and thats fine but anything else is seen as radical. Also, the fact that is is seen as weird if they wear a tailored suit or baggy ‘tom-boy’ clothing. Someone who is a huge advocate for this is Jaden Smith and I really love that he has become the new face of Louis Vuitton womenswear because it is so true that men and women should be able to wear whatever they want and we shouldn’t have to gender specify clothing and separate from one another. However, there are two sides to this. I do think that there are certain types of clothing that more so needs to be modelled by women and needs to be modelled b women. Women and men are shaped differently and so the ideal would obviously be a model for women who has breast and commonly larger hips whereas men would usually prefer a male model with broader shoulders and more muscular features. That is simply how our bodies are and we can’t really help or change that. Ultimately, I do think that if worn in the right way men and women shouldn’t have to feel restricted by stereotypes given to men and women hundreds of years ago. I feel that there is a lot to say on this topic and I want to express this through my own work, it’s so interesting to me and I want to develop it further. I also think that this has a lot to do with body image and being the ideal being. Both males and females have to deal with stereotypes and expectations given through advertisements and models. Body types are so different and people are shaped differently yet we all aspire and try to look the same way.
I came across an article the other day with the release of the latest Louis Vuitton campaign for womenswear with male actor and musician Jaden Smith becoming the new face of the project. Smith has always worn more out there pieces with dresses and skirts being a part of his everyday wardrobe. However, Smith doesn’t wear feminine looking pieces that are fitted to the shape of the woman, he wears pieces that are baggy and are on trend. I really like his style as it is unique and looks great, he manages to stand out. Smith wants gender stereotypes to be scrapped and his aims of this campaign is to change the worlds perception of what both men and women should and could wear. This reminds me of what Claude Cahun was trying to bring across in her own images by smudging the lines between having a male identity and female identity against stereotypes. I really love the ad campaign for Louis Vuitton as I think that it will get people talking and I like that Jaden is using his fame to make the world aware of issues such as gender stereotypes and the pressures that men and women are put under in order to fit in with what society expects us to look like. I also think that it has a great deal to do with the internet and how we are all so involved with broadcasting our lives on social media, we almost become accustomed to judging one another and being judged.
‘Tomboy’ and ‘girly-girl’ are names that I’ve grown up with and become accustomed to. Growing up I was always the girly-girl who wore pink EVERYTHING and seemed to aspire to becoming a princess when I grew up while my two best friends growing up were both seen as tomboys and would run around and not care about how they looked. Don’t get me wrong I loved running around and playing outside with my mates but because of the way I dressed and the fact that I liked the colour pink meant that I was labelled as a ‘girly-girl’. We are constantly faced with labels throughout our lives and often that feels restricting and confining, although at the time I liked being a girly-girl and I thought that was the norm. I believe that as youngsters we shouldn’t be encouraged to dress or look a certain way, we should be taught to freely express ourselves and wear whatever we want. Throughout history men have worn dresses and skirts such as the Roman period and gladiators, Greek God’s and the people, Egyptian pharaohs and typical Egyptian people. All of these time periods show men and women wearing the same clothing just in slightly different ways to flatter and work well with their physique which I think looks great and we should embrace the past and bring it back into our modern world. I feel like white English people have almost become culture-less and don’t really have anything that is definitively English and it doesn’t stand out. The Scottish have kilts which have been around for centuries and haven’t lost their same patriotism or presence within the Scottish community. The vast black culture in America have their African cultures in their fashion and their vibrant clothing. I just feel like our modern first world countries have almost lost what we had and we need to embrace our cultures more and bring back old fashion traditions that allow us to remember and honour our ancestors as well as becoming more accepting of one another and our different fashion choices without worrying how it looks on us because we are female or because we are male.
I feel like this topic is becoming more wide scale and will be a huge part of 2016 as people are looking more and more for gender equality. As a modern society we are very stuck in our ways and don’t like change or anyone that stands out from the norm. We tend to focus on the negative attributes of people and what they are wearing and their physical appearance when in reality it shoudn’t be all about that and people should be able to wear whatever they want without feeling that they are going to be judged or ridiculed by others.
Other current issues which are seemingly surfacing in the past year and finally changing is transgender people. Recently, a film came out titled The Danish Girl based on a true story about a female who was trapped inside of a males body. This film was really interesting and emotional to watch, really giving me an insight to how transgender people feel and what it could possibly to like to be trapped inside the wrong body. This is a really powerful film and was actually 15 years in the making as it took a long time to do all the accurate research and to get the project off the ground. I think that this film is very powerful and addresses well an issue which has become so widely talked about with the transition of Bruce Jenner becoming her true self as Caitlyn Jenner. The issues with this aren’t in the people who are transgender but the issue lies with those who don’t understand it and who don’t wish to understand it. Those people who think that it isn’t natural and so shouldn’t be the case and isn’t a part of nature. These are the people who also stereotype men and women and have separate expectations and standards for both genders. Your sex defines whether or not you have male parts or female parts but gender is a set of stereotypes given to individuals belonging to a sex that can have positive or negative impact. Usually, being labelled and stereotyped as a gender can be quite negative as people are making assumptions about you as a person because of your sex and because of the skin that you were born in which is completely wrong and something that I want to explore in my work and defy through my photographs. I want to challenge the gender norms and stereotypes and smudge the lines between being explicitly male or female.
For my projects and essay I will be focusing on making a book and a short film to go with that book. If I can I also want to create a fashion magazine as this is something that really interests me and I have plenty of ideas that I want to create for it. I am focusing my work on feminism and the unfair advantages and disadvantages faced with both men and women. I will be focusing on two different aspects of feminism, the first being the unfair stereotype given to women of being the carer and basically live to serve, doing all the cooking and cleaning for the family and/or her husband. I also want to focus on smudging the lines between gender stereotypes of fashion. Both topics really interest me and I want to be able to explore them further.
Main Idea | Personal Shoot
I want to look into the life of my mother and how she is a working housewife. Meaning that she has a full-time job and works from 9-5 yet is this expected to come home and do all of the chores and house work, cooking and cleaning, that a housewife would usually be expected to do. I want to make a short film of my mother going about her everyday chores and what does on a regular occurrence. From those film clips I want to make film stills, inspired by the work of Cindy Sherman, and edit them into strong images. After this I want to then mimic the work myself in a parody sort of way to make my spectators focus on what is going on in the images and how old-fashioned it is for the woman to be doing all of the chores and housework. I will also be interviewing my mum and asking her various questions about feminism and her role in the family. This will go along with my short film that I will be creating. I think that this will be a really fun and an interesting project to do as it is more personal and I do think that the images will be more interesting for my spectators to look at.
– make videos of my mum doing her everyday chores at different times and basically film what she is doing. I want to make it more artistic and film in more artsy and creative ways instead of straight on boring video. I will be turning this into a short film with a voice over of an interview with my mum on her role in life and how she feels about it. I want to find out more about what she deems acceptable within our society and why she has raised me differently and more openly to how she was brought up. After collecting this footage I will make images from this of screenshots of my mother and I will restage these images of myself in front of the camera almost parodying her role and how I don’t want to have that same role and don’t accept to be stuck in an old-fashioned way of life.
inspiration/mood board
Second Idea | Fashion and Gender
For this idea I want to create a fashion magazine dressing as both the male and female subjects of all of the images from the magazine. I have taken inspiration from Claude Cahun on smudging the lines between male and female stereotypes and want to explore this through the world of fashion. I have ideas of exaggerating ad campaigns that I have seen before to almost parody the ridiculous expectations put on both men and women with models acting and portraying the ‘perfect form’. Mainly this idea will focus on smudging the lines between the male and female expectations of fashion as I think that this is such a huge thing in recent times and will make the most impact on my spectators. I took inspiration for this from the recently launched ad campaign featuring Jaden Smith as the new face of Louis Vuitton womenswear. I find this so unique as Smith is bringing attention to gender stereotypes that we are all faced with but deem acceptable, this needs to change.
– make images in studio dressed as both the male and female model [wearing wigs and different clothing]
– possibly make images dressed as a different cultured woman [muslim] to show the difference in society [extra idea]
– make an image dressed as the Egyptian woman Nefertiti to add to the magazine [possibly, extra idea]
Obviously I am taking inspiration from the work of Cindy Sherman and her self portraits of taking on different female personas. I am also taking inspiration from Claude Cahun and her work where she smudges the line between the separateness of males and females. I think that this is very relevant and is now growing with fashion changing and people becoming more accepting and open to a new normal. These two are my main feminist photographer inspirations as I find their work so strong and I have always learnt a great deal from them but recently I have started to take a keen interest in the work of Yoko Ono, more specifically her work titled Cut Piece which is a very powerful video. Likewise, I have taken a lot of inspiration from surrealist photographers including Christopher McKenney and his horror surrealism which I absolutely love and find it so unique, it really stands out to me as well as the work of Brian Oldham. Both surrealist photographers work is different and I love to look at all of them. This is the effect that I want to have on my spectator, I want them to see my images and for them to stand out to them. I want to make images that give impact and that make my spectator stop and rethink and evaluate the way that they look at the world and life. I have already looked into the work of these photographers and have found out a fair amount about all of them but I want to compare and contrast them towards one another so that I can see which would be the best to write a response and essay about.
Over the Christmas period I have been looking for new photographers to explore who create surrealist photos like Christopher McKenney and Brian Oldham. I came across Linda Blacker on Instagram and found her images very interesting and different. I like her work and want to incorporate new and unique ideas like hers into my own work to make for more exciting images. Blacker is a fine art photographer, born in Chelmsford, United Kingdom. Her work combines fantasy and reality creating colourful and mystical images. Blacker’s work is very much fantasy and consists of plenty of makeup, props, sets and costumes. Her work is so interesting and different, it stands out and is very strange. Most of the time I just like to look at her work and see what she is doing yet never look into her work in enough depth to start making conceptual ideas of what the meaning behind each image is. They are very visually beautiful and tell a great story of the different characters that she manages to create and portray through her models.
“I like to be in control of the entire piece. From the costume, to the set, I style the characters and I am even very precise about the position I want the model to be in.” – Linda Blacker
Looking further into the work of Blacker I find it so exciting and full of life. Her work is always so colourful and engaging which I think that I want to use when making my own images. I do think that Blacker’s work is very eccentric and over the top but I love that about her work. I won’t be doing any shoots like hers anytime soon as I don’t think it would be relevant to my personal study but I have taken some inspiration from her creativity and individuality. I want to somehow incorporate colourful smoke bombs into my own surrealist work and want to make unusual images that stand out just as much as the work of Blacker. All of Blacker’s work is done in a studio and with a makeup artist at hand which I obviously do not have but I like the idea of using the studio to make some interesting images.
I find this image particularly interesting as Blacker has literally made the model part of the art work. It almost looks like a painting and the model blends in to that environment so well. In this image the model is unidentifiable and Blacker usually makes images like this on purpose as they aren’t the main event there is so much more going on around the model and Blacker wants the image to stand out as a whole and for her spectators not to just focus on the model. To me the model is supposed to be a cloud or could be a representation of wind, nature etc as she is blowing softly but the hot air balloons look as though they are being greatly affected by her presence. I love the colours in this image as it is so bright and happy. The colourful hot air balloons really stand out and make this image really inviting. Something about this image just makes me curious as it is so strange yet it makes me want to look at it more and find out what is actually going on in the image. It looks as though the entire thing is a painting and the model was painted and told what exact position to stand in and the exact facial expression she should make. I do like the idea of having complete control over my images and being able to position my model how I want them but I always prefer just coming to the scene and choosing what to do there and then, I tend to go with whatever looks best not just the idea and angle that I imagined in my head as it might not always work out that way or look as good as I imagine so being open to changes and different angles is the best for me.
This image also interests me, I get the impression through Blacker’s work that she likes to use paint and make her photographs look like paintings. I like that this image shows a man being the night and the moon while the woman is the sun showing the relationship between the two. The arm the woman has resting on the mans shoulder and his arms around her makes the image seem like the two are in a relationship but almost can’t actually touch each other or hold each other properly as they look strange. Both of them seem to be embracing one another with both of their eyes closed, this could be to make the image more powerful and mysterious focusing more on the whole image and the sun and the moon rather than focusing on two people painted as the sun and the moon. They are supposed to blend into the image to become a part of it and aren’t really there to stand out or to take away from the art work of the image.
