Cindy Sherman was born in January 19, 1954 in the United States, She was part of the Pictures generation photography movement whose purpose was to make art that analysed their relationship with popular culture and the mass media. She worked at the intersection of personal and collective memory section where she rummaged through the throwaway products from their youth.

Before she became a photographer she at first experimented painting in a super-realist style in art school during the aftermath of American Feminism. She then in the 1970s decided to turn to photography to explore a wide range of common female social roles.

Her key goals of her photography is that she wanted her work to be characterised by her use of self-portraiture to create fictional characters and to explore themes such as identity, representation and the construction of femininity.

To achieve her goals she would typically take photographs of herself in a range of different costumes to portray the common roles of women, the way society portrayed women as back then. And she would then take the photos by herself in her studio assuming multiple roles such as an author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress, and model.

Cindy Sherman herself does not consider her work to be self-portraits as she took the pictures while wearing a costume/being in character but she does acknowledge that technically in the photo wearing the costumes is her but in her opinion she does not agree that her photos are a self portrait.

Cindy Sherman Image Analysis

Visual

The character that Sherman is adopting may be a women in her home who is not very comfortable and may be stressed, to back up my claim you can see on the right side of the dresser the picture frame of her, you can also see the positioning of her hand where on hand is comforting her neck like she is holding it up and on the other hand it looks like she’s holding a weapon especially with the angle that she’s holding it at. The mirror on the wall reveals her back which can suggest that she is vulnerable and we also get to see a table with a cocktail glass and a jacket on the chair which could be hers or it could be someone else’s, and in the top left corner you can notice smoke which could suggest somebody else is in her home.

From all the things we can see in this image and the title being called an “Untitled Film Still” this may be trying to portray the typical women in distress that are often seen in movies and this photo was most likely created to criticise the media and their depiction of females.

Technical

The photo could be using a wide focus aperture as all the details in the foreground are clear and easy to see, the photo could of also used a slightly fast shutter speed as the subject doesn’t appear blurry and the photo also has a lot of light coming in. The angle of the photo is quite high to show her full body so we can have more of an idea of her character but also be able to view the things around the room which helps you immersive yourself in her environment. The photo is a full body shot as well as this helps to get a full view and understanding of her character.

Contextual

Back in 1978 where the picture was taken, women were perceived as house wife’s, being weak, couldn’t fight for themselves and struggling to be independent in society. The photo she has taken takes these ideas and she portrays them to criticise the media with how they used this perception of women that society saw back in the day and how they integrated those stereotypes into their films, hence why these series of photos she took were named “untitled film stills”. This photo is meant to show that women can fight for themselves and that the stereotypes that were used and seen were not accurate.

Conceptual

Seeing that the photo is not a housewife but instead Sherman herself who is posing, it gives us the idea that Sherman is the one directly calling the media out as she was the one who took and posed for her photos. She may have done this to show the mass media that she’s aware of what happens in the media and how females are presented in those films, and criticises how they always make females look so vulnerable. This could link to the media today as there is still many movies and different types of media which still show women playing the same stereotypes from decades ago, However it is less common now then it used to be back in the 1970s.