The Girl appears in every photograph, and though she is familiar in each (because the model is Sherman), she is never expressing the same idea as The Girl. She is being-there and she is not there at the same time, like a performer, and all the while she is able to convey these figurative portraits of femininity. Modeling in several roles, she reveals gender as an unstable and constructed position, which suggests that there is no innate biological female identity. On the contrary, women adopt several roles and identities depending on their circumstances.
Perhaps sherman is making a gender statement through critiquing women in representation. This is however questionable as she is willingly engaging in the subject she is critiquing. According to Mulvey the women is made into an object of male gaze. Thus making the man the spectator and the woman the spectacle. The man looks at the woman, and the woman is being looked at. This contributes and supports the stereotypical idea that men are to activity as woman are to passivity.
Her work also encourages self-reflection in the spectator. As Sherman argues. Sherman encourages viewers to create their own narratives when looking at her work. Perhaps by doing so, we become conscious participators in the story, or in the society that created these stereotypes in the first place. Depending on the narrative we create, her photographs could possibly help us to question our own ideas about gender and how it is represented in photography.
The Essay on Appeal To Women Bordo Men Idea
Susan Bordo is a great writer. I say this because I think her propaganda skills are superbly showed in this piece of writing. Through careful selection the ads that she analyzes, Bordo manages to make a convincing argument that all advertisements involving food or image are intended to appeal to women, even ads with men in them. I think this idea is completely ludicrous, but the method used to ...