Annie Liebovitz's Women

Annie Liebovitz's Women

After reading a book on various feminist philosophies, I evaluated Annie Liebovitz's book and collection of photographs entitled Women according to my interpretation of feminist philosophy, then used this aesthetic impression to evaluate the efficacy of feminist theories as they apply toward evaluating and understanding art.

“A photograph is not an opinion. Or is it?” So begins Susan Sontag's introductory essay to the book Women, a collection of photographs by Annie Leibovitz. Collected without a stated intention other than to treat on the subject matter at hand, Leibovitz’s images confront a wide spectrum of issues surrounding women living in America at the end of the twentieth century. Sontag explains, “Any large-scale picturing of women belongs to the ongoing story of how women are presented, and how they are invited to think of themselves (20).”

Leibovitz photographs women of remarkable accomplishment: senators, supreme court justices, astronauts, athletes, opera singers, firefighters, a philanthropist maid, basketball stars, movie stars, elementary school teachers, weightlifters, and performance artists, as well as those who happen to fall in the viewfinder, sitting in the back of a pickup truck playing with Barbie dolls, or seeking shelter from domestic abuse at the local YMCA. Viewing this seemingly objective portrayal of women, we must consider the statements being made. Carol Duncan, in her essay “The MoMA’s Hot Mamas,” describes the modern art museum and a vast array of modern art in general as “a ritual of male transcendence, if we see it as organized around male fears, fantasies, and desires (118).” One might assume that Leibovitz, a respected and established photographer, might take ...

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...admitted challenge and source of great confusion both to Leibovitz and Sontag, who inspired this project. If we are looking for statements to embrace or object to, then a feminist interpretation cannot always work. Although the book is of and about women, it is also about much more, addressing deeply-rooted social problems, economic issues, racial divisions, class distinctions, regional attitudes, and a host of other variables which prove not just that every women is unique as a woman, but in fact that every person is complicated and cannot easily be described in one frame. While Leibovitz’s photographs tell a lot, and any interpretation could be valid in the questions it raises, a feminist interpretation is not necessarily the best way to evaluate her work and statements without marginalizing the significance of a book which is so much more involved than just Women.