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Influence of media on shaping society
Influence of media on shaping society
Media influence on culture
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Photography and portraiture is a powerful medium for art. Through photography and portraiture we are able to capture the essence and being of individuals and moments. Many artists that primarily work within these genres do so for that very reason. Famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was no different, using his photographs to capture portraits of the various characters that made up the fabric of his social existence as a gay white male living in New York City. Robert Mapplethorpe, as a member of a fringe lifestyle and culture within America, wanted to utilize his work to bring to the public conscious, recognition and appreciation of these fringe groups and cultures, even if it required shocking depictions and imagery. Most of Mapplethorpe’s work included erotic imagery with xxx. Many critics have assessed Mapplethorpe’s work in a variety of contexts, including scholar Kobena Mercer in his essay “Reading Racial Fetishism: The Photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe”. In this essay Mercer tries to explore Mapplethorpe’s controversial Black Book photographs, a collection of portraits that often depicted nude black males in styled poses, sometimes with their penis exposed. In this essay, Mercer discusses several themes and interpretations of Mapplethorpe’s …show more content…
Mapplethorpe though has completely reversed this concept to new extremes. By portraying a nude black male, such as in Thomas, Mapplethorpe is evoking an emotional response in the viewer that results in either desire or fear, depending on the viewer’s own bias and prejudices. This is actually a very important theme within Mercer’s essay that he reflects upon. Mapplethorpe’s goal with the portrait is to elevate the black male figure to an aesthetic ideal, just as with classical Greek sculpture. For Mapplethorpe, Thomas is a study in the human form, figure, and aesthetic, but with a representation from the ‘fringe’
Johnson, Brooks. Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on their Art.” New York: Aperture Foundation Inc., 2004. Print.
Curtis’s work represents the ideological construction of foreign cultures in the 'way of seeing' that is suitable for the audience of the photograph and the photographer. This illustrates the highly political motives of photograph, carrying multiple meanings in order to craft certain imaginations of the subject (Berger, 1972). As a result of the power that the photographer has on its subjects, certain messages and ‘way of seeing’ are depicted through photographs. For instance, expected gender roles are played out in photographs of the Indian subjects, portraying the expectation of Curtis and his audience of the masculine and feminine behaviour by the subjects conforming to such gender standards (Jackson, 1992). Indian men are captured in what Jackson (1992) describes as ‘active poses’, such as fishing or dancing, juxtaposed with the ‘passive poses’ of female subjects, photographed in more decorative postured of waiting and watching. Though it can be argued that the manipulation and selection of images by Curtis as an artist’s ‘creative manipulation’ of their work, Curtis’ photography was used as a scientific measure, and hence should be devoid of such influences (Jackson,
by analyzing the case of Sarah Baartman as the quintessential Black female erotic body. The viewing of black women’s bodies as animalistic explorative and subsequent centuries of colonialism but also connects all hegemonic movements to surveillance and defining/redefining of the black female body.
It is no secret that there is a complicated history with race in America. The issue has been discussed by scholars such as Sterling Brown or W.E.B Dubois. Brown’s article, “Negro Characters as Seen by White Authors” outlines a variety of common stereotypes for black characters in American literature from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century. DuBois went a step further in his essay “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”, in which he outlined his theory of “double-consciousness”, a theory that has shown itself time and time again, especially in hip hop. Kanye’s West’s fifth studio album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, takes listeners on a lyrical journey through common stereotypes and double-consciousness. For example,
Throughout history, as far back as one could remember, African- American men have been racially profiled and stereotyped by various individuals. It has been noted that simply because of their skin color, individuals within society begin to seem frightened when in their presence.In Black Men and Public Space, Brent Staples goes into elaborate detail regarding the stereotypical treatment he began to receive as a young man attending University of Chicago. He begins to explain incidents that took place numerous times in his life and assists the reader is seeing this hatred from his point of view. Staples further emphasizes the social injustices of people’s perception of African-American men to the audience that may have not necessarily experienced
It’s his compassion for his subjects and his commitment to them that surpasses the act of making a pretty picture. Spending days with his subjects in the slums of Harlem or the hardly developed mountains of West Virginia, he immerses himself into the frequently bitter life of his next award-winning photo. Often including word for word text of testimonials recorded by junkies and destitute farmers, Richards is able to provide an unbiased portrayal. All he has done is to select and make us look at the faces of the ignored, opinions and reactions left to be made by the viewer. Have you ever been at the beach safely shielded by a dark pair of sunglasses and just watched?
“…it is said that there are inevitable associations of white with light and therefore safety, and black with dark and therefore danger…’(hooks 49). This is a quote from an article called ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ written by bell hooks an outstanding black female author. Racism has been a big issue ever since slavery and this paper will examine this article in particular to argue that whiteness has become a symbol of terror of the black imagination. To begin this essay I will summarize the article ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ and discuss the main argument of the article. Furthermore we will also look at how bell hooks uses intersectionality in her work. Intersectionality is looking at one topic and
The picture explains how sexual violence was rampant during the atlantic slave trade. Women were exploited, and their roles were to satisfy men, give birth, and feed the whites. It is a dominant theme in the picture. She agrees that her work is erotically explicit and would appreciate if people were ashamed of the exploitation done to the
Detrimental stereotypes of minorities affect everyone today as they did during the antebellum period. Walker’s subject matter reminds people of this, as does her symbolic use of stark black and white. Her work shocks. It disgusts. The important part is: her work elicits a reaction from the viewer; it reminds them of a dark time in history and represents that time in the most fantastically nightmarish way possible. In her own words, Walker has said, “I didn’t want a completely passive viewer, I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful”. Certainly, her usage of controversial cultural signifiers serve not only to remind the viewer of the way blacks were viewed, but that they were cast in that image by people like the viewer. Thus, the viewer is implicated in the injustices within her work. In a way, the scenes she creates are a subversive display of the slim power of slave over owner, of woman over man, of viewed over
Though people can look into color and composition, others can still even look into the source of the art itself. Cole goes deeper, delving into the source of the art, looking in particular into the idea of cultural appropriation and the view a person can give others. Though it is good for people to be exposed to different opinions of a group or an object, sometimes people can find it difficult to tell the difference between the reality and the art itself. Sometimes art can be so powerful that its message stays and impacts its audience to the point where the viewer’s image of the subject of the art changes entirely. Cole brings up an important question about art, however. Art has become some kind of media for spreading awareness and even wisdom at times, but in reality, “there is also the question of what the photograph is for, what role it plays within the economic circulation of images” (973). Cole might even be implying that Nussbaum’s advertisement can sometimes be the point of some media, and that sometimes the different genres of art can just be to make someone with a particular interest happy. One more point that Cole makes is that “[a]rt is always difficult, but it is especially difficult when it comes to telling other people’s stories.” (974) Truthfully, awareness and other like-concepts are difficult to keep going when a person or a group is not directly involved.
Turner, Darwin T. “Visions of Love and Manliness in a Blackening World: Dramas of Black Life since 1953.” Paradigm Publishers 25.2 (1995): 2-12. JSTOR. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. .
Powers’s sculpture is crafted from marble, therefore is erected entirely in white, which can often epitomize purity or cleanliness. Although contributing to the ethereal nature and purpose of the statue, Browning sees the folds as “shadowed, not darkened” (Browning 6). ‘Darkened’ becomes a synonym for slavery and the resulting suffering and thus Browning is arguing that because Powers’s woman lacks the depth of dark shadows, and essentially displays only the ‘pretty,’ aesthetically pleasing . The artwork, according to Browning, will facilitate sympathy because of her physique but may not be capable of creating a long lasting response as its’ viewers are unable to picture the true severity of slavery. “Ideal Beauty” (Browning 1) is difficult to associate with “the house of anguish,” (Browning 2) as Browning mentions in the first stanza. As well, the speaker describes the subject of the artwork as “alien,” (Browning 3) insinuating that the image of an exquisite woman in the role of a slave seems foreign and, perhaps, romanticized. The physical atrocities resulting from slavery are not exhibited in her immaculate skin and smooth curves. Although her shoulders are held high, Browning interprets her as having “passionless perfection,” (Browning 5) suggesting that her lack of
No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman’s photography is part of the culture and investigation of sexual and racial identity within the visual arts since the 1970’s. It has been said that, “The bulk of her work…has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture…(her) pictures insist on the aporia of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections” (Sobieszek 229).
In the book, “Citizen - An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine wrote about racial prejudice that the black body has been facing due to stereotyping. In the book, Rankine said the blacks are being judged by the color of their skin and not viewed as equal to their white counterpart. Rankine then backed up her claims by using descriptive imagery to create pictures in our mind as well as evoking feelings by citing various incidents to illustrate how black persons are still being discriminated against and wrongly perceived in the society we’re living in today. The purpose of Rankine’s use of her descriptive imagery is an attempt to capitalize on all of a reader 's senses and build them into something vivid and real in the reader 's mind that some
Zanele muholi is a visual photographer and an activist of Black lesbian community. Using photography she addresses the challenges being faced by black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in both townships and communities. These people are vulnerable and they cannot speak for themselves but, through the pictures they are able to raise their concerns. Most of Zanele pictures are in black and white because according to her, one is able to concentrate in the message than the colour. This essay will therefore, discuss the significance of Zanele’s choice of photographic portraits as a medium to raise the concerns of LGBI community by using some of her images.