“I wish I could treat every day as Halloween, and get dressed
up and go out into the world as some eccentric character.”
Cindy Sherman
MOODBOARD:
Sherman’s work is relevant to the exam theme Observe, Seek, and Challenge. Sherman fit’s the theme by ‘observing‘ women’s gender stereotypes. She does this by exploring the idea of Mulvey’s theory ‘The Male Gaze’ which can be defined as ‘that states that cinema narratives and portrayals of women in cinema are constructed in an objectifying and limiting manner to satisfy the psychological desires of men, and more broadly, of patriarchal society’. She produces self portrait images that reinforce dominant ideologies of women; as submissive and the homemaker and how ultimately women are objectified and an accessory to men. Sherman’s main projects show the stereotypical views of women, how they are stereotyped to cleaning, cooking, and be submissive, however Sherman also produced a project which she ‘challenged‘ the dominant beauty standards reinforced by men and their definition in how a woman should look like ‘the perfect girl’. She presented this in a hyper-realistic form. In her project she created distorted faces, of women wearing over the top makeup, therefore challenging the beauty industry by creating these parodic images. Parody imitates the style of a particular creator with deliberate exaggerations for comedic effect. Satire uses humour to comment on the world-at-large, particularly in the context of politics. The politic that Sherman is trying to discuss in her photography is feminism, which the suffragettes fought for voting rights for woman. Sherman reinforces this feministic movement with the contrasting images in a parodic way to explore the unrealistic standards that society sets woman.
WHO IS CINDY SHERMAN?
Cindy Sherman was born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman lives and works in New York NY.
Sherman is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. In her early work Sherman explored the conventions and stereotypes of how women are portrayed in films and TV, usually in the view of the ‘male gaze’ as many of the films on TV made more profit by sexualising women. Sherman was always interested in experimenting with different identities. As she has explained, “I wish I could treat every day as Halloween, and get dressed up and go out into the world as some eccentric character.” This quote stated by Sherman suggests that she enjoys taking parodic images in order to try and reach the audience that views her work, perhaps she believes the only way to engage with people is through satire humour. These images rely on female characters (and caricatures) such as the jaded seductress, the unhappy housewife, the jilted lover, and the vulnerable naif. Sherman used cinematic conventions to structure these photographs: they recall the film stills used to promote movies, from which the series takes its title.
She further explores the idea of sexual desire and domination, the fashioning of self-identity as mass deception, these are among the unsettling subjects lying behind Sherman’s extensive series of self-portraiture in various guises. Sherman’s work is central in the era of intense consumerism and image proliferation at the close of the 20th century.
Cindy Sherman was on the cover of the gentlewoman magazine for the 2019 spring/summer edition. On the gentlewoman magazine digital page, their intent is to celebrate ‘modern women of style and purpose. Its fabulous biannual magazine offers a fresh and intelligent perspective on fashion that’s focused on personal style – the way women actually look, think and dress. Featuring ambitious journalism and photography of the highest quality, it showcases inspirational women through its distinctive combination of glamour, personality and warmth. These qualities are also at the heart of its website, thegentlewoman.com, a virtual place where real women, real events and real things are enjoyed.’ Sherman being found of the cover of this feminist magazine reinforces her feminist movements, and what she is trying to establish through her own photography work.
IMAGE ANALYSIS:
EMOTIONAL RESPONSE:
Looking at this image, I can identify Sherman’s intent to highlight the issues of woman stereotypes. Due to all the feminist movements and yet still technically living in a patriarchal society, Sherman trying to establish a movement through photography allows many woman to identify will her Untitled Film Stills. A dominant ideology that is still present in todays society is that woman are submissive to men, and they do all the domestic work which is was Sherman shows within this image. By standing in the kitchen in what seems like she cleaning still shows the views of woman in todays society and yet how stereotypes can still be observed and such a dominant factor.
VISUAL/TECHNICAL – The information we see:
The image is presented in black and white. Sherman created this Untitled Film Stills in black and white to try and replicate the 1950’s films and film noir, which are primarily presented in black and white. The lighting in the image seems to be coming from an artificial light, perhaps a lightbulb in the room due to the slight shadow seen on the wall in the background due to Sherman stance. Sherman is looking away from the camera, it may be due to the fact of her displaying the role of a 90’s woman that were seen as nurturing and passive therefore would not have the confidence to look directly into the camera. The camera is positioned slightly at an angle which could be to show some of Sherman’s curves as she is standing slightly to the side with her arm on her stomach, which has the connotations the idea of woman being delicate and in need of male attention. However the angle could also be a counter-type to these dominant ideologies of woman due to the angle slightly pointing upwards which establishes dominance and power, which is a contrast to the dominant stereotypes around woman.
CONCEPTUAL/CONTEXTUAL – The reasoning behind the image/Surrounding circumstance/information and knowledge
Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills is a suite of seventy black-and-white photographs in which the artist posed in the guises of various generic female film characters, among them, ingénue, working girl, vamp, and lonely housewife. Sherman staged these woman to resemble scenes from 1950s and ’60s Hollywood, film noir, B movies, and European art-house films. By photographing herself she inserts herself into challenging the stereotypical views of woman. However, in her Untitled Film Series these photographs are not classified as self-portraits, as Sherman explained to the New York Times she often didn’t’t see herself in these picture, rather she thought she disappeared while creating the character. Sherman found her signature approach to photographic self-portraiture while still a student, observing, “I don’t know if it was therapeutic, out of boredom, or my own fascination with thinking about make-up in the mid-seventies… I had this desire to transform myself”.
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