Gender in Society (3)

Being something different.

 Cindy Sherman, the creator of the Untitled Film Stills series from 1977 to 1980 (two of which are pictured here), describes her experience taking these photographs in an interview with New York Magazine: she said she felt “intimidated”.  She explained how taking on another role and abandoning her own persona to be someone else for a bit put her in a vulnerable position.  The film stills were not self-portraits, but portals for people to interpret the subject of the photo’s story.  She says, in fact, that people who believe that the series is self-portraiture are mistaken. 

Inez Van Lansweerde, the photographer of “the forest”, the 2005 series from which the photos of the men in yellow shirts are from, discusses his intentions in an interview as well, with the New York Times.  The photos were meant to show “a certain dichotomy between a fear factor and oppression, a certain unease in seeing a man photographed in a female pose.”  The men in the series all have their hands replaced by women’s hands, and they are all pictured lying down in feminine positions.  The discomfort evoked by these photos leads the viewer believe that these men are especially in touch with their feminine side, whether or not that is actually the case.   

Both of these series focus on taking on new roles—ones that the subjects of the photos do not typically associate with.  Discomfort accompanies the assumption of a new way of being, even if only for the time it takes to shoot a photo.  Taking on a role, as Judith Butler did when she traveled to Yale to speak about lesbianism, takes effort.  Though taking on the role of being a man or woman, or lesbian or straight, seems to be culturally necessary, it is still somewhat unnatural.  It is expected of us as members of society to act in a certain way according to how we categorize ourselves, or are categorized by others, but who decided what is normal?  The “deep seated play” that Judith Butler describes is the way by which we validate gender roles.  Butler describes how she “plays” a lesbian in the show that is life, but that does not mean she is not actually a lesbian, but rather this is how she affirms herself as one.  Cindy Sherman and the men in “The Forest” are pawns in confirming what men and women are.  The concept that each photo is putting forward is affirmed by the existence of the photo, just as the way stereotypes of people are affirmed by the people who fall into the stereotype.