After analyzing Cindy Sherman’s photographs I
decided to embark on a small project of my own. Sherman portrays women under
the stereotypical archetypes of femininity. I asked myself, “If this is how
society portrayed women, would men be portrayed with the similar male
archetypes of masculinity?” To answer this, we must first ask, what is
masculinity? What constitutes being masculine and how can it be portrayed? Raewyn Connel tells us that an unmasculine person is one who is “peacable rather
than violent, conciliatory rather than dominating, hardly able to kick a
football, uninterested in sexual conquest, and so forth” (67). To help in
forming a cohesive argument, I went ahead and attempted to reproduce some of
her more famous stills. In my reproductions I made my best attempt to reproduce
Sherman’s photographs with a male perspective in a way that would highlight
classical beliefs of masculinity and misogynistic society. I went in with the
idea of, “If Cindy Sherman posed in this way to highlight tropes about women,
how would a man pose himself to do the same, but instead highlight tropes about
men?” By analyzing my reproductions and taking key elements of Connell’s Masculinities I hope to bring the
same analysis as with Cindy Sherman’s Untitled
Film Stills.
 |
| Reproduction Still #1 |
Connell
tells us what an unmasculine person is (67). By using these set of signifiers,
we can make easy assumptions of what masculinity entails. Using the opposite, a
masculine person would be someone who is violent, dominating, and able to kick
a football well, very interested in sexual conquests, and so forth. In other
words, in the semiotic definition, “masculinity, is in effect, defined as
not-feminine” (Connell 70). Just as there are archetypes for a female’s
femininity, there are archetypes for a male’s masculinity. Women are typically
seen as the submissive one, the caretaker, the one who stays at home. In
contrast, men are seen as in charge, the bread winner, or the head of the
household. It is important to note that all these characteristics are
byproducts of society and the cultural values of gender roles that are imposed
upon this very society. Connell states that these concepts are “inherently
relational” and that “masculinity does not exist except in contrast with
femininity” (68). In a sense, someone can make the argument that if femininity
and masculinity were not questioned we could potentially see a society where
the need for words such as masculine and feminine to describe the role of a
person would be nonexistent.
 |
| Reproduction Still #2 |
In
the pictures shown we can see some of the masculine tropes I mentioned before.
In one image we see a man in the kitchen. In comparison to Sherman’s
photograph, he is not near anything that suggests he is there to do work around
the kitchen. Instead he sits with newspaper in hand at the head of the table,
symbolically representing that he is the head of the house and does not need to
work around the house. In another image above we see the man in front of a
bookshelf just as in Cindy Sherman’s photo. The difference here is that while
Sherman reaches for the book, she comes across as a bit seductive as the image leaves
us with unanswered questions of why she is reaching for the book. However in
the image of the man we see him reading a book getting right down to business.
We see him as an intellectual further increasing his knowledge and status as
head of the household. The final image is a reproduction of Sherman’s still of
the woman in front of the mirror. The man is seen in a suit, classic male
attire, which is strongly in contrast with the Sherman’s still displaying a
woman in a dress. The man in this image does not look anywhere beyond himself
showing what can be perceived as extreme confidence. This image shows what
could only be described as the man on the hunt for sexual conquests. Although
not the best, these images provide a look at what might be considered the
archetypes of masculinity.
 |
| Reproduction Still #3 |
These
images are not as explicit with its display of the masculine archetype as
Sherman’s stills but, just the same, can have many different interpretations.
Just as with Sherman’s stills the man does not look at the camera; he does not
acknowledge the presence of anyone else and looks completely focused on the
task at hand. By the logic by which Sherman’s stills are analyzed we could make
the assumption that the images of the man deconstruct any masculine archetypes
that are formed around him; however, it would be hard as we never see men
arguing or heavily criticizing images of men as women do. We see an image of a
man and never once do we think, “Hey, that man is misrepresenting men and
giving a false idea of masculinity.” Most just think what the normative
definition of masculinity is: “Masculinity is what men ought to be” (Connell
70). Hence, they see the image of the man and say to themselves, “Yes, that’s
what we see as masculine, the essence of being a man.” Connell states that the
normative definition allows different people to define what makes someone
masculine. Since everyone will have differing opinions, Connell insists that by
allowing this, many paradoxes are formed since many different ideals of
masculinity are brought about that conflict with each other (70). Yet in this
very normative definition I say we find the perfect definition of masculinity.
Society
has placed all these thoughts and ideas of what masculinity is and what is ok
for a man to do. If we are to forget for a moment all of society and our
culture’s ideas of masculinity and substitute it with the normative definition,
what do we get? We get individuality. Through this concept of individuality and
what a man should be, the images above take up a whole new meaning. The averted
gaze and extreme focus on what is in front of them becomes the same meditative
or daydreaming gaze found in Sherman’s stills. A self-reflexive gaze that
allows the man in the image to look inside at his being and deconstruct traditional
ideas of masculinity while at the same time reconstructing an image that is
true to himself. By doing this, the man in the image is no longer a product of
society, rather a result of his own ideas and beliefs of who he should be. The
old cultural and societal archetypes of masculinity are thrown away and in its
place come the new ideas of the individual. The new individual can say, I am a
man who cooks, I am a man who dances, and I am a man who cries. Why? Because by
throwing away all the tropes and playing with the idea of what a man ought to
be, we all become who we are. In essence “to define masculinity as what-men-empirically-are
is to rule out the usage in which we call some women ‘masculine’ and some men ‘feminine’,
or some actions and attitudes ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ regardless of who
displays them” (Connell 69). By taking the normative definition of masculinity,
we basically throw the word out the window. One no longer identifies as ‘masculine’
or ‘feminine’, one can finally identify themselves as simply ‘me’.
Bibliography
- Connell, Raewyn. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California, 1995. Print.
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