relevent reading

Relevant Reading:

Notes on: The Politics of Women’s Bodies

Regarding what relevant critical practice there is surrounding the media and its participation on how women should look act and their body language-I have come across a book called the politics of women’s bodies-which talks not just about theory but about media involvement and relevant photographers that explore body language- i found it both interesting but extremely relevant in helping me come up with ideas on what to actually photograph-I must admit that I found it hard it come up with originals ways of experimenting with my topic- I want people to think when they see my pictures not just say its a nice photograph.

Quote from the reading

“We are born male or female, but not masculine or feminine. Femininity is an artifice, an achievement”

But how do we know to look masculine or feminine, who imposes/ influences these ideas upon us?

Who influences such discipline on female identity and subjectivity?

Marienne Wex photographer- studied body language of men and women-ideas of how we should walk and sit.

Quote from reading

“We have examined some of the disciplinary practices a women must master in pursuit of a body of the right size and shape that also displays the proper styles of feminine motility”-This quote is the idea of self surveillance and starting to look at the gaze-Foucault and Bentham- a theory relevant to topic and one I will research further.

In the chapter femininity and the modernisation of patriarchal power, it talks about how women make themselves feminine- the application of makeup is something that all women should do (idea imposed through the media) It also talks about the norm of how women should look and through the male gaze if you don’t fit in with the social norms you are seen as odd and an outsider

Chapter- Designing Women

Cosmetic Surgery-Magazines are designed to help “women achieve hegemonic standards of feminine beauty”

The word hegemonic standards i think is really important in this context- are women not individual, are we just ranked and rated against each other?-something to maybe think about? I know there is the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ but this book definitely makes me think that in terms of the male gaze- men only judge and look at what is physically in front of them.

The chapter continues to discuss women’s choice to look good, or whether it is no longer a choice but pressurised by hegemonic cultural norms

Are women victims of media and society?

Sum up of reading:

Quote: “beauty” that many women so badly try to achieve the “standards we seek to achieve are constructed and serviced by men, men’s interests and magazines” (Morgan 1991) need to find page!

· There are so many theorists and existing literature that explore the social construction of women’s bodies and the way they should look.

· This book suggests like my personal view that media reinforce these ideas heavily.

The Male Gaze

Week 6: Ad Busters

Ad Busters:
Ad busters is a non profit based anti consumerist foundation that produce campaigns, magazines and challenge the norms of media, and what opinions they impose on us.
   Obviously i am wanting to challenging the norms of society in terms of the way women look or are told to look-so these pictures below are effetive in terms of both the pictures and the use of words.

   As a possible idea, i would like to explore doing a spoof ad campaign like the one ad busters have done.

link to the ad busters:

http://www.adbusters.org/

The foundation describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."^[

Rough ideas

above drawing: manaquin and puppet-media us to do something we do it

the beauty myth

The beauty myth-Naomi Wolf

Very much to do with my topic
quote from the book-p84

" They need, consciously or not, to promote womens hating their bodies enough to go profitably hungry, since the advertsing budget for one third of the nations food bill depends on their doing so by dieting. The advertisers who make womens mass culture possible depend on making women feel bad enough about their faces and bodies to spend more money on worthless or pain-inducing products that they would if they felt innately beautiful."

Girl Culture

Lauren Greenfield...another video about a book she has released called girl culture

http://www.laurengreenfield.com/index.php?p=VPGHSTCS

some photographs she has taken- very interesting and something i would like to photograph



In both pictures girls are aged just thirteen! already worrying about how they should look

• http://www.laurengreenfield.com/index.php?p=Y6QZZ990
  
  This is a short film or at least trailor about girls with eating dissorders, notice at the end the girl crying saying 'i want to be thin' who told her, or why does she think she is not thin? (personally just by looking at her, you can tell she is not 'fat')
  
  is this what the media does to us?
  
  i know eating dissorders are more than just not eating-its a disease, but does it start off by things like this?
  just something for people to think about...



more photographers...

I need some inspiration for my photographs, as i havent started taking any yet, so i have been researching photographers that are dealing with similar topics to the one i plan to do my third year assignment on.

Heres a few photographers that i have been looking at:

1. Leonard Nimoy-Yes, he may have been in startreck, but he also did a series called 'the full body project'

quote from his website:
"This current body of work is a departure for me. For a number of years, I have been producing images using the female figure. I have worked with numerous models who were professional people earning their living by posing, acting, dancing, or any combination thereof. But, as has been pointed out to me in discussions at exhibitions of my work, the people in these pictures always fell under the umbrella of a certain body type. I’ll call it a "classic" look. Always within range of the current social consensus of what is "beautiful." In fact, that was the adjective I most often heard when my work was exhibited. The women as they appeared in my images were allotted no individual identity. They were hired and directed to help me express an idea—sometimes about sexuality, sometimes about spirituality—and usually about feminine power. But the pictures were not about them. They were illustrating a theme, a story I hoped to convey"




similarly to Jenny Saville, he photographs larger women and goes against the norms of how society should look, going against how the media tells us to look which i really like.
   The thing i like the best about his pictures is although to the media they are not seen as what the body should look like- the pictures are still beautiful- i hope to respond to these pictures in some way, even if using the same idea of not conforming to the medias opinions-they are too involved in how we should look anyway!

Link to website: http://www.rmichelson.com/Artist_Pages/Nimoy/pages/MaxBeaut.htm

Week 5: Jenny Saville

JENNY SAVILLE

As my independent project is about the media being to involved in the way people should look, i came across a photographer jenny saville.

She is famous for photographing large women and men pressed up against glass. This idea of photographing the body form in an 'ugly way' is something interests me.

In someways she is going against the norm that the media constantly drum into us.

These pictures are all about how we should think and feel about our bodies-would you ever see these pictures in the latest fashion magazine?

I love jenny saville, because she takes risks-in the media today it is all how to look skinny, how to look like this celebrity, or have your body like this celebrity

Jenny Saville has taken the opposite and gone to the extreme

Possible idea-do photographs in the style of jenny saville and make it into a magazine cover?

Week 1: Introduction: Are we all being cloned?

I am starting to think about my independent production project, and what to base my project around. Last year i based my second semester project around body form, but only concerntrated on a small part of such a huge topic. The media today in my opinion, has to much influence over society and contribute alot to how we should look- whether its how to make your hair look a certain way, our body to be how we see celebrities body look, even magazines have pages now where you can look exactly like one particular celebrity.

   Whilst researching on the internet it seems there are strong opinions on how much the media and magazines influence boys,girls, men, and women. I found an article online written by the daily mail about abercrombie and fitch designing padded bakinis for girls as young as 8! Not only are the media influencing members of the public who buy the clothes, the makeup, the hairstyles, but now the people who design and make the clothes!

Link to Daily mail article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1369949/Parents-fury-Abercrombie--Fitch-unveils-padded-bikinis-girls-young-eight.html


this got me thinking that with the media playing such a huge part in the way we should look, one day will we all end up looking the same? are we just little dolls that the media play with and dress up?




heres an interesting article i found on a media awareness website:

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm