The Myth of Empowerment: Part Four

February 6, 2022

 Is art that celebrates female sexuality and freedom also functioning as a male fantasy?

 First written in MAY 2021, edited and revised January 2022 

WHY LANGUAGE MATTERS IN A COLLAGE WITH WOMEN IN BIKINIS

(AND WHY I AM MAKING COLLAGES OF WOMEN IN BIKINIS IN THE FIRST PLACE)

I posted the image on the left on my Instagram. Then I got a text from my mum.

“Why does it need that language?”

“I don’t know, it just looks cute.”

“But does it need those words?”

“I guess not? I’ll change it”

But it did need those words.

F*** off is what I want to say to the misogynists that commented all over my Instagram and messaged me wanting a ‘reasonable conversation’ and then told me that ‘this was why I didn’t have a boyfriend’, and worse. I thought that I only had those words front and centre because the font looked pretty and the paper was pink but actually, ‘f*** off’ is what I wanted to say to the advertisers (advertising and art are cousins I think and so much of my collage material is advertisements from magazines) who use women’s bodies to sell everything because SEX SELLS and in doing so they label the use of female bodies as ‘empowering’ and ‘feminist’ and ‘celebratory’ but they are using the most polished, glossy, toned, straight-out-of-a-male-fantasy bodies because SEX SELLS, and then they tell us that if we don’t like it we are ‘fake feminists’ because they are celebrating female sexuality. Bottega Venetta has been selling shoes forever by using shiny pictures of tanned, naked bodies sprawled on boats and piers but it’s fine because they are wearing the shoes, and Diesel’s 2010 campaign (topless women partying) even used the tagline ‘Sex sells… unfortunately, we sell jeans.” (I enjoy the self-awareness here, but that’s all). By continuing to sexualise and objectify women to sell products, lifestyles and dreams, the advertising industry is maintaining its role in catering to the male fantasy, and it is exacerbating it too; giving permission to sexualise women and objectify them in every single situation.  

So why, having written all of the above and said all of this, do I then make collages in which very beautiful women in bikinis lie around on top of cars. Why am I drawn to the sexy, sensual, lustrous images in magazines that are created, and curated, by and for the male gaze? Perhaps to ignore the images would feel like an acceptance of them in some way, and I can’t be deceived into thinking that they are creating these images for me, so when I use them, I am claiming them for myself and my artwork which is part of my fantasy. Can one ‘reclaim’ the female body? Can women JUST be naked? Can a naked woman (emotionally or physically) ever NOT be sexualised?

 Cindy Sherman b. 1954

Cindy Sherman’s film stills are self-portraits of the archetype characters that she performs for the camera. Sherman said of her work, “My ‘stills’ were about the fake-ness of role-playing as well as contempt for the domineering ‘male’ audience who would mistakenly read the images as sexy” (Siegel). They are beautiful women, housewives and actresses, in candid poses in the kitchen and the bathroom and the audience does indeed interpret them as seductive and ‘sexy’ in some cases. Should these images have embarrassed Hollywood by highlighting the easy stereotypes, and turning them into “a witty parody of media images of women” (Williamson)? Whilst many would argue this is empowered feminist work, celebrating female form and sexuality, is it not just creating more content that appeals to the male gaze and contributes to the male fantasy?

Sherman is both behind the camera and in front of it, creating and fulfilling the vision. She has taken the representation and presentation of herself into her own hands. But does this make her work anymore empowered? Or has the myth of empowerment deceived her into creating male fantasy images which are almost more of a fantasy because of the voyeuristic nature? (Worth looking if you’re interested further at Mark Wallinger’s ‘Diana’ which was on display at The National Gallery in 2012 as part of the exhibition Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 and had to be shut down because men were pleasuring themselves in front of the artwork… is it significant that the artist was also male? Trick question.)

“Sherman encourages our participation by suggesting… that she is the object of someone’s gaze, advocating in some way the ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ of femininity; yet, at the same time, the multiple and various depiction of herself is a statement of power. As a result, she appears as a hybrid being, ranging between masquerade and vulnerability, between empowered subject and disempowered object of the gaze… the function of the female gaze should primarily be a parodic exposure of the traditional image repertoire assigned to women by the patriarchal perspective. Deconstructing the vision of the male gaze means actually subverting its power and blurring the gender boundaries. The only solid conclusion we can draw is that femininity is not fixed and should be not enclosed in cages, as the stereotypes are. A woman may not own the notion of the gaze, but she can control and manoeuvre it at her liking. That is what she definitely has in her power.” (Sorrentino)

Remember Jemimah Stehli? The artist who stripped off in front of a camera controlled by a man? Sherman and Stehli are both using their own bodies ‘controlled and manoeuvred at her liking’, but where Sherman is in charge of what is captured Stehli is not. Both women are working with the aim of “deconstructing the vision of the male gaze”, “subverting its power and blurring the gender boundaries” and taking control of their expressions of femininity and sexuality. Yet aren’t they also contributing to the billions of images of naked women which facilitate the culture of objectification and sexualization of women?…

You might think I’m now talking nonsense! Maybe I am, I’ve always maintained that this is where I mostly ask questions and don’t give very many answers. All of this brings me to acknowledge that I am yet to discover how my own work can avoid falling into this category (perhaps even trap): artwork created by a woman, enjoying the beauty of women, critiquing the objectification of women, and yet still performing as part of the male fantasy.  Is it even possible?

Footnotes:
Siegel, J. “Cindy Sherman” (1988). Interview, excerpted from Jansen, HW and Jansen, Anthony F. History of Art (1997). New York: Harry N.Abrams, Inc.

Sorrentino, S. (2014) CuratingtheContemporary (CtC).. SUBVERTING THE MALE GAZE. [online] Available at: <https://curatingthecontemporary.org/2014/11/07/subverting-the-male-gaze-femininity-as-masquerade-in-untitled-film-stills-1977-1980-by-cindy-sherman/)> 

 Williamson, J. (1983) Images of ‘Woman’, Screen, Volume 24, Issue 6, Nov-Dec 1983, Pages 102–116