13.

Feminist Art and the "male gaze" II

In the Art History class at ASL, we've also studied Cindy Sherman, another incredible feminist artist who is known for her extensive project "Untitled Film Stills." In this extended body of work, Sherman captures herself on film in a variety of stereotypically "female" poses. In some shots, she even takes the photo herself, using a camera attached to a long pole. This awkward and inverted process perfectly parodies the state of modern media. It's quite funny to imagine a woman dressing herself up and staging herself in various scenes of domesticity. It's odd to think of a someone so formally objectifying and capturing one's self. I think she really hits at the heart of what modern media is: an awkward re-imagination of what human beings are really like. 

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http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/sherman/sherman6.html

These images remind me of the scene in Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine where she confronts her own reflection in a rearview mirror. She reads, "OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR" on the surface(71). Perhaps, Mukherjee is indirectly presenting a moment of cloudy self-identification in this scene. Though Jasmine's reflection appears to be at a distance, it is really quite immediate.  I think both Sherman and Mukherjee are toying with the idea of seeing one's self at an extended distance.