Reading Responses

Summary 

Chapter 1 and 2  of Practices of Looking

In Chapter 1, we see that people are subjected to  and encounter many images throughout the day and they have to constantly fit them into their reality. These images are viewed many times through the use of media like painting, films, television and advertising and much of what we see are reproductions of things and not seen through first hand experience. We use representation to understand the images we see and create a language to help interpret the images.  There is a complex relationship between words and things and people have to be conscious of the fact that images  of what we see are not the actual tangible object or thing.  Chapter 1 also discusses the idea of photography being looked at as the most objective way of experiencing things if we are unable to have the experiences first hand  but there is a certain amount of trust and shared belief in society that what we are viewing is the truth and how reliable the source is.  The authors  also note the difference between denotation, the literal meaning, and the connotation, the cultural interpretation, and how audiences should not confuse the two.  I found it very interesting the  discussion of the growing use  images as tools to control the population like carrying i.d.s and having other security measures.  There was talk about encoding images from the creator of the image and the decoding of images by the consumer.  Semiotics was also defined where the image/ /sound/word known as the signifier plus the meaning know as the signified creates the sign and this production of the sign relies highly on the social, historical and cultural context it is set in. 

Chapter 2  analyzed further the ideas of aesthetics and the meanings of images and how people interpret created images. Artists are not in full control over the meaning that is found by the audience and people have their individual tastes and ideas that affect how they view images.  Certain things that can impact a person’s meaning include their gender, age, class, regional  identity and cultural identity.  There may be a great difference in the way people of high and low culture view images and there is a counter culture that forms from minority groups that feel that they need to question the dominant ideologies and form their own social realities based off of their beliefs. Overall, these chapters have the reader really start to think critical about how they view images that surround their daily lives and how their individual and societal belief systems can affect their interpretation of the images. 

Critical Question: In Rosie the Riveter , Women were shown many conflicting videos of them as essential personnel in helping out during and after World War II. On one hand they are suppose to get out of their homes and into the factories, disregarding their responsibilities at home to help the war effort and their country. After the war though, they are shown to stay at home and leave their well-paying jobs so they continue to support the troops stay gainfully employed.   If the signifier is the War Effort, what is the signifier and what is the overall sign that was created by our government to get women to cooperate with the war efforts? 

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Chapter 3  And Chapter 6 Summary:

Chapter 3 discusses of  how actual viewers make meaning out of images and the role of the spectator. The book discusses the spectator not as the individual but as an ideal viewer of the media  and there is  gaze attached to this particular practice of looking. The book also goes over Psychoanalytic theory and its relation to  how looking satiates our desires and is something that brings pleasure to the spectator. There is an unconscious motivation that the spectator is unaware of that drives our desires.  There is also a realization that individuality is a construction that takes place through ideology, language and representation that we see through images.  The book further goes into Lacan’s  mirror stage and how at an early age (around 18 months) we start to believe we have control over the the images we see and can master their meaning. When people view film, it is important to note the gaze and how the film makes us become the subjects. The chapter explains that during the 1970’s films were look at more critically and that there where criticisms by feminist theorists like Laura Mulvey about how men and women view films differently and are represented. The male gaze was paid particular attention to and how even before movies, there were paintings that helped represent the male gaze and the objectification of women .  In the past couple of decades the gaze has shifted and men have also been subject to appearance management codes and there has been a counter gaze that has objectified their bodies and gave different representations of masculinity. Chapter 3 also goes over the institutional gaze and the relationships between knowledge and power. The author’s mention Foucault’s study of institutional power and how that it is most effective when it is invisible and unverifiable (panopticism).  The  chapter closes with a discussion of exoticism and how the individual overlooked for the overarching cultures of the untouched civilizations around the world and that gives a different type of image to the spectator. 

Chapter 6 talks about how images are not free and that we live in heavily commoditized culture.  People are constantly inundated with advertisements and being told what to buy and what is better or worse.   People also have grown accustomed to receiving pleasure from shopping and part of our everyday culture.   This chapter discusses Marxist theory of Capitalism and Production and the ideas of fetishism of commodities.  Many people do believe that just because something is more expensive, there is a connotation of the item to be better and have more value. Advertisers have continually tried to show this idea of value to consumers and create images and texts to help appeal to and target certain audiences.

Critical Question:  In Rear Window,  Jeffries is  shown to be  more professionally driven  where he is ready to leave at any given notice without the need for material possessions and Lisa is shown to be more commodity driven, where the finer things help to add value to her as a person. Do think this reflects accurately how men and women are viewed in society back then and/or today or do you think it is just how most films and media  like to portray men and women to be?

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Summary of  Real Women Have Curves: A Feminist Narrative of Upward Mobility

This film/play analysis by Christie Launius  summarizes the major themes of the play  originally written by Josephina Lopez and made into a movie by Patricia Cardoso.  Real Women Have Curves was said to be autobiographical and it centers around five women struggling to finish a sewing job of completing 100 hundred dress in one week. These women would be considered overweight by  societal standards and the characters represent different forms of oppression people face on a daily basis.  These women show throughout the story that they bond through their  work and learn to understand their individual struggles and deal with different oppressive forces. Some of the oppression they face is from their statuses of class, gender, race, ethnicity and immigration status.  The film is said to raise consciousness of the characters and be an uplifting story of women fighting for equality in their everyday lives. The character of Ana is the representation of the practice of upward mobility by her working at her sister’s factory in the interim until she is able to go to college.  There is a them of class consciousness in the play and the feminist ideologies represented in this film through the character of Ana.  The dresses  become the symbol of exploitation of the working class and how they are getting paid little and then the dresses  are sold for much more. Ana relates her work in the factory to working in a sweatshop, the literal being the actual  sweat coming off of her as she works and then interpreting it metaphorically as them  being involved in estranged labor and having no connection with what they are producing other than it  being something they cannot afford or actually wear.  There is cultural element to the play and Ana’s ideas of feminism are only for “gringas” or white girls and she should be wasting her energy in thinking the way she does.  Through their shared work experience, the group dynamics change and they form a mutual respect for each other and share intimate details of their lives and how they feel oppressed in different ways by being a Latin American Woman.  The play has an overarching theme of “The American Dream” and how certain capitalistic practices exploit the working class and how they are alienated from society.  There is happy ending to the play where year after Ana goes to college, she comes home and sees her sister has open up a shop specifically for plus size women and has kind of fulfilled the American Dream for herself.

Critical Question: Why do you think the movie added the relationship between Ana and her classmate and do you think that took away from the feminist theme of the play and the empowerment of women and body image?