Who is Cindy Sherman?

Feeder 3.1

    Author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe head and model are all just a few of the jobs that Cindy Sherman had to embody in order to create her dramatic, identity changing photographs. Her most famous work of art, Untitled Film Stills included pictures of her acting as the stereotypical female roles from Hollywood or European movies. It is important to know about Untitled Film Stills because it’s a globally famous work of that appeals to every audience, regardless of their language. In her academic article, Female Spectatorship and the Masquerade, Jui Chi’i-Liu’s thesis statement claimed a new interpretation against the grain of the established feminist readings of the photographs in Untitled Film Stills, which I see as the usage of photography in order to get her feminist ideals across, regardless of the audience’s lack of unity in language.

Feminist critiques of Cindy Sherman’s work can be divided into three categories. The first category attacks Sherman’s usage of masks as constantly conforming to man’s eroticised view of women under a male dominated society. Iversen's claim epitomises this line of critique: ‘Sherman's photographs present the female body in the third person: “she” poses as object of the gaze in relation to “he”, actively taking up a passive, exhibitionist aim’. The second group views Sherman’s masks as making fun of female sterotypes in Hollywood. They support this statement by showing that Sherman’s film still do not look like any of the heroines in film which are meant only for the fantasies of male viewers. The third group opens up a more mobile understanding of the reactions from the male audience. The male audience’s usual control over the female body has been reinforced but destabilized. All of these critics concentrate on the relationship between the male audience and Sherman’s masquerade. The author of this academic article thinks “this exclusive focus on the masculine gaze overlooks female spectators’ desire and identification in relation to these images...might not female spectators of Sherman's masquerade be tempted to negotiate their own female-centred reception?”

Feminist criticism of Sherman should not focus on the male but rather the female audience. Although the above female criticism does reflect a woman’s point of view, feminist critics should also think about how Sherman’s work addresses themselves, the female audience.This paper will deal with reception by female spectators individually and not a female audience. Kuhn asserts that the spectator ‘is a subject constituted in signification, interpellated by the film or TV text’, whereas the social audience is ‘[a] group of people seated in a single auditorium looking at a film, or scattered across thousands of homes watching the same television programme’. It will be beyond the length of this paper to analyze the patterns and consumption approaches of female audiences.

In this film still, Sherman is responding to the view of the erotic female portrayed in Hollywood films. In order to achieve this look, Sherman uses costume and feminine poses to expose the eroticism that is attached with the view of femininity. Roland Barthes well explains this strategy of clarification: ‘[T]he best weapon against myth is perhaps to mythify it in its return, and to produce an artificial myth’. Sherman creates a dissonant and elaborate masquerade in order to expose the myth of femininity as natural and essential under patriarchy. If the mysterious glamour associated with female movie stars causing female spectators to relate with the erotic images, Sherman’s use of irony shows her resistance to women being portrayed as glamorous objects to be consumed. Sherman once explained her intention to make such images: “There is a stereotype of a girl who dreams all her life of being a movie star. She tries to make it on the stage, in films and either succeeds or fails. I was more interested in the types of characters that fail. Maybe I related to that.”

    In Untitled Film Stills, Sherman establishes the female stereotype from a female-centered perspective. Although in several of her film stills, Sherman embodies several glamorous, powerful stars she also tries to assume feminine manners and wardrobe that would satisfy the male fantasy. Plus Sherman staged ambiguous scenes and narratives in which female audience members could imagine many fantasy versions of themselves. With the first fantasy self, they sympathize and relate with the active and powerful female roles. The could also feel both intrigued and angered at the female stereotypes which serve only to appease the male fantasy. With this the female spectators may have several types of identification or desire with their imaginary communication with Sherman’s disguise. By using multiple visual pleasures, Sherman’s masquerade provides female spectators with the ability to juxtapose the images with patriarchal presumption. With her usage of photograph as her media of communication, Sherman is able to communicate her message to a broader, global audience.



Bibliography:
Liu, Jui. Female Spectatorship and the Masquerade: Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills 34.1 (2010). 12 Feb. 2010. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03087290903361399#preview>.