Categorizing The Other- Inaccurate depictions
Women’s Prison:
“The perfection and the credibility of the illusion are ensured by the fact that the absent other is, by definition, unavailable and cannot issue a challenge” P. 17
“It gives the phantasmic faculty access to ‘reality’, albeit an ersatz reality” p. 21
The Gender/Sexuality Reader:
“The colonial politics of exclusion was contingent on constructing categories” p. 14
Both readings I found very interesting. The above quotes stood out to me and I feel conveyed similar messages. The creation of categories is used to distinguish superiority by using false and inaccurate depictions of people. Certain races, genders, and religions are placed in a hierarchy in order to establish dominance over another. The reading entitled Women’s Prison was a great example of what the other reading discussed in detail. These women in Algeria are eroticized and made seem helpless though photography in order to use sexuality as a means of power and control.
The creation of a false reality becomes imbedded in racial and gender ideologies of the viewer. Women become this dramatized, imprisoned, helpless being which lacks agency. A false representation of these women is further cultivated in erotic photos, implying great sexual frustration. From a simple picture these women are reduced to sexual prisoners. Change in sexual access and control over women's sexual sphere helps reiterate the "superiority" and power of European communities. Women and sexual control are key in colonial control.
The link I have at the end of my post is a link to a National Geographic article written by Rob Smith October 2013. The readings this week had me thinking about photos and social media are most likely the main catalyst in forming these categories and ideologies formed. This is when I went to National Geographic which I believe many labels as an “accurate” and “credible” source for national news. I am curious to see if the class believes this article still creates or feeds into categories. Does the article’s language and imagery still send out false representations of women?
Malek Alloula's piece on Women's Prisons is especially sad because it exposes the staging of these photographs. It explains that the photographer becomes obsessed with his own idea of what it is 'real'. Like Alyssa explained, the result if an erotic image of a helpless woman. The helplessness in their faces perpetuates the rationalization of colonization. A photograph is a powerful and it is staged and used to show how desperately these women need help.
ReplyDeleteIn the National Geographic article it described another aspect of how women are seen. Instead of being symbols as caged sexual beings as depicted in Alloula's article they are seen as terrorist. Alyssa's link gives us another way in which we can compare the way women are seen. In Alloula's article we see the objectification of the women while in the article provided we see a government putting a ban on other government officials with the reasoning of person safety. We fear what we cannot see in this case.
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