Gender Issues in Smutty - Term Paper Example

Gender Issues in “Smutty” It is quite easy to pass an object and think of it as just a thing. However, studies into aesthetics indicate that no object is just an inanimate thing. Regardless of its purpose or design, an object can have strong impact on its observers and environment. Any object can bring to light an individual’s social class, beliefs, gender identification and even how educated a person is. This suggests that there is an intended idea or emotion behind every object used to fill an individual’s personal space, even if this idea or emotion is semi- or fully subconscious. Attfield (2000) says understanding culture through the emotions or ideas of objects “acknowledges the physical object in all its materiality and encompasses the work of design, making, distributing, consuming, using, discarding, recycling and so on. But above all it focuses on how things have gone through all those stages as part of the mediation process between people and the physical world at different stages in their biographies” (1-7). Thus, it is clear that objects can have multiple meanings. How these elements function together to appeal to the audience’s personal sense of function and appearance is what is referred to as aesthetics. This term is most often used in the art world to designate important works of art. Through the concept of aesthetics, artists such as Robert Maplethorpe explore concepts such as gender in works like the photographic print “Smutty” exhibited in the Tate Collection. Aesthetics is a very subjective subject as it depends not only on what the artist portrays, but also on what he intended to portray and what the audience brings to the dialogue. John Armstrong (2004) says aesthetics is the process that “enables one person to find beauty in an object which leaves another unmoved” (4). “Smutty” by Robert Maplethorpe was produced in 1980 as part of the artist’s collection of somewhat controversial images. The image consists of a half dressed man seated or perhaps squatting down to the ground and looking directly into the camera, but his head is tilted somewhat away from it. The man is a very lean person perhaps in his upper teens or early 20s and the upper portion of his body is bare. If it weren’t, the man might be mistaken as a woman. Both of the man’s arms are covered with tattoos and his style of clothing, what can be seen of it, is much like that of a punk rocker, which was popular in that era. The pants he wears are black enough that they lose their dimension at the bottom edge of the picture. His black hair is somewhat short and gelled up so that it is flat along the sides of his head and messy and long along the top of his head. The end effect is of a rooster’s coxcomb. For jewellery, he is wearing a black bracelet about an inch wide studded with silver metal discs and it appears he is wearing two or three belts with white and metal accents around his waist. Despite these details, the male model presents a slightly feminine appearance causing the viewer to question why this should be so. Part of the reason for this is because it was the artist’s intent to call into question what makes boys boys and girls girls. This is the subject of Holly Devor’s article in which she claims that the dominant characteristic for boys is to convey a sense of power and dominating strength. “The ideology underlying the [North American] schema postulates that the cultural superiority of males is a natural outgrowth of the innate predisposition of males toward aggression and dominance, which is assumed to flow inevitably from evolutionary and biological sources” (448). Thus, images of men should convey this sense of power and control. The man in “Smutty” certainly does his best to convey this ‘tough guy’ image through his black leather pants and plentiful tattoos. It is even a characteristic of Maplethorpe’s work mentioned by his critics: “There they [the models] stand and look at us, or at him, or into themselves, serene, composed and glacial: the very image of our image of a certain stratum of New York life in the 80s: chic, alluring, even slightly dangerous by association” (Caiger-Smith, 2006). In spite of these characteristics of the image, though, there remains a sense of the feminine. According to Devor, “people appear feminine when they keep their arms closer to their bodies, their legs closer together, and their torsos and heads less vertical than masculine-looking individuals” (449). In the “Smutty” image, the model makes his body small by crouching down, his knees are separate but appear closer together because of the way the black pants tend to blend out any details and his right arm is protectively draped across his knees in a way that makes his torso bend forward and down. At the same time, his head appears at a slant rather than vertical because of the body position and because of the way in which he is looking at the camera. These may be the attributes that help this person appear to be more feminine than the tattoos and dress would otherwise indicate. However, there is also another explanation. In Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure” (1999), the author uses psychoanalysis to determine how film and art reinforces pre-existing patterns of behaviour and social formations through a process known as scopophilia. Scopophilia is defined as the pleasure to be had in looking. It has an objectifying effect upon the object of interest. Mulvey (1999) claims art does this unconsciously by introducing a world that exists with, yet separate from, the audience. This concept directly applies to the “Smutty” image as the model is obviously on display to be seen, but nothing real is available to be known about him. His partial nudity suggests a person who is vulnerable and accessible, but nothing other than his appearance is known about him. Although he has a number of tattoos that should indicate something about his personality, the only one that is remotely recognizable is a picture of Mickey Mouse, which suggests a more childlike, thus feminine, perspective if one is working off the conceptions presented by Devor. This also calls into question whether the tattoos are real or simply ink drawing that will wash off once the photography shoot is finished. This concept of the model existing only to be seen is in direct opposition to the typical approach to gender issues in art. According to Mulvey (1999), characters are set up to be either the active/male who does the looking or the passive/female who exists to be looked at. Men drive the action, women decorate it. In providing a male model just to be looked at, Maplethorpe is challenging these ideas. Representation, whether expressed in words or images, is not a neutral or innocent activity, but rather one with profound effects on everyday lives. Although some would argue that art in the modern age is an attempt to get away from symbolic representation, the reality is that there are no forms that have not attached to themselves specific social meanings. Instead, this photograph demonstrates how artists have been working to redefine some of the social symbols we have come to accept by intentionally taking advantage of the image to influence contemporary thought. This is an inexact science because of the indeterminate nature of the message contained, but is accomplished through some degree of shock appeal and the willingness of the audience to engage with the subject. What is clear through postmodernism is that images change us at the same time that we change them through our various cultural, historical and societal perspectives. By challenging our ideas of specific images, these art forms become powerful tools in reshaping political and/or societal views and blurring the boundaries of what we thought we knew. Works Cited Armstrong, John. The Secret Power of Beauty. London: Penguin Books, 2004. Attfield, J. Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg, 2000. Caiger-Smith, Martin. “Robert Mapplethorpe.” Edinburgh Festival Guide. 2006. http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/article/2883-robert-mapplethorpe/ Devor, Holly. “Gender Roles, Behaviours and Attitudes.” We’ve Come a Long Way Maybe. 447-452. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen (Eds.). New York: Oxford University Press, 1999: 833-844. Read More