Essay Map / Plan / Stuff

After being deeply stressed about life and crying a little bit, I got Richard to help me finalise my essay question because I just kept getting lost in my own whirlwind of thoughts. I ended up with "How have representations of women in classical nude paintings influenced modern beauty standards?" and a lot of really useful resources to look at (THANKS RICHARD)

Classical Nudes

4

Some examples of classical nude paintings, the direction my essay is going in is about beauty standards and how classical nude paintings have informed beauty standards.

I've been reading John Berger's ways of seeing which has brought up some interesting points about classical nude paintings as a lot of the time they are praised for showing a realistic body shape but actually they are just as edited as modern imagery of women. Also they are mostly depicted without body hair, which is expected of the modern woman.

Ways of Seeing - John Berger

Watching this and reading the complimentary chapter in Ways of Seeing has really helped me with my essay, as I was struggling to get going with it. 


Notes & Quotes I picked out from it that could be relevant to my essay

Women are defined by beauty. How successful they are in getting the attention of males

Women are “first and foremost a sight to be looked at”

Nudes – “criteria and conventions on which women are judged”

“being naked is simply being without clothes – the nude is a form of art” –  “to be naked is to be oneself, to be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself. A nude has to be seen as an object in order to be a nude”

“Nakedness a sight for those who are clothed”

“the spectators looking shames them” – not their own shame, relates to the anatomical drawing. “they are not naked as they are they are naked as you see them”

Book quotes: Ways of Seeing – John Berger.                                                   

Susanna and the elders – “we join the elders to spy on her”

“she sees herself as a sight for men”

“you draw a naked woman because you enjoy looking at her, but you put a mirror in her hand and call the painting vanity. Thus morally condemning the women whose nakedness you’ve painted for your own pleasure”

Few nude paintings show the women as they are

“Most nude oil paintings are arranged by the male painted to cater to males”

Those judged not beautiful ARE not beautiful. Those who are are given the prize, the prize to be owned.

Expressions of women in oil paintings are similar to ones from adult magazines – catering to a male ‘spectator’

“Hair is associated with sexual power and passion” – so painting girls hairless removes sexual power from women, this clearly relates to the modern beauty ideal of hairless women. Likely a standard that has been influenced by classical art as the ideal of a sexually submissive woman.

Only rival to the male spectator is cupid – a small boy.

“The nude is presented as an ideal subject” – ideal body is a Frankenstein’s monster of different women.

“do these images celebrate as we are usually told the women in them or the male voyeur?”

“we all have an image of ourselves and it’s a visual image and I wonder how much this sort of classical european painting has shaped that image. .. I cannot identify with them [the paintingds] because they are so immensely exaggerated”

“A womans image of herself is derived directly from other people”

“to be born a woman has been to be born, within a allotted and confined space”

“men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”

“It shows her passively looking at the spectator – staring at her naked. The nakedness is not however, an expression of her own feelings; it is a sign of submission to the owners feelings or demands”

Establishing an Essay Question ?!?!

As you can see, my mind is a total mess. I can't really decide on anything, I know I want to do something about the representation of women because that's what I'm mainly interested in and have opinions on but I'm struggling to make sense of my ideas. It's all a bad time right now.

I feel like I want to do something about how normal bodily functions are demonised for women (like periods, spurred by a reaction I had to a zine I made about periods), and how because women have been idealised for so long it has erased the real woman. This just seems so long winded though, I need to narrow this brain mush down into something better.

ANYWAY I am panicking and that's FINE.

What's the deal with the female nipple?

"Do I have Boobs Now?"

'Courtney Demone wants to know at what point Facebook and Instagram will deem her breasts worthy of censorship, so she’s documenting their growth to find out.'

"#FreeTheNipple has failed to show the diverse ways in which people with differing bodies are sexualized, fetishized, exoticized and shamed. It has also failed to recognize that baring her nipples doesn’t mean freedom for every woman."

This is pretty interesting and relevant to my topic as it investigates at what point the female body becomes unacceptable to society, and really makes me wonder why?

It initially seems like breasts are the demonised part of the body, as she will only be censored when she has boobs. However from what I've seen it appears that it is only the female nipple which is offensive, as people can show cleavage or the breast with a covered nipple without it being deemed obscene. 

Are trans men's breasts considered obscene? Some cisgender men have breasts and they are permitted to expose themselves in public.
What's the deal with the female nipple?

?????

I'm struggling to think of something good for my essay, I kind of want to look at the demonisation of normal female body functions and body parts. Like why is the world so afraid of menstruation. I just thought this picture was funny and sums up the way society sees women's body parts. 

Initial Sketchbook stuff

This is the initial sketchy stuff I did trying to figure out what I wanted to do and themes for this project.

I liked the idea of doing something about representations of women again. I was wondering about nudity and how female nudity is kind of banned but the same flesh on a man is okay. I collected some images, a poster from around college with a bare chest on it. I also drew from a poster around Leeds that showed a topless man - the same image of a woman would be deemed obscene, I drew a scene from a music video that was kind of artsy and had a female dancer partially nude but only showed some tasteful sideboob in the video. NO NIPPLES.

This got me thinking about how normal things about the female body such as hair, nipples, menstruation etc. are sort of demonised in a way.

I did silly sketches of these sorts of things, reverse censoring was one of my favourite ideas. Drawing tampons and stuff was pretty fun too as even women react somewhat squeamishly to imagery relating to periods.

A lot of ideas rattling round in here but I'm not really finding something solid I want to do for this essay.

Study Task 1 - Illustration & Authorship

With regular book illustration, (or book cover illustration) it has been suggested that some of the writer's initial meaning can be taken away by the interpreted imagery of the illustrator - which could be totally different from how the writer intended the work to be seen. However the case is different when the author is both the writer and the illustrator, for example artists who make their own graphic novels. Perhaps these illustrators choose to create their own stories as interpreting other peoples work and meaning when it comes to illustrating can be tiresome, whereas when the work and meaning is your own you know what it is. "Artists’ books – using words, images, structure and material to tell a story or invoke an emotion – may be the purest form of graphic authorship. " For me artists books do definitely more engaging than just text, I find that when an artist has both written and illustrated a story or book there is a huge sense of ownership over that item, as if it is their child. 

James O'Barr is an artist who wrote and illustrated his own comic "The Crow". The story of The Crow is based on events in O'Barr's life, and used writing the comic as an outlet for his feelings "the author is thought to nourish the book, which is to say that he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it" and in the case of James O'Barr the story has so much of himself in it, he has nourished and suffered and lived for it. The fact that the character of Eric Draven is meant to be a visual representation of O'Barr without it looking like him (as he didn't like drawing his own appearance) makes the story a little more up to interpretation by the audience. As this comic has been adapted into a film (several films, and a tv series), although the original comic will always be solely James O'Barr's, some of the authorship has been transferred to the makers of the film. Some ownership of the character has even been handed to Brandon Lee, who originally acted as Draven and who most people would associate with The Crow as it's become his legacy being his last movie, rather than the author himself.

Emily Carroll also created a graphic novel called "Into the Woods" that she wrote and illustrated, the tales in it are based on folk tales. What's interesting about some of her stories is that she purposefully makes the endings vague, perhaps she knows the "true ending" but leaves it to the interpretation of the reader, and to my knowledge has not addressed the questioning readers with explanations.

The story "His Face All Red" is one of the best examples of Carroll leaving the story open, as a character who is meant to be dead in a ditch mysteriously returns to town. There is no explanation given as to how this character returned, whether he's back from the dead or it's an imposter, or there's some dark magic going on. When searching online for it, I frequently find yahoo answer pages asking others to explain it as "the explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it" but as I mentioned before, she has not offered an explanation. The images included above are the last panels of the comic - revealing the "dead" character to look over his shoulder (his face all red). Carroll has strategically used the denial of information to add to the mysterious, dark and scary quality of the book, as the reader will feel like they never truly know what happened.

In this case the quote "it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author" rings true, as Carroll has had all the power in writing and illustrating her stories, and to imbue the imagery with her own meaning (which of course she does) but also by purposefully leaving the stories open for reader interpretation she intentionally removes herself, but I would not consider this a "death of the author" as that was her intention rather than just a natural occurrence.




Barthes, R. (1968) 'The Death of the Author', London, Fontana. 
Rock, M. (1996) 'The Designer as Author', Eye no. 20 vol. 5 1996.

Study Task

Historical - "Concerning history or past events" 

Social - "Relating to Society or it's organisation"

Technology - "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes", "machinery and devices developed from scientific knowledge"

Cultural - "relating to the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a society.", "relating to the arts and to intellectual achievements."

Political - "of or relating to the government or public affairs of a country."

"relating to the ideas or strategies of a particular party or group in politics."

"done or acting in the interests of status or power within an organization rather than as a matter of principle."

 (politics) is the practice and theory of influencing other people. 

3 Quotes:

"People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people" - V for Vendetta (sorry I'm a nerd)

"What kind of city are we living in, if we encourage the development or ownership of large, expensive properties for investment and land banking... while people are sleeping on the streets?" - Jeremy Corbyn on the Housing Crisis 

"Labour said 183,658 people had joined the party since 5 May, meaning membership has roughly doubled in the months since the party’s loss." - The Independent 

 

("I can't abide bureaucracy" - Rick and Morty) 

3 images:

3 Photographs:

OUIL401 Evaluation

What Skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I have developed my research skills, using both academic sources and other sources to find information. I think I have applied this well as most points in my essay were backed up with quotes and evidence found through my research. Learning to write a discourse analysis on an image in the beginning was a really helpful skill to learn as I learned how to write about an image and back up my opinions on what it communicates with quotes from others. I was able to apply this skill in my essay as 3-4 images had to be included and analysed within the essay - I think I did this successfully. 

What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your practical outcomes?

I have found ways of finding academic research, such as searching for journals via google, searching for books via google and using the library to find books. Having many different sources stating similar facts makes the findings of my essay more reliable. I have also watched a few of Anita Sarkeesian's online videos, which informed my essay but I didn't reference. 

I learned that art and other such things can inform my practice without being completely related to it, for example the classical paintings where one was pictured as a subject and the other an object held relevance to my work without being related to geek culture or anything like that. I think that in the future researching various things would help as I could find relevant information where I wouldn't even think about looking. 

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on them?

Finding academic sources on my topic (Misogyny within geek culture and how this affects a female audience) was a little difficult to begin with, I think one of the strengths was being able to track down these sources so my essay would not just be based on what bloggers write. My essay was quite niche but also broad at the same time, giving me a lot of options to go with. For example focusing on 'Geek culture' allowed me to encompass comics, video games, the internet, conventions etc rather than just limiting myself to 'comics'. This meant I could gather information from a wide range of sources and reference several different things. One of the most helpful sources I found was a book called 'How Geek Girls will Rule the World' which had loads of interviews with women working in several different areas of 'geek culture' and their experiences in the field. 

I think it was a strength of me to use a topic that I am passionate and opinionated about as it made the research fun to do rather than a chore, my essay was able to communicate my opinions as well as being backed up by facts. It has led me to ask more questions about female sexuality too that I can investigate further in the future. 

What weaknesses can you identidy in your work and how will you address this in the future?

I struggled a lot when it came to making the ideas from my essay visual. 

I don't think I gave myself enough time to investigate my ideas, as I found the idea of sexual object vs sexual subject really interesting and would have liked to have based my visual diagram around that but I found it very difficult to come up with ideas for that short notice. I definitely should have given myself a lot more time to investigate this as then my final image would probably be more successful.

My visual diagram is not my best work - again this comes down to not giving myself enough time - it is rushed and the technical image making skill in it could have been much much better if I had set aside more time for this. 

My essay is a little short - it still meets the 10% under 3000 words but if I could have written more it would have been better rather, I should have found just one more point to make rather than padding out the rest of my essay. 

This isn't really a changeable problem but due to my visual stress I am a very very very slow reader so reading through all of the research was often tiring or difficult - it was difficult to pick out important points from these massive blocks of text, this hindered me as I was unable to read as much as I would have liked to. 

Identify five things that you feel will benefit you during next years context of practice module?

• My research into women as a sexual subject or a sexual object is something I would definitely like to investigate more next year - including female sexuality. I have already got ideas and sources in mind. 
• Since I know I will have to make sense of my essay through drawings start drawing during the research stage as well as after the essay is written
• Better time management, especially when it comes to the final image. 
• Have some kind of reference masterpost so I don't end up trying to add all the references at the end & don't forget to image reference. 
• Work on it little and often rather than in  big rushed chunks. 

Visual Diagram

My visual diagram displays some stupid sexy superheroes somewhat as a satirisation of the sexualisation of women in geek culture. I wanted to take the idea of making something sexy and just warping it out of all control, making it so overt and in your face that it ceases to have sexual appeal and thus subverting the male gaze. I think that the idea has gotten across in this image. The labia lasso is a power I find very disturbing, I don't know why I drew it. The execution of this could have been a lot better - I left it incredibly late to do it which was a big mistake!! I rolled with the pastel colours cause I thought they gave a sense of femininity - sort of emulating the style of some modern cartoon girls & fashions. 

In a way I feel like by making this so sexual in a satirical way it transcends the joke-level and almost makes a statement about female sexuality in itself.

I would have really liked to have investigated the dynamics of women ad sexual subject vs women as a sexual object but I didn't give myself enough time to explore this. I think I could have made something really interesting if I had been able to but |I had no immediate ideas that would have been translated into image easily.  

Quotes and Stuff

"The first image we get of Starfire is with her face directed downward in a pose of submission. She allows the male gaze, the assumed heterosexual male reader, to wash over her. She has just destroyed three tanks yet the focus is on her looks and her body. Her first words are: “Is there anything else I can do, Jason?” She is there for the pleasure of the males around her. As the comic continues we are presented with her in a bikini sexually posing in the water. There is a little boy taking pictures of her, letting us know that it is ok to be a voyeur. Starfire’s bodily postures are forced and unnatural, especially in the image towards the beginning of this post. Her back is contorted into an anatomically impossible angle. Just like the Venus of Urbino her body is unnaturally posed for the pleasure of the viewer. Throughout the comic we view her not as a person but as a fetish. Her objectification continues as she moves from an object to desire from afar to an object to possess through sex as she propositions Roy"



." Instead of viewing her as a whole person we view her as a sum of her body parts: a breast, a mouth, a butt."
 

Pecha Kucha

• my topic: misogyny in geek culture and how it's affected a female audience
• 40% of comic readers are female & there has been an increase in female led comics
• still a history of misogyny in the field

• a big problem is the hypersexualisation of female characters - these are my 'favourites'
• Top one done by Milo Manara, an erotic artist. There is a time & place for erotic art comic covers are not the time or place.
• Second one by Guillem March, parodied a lot. Parodied by himself in the style of Robert Crumb. - Awareness of misogyny. 

• Read quote
• Not viewing the character as a person or for their fighting skills, but for sexual purposes

• some horrifying drawings I have done in response to the 'main parts' of female characters
• Satirising the over-sexualisation of women. 

• Panel from Saga "Welcome to Sextillion"
• Parodying the reduction of women to their sexy parts.

• Women in comics are shown to defeat their enemies using their sexuality - I have drawn Batman seducing the joker. 
• Role reversal makes men uncomfortable and hopefully makes them realise how stupid it is to do this with female characters. 

• A problem with the hypersexualisation of female characters is that readers learn to objectify them, and thus don't respect real women - particularly cosplayers
• 25% of women at conventions sexually harassed, 8% have been groped, assaulted or raped. This is not okay. 

• Some may argue men are objectified because they are all portrayed as big buff men. This is a male power fantasy - and not done for female pleasure like female characters are written for male pleasure.
• Sexy batman, for some more making men uncomfortable. 

• A lot of women have been able to get into geek culture via the internet, so this is where a lot of the feminist revolution is.
• Hawkeye initiative - where hawkeye is drawn in the over sexual poses women are usually put in. Its pretty funny. 

• (this is mentioned in an earlier blog post) the sexual object vs sexual subject
• where is the line???
• A lot to do with the intent of the artist

• This comic suggests that a subject has power. Because comic characters cannot consent and can never have the power it's very hard to make them subjects
• The consent and power must be explicitly written in by the creator. 

• sexy lamp
• A lot of female characters are two dimensional and are solely there to be sexy - thus if you can replace them with a sexy lamp, its not good.

• Babs Tarr aka My Queen
• Working on Batgirl
• Draws a lot of sexy ladies, but they are not hyper sexualised or portrayed as sexual objects. They're definitely not drawn with men in mind. 

• Characters from the comic 'Rat Queens'
• They are all very diverse & you can see their character over any sexual appeal they have. 

• How do I portray a sexy character who is not objectified? How can I show the difference bluntly since there's such a fine line?
• Aaaaaah

• Just started to draw some strong women, conquering dude-bros. 

• My goal was to make something that would still be sexy but absolutely not intended for the male gaze. Something that would absolutely frighten men. 

• Started drawing these over sexual, really stupid superheroes with lazer boobs and throwing star vaginas etc. 

• I just thought I'd push it as far as I could go with it. I wanted to make it so over the top and horrific that it's just uncomfortable to look at. 

• ideas for my visual diagram - a hero layout of these horrifying superheroes
• Object vs Subject but not sure where to go with it. 

Feedback

• Very Knowlegdeable about Gender/Male Gaze
• Very good delivery style
• Sexual object vs sexual subject is an excellent central argument in many ways a model of synthesis between theory and practice
• The map of groteqsue female sexuality sounds intriguing

Babs Tarr

I got the honour of talking to Babs at Thought Bubble and had the opportunity to ask her a few questions on the matter of women in comics. In interviews she has said that there need to be more women in comics just to make the content relatable, as women will have experiences that they can include that men would have absolutely no idea about (especially hair pins).


Babs' work includes a lot of sexy, "scantily clad" or nude women but unlike a lot of comic art they are not hypersexualised. It's as if she - as a woman- has an understanding of how women like to be portrayed. The women are not there purposely to be sexy, they are fully realised characters who just happen to be sexy - but it is not their defining feature. I would even say there is more character in one of Babs' drawings than what is given to a lot of female characters in mainstream comics.


I think a lot of the way women are portrayed comes down to the intent of the artist. Babs, being female herself, is unlikely to want to create something specifically for the male gaze. Whereas a lot of mainstream comics are targeted towards a male audience and thus the intent of the artists is to make the female characters appeal to them, I guess making them sexy is easier than making a complex character.

Sexual Object VS Sexual Subject

"Art has a long history of images that cater to the male gaze. One of the best examples of this isTitian’s Venus of Urbino. It is little more than 16th century porn. Everything about her panders to the male gaze from her inviting smile to her soft features. Her anatomy is exaggerated to better please the viewer. Follow her arm as it lays across her belly. There isn’t bone underneath that flesh. An arm can’t bend like that. Follow her arm down to her hand. Is she covering herself up? Or, is she getting things started? She is like the Classical Greek sculptures of Venus who are surprised that you caught them, but aren’t upset in the slightest. They have inviting smiles and cover up to draw attention to the fact that they are nude.

Here is a classic example of woman as subject. Edouard Manet’s Olympia is directly commenting on the Venus of Urbino and subverting it. She is a confident and defiant female. She is not a passive object but an aggressive subject. She is angular and rigid not soft and round. The position of Venus of Urbino’s hand over her crotch signified her nakedness and her willingness, however with Olympia it signifies her control over the situation. Her hand isn’t resting or nestling, it is clamped down. The viewer will not participate in anything unless she permits."

http://www.thedollarbin.net/shows/2012/10/9/woman-as-object-woman-as-subject-the-male-gaze-and-the-dc-comics-relaunch

This passage really got me thinking about women in comics being generally presented as sexual objects for the male gaze, which is what makes the imagery so offensive. If characters were portrayed as sexual, but in the terms of a sexual subject would this be less offensive? Or even appeal to women? Personally I would say yes, a lot of the art that I like to make and look of is of sexy women but it appeals to me because the characters are sexy and owning it. It's about the character and women being in control of their sexiness rather than it just being there for the benefit of a man.