"The ethics of representation" is definitely one of those phrases found only in academia. Seriously, it sounds like the subheading of a dissertation. But as ridiculous as the phrase sounds, it's actually a really interesting idea. The concept is rooted in the assumption that art is not bounded by the artist's intent. We talked about this in my English class the other day because we're reading The Colonial Harem, by Malek Alloula. In the early 20th century, when the Algeria was under French control, there were millions of postcards produced and circulated in an attempt to satisfy the European fascination with the exoticism and "barbarism" of the Arab world. The postcards are borderline-pornographic portrayals of Algerian women, and Alloula, an Algerian, explains that he is writing to try to "exorcise the photographer's intruding gaze" from his country and to "send the postcard back to its sender."
Alloula's book has been criticized, though, for doing exactly the opposite. Critics argue that the fact that his book is full of images of these postcards serves, regardless of the text Alloula adds and his unambivalent stance regarding them, to perpetuate their influence and existence. As much as I'd love to say that this is ridiculous, it might not be. Here are some other examples of how art can get away from the artist:
1. Colbert mocks an anti-gay marriage commercial, and the group sends him a letter thanking him for circulating their ideas and their ad. The National Organization for Marriage has a point: their small-scale internet ad got national television coverage and thousands of YouTube hits. You can watch Colbert's version here, and, honestly, you might not need to bother with the real thing because it's almost as ridiculous.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad | ||||
| ||||
2.A student group tries to show a pornographic film at Maryland. Although the group's intentions were to connect the showing with a safe-sex message, many people were outraged that a public university would sponsor (or at least agree to) the screening of a film that objectifies women, etc. My friend and fellow HoHum-er Chiara wrote a great explanation of the issue on her blog a few weeks ago. She pointed out that whatever the group's intentions were in showing the film, many students' reasons were going did not stem from intellectual curiosity.
3. 30 Rock. See? This wasn't a complete tangent. So, in my very first blog entry, I looked at the presence and prevalence of stereotypes in the pilot of the series. My first instinct was to try to justify these stereotypes as a way of establishing the show's characters while mocking and acknowledging their absurdity. I still think that this was the show's intent, and I'm saying that this was not the result, but I'm willing to add the "ethics of representation" angle. Does 30 Rock, in fact, perpetuate stereotypes by so bluntly acknowledging them? Take, for example, the episode Blind Date. When I looked at it in one of my other entries, I felt like the show did a good job of exposing the stereotypes it embodied and, in a sense, debunking them. But because they were so obvious, was there some part of my brain that was storing these new lesbian-stereotypes? Before watching the episode, I didn't "know" that lesbian couples liked to make planters out of rail-road ties, and now I do. While I know that this is a generalization and a stereotype, I somehow still remember that association. My brain knows it's false, but it's still stuck in there. Is there a way to destabilize and debunk stereotypes without perpetuating them?
