Images, Power, and Politics

After reading, several key ideas struck me as intriguing and open to critique and questioning. For one, I realize that as human beings, it is nearly impossible to not be a social constructionist. However, while I do not disagree that it is possible to not be one, it is nonetheless very difficult to because as humans, escaping the social context and especially the specific cultural context in which we were raised and currently live in is rare, if at all achievable.

When I think about myself, I think about how I’ve seen things through the biased lens of a Chinese person; that is to say, that I’ve been fed stereotypes about certain races throughout my life. In admitting so, I realize that it’s been difficult to stand up and openly say that what I’ve been fed and have even believed is false. However, institutions such as USC, which promote race education diversity, ideal or not, have corrected my previously very biased views. Also, as a Chinese-American, Asian people really stand out on television. When I think about Pirates of the Caribbean 2, I almost immediately jump to the highly stereotypical scene of a skull running around looking for his some of his body parts, played by a Chinese “fob” that although somewhat offensive, was humorous. In looking at myself, I wonder at the difficulty of escaping these contexts that have been given to us, the biases of others, and the possibility of a completely unbiased person.

Similarly, the myth of photographic truth caused me to question the idea of objectivity in photography. Before reading this part of the chapter, I had little idea and put even less thought into questioning the objectivity of a given photograph; as long as it hasn’t been photo-shopped in anyway, it’s probably pretty objective. I now realize that that simply isn’t the case. To have an objective photo, if that indeed is possible, one must strive to make it objective. Even tilting the angle of a photo can cause it to have a bias of some sort, thus incurring subjectivity, even if is a small amount. Also, in interpretation, is it possible to avoid the connotative meaning of something? This brings into question the idea of interpretation itself; for example, is the purpose of interpretation to find or give meaning to something? Is it allowable practice to add connotative meaning to something? Who is to say how a piece of art should be interpreted? In thinking of these questions, I find that there is generally an agreed upon interpretation of something that has so-called backing, which is also generally agreed upon. What if all these things that have been generally agreed upon been suddenly proven false, and what if our systems of representations have in reality been wrong or used incorrectly by the viewers? As Napoleon once said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” What if this statement holds true for not only art, but for visual culture as well?

Lastly, a small observation about myself. I find myself more of a person who “sees” as opposed to someone who “looks.” Unfortunately, that means I would be the one gawking at a picture of anything beautiful- whether it be a snow-covered mountain or a girl- and simply saying “oooh.” In retrospect, I’ve found that that oftentimes doesn’t help me in any way, intellectually, aesthetically, or anything. In reading this, I suppose I’ve been guilted into “looking” more, as opposed to being the empty-headed see-r.