Cindy Sherman: Stereotype or Identity Crisis

Cindy Sherman: Stereotype or Identity Crisis?

INTRODUCTION

During a project, I found that my work was very obvious and blunt. My teacher suggested looking at a few artists who are subtle when conveying their messages. Cindy Sherman was one of the artists I looked at. I looked particularly at the Untitled Film Stills and found the work to be provocative and particularly challenging. Some of the photographs seemed to startle me, whilst others seemed spontaneous, accidental shots. I decided to write this study on Cindy Sherman and her Untitled Film Stills because the film stills are of her and in each one, she is dressed up or made to look different with costume and make-up. I found this interesting for many reasons, particularly because it is a collection of photographs that make me want to ask questions about the people portrayed by Sherman and about Sherman herself.

I first saw one of Sherman’s film stills in an art book. Although not one of her Untitled Film Stills, the photograph still intrigued me. The photograph depicted a woman wearing a dark suit, with bold blonde hair covering her face, against a light background. On a first look, the woman appeared tense but on subsequent viewings, I could not decide the mood of this piece. The woman may have been feeling many things; it was this uncertainty that drew my attention. The still gave me the chance to make up my own mind by not forcing any message or direct comment through the photograph and the piece totally relied on my viewing and my own interpretation. Sherman gives room to allow unique and independent thought.

I intend to look at some of the Untitled Film Stills by Cindy Sherman and decide how much of the characters she portrays can be referred to as a stereotype and how identity plays a role in the photographs. I would like to conclude with an idea if any of the characters are representational of Cindy Sherman herself, which would link to my discussion of identity. Sherman’s collection of the sixty-nine Untitled Film Stills were completed in 1980. However, I am aware that the collection was started in 1977. I’m going to think about this as many women artists and photographers were becoming more inclined to produce artwork that raged against what could be described as preconceived notions about women in the media. I find facts like this fascinating because in the cosmopolitan society of the art world during the nineteen-eighties, some women artists still found it hard to be recognised. I’d like to use this point in my study on Cindy Sherman because she has been quoted as saying,

“I decided to use the camera as a means for exploring my experience as a woman”. With this quote in mind, whilst exploring her “experience as a woman”, is it possible if her own exploration, through the medium of art, during a time when women artists may have struggled, would have reflected her own insecurities or the insecurities of a generation? I’d like to believe that in her Untitled Film Stills, there is a question by Sherman herself about her own identity, not just the clichés portrayed.

I am going to concentrate on a small selection of the Untitled Film Stills, namely “Untitled Film Still #12 ”; “Untitled Film Still #26”; “Untitled Film Still #34”; “Untitled Film Still #38”; “Untitled Film Still #39”.

Historical Background

Although the series of the Untitled Film Stills were completed in the nineteen eighties, many of the stills were actually taken during the late seventies. In the back drop of this era, women artists were starting to become know for their work in America. Notably, Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger were becoming very well known by the mid eighties.

During the seventies, many people viewed the ongoing war in Vietnam and the role in which the American society had to play in it. Called the “first television war”, the conflict in Vietnam seemed very unpopular with many American citizens as the brutality of the American army and the shocking truths of war were broadcast. Despite having signed a peace treaty in 1973, the stark violence of the war was still fresh in people’s minds towards the later years of the decade when Sherman began producing the Untitled Film Stills.

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The seventies were, to many people, a relief from the chaos in America during the 60s. However, women were attempting to gain better equality than that of their mothers. Feminist philosophy was spreading rapidly and women demanded their rights in politics, employment, education and the law. In the art world, Feminism was pushing through to the frontier of art work. Artists that included Barbara Kruger, Nancy Dwyer and Nancy Spero as well Sherman were accredited with the exploration of feminism in art by the end of the nineteen-eighties. Of these artists, I find that Barbara Kruger and Nancy Dwyer had the most in common with Sherman, in terms of art. All three based their work on media influence of the time and their experiences as women. I find it hard to believe without a doubt, that the three artists should be labelled as “feminists” purely based on these reasons. During the culture of the seventies, Feminism was something that was becoming more widespread in the art world. However, these artists maintain that their art is not purely influenced by the feminine philosophy.

Analysis

I am going to concentrate on a selection of the Untitled Film Stills for analysis, namely “Untitled Film Still #12 ”; “Untitled Film Still #26”; “Untitled Film Still #34”; “Untitled Film Still #38”; “Untitled Film Still #39”. The photographs in the Untitled Film Stills are all gelatine-silver prints and their sizes are 7.5in x 9.5in. In my mind, these are photographs from the series of Untitled Film Stills that I find particularly interesting, each in its unique sense.

Untitled Film Still #12

This photograph, Untitled Film Still #12 is dominated by quite a vast amount of light wall. The space is interrupted by a figure to the left of the photograph, her darker hair contrasting sharply to the light-coloured wall. To the bottom half of the photograph is a bed with a suitcase and a scattering of clothes. The wall behind her and above the bed is fairly plain, except for a curtain, a small picture on the wall above the bed and a lamp on a bedside table.

The ambiguity present in the above photograph can be seen in the tone of the photograph. The lighting is very sharp. There are almost no shadows in this picture, which would suggest a very open emotion, or perhaps it can be seen as displaying inner turmoil and turbulent emotions. The source of light appears to be a small lamp just to the left of the centre of the photo. However, the light on the visible rim of the suitcase would suggest otherwise. The tonal range in the character’s clothing also gives a sensual feel to the photograph as they seem to emphasise her femininity whilst making her seem vulnerable at the same time. The position of her head and the soft vertical lines of her form support this. Her body seems to sink into the wall behind her, giving the photo a distant view. The perspective is such that although the corner of the room can be seen by the joining of the walls just to the left of the centre of the photograph, it is as though the depth of the room is stressed by the arrangement of the character.

In my view, the starkly bland wall and surrounding bed emphasise the tense figure of a woman. Her positioning is anxious, accentuated by taut shoulders and facial expression. Her expression conveys distress and extreme emotion. Obviously, her expression is going to be interpreted by other factors in the photograph. For example, a suitcase on the bed, with articles of clothes spread across could be interpreted as desire to be free, a rejected lover ready to flee or a woman who has received some terrible news which requires her presence elsewhere, or possibly something else entirely. Her anonymity is a particular feature that fascinates me about this particular still and other Untitled Film Stills.

As a result, the photograph begs more questions related to the story of the still by means of the objects around the figure. Could this be because the room she is in is not her own home? Could it be a hotel or someone else’s house? The suitcase indicates movement. The photo uses the character as a clever tool calling for independent views of the situation. My relationship to the character feels distant and detached.

Consequently, when looking for a specific stereotype in this image, I find it quite difficult to settle on any one because of the uncertainty I mentioned earlier. Therefore, is it possible to think that the character could be a projection of Sherman herself? I think it is a potential option. As a film still, Sherman has created a woman who seems separate from any particular viewer and I think that this allows for thought and reflection upon the identity of her.

Untitled Film Still #26

The character is a young girl, centralised by a white nightdress and invasive shadows. Towards the top right of the photograph is a lighter section of white brick wall, grey due to the fact that the still was obviously taken with black and white film. The wall falls into shadow, highlighted softly in the left of the photograph appears to be the underside of stairs. More brooding shadows frame the subject. The girl is holding her face or covering her ears. Dark hair falls around her shoulders, which heavily contrasts against the lightness of her nightdress.

Untitled Film Still #26 seems to me to be abundant in clichés. To me, the photograph suggests a scared or frightened young girl, perhaps hiding. Her hands seem to be covering her ears, perhaps from arguing parents. In this dark place, it seems as if she’s hiding, from what exactly is difficult to fathom as art is often filled with ambiguities. The sharp contrasts between the black and white of the wall and the girl suggest innocence or youth about the subject. The character is looking directly at the camera. The darkness around her seems to draw the observer’s attention to the centre, making the background fade into the unimportant. However, it is the dank background that creates the photograph’s depth. The sinister background gives the vast space.

The relationship between the photographer and the subject in Untitled Film Still #26 (above) is distant; the character seems uninvolved with the camera. The shadows growing on her nightdress suggest that she is being affected by the background. This photo seems uncertain, possibly due to an infinite amount of emotion that can be found in the character’s body language. She stands out, like the character doesn’t belong in this background.

Therefore, one has to wonder about how much of Cindy Sherman herself can be found in the character. I think the stereotype is fairly obvious, however there are always many other interpretations. I think the stereotype is that of a scared or lost girl. Once again, the girl is alone. A lonely figure could indicate loss or confusion. When considering the title of the series of photographs, Untitled Film Stills, is there the possibility that the title is the key to interpreting the whole series of photographs? The word in all the titles of all of the photos in the series is “untitled”. This could be a clue as to the unsure nature of the characters in them. The word “untitled” suggests the personas in each of the photos in the Untitled Film Stills are undefined, therefore there is the prospect that Sherman is experimenting with personalities. Is this photo a portrayal of Sherman’s own confusion? I think that it is definitely possible. Sherman could have been stood behind a camera looking at another model posing but one has to question Sherman’s intentions when she decided to use herself as the main focus. I believe this is a method Sherman took to help discover herself and make sense of her own uncertainties in life. Clearly, there will always be other interpretations.

Untitled Film Still #34

This is my favourite still of all the photographs I’m going to analyse because there are so many ways of reading this photo and the persona portrayed by Sherman.

Untitled Film Still #34 (to the right) depicts a woman led on a bed or a dark sheet. The woman is fairly pale in contrast to the sheet except for her hair which disappears into the velvety dark sheet. The woman is looking upwards. She’s wearing a white shirt over her underwear and her legs are bare. The expanse of murky bedcover is slightly ruffled towards the bottom right of the photograph and there is an old, well thumbed book near to the woman on the right hand side.

The light in this photo appears to come from the right and travels across the ebony desert of the bed sheet and emphasises the bare legs of Sherman and the highlights the contrast between the white shirt the woman is wearing. In my view, this photograph is quite a sexual discovery for Sherman. Although she is wearing clothes, the dissimilarity of Sherman’s body and clothing and the black sheet seem to make Sherman look innocent. Her white shirt would emphasise the “virginal” element in the series of the Untitled Film Stills. The stark white of Sherman’s shirt would suggest purity; however, the bare legs suggest a different view.

There is yet more ambiguity with reference to stereotype, as there is a shadow on the face of the character, which could suggest that there is more to this photo. It could be make-up, but the shadow could be a bruise or a mark. Could this be the persona of a woman who has been hit by her partner, or a teenager who had a fight at school? Could this woman be Cindy Sherman?

Sherman herself comments on this particular photo and her explanation would be seen to support my opinion on sexuality in this still. She says,

“to pick a character like that was about my own ambivalence about sexuality growing up with the women role models that I had, and a lot of them in films, that were like that character, and yet you were supposed to be a good girl” (Retrospective, 1997).

Based on this comment, it is fair to suggest that this particular image was heavily influenced by women in the media as well as Sherman’s own concerns about sexuality.

Untitled Film Still #38

I chose this Untitled Film Still because the character in the photo is reminiscent of the character in Untitled Film Still #26. I was cause to think about the differences and similarities between the two.

The photo is grainy and unfocused. The depiction is of a young girl in the outdoors, possibly in a river surrounded by trees. The character is again centralised as in Untitled Film Still #26 and is wearing a similar white nightdress. There are lots of tress and a tree trunk interrupts the photograph to the right. The girl appears to be lifting her nightdress so she can walk in the river.

Once again, the tonal range seems to offer a different perspective, in that the grey areas are highlighted in places and darker in others, for example, the tree trunk to the right of the shot is juxtaposed by a section towards the bottom of highlighted plants and grey to the right. In this, the central character has to be the subject again. Her dress is brilliant white amongst all things grey.

This photo seems to portray the same character from Untitled Film Still #26 in nature, exploring and having childish fun as opposed to the seemingly scared and uncomfortable girl under the stairs. From my view, this is a cliché of a young girl finding fun and enjoyment in the woods. I think the grainy, unfocused view makes the photograph dream-like. I think that this still is particularly representational of many people’s idea of childhood and memories. The liberation that is often associated with child hood means that this still is possibly one that strikes a high note of empathy with an observer.

Unlike some of the other stills I have discussed, I think that this one has very little ambiguity in its meaning. Undoubtedly, other critics may see this photograph in an entirely different manner. Therefore, I believe that this could have been part of Sherman’s intentions when she created this still. In fact, I believe that it’s quite easy to make up your own stories and scenarios in each of the Untitled Film Stills.

Untitled Film Still #39

Untitled Film Still #39 depicts a young girl in a bathroom. There are door frames on both of the longer sides of the photographs, which in turn, centralises the scene in the bathroom. The lighting is odd. There appears to be light coming from inside the bathroom, but as one can see in the photo to the right, there is a misty light across the whole still. Unlike the other stills which I have analysed, this still has invasive light. The light or white “shadows” are sliding into the picture from the edges of the shot. I’m not sure how Sherman would have accomplished this. Inside the bathroom, the bare legs of the girl are shrouded in shadow, contrasting with the lighter coloured wall behind her.

To me, this photo is Sherman’s presentation of body image. She’s trying to portray the worries that many women go through about their body. I think that this still is particularly poignant because many people can see their own body worries through the depiction.

However, it is the light mist rolling towards the centre of the photo that has to have my attention fully caught. I think that this is physical elusiveness; it seems to question my judgement of the situation being portrayed. This one in particular makes me ask the most questions. Is this deliberate? Has Sherman deliberately crafted a photograph that is completely different from the others in the series? I think that she has. As I mentioned before, any effects that Sherman has created with light has been to either eliminate shadows completely or to make them invasive. This one is different because the light seems aggressive. The light inside the bathroom also reflects from the head of the character. It’s almost a halo. I think that it’s a definite possibility that Sherman is portraying this stereotype as an innocent. If this is true, does Sherman believe that body concerns come from the influence of the media? For example, concerns about weight or appearance. The media was of great authority even during the seventies and eighties, when Sherman was producing the Untitled Film Stills. Or does Sherman believe that the character is innocent in some other way? Does Sherman think that the subject is innocent at all?

Sherman once stated:

“Even though I’ve never thought of my work as feminist or as a political statement, certainly everything in it was drawn from my observations as a woman in this culture” (Art Now, 2001).

Using this statement as a catalyst for my entire study, I can see that my observations of Sherman’s work can indeed be justified. From this picture, I believe that Sherman created Untitled Film Stills as a response to her own identity as a “woman in this culture” (Art Now, 2001). It is also evident that Sherman has been affected by the “women role models” (Retrospective, 1997) in films and possibly, stereotypes of the time.

Conclusion

It’s come to my attention through this study that stills are static views of something that was moving before it stopped and will move again after the still is taken. With this in mind, stills are lost in time as if they belong somewhere but it’s impossible to be sure where until one has seen the movie they’ve been taken from. In this, Sherman has been very clever in that that there is no movie to take the Untitled Film Stills from. In my opinion, the stills were not from a movie, they were Sherman’s life.

Despite my initial idea that Cindy Sherman might have been trying to play with her identity but having studied her Untitled Film Stills, I think that it is Sherman trying out different lives to see if they fit. So in a sense, I still think that Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills are a quest for her identity, but I think that she “tried on” different well-known personas to see if they had any connection with her.

I wanted to explore the ways in which the photographs portrayed Sherman and the ways in which she did not represent clichés. I wasn’t sure how I would feel after spending so much time on one artist but I feel closer to understanding that Sherman’s art is about how we as observers perceive her work, not as about how she presents it to us. I decided to present this study in an essay format as I didn’t want the main text to become confused in any way. This way, it is logical and easy to follow.

When working on my own pieces in the style of the Untitled Film Stills, I had to make decisions on pose. When deciding this, I thought I would choose some positions similar to those chosen by Sherman. I thought that I would try and place the light source in various places to create different tones and in places that would change the view of the photographs overall. I think that the photos were successful, but I wish I’d explored some more costumes and make-up. I would have liked to have taken more photos, but I’m happy with the ones that I have.

In conclusion and in answer to my question; “Cindy Sherman: Stereotype or Identity Crisis?”, I think that I can safely say that Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills are a personal reflection of her ideas about being a woman and how they can be portrayed in people’s minds. Therefore, I think that whilst presenting stereotypes in some of her work, I think that Sherman’s identity will always present itself first.