This week, please view Mira Nair's Mississippi Masala (on reserve at the Multimedia Library by Monday, March 16). Next week, we will have a brief presentation by a representative of the LGBT Resource Center on "Two-Spirit" identity in Native American culture as an introduction to Sherman Alexie's The Business of Fancydancing (2002).
The majority of class will be devoted to your presentations (5-7 minutes) on your photo essays. Please make your presentation accessible via zip drive, Pantherfile, disk or your own laptop (you will need an adaptor depending on your platform - PC or MAC).
Also, please briefly respond to the following (Due Thursday, March 26):
Referring to Benshoff & Griffin and Ringlero, discuss the similarities/differences btween ethnographic film and photography. According to Aleta Ringlero, in what ways are representational codes (performance, costume, setting, framing, lighting, angle) used to produce images that support ideologies regarding Native Americans? In what whays did the attempt to pose Native American women after the European academy model interrupt the curculation of these ideologies?
Ethnographic film records anothers cultures way of life. The film director would make up concocted story lines to make Native americans look more exotic.
ReplyDeletePhotographs give objective accuracy and protray reality.Photographs were manipulated for the interest of selling and making money.Photos wer a powerful propaganda tool, and could provide alternate messages aganist and support for assimilation, as was the official policy towards Native Americans. According to Ringlero, the representational coode was that , the costume made the indian. Bufflo skin, feathers in their hair, traditional garments,were how they were dressed in most photos. Always items to make you continuly see one version. Most people their is total truth in print,or the news for example, what see or what they see reported on the news .
So during the 1900's genocide was the norm for the Native American, if you were constantly bombarded in print and film, that a society of people are savages,you would be on defense until you wer shown otherwise.
Both ethnographic film and photography attempted to “document” another culture, though many times the events were staged in both mediums and then passed as authentic. Film differed in that a longer, more detailed narrative could be communicated – so more complex ideas of how the subjects should be viewed were possible.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to Native Americans, representational codes were used to communicate two primary views: bloodthirsty savages or noble savages. The diversity of Native American tribes was reduced to simple stereotypes which removed any individuality from the subjects. Even more troublesome, the focus and quantity of pictures on nude tribal woman was not consistent with simple “documentation” but more likely as pornography. Many of the pictures were staged to highlight the woman’s breasts using different poses, lighting and jewelry.
Posing the woman as they did (with blatant sexuality) created concern – the subjects not only appeared savage, but also defiant. In this way, they would seem more threatening and possibly stir fear rather than re-enforce white superiority.
Ethnographic film and photography is a way of portraying a different culture. Many of these depictions were inaccurate though. Films tended to stereotype the non-white races in a negative way and the characters played negative roles.
ReplyDeleteRepresentational codes were used to support ideologies of Native Americans. They were seen in specific costume (moccassins, buffalo hides, feathers, and beaded jewelry) which suggested this was the way Native Americans dressed. They were not portrayed as gentle or soft, but tough and rugged. Many Native American women were partially nude in these photographs, exposing their breasts like some type of savage beast.This seemed to be the stereotype of Native Americans during that time.
Native American women were posed nude in photographs and it was a type of pornography. Their breasts were exposed but not in a gentle, feminine way, but more like an animal would be displayed reinforcing the idea of savage.
Ethnographic films and photography are seemingly intertwined because they served the same purpose; to try to explore/expose different cultures and the way they lived. The ethnographic films were biased since their perspective was from white filmmakers and because of this native americans were viewed as subjects. Photos were used as a form of propaganda, native americans were seen with certain costume-like attire such as feathers, costumes, buffalo hides) and the lighting was often dark and shadowy subliminally communicating a savage like identity, these photos and films were seen by people who hadn't any weren't likely to connect with native americans which created a form of prejudice against them and allowed a genocide-like interaction to be accepted.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures of the women were indeed pornographic, the pictures possess a strong sense of masculinity due to the pose, the dark overcast in the photos and the strong, angular poses of their bodies. These photos reinforces the idea of the native american as a savage. Native American women were often viewed as too masculine, rather than courageous and strong and that is clear in the photos, yet the exposure of their breasts seems to be a form of mockery, as if exposing them in such a manner would obliterate any sort of fear/uneasiness most europeans had with the native american women's strength.
Ethnographic film and also Ethnographic photography is a from of cinematography that try’s to shed light an another culture but often times falls far short of giving a true accurate look of what that culture is actually about. Many times people take these films and Photos as to be genuinely true.
ReplyDeleteThe best example of Ethnographic film and photography would be the stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans. In many movies and pictures over the years Native Americans were shown to be wearing feathers head dresses, face paint, and carrying bow and arrows and that they were some sort of savage people (we know this not to be a true portrayal of Native Americans) but this helped fuel the push to get Native Americans on to reservations.
Native American women were also often times portrayed in a negative and degrading light as well. They often times had to pose in front of the camera naked to show that they were somehow not as “feminine” as their European counterparts. This was meant to back up the idea that Native Americans were savage and that all Native American woman ran around naked
Ethnographic films and photography try to show the way that a person or people live since basically culture is just the way of life tha contrubutes to who a person is. The difference is that ethnographic films can be manipulated to show anyone's interpretation or idea but not show what is true, because what one person might think is good or right another person may think the complete opposite. Photographs give more of an opportunity to show the raw truth but is comes down to who wants you to see what.
ReplyDeleteRepresentational codes were used to manipulate peoples' idea of Native Americans. They were made to look different from who they really are, almost animalistic or savage. This stereotype may have made other people feel comfortable with them in society like they then had a place or role as the people that were portayed in the photos.
By posin Native American women after the European academy model, it seems like they were trying to form a stereotype that by making these women look like this that other people will feel comfortable and would catch onm like these women aren't just women but they're animals.
ethnographic films are films that show another cultures way of life.
ReplyDeletethis emerged after films came out about different places (globally), celebrities at the time and films about historical dates . Ethnographic films in the case of Native Americans fictionalized there rituals being performed.
I think that this was like black face,minstrel shows, or Mamie and such stereotypes for Native Americans , they sexualized and dehumanized Native Americans in the films. It seems like they stereotyped the men as strong , silent , rigid. And the women as sexual subservient
In both ethnographic film and photography, Indians were posed and manipulated to fit the stereotypes that were apparent at the time. Ethnographic films were used to portray the culture of the Native Americans. The problem with these films is that the way they portrayed the “real culture” was completely fictionalized and reinforced the stereotypes that Americans were taught. The photos were also passed off as “authentic images of native life”. In both cases, both forms of media were used to make money. Films portrayed Native Americans as violent and savage, and the photos were more to just show the primitive life of Native Americans. They manipulated these photos by having the actors wear feathers and beads to depict a sense of “generalized Indianness”. It was very important that the Indian men and woman were mostly not clothed. This was also used to create idea of them being savage and uncivilized. During the roles of the Native Americans, the lighting was darker and the filming was choppy and there were a lot of close-ups on the Indians in order to make them appear dangerous and scary. What was different about the Native American women was that instead of being viewed as violent and savage, they were sexualized and posed as “prairie pinups”. They were usually completely or semi-naked with a sort of “come-hither” expression of their faces in order to make them look romantic.
ReplyDeleteEthnographic films were first used as a way to show white Americans the exotic ways of the Indians. Although believed to be non-fiction these movies were usually staged and had no real insight into the ways of the natives other than stereotypes of their ways. These films depicted the Indians either as the bloodthirsty savage out to kill the hero of the story. Or as the noble savage there to protect and help the hero.
ReplyDeletePhotographs on the other hand were generally images of the real Indian life, depicting Native Americans going through their daily activities. Most people were not shown this view of the Natives until much later when people started to see them as a semi civilized people and not just the blood thirsty savages they had been shown in the early ethnographic films.
Ethnographic film and photography (in relation to the reading) is a way to show a cultures way of life or what the artist/director wants to be shown. Or better said posed, made up stories.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Aleta Ringlero, representational codes are the costumes worn by the Indians. Like different feathers and clothing or skins/ buffalo, the way they did their hair. All these things played into how people viewed them as ether savages or good Indians.
They posed native american women in explicit ways. Posing them with jewelry and other means to show of there breasts in more of a sexual manner. Leaving people with idea that native americans had no morals
Ethnographic films were initially intended to be a documentary style look into other cultures, offering a “slice of life” approach to the film. However, these films became a way for white filmmakers to construct an image of a people rather than allowing for an accurate portrayal of these peoples lives. These films were used to portray Native Americans as primitive and savage, and tried to paint their culture as uncivilized.
ReplyDeleteEthnographic photography became a very fetishistic look at Native Americans. Often, these photographs showed naked women posed in an erotic fashion. These photographs were staged, posed, and lit according to the photographer’s will, and were more of an exploitation of these women for profit rather than an attempt to give insight into a people’s culture.
Ethnographic film and photography, in general, can serve the same purpose. Both give the creator authority to convey Native Americans in whatever misconstrued or filtered sense they deem appropriate. While photographic images capture a moment in time, ethnographic films are meant to document time periods within Native American history. Through both mediums the culture as a whole is most often depicted as an overly eccentric and primitive sect within America. There is little documentation that separates the many different tribes and cultures within the Indian race.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Ringlero, certain codes are used to strengthen these stereotypes through images and film. The classic tribal get-up equipped with flamboyant head-dressings, colorful gowns, feathers and face paint solidifies the belief that Indians are no more than savages. “These people” need be feared by the average American citizen and controlled by those in power. What most observers don’t realize is that these images and films were staged to accomplish that ideology.
To further these distasteful ideologies Native American women are most often shown in the nude, with lighting and framing to accent their breasts in a very provocative manner. Such images are meant to prove both Indian men and women to be equally inhuman. When looking through some of these photos I can’t help but think back to the same way African American slaves were depicted before the Civil War and similar images of Jewish women in the Holocaust.