Striptease Culture Analysis

Superior Essays
Our ‘striptease culture” is preoccupied with ‘self-revelation and exposure’ (mcNair 2002:81 in Attwood, 2010: xv); how does this impact on the way female bodies are represented in the public sphere? Discuss this question with reference to specific examples of 20 and 21st century women’s art.

“Look at what a hot girl I am: in spite of my independence, my culture, my intelligence, all i care about is pleasing you.” Autor Virginie Despentes

We live in a society where western women are expected to abide to strict gender stereotypes and to tolerate the constant objectification and judgement of their bodies; a society, in which the public are persistently exposed to the aesthetic ideals of the ‘perfect’ female body though a sex-crazed advertising
…show more content…
Perhaps one of the most relevant feminist art movement works on the theme of striptease and raunch culture is American visual artist Hannah Wilke’s: Super-T-Art -1974. Captured at the Kitchen, New York; Super-T-Art shows the artist in a progression of twenty poses in which she portrays the transformation of the Virgin Mary to the crucified Christ in the style of burlesque using only a white table cloth as a prop. The actions used in the piece link to cliché porn culture performance, but also to reoccurring themes in new burlesque shows; the use of role play and stereotypes. Similarly to burlesque, Wilke’s performance exposes an audience and questions gaze. The performance draws its inspiration from themes of religion, sexual politics and gender politics. Works made using similar themes by Wilke include S.O.S - Scarification Object Series 1975 and Through the Large Glass 1976 each of these performances communicates a defiant message of repressed female …show more content…
Each of their works can be identified as a symbol of modern attitudes to gender and sexuality. Each artist has set out to challenge the modern and historic social stereotypes women are objected to. Their works purposely distort and reinvent the female image to create a juxtaposition to the embodied, sexualised image of women recognised in the public sphere. Hannah Wilke represents the 1970’s feminist art movement, her performances use a connection to burlesque and question traditional views of femininity. Marlene Dumas Creates the image of provocative sex industry workers, who’s confidence and sexual empowerment surprises an audience creating a contrast to the image of strippers in the public sphere. The replicated female form in Sarah lucas’s work directly depicts women as objects in turn questioning gaze and creating a satirical note to criticise the sex industry. Each artist argues against the wider theme of the sexualised female image. They educate viewers on subject of the historic and current female oppression and aim to deliver women from male-chauvinism and to help revolutionise the final female sexual

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    • Edgar Degas was one of the most obsessive painters of the female body in the entire history of art, producing almost six hundred images of ballet dancers alone and many nude works. The variety of the Degas collection is complemented by the wide range of media used such as Oils and pastels, prints and drawings,and sculpture. This book ‘Edgar Degas Dancers and Nudes’ introduces Lillian Schacherl where she brings to life the world lived in by these women Edgar Degas paints. She rejects the interpretation of the images as voyeuristic. The artist's intention, she argues, was neither to glorify the glamorous world of the ballet nor to celebrate the beauty of the female form.…

    • 131 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    early critics and, paradoxically, has been ignored by recent feminist scholars.” Flack’s paintings are often categorized as either feminine or feminist, according to Woman’s Art Journal. In the 1970s women found it difficult to merge those two identities and Flack was well aware of the dueling demands in a woman’s life. Flack believed that a woman could be both feminine and a feminist. A woman didn’t have to choose and could create her own lifestyle.…

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Instead of gently guiding the viewer through exploring the movement and impact it has had on modern day feminist art, the women being interviewed in the film become confrontational about how their impact has “been forgotten” in favor of the white male artist throughout history. Taking this approach of personal interviews creates an unintentional negative bias between the filmmaker and audience that works towards alienating the audience from the filmmaker’s…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women would pose for nude paintings; these paintings were guided towards a male audience. For the fact, they (the woman) was the only subject depicted in the artwork. • Sexuality, Politics, and Consumerism: I. Sexuality goes way beyond the thought of reproduction. II.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women’s representation in our culture is no new problem. As long as society as existed, it has been a topic of debate. The overwhelming pressure on both men and women by the media can sometimes be suffocating. In the article Out-of-Body Image by Caroline Heldman, she writes about how women are influenced by the media to think of themselves as objects. To be viewed by people through how they appear, and how society wants them to appear.…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Works Cited Bird, Kym. “Leaping into the Breeches: Liberal Feminism and Cross Dressing in Sarah Anne Curzon's "The Sweet Girl Graduate." ” Australasian Drama Studies, 1996. ProQuest. Web.…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In pop culture, the sexuality of women are often depicted as a binary: either as a slut or a whore, or pure and innocent. Adelina Anthony’s and Margaret Cho’s performances challenge these representations with their comedic performances and being open with their sexuality. They disidentify with hegemonic cultural representations by working with and against dominant representations such as sexism and classism. They use humor such as sarcasm to make people see how absurd about people’s stereotypical views on sexuality. Furthermore, the alternative representations that Cho and Anthony offer are an unabashed performance of who they are as part of the LGBTQ community.…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The main focus is on women who are made to meet the high standards of society- the dehumanized and unrealistic images created on Photoshop. We are faced with the issue of Sexualization in our every day lives, from the clothes we wear, to the music we listen to, and to the magazines we read; Sexualization has a big impact on our lives. In the past the issue of Sexualization wasn’t nearly as apparent as it is today, children are being exposed to…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagine holding a magazine where there is a certain page of a gorgeous woman with a perfect body who is half naked washing a brand of car with only her bra and her panties in a hot sunny day posing for a car advertisement. Now imagine a skinny white female who is advertising for a product of perfume where she would look at you and said “I want you to smell my body.” Many people would see this as repel and disgusted. Some people especially men don’t mind fantasying on this kind images. We see women exposing their bodies for advertisements in the television or the magazines .…

    • 1085 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout history, society has looked at the role of woman with a domestic and submissive perspective. Women were the property of men, and were there to pleasure him, bear his children, and relieve him of the domestic duties. Throughout time the role of women in society has evolved; however, women still struggle to have full control of their own bodies. As Adrienne Rich said (Of Women Born):"Women are controlled by lashing us to our bodies. " The theme of women being lashed to their bodies has been evident in America from the 1800’s until the 1970’s, as women have fought to gain the right to their own bodies and is still evident today as women continue to battle against patriarchal control of their bodies by the government and media.…

    • 1410 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Guerilla Girls Essay

    • 1581 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Guerrilla girls The contemporary poster “Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the MET Mueseum,” (1989) was made by the Guerilla girls in response to the conscious and unconscious discrimination in the art world at the time. The Guerrilla Girls are intersectional feminist activist artists who since their inception have underminde the idea of a mainstream narrative by revealing the understory and subtext in order to expose bad behaviour in the art world. Working collaboratively as a group to discuss and brain storm creative ways to use facts and humour to reach a wide audience and grab the attention of millions. - Through public collections theyre statements are made permanent into records, their critiques on 20th and 21st century art world Although female artists had played a…

    • 1581 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When reading Annette Kuhn’s, The Power of the Image, you find yourself reading a powerful message about women and how important the study of women really is. One question Kuhn asks in her article that stuck out to me is, “Why are images of women’s bodies so prevalent in our society?” (Kuhn 42) After reading this question, I begin to wonder if this prevalence is a good or bad thing and what could be the different types of media or gender to blame for this question of predominance. What I believe to be true is that a woman’s body is worshipped by men, and a reason for it is early paintings and poetry showcasing the female figure in the nude.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This writing considers the question of Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece,” which is one of the most important works of that artist’s career and of its period. The essay specifically investigates the critical question of what one can learn from “Cut Piece” about the role of women in society at large. It seeks in investigating this question to uncover trends over time, seeing how the role of women has changed over time and how the role of women has been depicted in art. There will be three primary sections to the body of this work that will help to provide a clear picture of the overall meaning of this piece of art in conjunction with feminism and the role of women (Johnson). First, there will be an investigation of the piece itself to ensure a proper understanding of what is actually being studied.…

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Zanele Muholi Analysis

    • 1442 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Yearwork one The influence of Zanele Muholi’s techniques, concepts and subject matter in her “La Rochelle” series and “Miss D'vine” series on my work: “Flowers in (my) hair” Conceptualization: Like in Muholi’s La Rochelle series (figs.2, 3, 4), my artwork Flowers in (my) hair (fig.1) tackles gender norms- mainly toxic masculinity . The camel in the image is my representation of man and focuses on changing the idea that to be a man you must be tough.…

    • 1442 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Helen Longino Pornography

    • 1318 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Pornography The pornographic industry has a reputation of being a causal factor in the degradation of women for the satisfaction of the current patriarchal society. Feminist Helen Longino defines pornography as the “verbal or pictorial explicit representations of sexual behavior that… have as a distinguishing characteristic ‘the degrading and demeaning of the role and status of the human female as a mere sexual object to be exploited and manipulated sexually’” (106). She distinguishes pornography from what she considers to be a more acceptable form of sexual imagery that she labels as erotica.…

    • 1318 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays