Throughout the photo shoot she said she felt very confused because the photographer kept telling her to "tone down her poses" and told her that she was being "too aggressive in the picture." Also, at one point the photographer had her close her eyes and fall into the male's arms so that he could catch her. This made me think of a helpless women who needs a man to lean on. My roommate is an aggressive, strong girl that would not let a man be the dominant one in a relationship, so she was especially affected by this situation.
When I was talking to her about this we found that this was weird first, because the advertisement was for the wedding dress, not for the man's tuxedo and second, because the photographer telling her to be more passive was a female doing a predominantly male profession.
Thinking about this situation lead me back to Yep's ideas about heteronormativity or what society's idea of normative sexuality. Not only is it the norm to be heterosexual, but more to be in a heterosexual relationship in which the man is dominant. To relate this to my roomate's modeling experience, this photographer was illustrating this point specifically because the advertisement was a picture of marriage. Therefore, she was inferring that marriage should be heterosexual and the male should be the dominant one and the woman should be the non-aggressive, passive one. If women can't even move past this idea, then how are men ever going to?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a very frustrating modeling shoot, even more if your roommate would have taken this class before it. Like you said, the fact that the photographer wanted her to look more passive is because that's what is expected of the female role. However, I find it funny that while planning a wedding it is the female role that is supposed to take control, so wouldn't it make more sense for the photographer to want your roommate (the model) to look more fierce and in control?! But another look at it and we can see that society, especially many religions, views brides as pure and innocent--hence the white dress and not black or pink. So if we are supposed to be the pure, innocent bride, be submissive to our grooms/husbands, yet also take control of planning the wedding, it is easy to see how a model could be confused as what to portray in a picture. When will our society stop with these stereotypes of what a bride should and shouldn't be and instead focus on the love between the two people getting married?!
ReplyDelete