Stuart Hall: The Spectacle of the Other (Gender, Gaze and Otherness)

THEORY AND READING RESEARCH

STUART HALL: THE SPECTACLE OF THE OTHER 

(REPRESENTATION, 1997, CHAPTER 4)

Book - Representation (1997) 

After an in-class presentation of the topic Gender, Gaze and Otherness, which touched upon this work by Stuart Hall (1997), I wanted to take a deeper look into the text and highlight theory that will be useful when framing my own photographic theme and message. 

Hall (1997) highlights ‘representational practices’ of different of different people ‘which we call stereotyping’, focusing on differences of representation according to race and ethnicity, as well as gender: ‘what is said about racial different could equally be applied in many instances to other dimensions of difference, such as gender, sexuality, class and disability’ (Hall, S., 1997, p. 255).

‘Someone Says my wife looked like a man’; ‘Somebody says my sister looked like a gorilla’ (Hall, S., 1997, p. 232) – Hall displays some quotes from black athletes concerning their performance at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and their judgement from spectators – attributing stereotypically male athletic qualities to the black female athletes; in this way they cannot be described and praised for their athleticism without being associated with male, aggressive, animalistic qualities, and in a derogatory sense.

American athlete Carl Lewis photographed for a Pirelli advertisement in the 1990’s

Hall analyses the message of the above image, the American athlete Carl Lewis photographed for a Pirelli advertisement in the 1990’s:

‘This image works by marking of ‘difference’. The conventional identification of Lewis with black male athletes and with a sort of ‘super-masculinity’ is disturbed and undercut by the invocation of his ‘femininity’ – and what marks this is the signifier of the red [high-heeled] shoes. The sexual and racial ‘message’ is rendered ambiguous. The super-male black athlete may not be all he seems. The ambiguity is amplified when we compare this image with all the other images – the stereotypes we are accustomed to see – of black athletes in the press. Its meaning is inter-textual – i.e. it requires to be read ‘against the grain’’, (Hall, S., 1997, p. 233).

In this way, Hall identifies the significance of this ambiguity in relation to how we reference our interpretation of an image based on our pre-existing interpretations and adoptions of other stereotypes from other images seen in the media. I admire the advertisements use of disturbing the linear separation of gender norms in athletics, contesting the traditional image of black masculinity. This idea of challenging gender imagery in the media and blurring the ‘difference’ between a man and a woman,  is something which I aim to centrally incorporate in my own theme of work.

Hall, S. (1997) ‘The Spectacle of the Other’, in Hall, S. (1997) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage in association with The Open University, pp. 225-283.