Negative Female Characters in Cindy Sherman’s Photo: The Changing in Thinking That Feminism Has Brought in the 1970s

Nan Liu; Bingxin Xie; Yating Yang

doi:10.2991/assehr.k.211120.043

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Negative Female Characters in Cindy Sherman’s Photo: The Changing in Thinking That Feminism Has Brought in the 1970s

Authors

Nan Liu¹^{, a}^{, *}^{, †}, Bingxin Xie²^{, b}^{, *}^{, †}, Yating Yang³^{, c}^{, *}^{, †}

¹English School, Jilin International Studies University, Changchun, China,

²The Community college of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

³School of Language and Culture, Ningde Normal University, Ningde, China

^b

20109684a@common.cpce-polyu.edu.hk

^c

1183698218@qq.com

^†

These authors contributed equally.

^*Corresponding author. Email: ^a2263681370@qq.com

Corresponding Authors

Nan Liu, Bingxin Xie, Yating Yang

Available Online 29 November 2021.

DOI: 10.2991/assehr.k.211120.043 How to use a DOI?
Keywords: feminism; change of people’s way of thinking; conflict; Cindy Sherman’s photographs
Abstract: A great number of people regard postmodernist photographer--Cindy Sherman--as feminist though she herself has never admitted the identity. In her Untitled Film Still, it is quite strange that almost all females have negative facial expressions instead of common smiling faces. The objective of this paper is to explore and analyze the reason why the females in Sherman’s photos are depressed. In order to better understand the series of photos, Cixous’s Anti narcissism theory is adopted. In her paper, The Laughter of Medusa, Cixous argues that women must participate in writing to expand their rights. In the photos, the females are already independent, but they still feel empty and lost instead of satisfied and happy. The females are in the conflict because on the one hand, they long for pursuing independent and free life, but on the other hand, they are in fact unwilling and unprepared to suddenly cut off the emotional connections between themselves and males. In conclusion, the females had already made choices to leave males and live on their own, but they were unsure and conflicted about whether the road not taken is better. The paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the photos which can help the readers to understand feminism from a new angel that there is not only oppression from males, but females themselves are in the strong conflict too.
Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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Volume Title: Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2021)
Series: Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date: 29 November 2021
ISBN: 10.2991/assehr.k.211120.043
ISSN: 2352-5398
DOI: 10.2991/assehr.k.211120.043 How to use a DOI?
Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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ris enw bib

TY  - CONF
AU  - Nan Liu
AU  - Bingxin Xie
AU  - Yating Yang
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/11/29
TI  - Negative Female Characters in Cindy Sherman’s Photo: The Changing in Thinking That Feminism Has Brought in the 1970s
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 233
EP  - 238
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211120.043
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.211120.043
ID  - Liu2021
ER  -

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