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Visual Ideographs

This week I will be covering visual ideographs. The definition of an ideograph is a word or words that paint a picture of cultural ideologies, collective thoughts, and/or a system containing specific ideas and ideals. So, of course, visual ideographs are ideographs that we are presented with in visual form instead of just words. Above and below are a few examples of this. According to Edwards and Winkler there are a few characteristics that can let you know you’re looking at a visual ideograph.

 The first of those characteristics is ordinary images. In the examples above, you see an ordinary person on a poster trying to pass off a message. Two of the most famous are the uncle Sam poster and Rosie the Riveter poster. As you can see, the Uncle Sam poster has been remixed many different times. This poster was originally used to get people to join the army. The second characteristic of visual ideographs is abstractions. I think the best example for this is the anti vape poster I have included below. It shows the “effects” of vaping by putting a polluted and toxified city on the tongue of a person holding a vape pen.

 The last two characteristics are links to culture and warranting some uses of power. These characteristics allow us to acknowledge and recognize these visuals easily. I believe that these ideographs can be found all around us. When I learned about the topic I instantly thought about modern campaigns that go against vaping. This is one of the most common and recent one that I see frequently. Visual ideographs can be both helpful and a little overexaggerated. 

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This clip is from my favorite show titled Jane the Virgin. I’m this show the plot is very dramatic and has lots of twists and turns. When I read the assignment for this week I instantly thought of this show. To this clip I just added lots of dramatic sound effects. The sound effects just match the intensity of the drama in this show. This one scene is just a piece of the plot turns in this 5 season long show. The dream sound effect goes with this scene because at the end we discover she is telling the story to her mother. I’m order to solidify the flashback effect, I cute and pasted the beginning clip to the beginning as well. The other sound effects are just dramatics to go along with the conversation being had between Janes grandmother and Rafael, the father of her son.

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This week we talked about media. The first thing that stood out to me from the lesson is the root of the word media. The word media actually stems from the word medium and is just the plural version of it. A medium is defined as means of technology used to sort and communicate data and information. When I saw this break down it made so much sense. Since we live in such a technology advanced world, the word media was always kind of self-explanatory to me. I’ve never needed to actually look up the definition but learning the true definition and the root of it makes everything come together.

Media is something that, overtime, become a major part of our everyday lives. For most people, we don’t go a day without using it. Though it has become a big part of our lives, it wasn’t always this advanced and accessible. Television started to spread after the war. In the 1960s there were improvements with reliability and unity. By the 2000s we also were introduced to internet. Now we can access practically anything we want or need at our fingertips. People of all ages are now familiar with many forms of media and older forms have been thrown out. An example of this is newspapers. Most people will access their news from their websites, TV, and/or social media platforms. This is both scary and beneficial in my opinion. Sometimes it seems as if we rely too much on our modern media but it’s so convenient.

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This is the famous portrait of Frida Kahlo. Frida is known for being someone with many sicknesses and becoming a successful self portrait artist. What i did to change one of her photos is add male hair and a mustache. Something else she is known for is her very thick eyebrows that form a small unibrow. Because of this it was easier to add the other elements to make her look more like a man. This image has been widely circulated and edited. I’m sure there are probably other versions of this exact photo actually. However, I feel as tho the meaning itself doesn’t change. The fact that it was fairly easy for me to create this shows that reproducibility is something that should be causing commotion. It is so easy for things to be copied and reproduced.

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The first photo is a photo that I cropped and edited. The second photo is the original cropped form of the image and the third is the original image taken on my cell phone. This is an example of unacceptable photogenic practice. Imagine if I had posted this somewhere, people could probably think I was somewhere close to a storm. This practice negatively influences the truth of the photo. Text and context can completely change how you see a photo. If I had posted the first photo alone it would probably be more believable and provide false information to those who see it. The caption I included is and example of false context. Sadly, this is something that probably happens a lot today, especially on social media.

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This weeks topic that I want to touch on is the male gaze. The reading that corresponds to this topic is the article on Cindy Sherman’s Film. Sherman’s work was criticized by many feminists for being a part of the male gaze, but she argued that it was not. In this article we see many photos from Sherman’s work that are considered very good examples of the male gaze.

The phrase “the male gaze” is credited to Laura Mulvey which came about in 1975. The male gaze is basically the over sexualization of women in media. This concept is still present today in our movies, music, books, etc. I think this has become engraved into our society so much so that women naturally adhere to the concept. This can be seen a lot on social media and platforms meant for sexual entertainment.

Another good example of the male gaze other than Sherman’s work can be found in the Harley Quinn movies. In the photo above the left side is the male gaze while the right is the opposite. In the photo on the left you can see her shit has “Dayddy’s Lil Monster” which is self explanatory. Her shorts are also very short and she’s wearing fishnet stockings. There are many other things such as the chocker, the longer hair, and heavy makeup that reveal the male gaze of the character. On the right we see her outfit is more fitting for her own taste. We can also see her hair is shorter and her makeup is a little more neutral. This is such a good recent example of the male gaze.

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The situation I thought about for this weeks activity is people providing a service to customers. For example, a hairstylist is doing someone’s hair. The hairstylist is the prisoner in this situation. The guard would be whoever is receiving the service. The behavior is don’t mess up that persons hair!! Another example can be nail services. the prisoner and guard are the same and the behavior is don’t mess up those nails!!

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#MemeHistory #MemeHistoryVisualCulture #DeathOfTheAuthor

My meme is based on a concept I grasped in class this week. Death of the author is the inspiration of my meme, and basically means that the audience can have many different take aways from what the author presents. When authors put out their work, there usually is no set in stone meaning and the meaning can be negotiated. What I was trying to get across in my meme is the viewers have taken away a different meaning than the author intended. This meme was circulating around 3 years ago and can still be found today from time to time.

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