CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

The Meaning Of Cultural Text

In order to find out the meaning of cultural text, we need to break things down and find the meaning of culture.

Culture – The Arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively (Oxford English dictionary)

To me this means that culture is a cumulative deposit of knowledge, values, beliefs, language, music and arts achieved by people in the course of generations.

So now we are a little more clued up on culture lets go back to “The Meaning of Cultural Text”

A Cultural text is a study of any given culture that can be analysed and interpreted to reveal cultural codes of meaning.

For example food can be analysed to find tons of cultural information.

Kanye West "Bound 2"

In visual culture we were shown Kanye West’s Bound 2 music video as a example of culture and asked to find a cultural meaning/text for it.

At the start its really quite beautiful, you question if this is indeed the right video, stunning scenery, calming mountains you almost expect David Attenborough to kick in and then, god damn it, its Kanye West riding a motorbike on the side of a snowy cliff with absolutely no safety gear! Not even a jacket

In the next shot we have a naked Kim Kardashian lying backwards on top of a motorbike cruising down the highway. Again no safety gear! She’s not even facing the right way. At least she remembered to wear comfortable shoes…….

Kim Kardashian has clearly been slimmed out and her exposed breasts refuse to move.

We see Kim dry humping Kanye on a Motorbike whilst he raps about how hard he’s going to do her on the sink? Surly a motorbike will do.

For me I find the video to be incredibly demeaning to women visually and lyrically and is an unrealistic portrayal of the female form.

I find it quite sad that music videos like this can be released at all.

I was shocked to read this video first premiered on the Ellen DeGeneres show American daytime TV!

If Kim Kardashian had of been a man sprawled out across Kanye's motorbike this video would be banned.

Or if Kim had been untouched, no make up all natural hair (and I mean armpits the whole she-bang) then Im pretty sure this video would have had a tough time being aired.  

MY CHOSEN CULTURE FOR CULTURAL TEXT

Choosing a culture/something to research was tough and involved a lot of thought, so many things.

I initially thought about what inspires me most in fashion, music and nature.

When designing a garment I normally find a animal to get inspiration from,

For example when doing my BLACK PROJECT at university I studied a variety of different black animals, one of which was Gorillas.

I happened to find gorillas incredibly interesting and charming which is why I have chosen my cultural text to be about……..

GORILLAS IN POPULAR CULTURE

Gorillas are commonly used in popular media often portrayed as lavish beasts.

Tarzan and King Kong among many other literary and artistic representations of humanity’s relationship with apes, projects fears of uncontrolled sexual drive, theories of criminality and narratives of human and primate differences.

So where did it all start where did our obsession of Gorillas stealing women and causing havoc come from?

EMMANUEL FREMIET “GORILLA CARRYING OFF A WOMAN” 

French sculptor Emmanuel Fremiet was very popular for his sculptures of both wild and domestic animals, domestic pets proving especially popular, i.e “Ravageot et Ravageode.”

In 1859 Fremiet caused alarm when releasing “Gorilla enlevant une hegresse” which depicts a gorilla dragging away a nude woman, this was found to be graphically violent and shocking.

Ironically, Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” was published in the same year.

Fremiet himself said on the subject

 “A lot of noise was being made about mankind and apes being brothers, it was an audacious idea, and my work even more aggravating since, the gorilla being the ugliest of all the primates, the comparison was hardly flattering for humans. With recklessness, this gorilla was dragging off a young woman. Since the woman in question was a Negress, I thought my work might pass. This was not to be.”

Fremiet's comments are a reflection of the racism and lack of animal knowledge at the time.

Somehow this inaccurate portrayal of Gorilla behaviour caught the public’s imagination as witnessed in popular media throughout the ages.

 During the First World War, enemy forces were frequently visualised as subhuman gorillas as seen in Harry Ryle Hopps “Destroy This Mad Brute” 1917

This poster was used in the U.S to help enlist soldiers and is one of the most memorable of its era.

In Hopps’s poster the monstrous gorilla steps onto American soil with a bloody club in one hand and ravaging a woman in the other.

The poster is clearly a reworking of Fremiets sculpture “Gorilla carrying off a woman”

 Similar work from the time is found in J. Norman Lynd’s  “Stop Him”

A propaganda poster from 1917 in which the rapacious gorilla menaces Lady Liberty

 Gorillas were also depicted as the enemy in World War Two posters, as seen in a Bernard Partridge poster 1939

 In April 1925 Ralph Spence’s play,“The Gorilla” was released and became a smash hit on Broadway and quickly moved across the Atlantic to the London stage as well.

Spence’s play was set in a city terrorized by a series of murders committed by a lunatic of superhuman strength and gorilla like appearance.

A key to the shows success was when the gorilla leaped of the stage and growled its way up the aisle, frightening many of the women, causing some to faint.

In 1930 a movie called “Ingagi” was made

 The movie claimed to feature the sacrifice of a woman to a gigantic gorilla and posters showed a gorilla carrying a half naked black woman under one arm.

The film was banned in June 1930. Surprisingly, this was not on the grounds of explicit content but rather because of false advertising, as the gorilla sequences were judged to be made up of orang-utans and a gorilla-suited actor.

 In 1933 The phenomenon that is  “King Kong” first hit our screens.

Kong has appeared in 7 movies (including two remakes of the original) with an 8^th due to arrive in 2017.

The original film tells of a gigantic, prehistoric, island dwelling gorilla called Kong, who after being captured and brought to New York escapes and causes terror and dies in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman.

 “Mighty Joe Young” was released in 1949 by the same makers as King Kong.

It had a similar plot to King Kong but with a happier ending.

Joe is a massive gorilla who has been brought up by Jill since a young age

Jill is convinced to take Joe to Hollywood were Joe is exploited to no end.

Joe escapes and causes havoc across Hollywood.

Gorilla Grodd is a supervillan from DC comics.

 Abilities include, genius level of intellect and superhuman physical attributes.

Grodd has made no fewer than 18 attempts to eliminate all traces of humanity from the face of the earth.

Donkey Kong

Is a series of video games which feature the adventures of a gorilla called Donkey Kong. He was Mario's fierce opponent, always attempting to kidnap Mario’s princess. Donkey Kong made his first appearance in 1981.

 Above are just some of the many negative portrayals of Gorillas in popular culture, but I want to turn this around and look at something a little more positive.

Here’s some REAL encounters of Gorilla and Man

 The 19^th Century public was scandalised by the controversial theories of man’s evolution from ape, proposed by writers such as Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley.

A Gorilla Mania quickly ensued in the popular press and literature, which lasted well into the twentieth century. People were horrified by wild tales of vicious, sexually motivated gorillas kidnapping women in Africa and simultaneously enthralled by themes like King Kong. The Gorillas similarity to us has made this intelligent, peaceful animal a foil for our fears and raises questions about human nature. To me it seems clear, given that we are all Great Apes, we should be changing our negative outlook on these amazing Gorillas and turning it into something more gentle and caring. Today Gorillas species are critically endangered and need our help. We need to learn to live at one with gorillas.

Gorilla - Ted Gott and Kathryn Weir 

Published by Reaktion Book LTD

Gorilla is a beautiful book that discuss gorillas in popular culture in great depth.
This book is packed with information and a wide range of history of the gorilla and its troubled history with humanity.
Iv taken a quote from the book which I think sums up what I'm saying perfectly 

"The Gorillas physical resemblance to human beings, as well as its plight at the hands of humanity, places it at the centre of contemporary philosophical and ethical debates which call into question a long history of human exceptionalism, whereby humans have considered themselves to be unique within - or set apart from - the natural world. Moreover, all that has been denigrated as uncontrolled and animal in human nature has been projected particularly onto the gorilla, creating a monster if repressed animality. In order for the gorilla to survive, rapid transformation must be effected in assumptions that the natural world exists for the benefit of humanity, transformation grounded in a thoroughgoing understanding of the interdependent animal nature of the human." 
chapter 5 page 193
 

Poster

As a part of visual culture we were asked to create a poster based around our cultural text.
This poster not only needed to discuss my chosen cultural text but also my passion behind it.