Tim Walker & Laurie Simmons

Seeing the latest works from photographer Tim Walker in Italian Vogue - a series entitled 'Like A Doll', I was instantly reminded of the work of Laurie Simmons, a photographer recently recommended to me by a tutor.

Revisiting childhood memories via the use of childhood objects, feminist photographer Laurie Simmons manipulates dolls and ventriloquist dummies to create scenes which reference domestic life. As Sarah Chapman states in an interview with Simmons, we women were ‘raised, in a way, to be housewives’ (1992), an idea which Simmons seems to parody in her surreal photographs of constructed dollhouse scenes. Speaking of her work, the artist claims ‘I was simply trying to re-create a feeling, a mood, from the time that I was growing up… they’re about our mothers, grandmothers, and aunts’ (1992). In the same interview, she recalls the method of collecting toys she had as child from a toy store’s attic, down the same branding. Compulsive collecting of childhood ephemera such as this emphasizes to me the ability of such dolls to stimulate childhood memories and experiences, which Simmons cleverly uses to subvert and reconstruct a narrative, as seen in such pieces as greyscale photographic work ‘Kitchen / Woman in Corner (1976)’, above left. The high angle shot shows a kitchen scene, in which first we almost do not even notice the female figure shut away in the corner; she has almost become a part of the room itself, suggesting the oppressive and almost suffocating atmosphere of this domestic setting. Perhaps the most powerful element of Simmons work in my eyes is her ability to correlate the child’s doll with the woman’s future – these scenes are able to manipulate childhood items to suggest and reject a traditional female fate.

'Someday My Prince Will Come'

As a young girl, I never questioned the ideals presented though the objects and encounters of my childhood; perhaps it is as we mature than we can begin to question the gender roles presented to us as children, and to the children of today. Writer’s such as Kathy Acker and Angela Carter inquire into the presentation of females within such children’s stories. Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories’ portrays a modern, feminist takes upon traditional fairytales - published in 1979, she is free to show her reader classic tales, such as the Brothers Grimm’s 1812 ‘Little Snow-White‘, through a twentieth-century perspective. In this case, ‘The Snow Child’ shows the danger of male desire upon females, and that, in reality, women can never reach the epitome of male fantasy, and in trying to do so simply harm themselves. The Count in this tale is both a characterisation of male sexuality and male power; he has no need to justify his desires, he simply “wants” and displays the unrealistic and unattainable ideal of femininity, which the Countess realises she can not aspire to. Notions of such a phallocentric order, in which men are granted the position of power for theorists such as Judith Butler demonstrates the manner in which ‘the “structure” by which the phallus signifies the penis as its privileged occasion exists only through being instituted and reiterated’ (1993). Through her influential text ‘Bodies That Matter’ (1993) Butler explores the theory that separation of the penis from the phallus leads already to a sense of loss; the phallic ideal can never live up to the physical penis, leading the male to desire greater sense of phallic power. Men have the phallus in so much as they have control. Women are the phallus ‘to the extent that they are the objects of men’s desire’ (Stelmok, 2006) - as Lacan suggests ‘the little girl must ‘be’ [the phallus] for someone else… this will include her male partner who desires her phallic body’ (1958).

'Someday My Prince Will Come', (2012) video, 4 minutes 9 seconds

Continuing from my previous piece 'I'm Wishing', and inspired by the appropriated video works of Dara Birbaum, particularly her 'Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman' (1978-79), 'Someday My Prince Will Come' is an experimental piece exploreing the possibility of an alternate ending to 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. Tension created by the heightened sound and repetitive act of biting the apple offers no resolution - perhaps we should question why so desperately want Snow White to enter into the ‘compulsory and naturalized heterosexuality’ (Butler, 1990) presented to us as the logical and "normal" conclusion to this tale.

'I'm Wishing'

Coming home for Christmas, I stumbled upon a box of my old Disney cassettes, and decided to watch my first Princess film - Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). As I watched, I began to consider the gender presentations not apparent to me as a child. From academic sources such as Megan S. Lloyd's 'Unruly Alice: A Feminist View of Some Adventures in Wonderland' and Nicole Sawyer's Feminist Outlooks at Disney Princess's, published by the James Madison University, to other blogger's Disney Princesses, Capitalism and Feminism and Disney Princesses and feminism , it seemed Disney Princess films were ripe for critque. Gender identities and roles projected through the Princesses of Disney films mirrored the attitudes of Walt Disney’s 1940s patriarchal culture, the beliefs of the roles women should play in this society (O’Brien, 1996), and ultimately a phallocentric order in which male characters hold power. From the first Disney Princess, movie, Snow White... these films have ‘set forth standards for girls on how to grow up into proper women’ (Sawyer, 2011) – ultimately, as attractive, passive and victimized. From a study constructed in 2011 by Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund and Tanner, three themes emerged from these princess films in relation to what it means to be a girl or woman – that females are domestic and likely to marry, helpless and in need of protection, and valued more for appearance than intellect (2011).

'I'm Wishing', (2012) details, knitted cassette tape

'I'm Wishing', (2012), knitted cassette tape, cassette, Disney video case

With mass media a hugely influential teacher of social norms to young viewers, consideration must be given to the values and ideologies projected by media produced for the use of children; it has been claimed once children own a video or DVD, they will watch repeatedly (Lin, 2001), a fact very true of my own childhood. However, rather than taking comfort in knowing the story “off by heart”, I would reach the pivotal scene, in which Snow White would take a bite of the fatal apple, and rewind the cassette back to the beginning. I would tell my mother that she might not eat it this time. What may at first appear as a humorous anecdote of childish naivity and imagination in hindsight offers us room for analysis; I genuinely believed this film was “real”, that it had, to a degree, a life of its own, that the ending was not already set in stone, and, most importantly, that I somehow had the power to change it. For me, this ability to “play” with gender conventions is incredibly exciting. Could it be claimed I could foresee the ‘compulsory and naturalized heterosexuality’ (Butler, 1990), founded upon the need for fulfillment? Was I hoping that, if Snow White should not choose the apple, a fate would await her different from that of playing object to her Prince Charming? Though I’m certain non-such feminist theories entered by head at this an age, I feel the piece above, 'I'm Wishing', explores such themes - the repetitive action of knitting the tape mimics the action rewinding, yet now I am physically manipulating the work itself. The unknitted tape not only signifies the ending I as a child would refuse to watch, but the chance for an alternative conclusion I hoped for both as a child, and as an adult.