Object #4: The Representation Project

In the gallery, there would be a viewing area for visitors to watch 2011’s Miss Representation, a documentary by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, which explored how women are represented in popular culture and the media, and the injustice that these limiting views of women as either objects of desire or objects of hatred does to our entire culture.The extended trailer is below.

The Representation Project is a non-profit organization that emerged from the film and describes itself as “a movement that uses film and media content to expose injustices created by gender stereotypes and to shift people’s consciousness towards change.” This web resource includes curriculum ideas to help teach media literacy, and focuses in on the problem of stereotyping masculinity and femininity in the mainstream media. Newsom’s new film, The Mask You Live In, addresses the problem with a limited vision of masculinity, and would also have a place in the gallery once it is available.

In this gallery, this piece represents a shift from exploring the notions of objectification to beginning to reclaim a level of subjectivity and begin to tell the story of individual women, rather than simply allowing them to be props in someone else's story.