This realization made me think back to the piece we read last week on feminist graffiti. At the time that we read this, I already had a more positive reaction to the article than most of the class, which makes sense because I was essentially raised in a household with four women. I was inspired by the idea of making my voice, as a woman, heard in a subversive way that female voices rarely are heard in. Seeing this video only furthered my desire to join this discussion through graffiti which it seems women weren't invited to. While I'm not sure graffiti is the answer, I'm sure awareness is, and I hope that while looking at graffiti everyone can examine the lens through which it was most likely painted, because it probably wasn't a woman.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Women and Graffiti
In watching the movie Style Wars, I was amazed at the lack of female representation throughout the movie. Throughout the entire movie I didn't see a single woman involved in painting graffiti, break dancing, or involved in the hip hop community in general. While I was aware they wouldn't be portrayed as a pivotal role in the movement (because when are women ever?), I was perplexed at the circumstance of them being purely absent from such a prevailing culture of that time period. It makes me wonder whether they truly weren't participating in the activities, or whether they merely weren't getting credit for their work.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhile watching Style Wars, I was unaware that there was not a substantial amount of female artists included. I find it odd that there seems to be a large male domination on graffiti. I know that there are female graffiti artists, and I think that it would be important to address them. Possibly the rise of female artists has grown since Style Wars, but it would have been interesting to see a different perspective in the movie, that perspective being a woman's. Hopefully some more light will be given to female artist's works as they share a role in graffiti's history like the role presented in the female graffiti artists story that we read weeks ago. Each artist has a story to tell, and their story matters. I think it was very important of Skylar to point out this lack of attention, because now I am aware of it and now others can be aware of it.
ReplyDeleteWomen have always been involved in graffiti (and breaking and rap for that matter), but they have been both underrepresented and under-appreciated. The "interview with Stella" article that we were going to read for Thursday gives some insight into the challenges of being a woman artist in a male-dominated graffiti culture, and I recommend checking out Jessica Pabon's whole site for anyone interested in learning more about women in graffiti: http://jessicapabon.com
ReplyDeleteThanks Scott! :)
ReplyDelete