COLLECTION NAME:
Graduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
Defining the Black Female Gaze in Film
Creator:
Jones, Ashley
Subject:
Thesis (M.F.A.) -- Film and Television
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Film and Television
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
Much of the literature concerning the misrepresentation of black women in film and
media has focused solely on the social implications of age old stereotypes and offered relatively
nothing on the ways in which visual artists, black and white, have used media to combat the
racially coded images that continue to linger in America’s collective consciousness. What is
most obviously missing from these critical works is a working definition of what can be called
the (black) female gaze. This paper seeks to provide a basic definition of the black female gaze
that has at its base, the historical use of the black woman in photographic history. By no means is
the set of definitions presented in this paper meant to be definitive. Instead, these definitions are
posited as building blocks for those interested in the possibility of a conscious construction of the
(black) female gaze in critical theory that can be rendered as a set of visual/storytelling aesthetics
in the film medium. In other words, this paper will also ponder what a film with the black
female gaze at its center looks like.
media has focused solely on the social implications of age old stereotypes and offered relatively
nothing on the ways in which visual artists, black and white, have used media to combat the
racially coded images that continue to linger in America’s collective consciousness. What is
most obviously missing from these critical works is a working definition of what can be called
the (black) female gaze. This paper seeks to provide a basic definition of the black female gaze
that has at its base, the historical use of the black woman in photographic history. By no means is
the set of definitions presented in this paper meant to be definitive. Instead, these definitions are
posited as building blocks for those interested in the possibility of a conscious construction of the
(black) female gaze in critical theory that can be rendered as a set of visual/storytelling aesthetics
in the film medium. In other words, this paper will also ponder what a film with the black
female gaze at its center looks like.
Publisher:
Savannah, Georgia : Savannah College of Art and Design
Date:
2013-05
Format:
PDF : 34 p. : ill; WMV