Throughout Chapter 3, a power struggle emerges between the image and viewer through spectatorship, the looking that is through an interactive, multimodal, and relational field. In fact, Descartes believed that world becomes known to us only when we accurately represent it in our thoughts. However, what if our thoughts are not correct? Is our world still unknown to us?
Jacques Lacan held theories that tell us we do not accurately represent our world in our thoughts. One of the crucial stages of development, according to Lacan, is the mirror phase between six and 18 months, which “involves a process in which the infant gains motor skills adequate to venture away from the maternal body and in this process comes to understand itself... as a unitary entity separate from that body” (Sturken and Cartwright 101). However, while the infant notices itself in the mirror, it also holds an idealized image of itself. It is separate from its world and its mother, so it seems independent. Obviously, such a young being is far from being independent; however, in its eyes, it is starting to see this burgeoning sense of itself and the other, the rest of the world. While I am skeptical of this theory (I am not sure if the human mind is capable of such thought at 18 months, and not every society has mirrors/multiple reflective surfaces for the infant to see so young), it does begin to explain how, at our very early stages, we misunderstand the reality surrounding us and ourselves in general. We do not have enough power to fully realize exactly what we are and how we relate to our environments because our perceptions are constantly flawed.
Foucault believed that a person is never fully self-governed; rather, discourses, “the socially organized process[es] of talking about a particular subject matter” or bodies of “knowledge that both [define] and [limit] what can be said about something” (439), guide our behavior and thought. For example, self-regulation is enacted by prisoners in a panopticon-prison structure, in which a guard tower can see into all the prison cells, but no one can see directly into the tower to know if the guard is standing watch or not. It gives a “Big Brother” sense to the world so that one never knows if one is being watched, so one must behave docilely at all times. It reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984; everyone is being watched, and no one knows for certain if the government has seen you perform something illegal until it is too late. Someone I know had put a fake security camera in front of his driveway to ward off potential criminals. While it was a real camera positioned outside, it was not even turned on. I did not know at the time that this is an example of an inspecting gaze; I only knew that it allowed him power over the criminals as long as they did not know it was fake.
Other theories of power come to light in this chapter. The concept of power/knowledge comes into play because it finds that most societies function through cooperation, not coercion. American society seems to be based upon this principle because citizens vote to allow budgets and certain rules to be passed in their communities. When they are coerced into doing something, they are up in arms, adamantly against something that goes against their rights as U.S. citizens. In societies, biopower becomes important because governments want their citizens to be healthy in order for them to be able to work, defend their countries, and reproduce. The infamous Uncle Sam poster acknowledges this power.
To me, the most interesting images in this chapter concern women. Women are usually regarded as the other, the entity opposing the norm. When they are not from a westernized culture, then they are typically shown as even more “other” in Eurocentric images. Many times, they are drawn or painted as highly sexualized, exotic creatures. These images fascinate me because while Western men have sexualized women in different cultures, they try to control the sexuality and experience of the women within their own cultures. Seen in this light, the non-Western women have a sense of power with their bodies that Western women do not.
American Treasures of the Library of Congress. "The Most Famous Poster." 1917. 11 Sept. 2012.
Web.
Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
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