Judith Butlers Perception of the Female in the Modern...

Perception of the Female in the Modern Era: Gender Identity and the Act of Becoming in Cindy Shermans History Portraits Introduction There is some disparity between the way critics and philosophers like Judith Butler view Cindy Shermans work and the way that Cindy Sherman speaks of her photographs. It may be the disparity that exists between many modern artists, who often operate on an intuitive level, and the philosopher critics who comment upon them from a theoretical perspective or a pre-established framework. On one level, Cindy Sherman may only be playing dress-up (as she herself admits) in her famous History Portraits (1989-90) (Berne, 2003). On another level, however, her dressing-up may be indicative of a deeper problem in modern gender identity theory which is the problem of becoming woman (Butler, 1994) or, as Judith Butler sees it, the problem of performativity. In the History Portraits, Sherman may certainly be said to be performing and perhaps even attempting to become the male and female characters she represents in her work. Indeed, it is upon such a premise that philosopher critics and gender theor ists find her work so engaging. This paper will examine Cindy Sherman and her History Portraits in relation to Judith Butlers gender theory, the portrayal of the self, and how gender identity has changed throughout the course of modern history. It will examine representations of womanhood from Romantic Idealism to Post-Modernism and will also