Art

People need to be critical of the various visual images that are marketed to them by both private and public organizations, and the beliefs, values, and behavior that these visual images project and promote, as well as the stereotypes they reinforce, so that they can actively resist images of oppression and discrimination, and the same time, people can also find that visual consumption can be more pleasurable, if combined with critical analysis, because it is through analysis that they can uncover the underlying meanings of common and uncommon art works and their impact on human thinking, attitudes, and behavior, so that they can be more empowered in forming the right responses to such visual projections. Visual consumption should not make us as passive consumers, but as active consumers using art as praxis, wherein we can also shape how images should be produced and consumed (Cary 1998, 38).

I spend around four hours a day watching TVmovies and two hours in the Internet. During this time, I also find myself, at times, asking what these images online and on the TVmovies tell me and ask me. I come to think of corrupt and legitimate governments that use artwork to oppress people or to discriminate against them. For instance, graphic video games about the American government or Americans waging war against Russia, North Korea, and other developing countries espouse aggression and stereotypes of these nations as hotbeds of barbarism, terrorism, and anti-democratic principles and ideas. These video games are sending the message that waging war is always just, when these countries are anti-American, which also connects to ideas of American hegemony.  These games are also sending the message that violence is acceptable in modern society and that the best and easiest option to settle disputes are through physical aggression and death of the enemy. These games no longer ask its players How about thinking of alternatives to violence How about giving chance to peace In this example, a legitimate government can also make use of video games to support its dominant thinking and attitude toward American-led wars and serve to justify the Iraq War and Afghanistan War, which in my opinion, are all wars that are losing public support momentum because of their costs to human lives and taxpayers. Another example is when a corrupt government uses artwork to promote elitism and subjugate the masses, through support high art that differentiates the masses from the ruling elite. This is the kind of art that promotes social inequities through demarcating the poor from the rich and the middle class, so that they would not be united in criticizing the governments corrupt practices. Hence, people should be critical of their visual consumption, and they should also analyze the underlying beliefs, values, and behavior that these visual images project and promote, as well as the stereotypes they support, so that they can actively resist images of oppression and discrimination. They can resist such oppressive images by gaining a better understanding of art and providing responses that condemn these meanings.

Artwork can also send specific values, beliefs, and attitudes that can be better appreciated through critical analysis, because it is through analysis that people can uncover the underlying meanings of common and uncommon art works and their impact on human thinking, attitudes, and behavior. Critical analysis can lead to the empowerment of forming the right responses to such visual projections. There is pleasure in critical thinking and its outcomes because people are enlightened of reality in these artworks and are now in a better position to respond to them properly. An example is Jasper Johns Three Flags (1958). It shows three flags that are imposed on one another, with the smallest version on the top. My analysis of this is that it asks viewers What do you think of the United States now, after two World Wars and the Vietnam War, and after its rise to global political and economic power Did the U.S. start small and went big through the past one hundred years or did it collapse to a smaller country, wherein individualism, material prosperity, and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor fractured the social and moral fabric My response to these questions is that for the past one hundred years, the U.S. has both developed and underdeveloped as a global power. It has developed because it amassed economic and political power. On the other hand, it is largely underdeveloped for its lack of understanding on the contextual factors that make the current wars, such as in Afghanistan, unsustainable, when its people have their own local beliefs and viewpoints on politics, economics, religion, and ethnicity, which all impact their need for and reaction to international military, economic, and political aid.

    Another example is Lumumba by Luc Tuymans (Belgian, born 1958), and this painting comes from The Museum of Modern Art in New York. See Figure 2. This painting both challenges and satirizes racial stereotypes. By presenting an African with glasses and coat and tie, Tuymans challenges the notions of the savage and uneducated stereotype of blacks. In addition, since the darkness of the person has been decreased, for me this can mean that the painter is also suggesting that perhaps, it will be more acceptable for people to see a black man as an educated person, if he is whiter than usual. In doing so, Luc Tuymans also challenges the thinking about color and educational attainment through his art. For me, these paintings also ask people to see art as praxis, so that they can also form reactions that challenge existing social inequalities and so that they can also produce or call for the production of art that eradicates social oppression and discrimination. Thus, these examples of artworks provide questions that only critical thinking can yield multilayered and contextual answers to. It will be more pleasurable to pursue visual consumption through critical thinking, because the process of critical thinking sharpens our mind and its outcomes provide a deeper understanding of art and even of visual consumption as a practice of praxis.

Source The Museum of Modern Art
    Common artwork also tells something about social values, attitudes, assimilation, and oppression (Schroeder 2002, 14).  I am referring to a doll house that I played as a girl, and I look at it now and see its Western values and ideologies. This is the dollhouse that symbolizes traditional American values and attitudes. It has a white fence, a red car, and an all-American family, wherein the mother stays at home to take care of her family, while the father is busy earning a leaving. The white fence espoused the symbol of perfection, wherein property rights are greatly promoted versus collective rights to land. The family roles are stereotypes that impress gender roles and caricatures of what a woman and man should be as they grow up. This dollhouse sends the message that assimilation means being this family and holding the same traditional American values, and that being different from the norm leads to different forms of oppression. For instance, if you belong to a minority race, you tend to face more discrimination at school and at the workplace. At the same time, the picture of a beautiful mother is an affront to the real life mother who must have increased weight and stressed out from juggling career and family obligations, as her multiple burdens. This perfect model also shows the beauty that is marketed by dominant businesses- white, sexy, and seductive. This is the marketing of beauty that also sends the message of women to be this kind of beauty, and so they are forced to fit physical and sexualized packages that the dominant marketing relays as the ideal beauty. Thus, a common artwork, through critical analysis, provides for a more insightful visual consumption and a self-awareness to not support values of subjugation and discrimination.

    Visual consumption can be an empowering and pleasurable process through critical analysis. Critical analysis serves as the magnifying glass that helps people look into these artwork and the images they project. Critical analysis helps people untangle the convoluted meanings that impose certain ways of thinking, values, and attitudes in life. Finally, critical analysis creates a whole new way of consumption through praxis, wherein consumers recreate new meanings that question and dispel images of subjugation and discrimination. Critical visual consumption, hence, pushes people to pursue and develop higher thinking levels, wherein they can free themselves from the artwork that serve to subjugate them or other disadvantaged groups.