Ways of Seeing Me from Samantha Barbour on Vimeo.
As part of a class we were asked to watch John Berger videos titled “Ways of Seeing.” Although I had been required to read the book for another class the videos we were required to watch in this class brought to my attention points I did not see when reading the book. One specific area of the videos hit close to home for me and that is the area in the videos that discuss how women are portrayed and how they view themselves. In the video Berger asked three women how to watch parts of his show and then comment on whether professional paintings of women made any impressions on how they view themselves. The women discussed in some length, both sides of a argument. I then began to relate that conversation to myself and the advertisements that are directed to women me.
Growing up and living to this point in my life, I refused to believe that advertisers had the ability to impact how I viewed myself because I knew what they were trying to do. They were trying to sell me something and I knew that their depiction of perfect women was not accurate. Photoshop is a powerful tool to create ideal women. Having worked on a project last semester that tried to connect how advertisers depict rape and sexual assault as beautiful and powerful for men, I decided to take a look at my own self-esteem issues and objectively try to see if advertisers had indeed impacted how I saw myself. After having this time for self reflection, I now believe that in some way the issues I have with my self-confidence has been impacted by a lifetime of being shown what beautiful is suppose to look like.
When creating this video response I wanted to connect as many of my opinions back to the video series created by John Berger in a creative way. The first way the video relates back to the series is the title for my video. The video is titled “Ways of Seeing Me.” The reason I titled the video the way I did was because this video focuses on seeing myself from both the inside and from the outside. Berger’s video made me look back at myself and I felt like this was the focus I really wanted to look at when this video response. With that being said I focused on using a video of my face, specifically the eyes for the imagery for the video. Listening to the audio and not seeing my mouth move it can feel as though you are more listening to my thoughts and feel less like I am speaking directly to you or to a audience. The word “seeing” implies looking with your eyes, which was another reason for focusing so heavily on this part of the face. The eyes are the windows to the soul and can tell you more than words can at times. I also focused on such a tight frame around the eyes for the purpose of not identifying myself as one type of woman. I did this because I did not feel my looks should define who I am and what I believe about myself. In a way John Berger’s video helped me realize that I needed to take firm hold on my own potential and stop comparing myself to every woman I see both in advertisements and in life. I am different. I am who I am. I can only be me.
Growing up and living to this point in my life, I refused to believe that advertisers had the ability to impact how I viewed myself because I knew what they were trying to do. They were trying to sell me something and I knew that their depiction of perfect women was not accurate. Photoshop is a powerful tool to create ideal women. Having worked on a project last semester that tried to connect how advertisers depict rape and sexual assault as beautiful and powerful for men, I decided to take a look at my own self-esteem issues and objectively try to see if advertisers had indeed impacted how I saw myself. After having this time for self reflection, I now believe that in some way the issues I have with my self-confidence has been impacted by a lifetime of being shown what beautiful is suppose to look like.
When creating this video response I wanted to connect as many of my opinions back to the video series created by John Berger in a creative way. The first way the video relates back to the series is the title for my video. The video is titled “Ways of Seeing Me.” The reason I titled the video the way I did was because this video focuses on seeing myself from both the inside and from the outside. Berger’s video made me look back at myself and I felt like this was the focus I really wanted to look at when this video response. With that being said I focused on using a video of my face, specifically the eyes for the imagery for the video. Listening to the audio and not seeing my mouth move it can feel as though you are more listening to my thoughts and feel less like I am speaking directly to you or to a audience. The word “seeing” implies looking with your eyes, which was another reason for focusing so heavily on this part of the face. The eyes are the windows to the soul and can tell you more than words can at times. I also focused on such a tight frame around the eyes for the purpose of not identifying myself as one type of woman. I did this because I did not feel my looks should define who I am and what I believe about myself. In a way John Berger’s video helped me realize that I needed to take firm hold on my own potential and stop comparing myself to every woman I see both in advertisements and in life. I am different. I am who I am. I can only be me.
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