The Spectacle of the 'Other'

keywords: representation, Barthes' myth, 'them' vs 'us', binary opposition, difference, Stuart Hall stereotypes, 'type, hegemony (Gramsci), orientalism (Said), 

 Representation is a complex business and, especially when dealing with 'difference', it engages feelings, attitudes and emotions and it mobilises fears and anxieties in the viewer, at deeper levels than we can explain in a simple, common-sense way.
Difference signifies. It 'speaks.'

A meaning of a photograph can carry more than one meaning thus a picture is worth a thousand words. So the same photo can carry several, quite different, sometimes diametrically opposite meanings.
"frequently, it is the caption which selects one out of the many possible meanings from the image, and anchors it with words. The meaning of the photograph, then, does not lie exclusively in the image, but in the conjunction of image and text. Two discourses - the discourse of written language and the discourse of photography - are required to produce and 'fix' the meaning."
(Roland Barthes, 1977)
'them' vs 'us' are frequently exposed to this binary form of representation

Difference
  • 'difference' matters because it is essential to meaning; without it, meaning could not exist
  • we need 'difference' because we can only construct meaning through a dialogue with the 'Other'
  • culture depends on giving things meaning by assigning them to different positions within a classificatory system

Stereotypes
Stereotyping reduces people to a few, simple, essential characteristics, which are represented as fixed by Nature.
"Without the use of types, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of the world."
(Richard Dyer, 1977)
"a type is any simple, vivid, memorable, easily grasped and widely recognised characterisation in which a few traits are foregrounded and change or 'development' is kept to a minimum"
(Dyer, 1977, p.28)
(source:  Hall, The Spectacle of the Other, 1994, Chapter 4)

--> Representation plays an important role when reading an image, as it can give different meanings especially by representing the 'Other.' The 'difference' creates a meaning through what the photographer wants to represent by using 'the other' or by using stereotypes and so the 'other' and 'difference' is important in shaping meaning and understanding the complexity of what the photo represents.

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