[Reader-list] LIVE TRUE: on non-presence of women?

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

Having a blog discussion about the non-presence of women in the images
related to LIVE TRUE LIFE show at this blog. Would very much appreciate if
you also posted your thoughts here.

http://jugaadoo.blogspot.com/2009/10/iconoclash-dhaka-naeem-mohaiemens-live.html


*A friend emailed me yesterday:*

In terms of our ongoing conversation. You said you wrote women out of it....


There's one woman in one of the first few photos on the wall that sets up
your engagement with the "islamist" rally; in a sari, across from
journalist/photographer types. And then you refer, in essence, to women as
objects of male desire, the photo about the flirtatious "girl" (I think you
use that term or was it boy?) and then about the ad/milk/porn. These
references, in context of what you say was a conscious attempt to remove
women from the photos, seemed to reinforce a very traditional conversation
on gender experience and meaning. I dunno Naeem, maybe I'm missing
something, but I'm not convinced that you are doing anything all that
challenging with gender and social movements here. I'm open to being
enlightened. =)

*I replied to her today:*

I didn't actually ever say "I wrote women out of it" (not sure where you got
that quote from??). What I actually said, at the Vijay Prashad panel (which
you missed), was as follows: I chose very deliberately not to include images
of women protesters at the leftist rally because that would allow the
audience the safe self-comforting emotions of "ok the islamists are only
men, but the leftists have the women with them" which is both
self-comforting and self-deluding. It feeds into easy equations and of
course doesn't see that the Islamists can also, when dictated by strategy,
command women activists. Since the project is at least partially about
camera politics (as indicated by first image's reference to the
cropped/uncropped prayer cap), I also did not want to give the audience the
easy out-- the familiar soothing signs of "progressives=men & women marching
together", at least in this project.

The woman in sari is actually leaving the site of photographs. The
photographers were all trying to snap the rally, and the portion with all
the women, and she walked out of it. In that image she's actually breaking
through the cordon. (There's another woman as well, at the edge of the Che
t-shirt.)

Now regarding the portions of text, you refer to, I actually have very
different readings. First of all my reading of sexual or romantic desire
here is not at all about women as "objects of male desire". Why should it
would be one-sided. It's about equal parts desire on both sides.

Now going to the specific: The girl who flirtatiously asks about beautiful
boys is also a reference to the manicured vision of male beauty, something
that awakens her desire, but also confuses (when the boy is prettier than
her). She's also asserting her own control, rejecting that which does not
fit her own desires.

"coyf porn" is both "come on your face" and "cock on your face". The latter
more commonly from gay porn, so it's not by default male-female sex either.
The coyf moment is also the "money shot", the moment after which the actors
in the film get paid. The critique here was about journalism's need for such
"coyf" moments as well. The image of the angry Muslim mob is an orgasmic
moment for photo journalism. So coyf shot is used in a critical and also
playful sense.

There was another reference, which was "I'm trying to make some girl", which
of course is the Stones song, but the lyrics change halfway through to
"we're on a losing streak" which is the moment where we move from personal
to the movement. Thus in so many places desire moves from personal to
political. I talk about left political movements as a broken, doomed love
affair. We're waiting flower in hand, hoping to get that romantic spark
back. But the we here is male and female and human.