Visualizing Theory

  While waiting in lines at the grocery store or walking past magazine stands on the street, a woman is bound to see a cover similar to the one above. Magazines are everywhere, and their covers often signal what their target audience, women, are meant to care about. By boldly flaunting thin bodies and spreading messages that women should “sculpt” or “slim” parts of themselves, these covers become controlling images.  Patricia Hill Collins describes a controlling image as a stereotype that controls “dominated groups” by dehumanizing them and asserting their inferiority (Collins 1986: 517). Magazine covers that emphasize thinness and extreme self-discipline assert to women that they need to remain small, indicating submission and inferiority. Messages like “control your appetite” tell women that their bodies being classically hot (presumably under the male gaze) is more important than their own feelings or bodily needs. In striving to become the girl on the magazine, women reduc...

  This image is a still from the 2019 movie Marriage Story. It’s a rather infamous scene– Charlie and Nicole are deep in the middle of divorce proceedings, and it’s taking an emotional toll on both of them. The image shows Charlie pointing his finger angrily at Nicole, with a look of deep passion and emotion on his face. They are involved in a huge argument, both feeling hurt by the actions of the other’s legal team. Charlie screams at Nicole that he wishes that she was dead, and the scene ends with her comforting him in a puddle on the floor. Despite his vicious words, Nicole still feels a connection to Charlie and the conflict is a reminder of their passionate relationship. By the time the movie ends, the divorce has become much more amicable. They don’t end up reuniting, but they are able to negotiate their custody schedule without involving lawyers, and it is clear that there is a deep love between them. I chose this image because I think it relates to Simmel’s theory on confl...

By Andreas Chenvainu Studio Portrait of an Indo-European Family, Dutch East Indies (ca. 1900) Source: Tropenmuseum via Wikipedia Patricia Hill Collins posits that Black female sociologists operate as “outsiders within” the predominantly White and male sociology discipline. Creating a specific variant of the “Stranger” archetype by Georg Simmel, Collins’ paper argues that Black women, due to their gendered and racialized social position, can offer a more objective view of sociological theory in some areas than the dominant social group. The “outsider within” can be applied more broadly to other groups of people, though, not just Black women. For instance, colonial subjects in proximity to dominating group would be such outsiders within, privy to both imperial workings and the colonized population. One example case would be mixed race family groups, such as the ones in the Dutch colonies in Indonesia. Maria Dermoût Source: Unknown Photographer via Wikipedia Indo-Dutch families like the...