Objects of Fascination: Constructing gender identity in the landscape of war
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Keywords: Images, Landscape, Gender, Trauma, War, Hegemonic Masculinity, Identity, Iconography
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Lexie Gold, DePaul University
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Abstract
Images are central to the construction of social, political, and cultural landscapes. They inform our worldview, influencing political choices, thus presenting a unique entry point to examine gender construction in various landscapes. Furthermore, if photographs that depict the landscape of war construct national identity, do the same images have the capacity to disrupt the ideology of hegemonic masculinity entrenched within it? Using photographs by Catherine Leroy that appeared in Life Magazine during the Vietnam War titled “Up Hill 881 with the Marines,” I analyze the images to deconstruct how gender and trauma interact within the landscape of war to argue that these images embody the soldier as the changing hegemonic masculine ideal during a time of contested national identity. Although various studies have dismantled the notion of a homogenous hegemonic masculine identity, nevertheless few have examined the ability of photographs to document the process in which the effort to achieve a hegemonic masculine identity becomes disrupted by trauma. In this paper, I show how the selected photographs use landscape as a tool to depict the simultaneous building of a national identity in the midst of a disruption of the soldiers’ identity. Neither remains intact, instead Leroy’s photographs show a constant flux between the two. The initial view presents hegemonic masculinity, only to become destabilized through the sequencing of frames, and the soldiers’ changing expressions. In doing so, Leroy’s photographs begin by reinforcing the hegemonic masculine ideal, yet in the end contribute to the changing social landscape in the United States.
Objects of Fascination: Constructing gender identity in the landscape of war
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Paper Abstract