Heteronormativity in the Home: Social Constructs Replicated on the Microscopic Level
This paper explores the critique of the heteronormative standards that pervade throughout our social structures that is embedded in one of Catherine Opie’s self portraits, the photograph titled Self-Portrait/ Cutting (1993). Catherine Opie is an American photographer and activist from Sandusky, Ohio. She has been a professor of art at several institutions of prestige, including Yale and University of California, Los Angeles. Her photographs are renowned for the raw sociopolitical commentary regarding LGBTQ+ issues embedded within them.
After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1985, and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988, Opie continued on to create a body of work that both effectively and genuinely relays and critiques the normative societal standards that affect our everyday experiences. Opie handles complex, and sometimes controversial subject matter in her work in a way that creates both an implicit and explicit connection to herself and certain elements in her life. Her collection of portraits, Being and Having (1991), for example, featured several people close to Opie, and even Opie herself, in false facial hair. The work brings the topic of gender to the viewer’s mind, as several of these subjects present aesthetically as rather androgynous. Even though these portraits are fairly simple in their composition, Opie succeeds in making them thick with meaning: a common practice throughout her work.
The examination of this portrait delves into how Opie uses herself as a literal canvas to deepen the meaning of her portrait. Opie turns her back to the viewer, and in doing so, reveals a bloody drawing of an idyllic scene depicting two women in front of a house done in a childish style. It brings to mind the work produced by elementary school students when prompted to draw images of their family. The examination of drawing on Opie’s back will focus around why it makes such an incredibly impactful statement. While Opie touches on the topic of sexuality in several of her other works, I argue that the reference to the artist’s sexuality literally carved into her back does much to break this piece away from your average critique of heteronormativity. I will use my close reading to discuss Opie’s portrait in great detail, so that discourse regarding the specific details of the photo and how certain themes in the works of theorists such as Siobhan B. Somerville reflect the same sentiments. This paper will examine gender the stigma surrounding deviation from the heteronormative roles thrust upon us by society.
In Self Portrait/Cutting, Catherine Opie is the subject of her own work. The image is striking — Opie faces away from the camera with a bloody image on her back against a dark green backdrop. Opie is a wide set caucasian woman, and the skin on her back is tinged pink, presumably from the irritation that occurred when the drawing was created. Only her torso is visible. She appears to be wearing earrings also. Her short hair is dark near her neck and has blondish streaks in the top half. There is a tattoo inked in blue around her right bicep.
Opie adds dimension to her image with what looks like a typical drawing of a family, except that there are two women in the drawing rather than a heterosexual couple. The drawing looks deeply and freshly etched into her skin, as though the cuts had barely stopped bleeding. The scene consists of two stick figures in dresses that we assume to be women in the foreground. A house sits in the background and the sun sits behind a cloud in the sky. The scene brings to mind the typical, heteronormative sketches of the nuclear family commonly portrayed in film. By “typical,” I refer to the simple stick figure families in front of a square house beneath a circular sun with straight lines for light beams and birds that just look like the letter V; the ones little kids in movies and TV shows draw at school or in a psychiatrist’s office. I say “typical” because there is no real variance in the presentation of these drawings in the media. The stick figure family never fails to include both a male and female parent, leaving the concept of queer couples having a family unrepresented, and thus unseen.
The idea of the nuclear family is one that both follows and embodies the ideals perpetuated by our heteronormative culture. Because the nuclear family left no room for representation of other forms of romantic partnership, those who do not fit into the category of “heterosexual” could not necessarily identify with the desire for the “conventional” family. These conventions, put into place and perpetuated since colonial times, are unnecessary social constructs that only serve to label and “other” communities that have been prejudiced against for not adhering to the normative standards of the white-worshiping patriarchy.
In her article “Queer,” Siobhan B. Somerville introduces the concept of how the categories of homo and heterosexual are set in place in order to denaturalize people who don’t conform to what is considered “normal.” She says “To ‘queer’ becomes a way to denaturalize categories such as ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’…”. Somerville also discusses heteronormativity itself rather extensively as well, saying “…heteronormativity is a form of power that exerts its effects on both gay and straight individuals, often through unspoken practices and institutional structures.” (Somerville, p. 203) So, in other words, the statement Opie makes with that lesbian twist on the childish illustration of the nuclear family is all the more impactful when we think of the concept of something so personal as family perpetuating these societal norms.
The struggle of being underrepresented and the internal conflicts that it creates for those affected by such a phenomenon are not foreign to the LGBTQ+ community. This theme is dealt with explicitly in Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (1996), a film documenting the journey of the filmmaker to find information — any real, solid information — on a black actress named Faith Richardson who made movies in the early 20th century. Dunye found the majority of her attempts and efforts allocated to learning about this woman fruitless. Only after some pretty extensive digging did Dunye discover that Richardson was actually a lesbian as well. She was romantically involved with a white director named Martha Page. Martha Page made films about the importance of racial justice, yet, only cast her queer, black lover in servant roles. Richardson wasn’t to be remembered as a movie star. She was hardly to be remembered at all. Overall, the resounding sentiment Dunye expresses is frustration. Frustration at the fact that she felt she had expended so many resources without finding much. Frustration that the existence of this woman who was also black and queer in film made little impact.
To think of going your entire life failing to see an accurate, valid representation of identities that defer from the Eurocentric, heteronormative images and characters that the media bombards us with seems painful. Perhaps Opie meant to reflect the emotional pain brought about being underrepresented by bringing the image of physical pain to the front of the viewer’s mind. It is difficult to think of much else while examining the drawing gouged into Opie’s back. This isn’t the only time Opie has used her skin as her canvas. In her 1994 Self-Portrait/Pervert, Opie uses the same jarring methods that exude meaning and shock the viewer at the same time. The blood in her self portraits paired with the knowledge that both of these images were clearly premeditated makes makes Opie’s work chilling. In Self-Portrait/Pervert, Opie wears a leather mask over her face, and on her naked chest the word “Pervert” is carved. Each of her arms is lined with bars puncturing the skin and exiting in another location. Again, Opie is both seen and unseen. She makes herself the very center of this piece, yet completely covers her face. Opie is known for her involvement in SM and leather communities. In this portrait, we see another element of her personal life reflected in the mask that she has chosen to wear. The cut upon her chest is like a brand; the portrait is a performance of pain and identity.
I find the fact that Opie is turned away from the camera to be very interesting, especially because this is a self-portrait. Turning away from the camera, thus turning away from her audience as well, creates a disconnect and confusion within the viewer. Typical self portraits have a certain vanity about them — you are taking your own photo or painting your own image in order to be seen. The fact that Opie turns away from the audience but chooses to depict such a graphic thing on her skin works to the same effect. An issue that must have affected Opie’s experience as a lesbian woman in such a personal way is displayed for everyone to see, yet she does not show her face. She is both seen and unseen.
Through her work, Opie calls into question these behemoth topics of gender, sexuality, and identity. She makes what may be impersonal to some viewers personal. While discussing some of her work, Opie says ’’If I had taken portraits of my friends in the streets or at the clubs where they go-go dance with mustaches and jockstraps on, then [the work] would focus on the notion of peer performance. When you isolate the face and put a nametag on the frame, you emphasize the question of identity.’’(Guralnik, p.1). The sociopolitical commentary ingrained in each of her works is raw and genuine, and treats intense topics with both a delicate and firm hand.
Works cited:
Opie, Catherine, Self-Portrait/Cutting.1993. The Guggenheim Museum and Foundation.
Somerville/ Ferguson/ Halberstam, Queer/ Race/ Gender. Keywords for American Culture Studies 2nd edition. New York University Press, 2014.
Guralnik, Orna, Being and Having an Identity: Catherine Opie. Studies in Gender and Sexuality. Taylor& Francis Group, LLC, 2013
Dunye, Cheryl, Barry Swimar, Alexandra Juhasz, Guinevere Turner, Valerie Walker, and Lisa M. Bronson. The Watermelon Woman. New York, NY: First-Run Features, 1997.
Daddy’s Home. Dir. Sean Anders. Perf. Will Ferrell. Paramount Pictures, 2015. Film.
