art

Jeez americans even use guns in half naked cooking

Why is this image so evocative?

I know there are obvious silly joke answers to this question but fuck that.

Is it "just" the texture of the medium? I don't think so, but its part of it maybe.

The (artifice of a) casual pose sorta reminds me of early photography/Daguerreotype posed portraits intended to present a facsimile of a candid scene, even if everyone had to stand there for 2 minutes for the exposure.

The photographer worked in the darkroom to isolate the subject from the background^[I wasn't sure at first but you can see the manually exposed dodging/burning in the bottom right corner of the stove-top/counter top.] so she exists in an unfamiliar abstract space. But in the space, symbols of traditional patriarchal expectations of women.

Obviously the stove, with the cooking pot on it. Her partial nudity. She isn't performing or presenting herself to the viewer, there is the sense that she is either unaware of our observation or actively disinterested in it.

This makes for a potent expression/exploration/??? of the male gaze. Like really powerful imo.

But what is up with the gun? Am I to simply see her pointing a gun into the cooking pot, from which presumably she nourishes the men who gaze.. and think.. what? That she rejects the role the patriarchy expects of her? bullshit.

Its something else and its interesting.

Yeah, that's kinda how I feel about some of my cooking too

Someone said a watched pot never boils and they took it personally.

burn my onions again m'f'ker