12.1 Chapter Reading Guide
Elizabeth B. Pearce
You may wonder about the inclusion of art and beauty in a text that discusses the needs of families. On the other hand, you may ask, “Why only visual culture? What about music and other artistic expressions?” While all forms of artistic expression are important, here we will focus on the ways visual culture impacts families, both in terms of when it is viewed but also the ways it affects us, even when it is something we have not personally selected. It can be argued that American individuals and families need art both as individuals and as a society. As you read, think about the aspects of visual culture that have influenced you and your family.
The reading is designed to help you meet the following chapter objectives. Preview those to have an idea of where you are headed. You may also want to preview the key terms that follow. These terms will be bolded the first time they appear in the chapter. You can read the definitions here and also in the hyperlinks.
Chapter Learning Objectives
- Explain how art shapes our understanding of the history of the United States.
- Examine the role of dominant culture in defining “art.”
- Discuss the ways that unintended cultural exposure affects families.
- Analyze the effects of intersectionality on potential creators, artists, and art lovers.
- Explain how socially constructed ideas about beauty affect one’s identity and family experience.
- Examine visual media from an equity perspective.
- Describe the value of creativity, art, and beauty to families in the United States.
- Apply theoretical concepts related to creativity, art, and beauty to your own observations and experiences.
Key Terms Preview
- Artistic representation: the use of a medium, such as clay or paint, to construct a representation of the real thing. Artistic representations are constructions of reality.
- Beauty ideals: a specific set of beauty standards regarding traits that are ingrained in women throughout their lives.
- Colorism: prejudice or discrimination that favors people with lighter skin over those with darker skin, especially within a racial or ethnic group.
- Eemphasized femininity: a concept rooted in the patriarchy that women must conform to the needs and desires of men by compliance with the normative ideas of femininity.
- Hegemonic masculinity: a specific type of culturally valued masculinity tied to marriage, heterosexuality, and patriarchal authority that legitimizes men’s dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of women, nonbinary people, gay men, and other marginalized groups of men.
- “Ism”: an oppressive and discriminatory attitude or belief.
- Life chances: a social science theory created by German sociologist Max Weber in 1920. The theory of life chances postulates that an individual’s opportunity to lead a successful and fulfilling life are correlated to a variety of factors, including social stratification, social class, social mobility, and social equality, all of which can give a person low or high life chances.
- Male gaze: the idealized notion of a heterosexual man as the intended audience in a way that facilitates men objectifying or sexualizing women and women seeing themselves as objects of men’s desire.
- Objectification: a social meaning imposed on one’s being that defines them as an object or thing, typically within a sexual context.
- Protest art: a way of using creative work to communicate used by activists and social movements.
- Public art: art in any medium whose form, function, and meaning are created for the general public, often through a public process.
- Symbolic annihilation: a concept that refers to how marginalized groups of people are left absent, condemned, or trivialized through mass media representations, instead portraying oppressive ideologies created and enforced by dominant groups.
- Typecasting: the act of casting a person in a media role, often based on physical appearance or stereotypes.
- Visual culture: combinations of visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure are expressed tangibly or visibly.
- Whiteness: the quality of being light or White skinned in color and the normalization of White racial identity throughout history in the United States.
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Reading Guide
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Reading Guide” by Elizabeth B. Pearce. License: CC BY 4.0.
the shared meanings and shared experiences passed down over time by individuals in a group, such as beliefs, values, symbols, means of communication, religion, logics, rituals, fashions, etiquette, foods, and art that unite a particular society.
combinations of visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure are expressed tangibly or visibly.
an approach originally advanced by women of color that finds it critical to look at how identities and characteristics (such as ethnicity, race, and gender) overlap and influence each other to create complex hierarchies of power and oppression.
ensuring that people have what they need in order to have a healthy, successful life that is equal to others. Different from equality in that some may receive more help than others in order to be at the same level of success.
