In the contemporary life, we face multiple identities. Dyer believes that the time for the old unified identities for those categories of gender, class, race, and sexuality is over (1997). So he, indirectly, is pointing to the matter of intersectionality in which a number of different identities negotiate. (Lutz 1993) By following binary oppositions the concept of 'Other' can be perceived as the across from 'we' or 'us'. This perception of the 'We' differs over diversity of meanings in every particular social category. The certain similarities, undoubtedly, are the mainsprings for the forming of the sense of us or a particular group. These social groups only exist if members identify themselves with the group. Identification, at its root according to Billig's interpretation of social identity theory, is a form of categorization. For groups to exist, individuals should have the certain 'self portrait'. (Kipnis 1993:207) and must categories themselves in group terms. (Billig 1997:66)
To discuss the further meaning of the represented Other, there is a need to go through the main specific categorizations, argued by scholars and intersectionality theorists. In this paper, this concept will be discussed in terms of nationality, race, class, gender and sexuality. Later on, I will explore through the process of normalization and modality of some privileged norms over intersectional approach. After all, westernization will be delineated with its different dimensions as the most problematic norm.
A: Deconstruction of Categorizations of Others in the media
Following the mentioned debate on constructing of group identities, national groups as the essential group identifications can be consider as a modern phenomena or 'imagined' community. (Billig 1997) Nationalism occurs 'there' on the periphery, not 'here' at the centre and largely, represented among group members; It implies that nationalism is constantly "flagged" in the media through routine symbols and habits of language. (Billig 1997)
Nationalism as an ideology is not confined to national borders, but its assumptions have been diffused internationally and today are so globally important and still being reproduced and can call for ultimate sacrifices. As we can see in Billig's notes, this strong conceptualization segregates 'us' from the Others who are not inclusive in our group. (1997)
The next categorization of the Other is the matter of race. So long as race is applied only to nonwhite peoples, white people are named norm or in the better word normal human being. These norm people in the position of power can speak for all human beings including all races as well as the ability of raced people to speak, only to their own race.
Representation of 'white' in the predominant position, functions as the norm, the ordinary and the standard. This representation of different kinds of media doesn't mean the racial representation for whites, but the people who are variously gendered, classed, sexualized, and abled. (Dyer 1997:6) and still dominantly, white men are at the centre of global representation. (1997:39)This consideration of human race could be, highly, problematic since it works invisibly and at the same time apparently.
Among different notions of with representation, skin color, utilizing aesthetic technologies of light, muscular white male bodies, capacities of the feminine bodies and deathliness of white body, Dyer also delineates a wider notion of embodiment of white body constructed by three elements (in the body not 'of' the body): Christianity, race and enterprise or imperialism (on a dynamic relation to the physical world).
In the third category, as Dyer pointed to that as the importance of mascular body, we have to discuss the concept of others in the context of gender and sexuality. For long time sexual representing as an illicit matter was so marginalized. Arthurs believes that the emergence of pornography as a genre category was a consequence of the development of mass media. (2004:39) By considering two points that the meaning and content of pornography has changed over time and between cultures, (McNair 1996:57) and also feminist approach was dominant over the time ignoring the importance of male sexuality representation. (Holmlund 1993, Dyer 1993
Holmlund by focusing on some particular movies, concludes that masculinity like femininity, is a multiple masquerade by which hegemonic power relations for both spectators and performers are reinforcing it as something 'real' or/and 'normal', with a fore ground matrices of sexuality, class and race in addition that male doubles are everywhere, distinguishing primarily by race and class. (Holmlund 1993) but we also should take into account that sexual images of men work differently from sexual images of women. (Kipnis 1993) O' Riordan believes modality of representations of female body through the webcams mad female bodies has become the object to the gaze in both public and private sphere. (O' Riordan 2002:47) women, also, pretend to be what they lack: they seem to embody the phallus. (Holmlund 1993)
So pre-unusual sexuality forms of yesterday –bio- and homosexuals, transvestites, etc- other than heterosexuality are not, anymore, abnormal or inclusive the Other who differs from 'us', or in Arthurs's terms the boundaries between 'us' and 'them' have been transgressed. (2004:46) Kipnis also claims that bisexuality tends to be sexual norm in sex magazines. (1993:205)
The next question to answer, after explicating the intersectional reconstruction of the Others, and before discuss about represented normalization, is to find the tracks of mediatizing all these conventional categories gathering in the context of a specific medium -if there is any.
Here, I want to name, precisely, cyber space as a unique opportunity in our contemporary lives, collecting different kinds of media from personal letters, books and magazines to multimedia, radio, television, film, CD-Rom and DVD; in addition of promising greater immediacy and a new transparency through the animation, video and audio. (Botler and Grusin 1999)
Norms and positions of normality
Following the discussion about the meaning of the represented Other in specific categories, one should clarify the essence of the norm through discussed social constructions and more importantly, the practices of representing these norms through mediated intersectionality.
It is presumed according to Billig that all societies have 'norms' and 'values'. These are all universal terms. His idea about the process of group normalization of individuals based on Hogg's and Abraham's three stages of the procedure of group identification, is constructed after the first stage (the stage in which individuals categorize themselves as part of in-group, distinguishing from the relevant groups) In which, so, they learn the stereotypic norms associated with such an identity and in the final stage, they assign these norms to themselves. It should take into account that individuals have multiple ways of describing and categorizing themselves.
National identity, although is no longer a major force as globalization, is produced by the age of modern nation-state by its symbols and assumptions that are flagged as the norms. (Billig 1997)
In the matter of race, the power of whiteness is the noticeable point here. Normality assumed equal as white whereas white people are in the position of power and own the media, politics and education. (Dyer 1997)
Some scholars like Arthurs agrees with the normalization of sex and homosexuality with this idea that sex is not anymore hidden in everyday life, in contrast to the pre-modern period, whereas sexual pleasure was prioritized in more marginal spaces late night or on cable. (2004:40-6) Displaying bodies is also, overwhelmingly centered on the genitals. (Dyer 1993:90)
B: The most problematic norm
We discussed the concept of other, separately in social categories, encompassed by intersectional attitude through different kinds of mediated representation. As it mentioned earlier, many norms exist in the context of different social structures; among all those, I regard the concept of being American or Western as the most controversial norm, mostly, erupted by dominancy of American and European discourse over global representation. (Billig 1995) The mediated representation, here, with ethnical or/and national approach, has segregated the world into Western and non-western parts. This every day normalization carry the message of superior, civilized, having high-culture and welfare, forceful, peace force, hero and etc from the western part of the glob to the of rest it; especially in recent media representation, mostly in the forms of visual displaying of the Others. This ethnical concept is the intersectional point with other social categorization. For instance, a hero in American movies is a person who is American, white, mostly middle class, Christian, English speaker and other norms which are utterly accepted in modern mediated representation of the world, constructed by one nationality/ ethnical group.
References:
- Arthurs, Jane (2004) Televison and Sexuality. Regulation and the Politics of Taste,
- Billig, Michael (1995), Banal Nationalism,
- Botler, Jay David & Richard Grusin (1999) Remediation. Understanding New Media, Camebridge, Mass: MIT Press.
- Dyer, Richard (1997), White,
- Dyer, Richard (1993) Male sexuality in the media in The matter of images. Essays on representation,
- Holmlund, Chris (1993), Masculinity as multiple masquerade. The ´mature´ Stallone and the Stallone clone, in Screening the Male Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema eds Steven Cohan & Ina Rae Hark NY: Routledge
- Kipnis, Laura (1993) She-Male Fantasies and the Aesthetics of Pornography, in Dirty Looks, Pamela C. Gibson & Roma Gibson (eds), London:bfi Publishing
- Lutz, Catherine A. & Jane L. Collins (1993),
- O´Riordan, Kate (2002), Windows on the Web: The Female Body and the Web Camera, Women & Everyday Uses of the Internet, Mia Consaluo & Susanna Paasonen (eds), NY:Peter
- McNair, Brian (1996) Mediated Sex. Pornography & Postmodern Culture,
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