Some Form of Punishment

https://vimeo.com/171313719

We began our artistic process by deciding to create a counter-narrative to confront the ways Trump speaks about women in the media. Charlotte and Molly selected audio clips and Eric created the audio collage. From the transcript of the audio collage we began collecting images and videos around the themes of the specific language. This collection process helped us refine our theme: if a woman cannot meet society’s standards, she will be vilified and deserves punishment. This theme narrowed our search to campy horror movie clips, beauty pageant clips, and imagery of punishment. The campy horror movie clips allowed us to show violence against women in a detached and humorous way. These clips, along with a variety of images around punishment and the female body make it so we can laugh at the absurdity of what Trump says about women and simultaneously acknowledge the danger of a culture that historically stigmatizes women. We understand that by giving him attention, we are giving him publicity (and helping him “win”), and therefore acknowledge our complicity in passing on a version of Trump’s message. However, by using his words and likeness, we are able to personify the exaggerated male archetype that has been speaking under the surface and now has a vocal, hyperbolic mouthpiece in Donald Trump.