Skip to main content
English Blog Post 1- September 24th, 2017
Huie picture analysis!!
Wing Young Huie took this picture, entitled: We are the Other, which is described as Young Girl Wrapped in Dora the Explorer Blanket, South Minneapolis, MN (2012)
When I initially examined this photograph, I noticed a young latina girl wrapped in a Dora the Explorer blanket smiling in front of a red minivan. I assumed that the other person is the girl’s mother and they have just gotten out of that car. As I looked in the background, there appeared to be a poor neighborhood building across the street. We can understand both of the contexts by taking a deeper look at this image and reading the author’s picture caption as an explanation. This helps the audience and I find the message of the photograph as well as its relation to othering. The two females in the picture were coming from Light of Faith and Hope in Jesus Christ Church in South Minneapolis where the majority of people are Hispanic. Context from the author’s explanation helped me recognize that the girl and the cartoon Dora are the same ethnicity. I can now further analyze that this picture captures how society is segregated in matters of race and social class. The church had many members from the same poor Hispanic neighborhood as the girl and her mother in the picture.
Othering is presented as the separation of different ethnic and social classes in society. Wing Young Huie makes the claim that the concept of othering is not usually done consciously or intentionally. He makes the point, that it more likely happens based on ignorance and lack of exploration. Huie was successfully able to present this in terms of popular culture through the connection to the Dora the Explorer blanket. He showed that Dora mirrored the girl wearing the blanket. Noticing technique of effect in the photograph, Huie uses color and format to draw attention to the blanket. The main color is purple which stands out from its duller toned color surrounding and centers the picture where it easily is captured by the eyes of the audience. Our perception of certain people, such as Latinos, is revealed with this reference to a widely known children’s television show. In America, people of ethnicity are considered a minority and because we may not see these people frequently, our perception of them is largely influenced by how they are portrayed in popular culture and media.
The picture also shows the poor neighborhood and minivan behind the girl which is how the author emphasizes that we, as audience members, live different lives from her. Wing Young Huie posts a “We are the Others” blog weekly. His posts have very similar photographs with the common theme of providing a small glimpse into the lives of a group of people who may not be well known to others. The posts have the tendency to reduce the harmful effects of “othering” in our society by giving insight into “the others” lives with the purpose of reducing ignorance.
Margaret Atwood’s work, The Handmaid’s Tale, in contrast presents the concept of othering as an act done intentionally by the majority to suppress people different from them. Atwood creatively uses language to dehumanize certain characters in her book through the creation of neologisms which categorize groups of people into a suppressed class. The term “unwomen” is a great example in this novel which references the women living on toxic islands under horrible conditions. This neologism established the unwomen as the others, because they are never depicted upfront and in person and are rarely mentioned by those in power. Ignorance is promoted by the government through its creation of the others. This is because it separates unwomen from society and causes them to be portrayed as something other than women, hence the term UN-women. There are implications with this term that unwomen were once regular women and had lost that title under the new government.
Othering is apparent in both The Handmaid’s Tale and in society as presented by Huie. Atwood argues it is created by government to exclude certain people. While Huie believes that it is caused by ignorance and the separation of social classes within society.
While I agree with how terms such as "unwomen" are an effective method of othering, my perspective of what the word means is different. Pulling in terminology from 1984, using the prefix "un-" is a way to say "not". So while women who could not conceive are still technically women, they are considered "not women" because the government enforces the idea that a female is defined by her ability to give birth. Thus, I agree with your statement that unwomen are now considered separate from normal women, but the society did not even consider them women in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI question whether othering is ever intentional or unintentional in either presented work.. I believe it is a combination of ignorance and purposeful manipulation in both cases. Often times, we recognize that people are ostracized, but fail to act on it or create a change in the situation. This failure to recognize and act when people are becoming oppressed or silenced is what makes this such a systemic and growing issue in the modern world. We can fix this problem of making certain groups silenced, but that only comes when they are given a voice and platform where they can be heard.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to your analysis of "othering" as a social and ethnic divide, I believe the picture may also represent American views of Hispanics versus the reality of the Hispanic ethnicity. The Dora towel is a representation of how Americans may view Hispanic culture and life, as children grow up learning that Dora lives near a jungle and has a monkey friend. They learn that Dora is allowed the roam freely without her parents at a young age. This may skew what Americans think Hispanic culture is like. The girl represents the reality of Hispanic culture. She still lives with her mother and rides in a car. She lives in a neighborhood paved in concrete, not surrounded by a jungle. I think this contrast is to show how our perceptions shape what we know about other cultures.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you added additional information so that we understood Huie better.I believe that we all have an inclination to engage in "othering". Perhaps due evolution and self preservation.. Learning to avoid and counteract such thought patterns is an important part of reducing the world’s hatred and suffering.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how you included Whitman's inner thoughts on how a lack of ignorance and knowledge can lead a person to view someone differently. I also liked how you focused on a literary element (othering) to help explain what you learned about Whitman's views. Overall great job!
ReplyDelete