Guerrilla Girls – Culture Jammers
Write letters, make posters, make
trouble!
• The Guerrilla Girls engage in media plurality to
ensure that their political acts of protest reach
as many viewers as possible
• They raise awareness of their efforts to
combat sexism, racism, classism (many isms in
the art world and beyond)
In their own words:
• a bunch of anonymous females who take the names of
dead women artists as pseudonyms and appear in
public wearing gorilla masks . . . we have produced
over 100 posters, stickers, books, printed projects, and
actions that expose sexism and racism in politics, the
art world, film and the culture at large. We use humor
to convey information, provoke discussion, and show
that feminists can be funny. We wear gorilla masks to
focus on the issues rather than our personalities.
Dubbing ourselves the conscience of culture, we
declare ourselves feminist counterparts to the mostly
male tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin
Hood, Batman, and the Lone Ranger. (“Interview”)
• “the group’s rhetoric coheres into a
meaningful message because each poster,
action, or book project confronts sexism and
racism by revealing the incongruity between
social ideals and practices” (Demo 138)
• Demo, Anne Teresa. "The Guerrilla Girls’
Comic Politics of Subversion.” Women’s
Studies in Communication 23.2 (2000): 132156.
endless cycle of postmodern images
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Using humour
Pastiche
Parody
Irony
Multi-media saturation
Guerrilla Girls speaking at Feminist
Futures Symposium (MoMA)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHVBZh5
HBgc&feature=related
Anti-Grope Shield
Scope
• Almost from the beginning, we did campaigns
about homelessness, abortion, and war, among
many other issues. We've never been systematic;
we just go after one target after another. (There
are plenty to choose from.) Recently, we've been
attacking the film industry for the pathetically low
numbers of women and people of color behind
the scenes. We're also working on more political
posters, a body image campaign and an attack on
the music industry. (“Interview”)
Rhetoric
• Rhetoric – the art of persuasion
• GGs use specific rhetorical strategies to
promote their campaigns
• Written and visual forms of rhetoric are
important
Incongruity
• Demo argues that the GG rely on rhetorical
strategies of incongruity
Humour/Incongruity
• To understand something as funny, we must
first identify what is expected.
• The expected is aligned with what is serious,
or habitual
• The comic is aligned with the unexpected
• Comedy comes from incongruity in systems –
something that is introduced but is unrelated
to elements in the system
Spoofs, parody, mimicry
• We try to be different from the kind of political
art that is angry and points to something and says
“This is bad.” That's preaching to the converted.
We want to be subversive, to transform our
audience, to confront them with some disarming
statements, backed up by facts—and great
visuals—and hopefully convert them. We
carefully craft everything we do. We try to twist
an issue around and present it in a way that
hasn't been seen before.
Historical Revision
• The Guerilla Girls’ Guide Bedside Companion
to the History of Western Art (1998) in which
they re-write art history to include female
artists previously ignored
Juxtaposition
• An example of incongruity in which two or
more ideas, characters, actions, settings,
phrases, or words are arranged side-by-side or
in similar narrative moments for the purpose
of comparison, contrast, or rhetorical effect.
Stereotypes vs. archetypes
• Stereotype is a simplified idea that becomes
invested with meaning (the box people are
jammed into)
• Archetype is a model or ideal (the pedestal
that people are judged against)
Stereotypes
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Daddy’s Girl
Tomboy
Girl Next Door
Bimbo/ Dumb Blonde
Femme Fatale/ Vamp
Bitch/ Ballbreaker
Mother stereotypes
Spinster/Old Maid
Hag/ Crone
For each stereotype:
• Briefly explain the stereotype and its history
• Identify the possible fears and/or desires that this
stereotype attempts to address or conquer – in
other words, why does this stereotype persist?
What feminine behavior is being glorified or
villainized, and more importantly, why?
• Identify current-day examples of this stereotype –
so, who has the media represented according to
the characteristics of the stereotype and why?