Formation - Representation
Formation as a reaction to historical racism
Types of Mankind (1854)
- The assumptions made in this image is that white people are at a natural higher heirarchy compared with black people. It is also assumed that white people are seen as closer to being 'human' compared to black people.
- The purpose of the image would be seen as 'education' about the supposed types of Mankind.
- The sociohistorical context of the time this image was created was slavery, a time when black people were seen to be less 'human', the image was attempting to perhaps justify that white people are more superior in the human race compared to black people who are supposedly less than.
- The ethnicity that is being represented in this image are African-American.
- The media language being used to represent the ethnicitity of African-Americans are symbolic codes of slavery of the first Africans seen from the white dresses of the Antebellum era, contructing an ideological message about ethnicity and challenging it by wearing the white dresses, which slave owners would used to wear. This creates a powerful message, especially to the target audience of young, black females. This image is a reappropriation of once-racist dresses of slave owners to now being claimed by black women.
Formation is a criticism of the response of the US government to the Hurricane Katrina disaster and its aftermath, it is a celebration of black culture.
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