A s one of the most widely recognized and reproduced photographs from Cindy Sherman’s iconic series Untitled Film Stills, Untitled Film Still #21 stands out from Sherman’s oeuvre of black and white images in its inquiry into popular imagery and stereotypical collects ive consciousness of post-war U.S.A. The present image features Sherman herself as the protagonist of a hypothetical film production and, by extension, the subject of a promotional still photograph for the movie. Capturing her face at an angle, the frame positions Sherman’s face in the midst of the towering edifices. More than forty years have passed since Cindy Sherman completed her ground-breaking series Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), seventy black and white images of the artist mimicking the stereotypical depictions of women in film. Untitled Film Still #21 has come to define the series, which has emerged as one of the most groundbreaking contributions to twentieth century art while bringing Sherman’s completely unique viewpoint to international critical recognition.
“What I didn’t want were pictures showing strong emotions, which was rare to see; in film stills there’s a lot of overacting because they’re trying to sell the movie.”
Cindy Sherman started working on her Untitled Film Stills projection in 1977; the seventy images that comprise the corpus follow the classic format, scale, style, and quality of actual film stills used for promotional purposes, allowing the artists to experiment with various archetypes of figures and scenes, particularly how they would be portrayed by the cinematic lens. These persuasive photographs ultimately inspire the viewer to imagine the background of the figure and in turn question the heuristics and constructs that have been ingrained to the way we interpret images. Particularly in the present work, Sherman looks away from the camera into the distance, with a face that can be interpreted both as an annoyed confrontation or a professional determination, navigating the professional world of the 1970s. While not referencing a specific film, Sherman invites us to reconsider the numerous fictional women we have seen in film, media, and advertising who fit this archetype. Although the women in Sherman’s Film Stills are distinct in style, their appearance invites further investigation into the broader depiction of women that typically emerges from a male point of view. Thus, rendering the viewer a voyeur into the life of the figure, Sherman holds a mirror against the idealization and fetishizing of stereotypical female roles in society. As Sherman herself weaves between appropriation and imagination, the viewer sways alongside between critical reception and complicit participation in the image-generating industry ignited by film and video.
This is corroborated by the fact that not only does the Untitled Film Stills series intimately relate to the development of popular culture throughout the 1970s, but it also interacts with the wake of “second wave” feminism and the feminist performance work of artists such as Adrian Piper or Eleanor Anton. The writings of seminal intellectuals such as Betty Friedan, Judith Butler and Gloria Steinem kindled a movement to celebrate a woman’s right to be equal with men and to regain agency over bodily autonomy, personal choices, and professional opportunities. Throughout the series, Sherman takes on roles based on stereotypes of femininity, ranging from the professional featured in the present work to the ingénue, the sex kitten, the hardened film-noir heroine, or the lonely housewife. What is revealed from Sherman’s portrayal of these roles is the deeply rooted gendered stereotypes that have culturally normalized and promoted a subjugatory, oppressed position of women. However, Sherman perhaps also suggests an evolution in the archetypal portrayal of the woman; as Untitled Film Still #21 presents, Sherman appropriates the cinematic mechanisms of a male-dominated film industry to capture a woman strutting through the city, in control of her own destiny, as powerful as the city behind her.
Through a photograph in which she plays an actress that plays a role—a doubly intertwined fictional representation—Sherman has deftly interjected herself into how women are portrayed through media and attempted to question its shortcomings and reexamine the force that images have on our lives. Untitled Film Still #21 is an outstanding work within the artist’s celebrated oeuvre, exemplifying her unique aesthetic lexicon and her deep engagement with themes such as the representation of the self. The present work not only captures a captivating image, it also captures the evolution of the feminist agenda and the collects ive imagination of Postwar American culture in one single frame.
