Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Level 5 Photography
HCS3
Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Still #153
(1985)
Helmut Newton,
Jo Champa, Chelsea Hotel,
(1988)
1
In her critical account of Leni Riefenstahl's photography, Fascinating Fascism1, Susan
Sontag investigates the elements of Nazi ideology and aesthetics that characterize Riefenstahl's
work, as well as the return of those elements in the sadomasochistic and fetishist sex cults. In
a similar approach, the following thesis will attempt to give a criticism of Helmut Newton's
imagery, with particular attention to nostalgia towards fascist aesthetics, fetishism and
patriarchal oppression of women. Apart from Sontag, I will introduce other writers,
philosophers and theorists, in particular Laura Mulvey and Catherine MacKinnon, and will also
invoke Cindy Sherman's works to aid my argument.
Helmut Newton, having been born to a Jewish family,
experienced (and escaped) the Nazi pogrom from the position of the
oppressed, unlike Leni Riefenstahl who represented the oppressing
power. However, he has never denied his admiration for the
propaganda-film director. (“I admired her greatly as a filmmaker
2
and photographer.”) Indeed, several similarities are notable
between the imagery of the two artists.
Newton shows the same commitment towards power, body and
beauty as does Riefenstahl (both in her written accounts, films and
later work - The Last of the Nuba - on which Sontag's essay
concentrated). He acknowledges the relevance of the remark that his
celebration of strong white women bears heavy resemblance to the
idealizing propaganda of the Aryan race in Nazi Germany (what Helmut Newton, Big Nude
springs into mind is Newton's book White Women, and his 1980 series Big I: Lisa, Paris, 1981
2
Although he claimed to have had a carefree childhood even
during the Nazi pogrom,4 it is perhaps safe to assume that
experiences of discrimination and violence, targeted against
him and his family, are likely to have influenced his
character. Since he never showed strong feelings regarding
the topic, it is possible that either he does not have severe
traumatic experience given his escape from Germany and his
distance from the Jewish religion, or that he represses these
memories, meanwhile they still offer him an infinite
resource o f models for power display and power-oriented
erotic fantasies to apply in his photography. One can certainly
discover the “master scenario” Sontag describes: “The
colour is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty,
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film
Still #6, 1977 the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is
death.” (Sontag. P 105)
Newton's photographic style is rooted in the
sadomasochistic culture which Sontag links with Nazi fashion
and ceremonies based on power-display. In her words, to be
involved in sadomasochism is “to take part in a sexual theatre,
a staging of sexuality”. (Sontag:103) Apart from the props and
costumes, another theatrical performance common to Fascist
power display and fetishistic sex-cults is the element of
performance and enactment. It is clear that Newton's photo-
shoots are quite literally staged sexual performances and his Helmut Newton, Woman on Cross,
models enact violent sexual fantasies. Exterieur, 1983
In Nazi propaganda films - such as those of Riefenstahl - speech, performance, costumes and
choreography aggregate in order to generate a cathartic experience in the crowd, which culminates when
the Führer, the powerful, fascinating master penetrates the “feminine mass” and “makes the crowd
come”. This “theatricalization of sexuality” is invoked in fetishistic sex cults because from those images
a “reserve of sexual energy can be tapped.” (Sontag:104) As Sontag points out, the side-effect of sex
becoming a question of style and taste is that it becomes “purely sexual, that is, severed from
personhood, from relationships, from love.” (Sontag:105) For Nazi ideology (as for any dictatorship
based on violence and oppression) the three latter notions are ultimate enemies. They are also enemies
of Newton's style. In an interview for The Guardian he describes his pictures as “very cold and
calculating”, and claims to exclude “love” and “romance” from them.5 Performance and life as means of
3
taste (life-style) are also relevant in fashion industry, the field to which Newton was drawn from an
early age and committed until the end of his life.6 But more interestingly than his obvious connection to
the fashion industry, his use of streets and interiors (such as offices, elegant hotel rooms or domestic
environments) as sets for his staged scenes, (instead of a plain studio), implies a filmic narrative. This
“life-like” environment implies a continuous narrative, therefore just like Cindy Sherman's Untitled
Film Stills, the images can be
interpreted as isolated stills of a film, and the scenes depicted:
isolated moments from a continuous narrative. The story is not
revealed in either of their works, which suggests the
postmodern fascination with the fragmented and unexplained.
For instance, both in Newton’s photography and in Sherman’s
we can find an idealized stereotype of the woman in the kitchen.
(Newton: Domestic Nude 1, 1992; Cindy Sherman: Untitled
Cindy Sherman,
Film Still #3, 1977) Both women make a seductive yet
Untitled Film still #3, 1977
7
In an interview he talked about the essence of the female
characters in his photography: “I love communicating the
idea that the women I show are accessible. They are
actually. Their accessibility only depends on the time and
money you want to spend…”(Naudet:1975)
Point number vii) “women are presented being penetrated
by objects or animals.” On New Beetle, Milan (1999) we see
the spread legs of a woman, and a toy car heading towards her
vagina. On Woman and Cadillac, Hollywood (1987) the
situation the same except now with a life- size car: a women
is laughing while spreading her legs and squeezes herself
against the car, as if the car would penetrate her. The car is
the phallic symbol on these images (and the stereotypes are
further enhanced with the washing powder carefully placed
next to the woman to signify her role). On Cigar Industry,
Milan, 1997 I, II, and III women are mimicking the act of
fellatio with cigars (another stereotypical symbol of masculinity).
Newton's images often suggest rape, physical violence or are as Kunzle says “downright
crippled”.18 At this point, maintaining the idea that Newton paints an ideal world for female
sexuality is at the least, acceptance of an oppressive society. However, it is more dangerous that
that, because by trying to assure the viewer that women are free within this simulated society, that in
fact this world is freedom itself for women, it is assumed that they not only enjoy their subordination
and abuse, but also want to adopt and secure the orders of this oppressive power- society.
MacKinnon argues that since men constructed our patriarchal society, it is centered around
values set up by male preferences (power and advantage). 19 She suggests that in order to create an
ideal society the only (hypothetical) solution would be that we give an equal amount of time to
women to what men had to construct the society from its very beginning to see whether their
solutions would have been different, and then put together the best possible compound of the two. In
reality this would we already possess, and therefore male society will always have the influence on
female choices. This leads to the assumption that not only today's society is lead by male power, but
moreover if a woman manages to rise above her oppression it can only be in case she obtains a
male definition of success, adopts male tools to reach it. Instead of building and own female identity,
and adopts the male values, the power-society setup, and form her character accordingly. Thus the
claim Valerie Steele makes in her essay Erotic Allure, that “the image of the dominant “phallic
woman” is ubiquitous in Newman's work” involuntarily becomes its own criticism. 20
8
“Male dominance is sexual. Meaning: men in particular, if not men alone, sexualize hierarchy; gender is one. (…) Rape,
battery, sexual harassment, sexual abuse of children, prostitution, and pornography (…) express and actualize the distinctive
power of men over women in society.” 21
The claim that Newton created a “new image of women that is characterized by an emancipated
self-confidence” then looses its validity as an argument for his “feminist” approach. On Newton's
images, depictions of female confidence manifest themselves by applying the male qualities of
aggression, power, and libido, his disciplines are “Power and sex. Sex and power. How sex makes you
powerful.”(Newton in Baker) Apart from the car, cigar, suits, and other icons, another signifier of the
male values imposed on women is the gun as a recurring icon. Gun in her mouth, gun as a
dangerous game (its threat against the naked body of the desirable women excite the voluptuous
voyeur), gun pointed at the lover, gun as a phallic symbol, gun as a prospect of violence against the
women etc.
Here I will return to Sontag's remark about the admiring “feminine mass” penetrated by Leader,
because this pattern also suggests the masculine nature of the power-cult. She mentioned that if we
were to measure the sexual energy of political parties, left wing would be considered unisex and
asexual, while extreme right wing and Nazi Power is extremely erotic, furthermore this erotica is
downright virile. Simone de Beauvoir refers to sexologist Marañon when she reflects on the male-
oriented sexual culture: Marañon states that the libido is inherently a “force of virile character.
22
“According to him, women who attain orgasm are ‘viriloid’ women” Sexual pleasure therefore
terminates when male orgasm happens, and is therefore inherently defined by the satisfaction of the
male organ. Newton 's women do not only possess a virile sexuality, but their sexuality will only attain
its validity by the male voyeur.
Although Sherman and Newton share a sensibility to nostalgia, performance, film, and glamour,
their motivation to and consequence of using these elements are of a completely opposite nature, and
distance their works far away from each other. The irony that is substantial in Sherman's work lies in
making a negative comment on a subject matter, while at the same time using the tools that are used by
the criticised subject matter (costumes, aesthetic considerations, topics) and therefore the nostalgia it
evokes is immediately challenged.
In contrast, neither the subject matter nor the message are questioned in Newton's photographs.
The nostalgia is not dismissed or is offered a “reflexive critique”.23 Helmut Newton published a
book World Without Man in 1984. In fact, even on the pictures without male characters, men are
always present, but unseen. They are who the models offer their body to gaze at. Men are there in
the signifiers of their power – violence, weapons, domination, oppression, danger, advantage, desire.
The aim of the world without men is to satisfy a world led by men. Consequently it is not the
9
characteristics, tools, attitude, or power of men that Newton excludes from his pictures (in order to
give women self-assertive identity), it is only the genitalia of the men he wanted to erase from the
horizon, and the world he creates is simply a display and satisfaction of his heterosexual (and
stereotypical hetero-normative) desires. By stylising stereotypes which promote pornography, his
photography has become a propaganda for an oppression both by the violator and the victim, quite
similar to the Nazi fascination with power, race and violence, and to make those sexy and fashionable.
10
References:
1. Sontag, Susan ‘Fascinating Fascism’ in Under the Sign of Saturn, London: Writers and Readers, 1983: 73-105.
2. Newton, Helmut. “Leni Riefenstahl, 2000” in Autobiography. London:Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd., 2003.
p 274.
3. Cartwright, Lisa and Sturken, Marita ‘Reflexivity and Postmodern Identity’ in Practices of Looking: An
Introduction to Visual Culture Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001: 322-328.
4. see Newton, Helmut. Autobiography. London:Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd., 2003. p 274.
5. Baker, L. (2001) Helmut Newton: Perverse Romantic. Guardian, Available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2001/may/05/weekend.lindsaybaker [Accessed: 01.01.2013].
6. He says already as a child in Berlin he wanted to be a photographer for Vogue. See: see Newton, Helmut.
Autobiography. London:Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd., 2003.
7. Kunzle, D. (2004) Fashion and Fetishism. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, p.285
8. Newton, J., Marquet, F., & Heiting, M. (2000). Helmut Newton: work. Koln, Taschen.
9. Criqui, Jean-Pierre ‘The Lady Vanishes’ in Cindy Sherman, Regis Durand, Ed. Paris: Flammarion, 2006:272-273
10. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen, 16, 1975: 8-18
11. Mulvey, L. Fetishism and Curiosity. London: Indiana University Press, 1996:68
12. Beigelman, V. (2012) Why Sex Sells. The California Aggie, Available at:
http://www.theaggie.org/2012/02/09/column-why-sex-sells/ [Accessed: 30.12.2012]
13. Cindy Sherman said this in an interview about her 1981 series Centerfold. see: Dana, R. (2012)
http://socialtheory.as.uky.edu/blogs/dlro223/photographer-cindy-sherman-tate-modern [Accessed: 4 Jan 2013]
14. Dines, G. Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Boston: Beacon Press 2010
15. Mackinnon, C. (2007) Women's Lives, Men's Laws. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p.503
16. Naudet, Jean-Jacques. (1975) Helmut Newton, the 1975 interview. Le Journal de la Photographie, Available
at: http://lejournaldelaphotographie.com/archives/by_date/2012-12-21/6008/helmut-newton-the-1975-
interview [Accessed: 15.12.2012]
17. Thurlow, C. (n.d.) Helmut Newton, A World Without Men. Photoicon, Available at:
http://www.photoicon.com/modern_masters/41/ [Accessed: 15.12.2012]
18. see pictures: Yvonne III. Monte Carlo (1998); Gunilla wounded, Paris (1977), Jane Kirby, Avenue Kléber, Paris
(1977); Jenny Capitain, Pension Florian, Berlin (1977); Nude with Black Gloves and Metal Leg Support
Monte-Carlo (1994); Central Park West, New York, (1977); Nude and Plice dog st tropez (1975); Woman on
Cross Exterior Orange County, California, (1983); Yvonne in my apartment, Monte Carlo (1998) etc.
19. see Katharine T. Bartlett, MacKinnon's Feminism: Power on Whose Terms, 75 Cal. L. Rev. 1559 (1987)
Available at: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/californialawreview/vol75/iss4/7
20. Steele, V. "Erotic Allure" in The idealizing Vision: The Art of Fashion Photography. Ed. Wilkes, A.
Aperture(1991).
21. MacKinnon, Catherine "Pleasure under Patriarchy” in Sexuality, Pornography, and Method. Ethics, Vol. 99,
No. 2 The University of Chicago Press (Jan., 1989), pp. 314-346 Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381437
22. Simone de Beauvoir; Moran, D.; Mooney, T., The Phenomenology Reader Routledge, 2002 p471
11
Bibliography
12
13