Sturcken And Cartwright Looking Summary

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Chapter one of Sturcken and Cartwright’s Practices of Looking, the concept of “looking” was discussed, reasons why we look at some certain things. People usually look at everything and have an opinion or an idea about it, same in art. The majority of art pieces are meant to be looked at, analyzed, discussed, etc. Art is generally made to be looked at by people. It is sometimes the viewer's job to make sense of what the artist’s work it about. Also in the reading, it says that the power in which what we choose to see, those things we look at control our eyes, and it is different in people. People have a different view about anything: politics, religion, sports, art, entertainment, society, etc. So these influences can change our way we see things …show more content…

J. Simpson was arrested for the murder of two people, Nicole Brown, his ex-wife, and Ron Goldman, a waiter. Simpson was a football star, actor, a public icon. He was only shown in sports media, advertising, and news only pertaining to celebrities. Once arrested, his mug shot was all over the media. Both Newsweek and Time magazine's’ front cover was Simpson’s mug shot. But there is a clear difference between the two covers. The two magazines were placed next to each other on every newsstand and the public immediately saw that TIME’s cover had noticeably darkened Simpson’s skin. The photo, representing a case, already dealing with racial tension, caused massive public uproar. Simpson's mugshot recreation made his blackness both unambiguous and threatening. The murder case was already involved with race — Simpson, the black defendant, accused of murdering his blonde white wife and white waiter. Time magazine's controversial cover could've probably gone unnoticed if Newsweek hadn't put their issue out at the same time, allowing viewers to compare the two mugshots. These two magazine covers made the viewers study and analyzed the differences, the untouched and the blackening. Though the CEO of Time had made a statement stating their intentions were not to influence race in any way, but why change the contrast that obviously made his skin darker than usual? It was stated that this was not meant to be taken in any way, but us as viewers, we made it into something, because of ideology. We interpreted the covers and we proceeded it as racism. This shows how much power we as viewers have when we see one little thing as the differences in magazine covers. This is the power of

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