Representing Women: from HBO's "Girls" to Thai Concubines

I came across two very interesting articles and commentaries about representation of women today. These articles also highlighted the loaded nature of racial and ethnic representation as well. The first explores why we should be upset that HBO's new hit series Girls features four main characters who are white girls, while placing all other characters as cardboard cutouts of their ethnic stereotype. Dodai Stewart asks, "Does Girls have the right to be all-white? Of course. But we, the public, have the right to critique the insular, homogenous world a young woman with the good fortune to have her own TV show has chosen to present. Because it's exclusionary, disappointing, unrealistic, and upsetting. And it perpetuates a sad trend." The second I came across was Dr Leslie Woodhouse's fascinating article about photographs of Siamese kingly consorts, taken by other consorts, at the turn of the century.

Woodhouse notes:"By examining the photographic activities of a particular royal consort, Erb Bunnag, I intend to demonstrate that palace womens’ photography was not a mere curiosity of nineteenth-century Siamese elite culture, but rather reflective of a significant moment in Thailand’s cultural and political history. During the same era in which royal concubinage was losing ground politically, it was rapidly morphing—via photographic imagery—into a powerful tool of crypto-colonial discourse. At the same time, as Siam grappled with the new ideologies of imperialism and racial inferiority espoused by European colonial nations, a Siamese ‘hierarchy of civilizations’ became necessary, and Erb’s photographs of the ethnically different Princess Dara Rasami illustrate one means of its construction. In this context, Erb’s photographs served to not only render palace women visible to the general viewing public of Siam for the first time, but also to showcase royal women as exemplars of “modern” (read: Western) femininity—and to locate certain consorts in a new siwilai (civilized) hierarchy. Via their adoption of Western cultural markers of dress, accessory objects, and leisure activities, palace women were re-made into crypto-colonial icons of eliteness for a growing Bangkok bourgeoisie." Here we see ethnographic photography being actively used by potential subjects of ethnographic photography, and photography and visibility used as markers of modernity. Read the full (excellent!) article here.

The images shown here are from the original article, where they are credited to the National Archive of Thailand.

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