By Guest Blogger, Barbara Mejia
“We’re feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman. How do we expose sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, and pop culture? With facts, humor and outrageous visuals. We reveal the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair.”
Guerrilla Girls burst on to the scene in the mid 80’s through the unconventional ways they drew attention to the lack of female representation in art. They made posters, hosted workshops and gave lectures, and here’s the curveball, they did it all wearing gorilla masks. I’m a fan of their campaign for public consciousness about the inequalities women face in all facets of our society, especially the art world, not only because of their important message but because of their radical masked avenger attire and because they receive no profit for their activism.
Each Guerrilla Girl takes the name of a famous artist and wears a gorilla mask, bringing humor and a bit of shock value to make their message the center of attention. The act of removing their identities from their activism ensures the message and information speaks for itself, optimizing the voice behind the mask and serving as a filter for society’s need to critique and judge female appearance. And this is what I love the most: the gorilla mask serves as a majestic metaphor for the fury that women facing invisibility and adversity carry, but are forced to suppress.
Their posters draw attention to the inequalities in the art world. There are so many amazingly talented female artists, but the art world has historically and continues to use the female body as a commodity. One can only imagine the difficulty a female artist faces when her profession views her gender as a prop for beauty and when her body of work doesn’t match up to what a male-defined art world most values.
As someone who works hard to be conscious of the ads and messages that are fed to me via popular media, I find it refreshing to see creative campaigns like the Guerrilla Girls. Their genuine goal to educate and empower the public and to make people more culturally and socially conscious of the inequalities that remain in our immediate surroundings inspires me.
A campaign motivated simply by the desire to educate and bring awareness to people is a rare occurrence in our capitalistic society, where the likes of Dove and Pantene sell products in the guise of making us aware of the adversities and social pressures women face. I don’t like the lingering feeling that I have to buy shampoo and soap in solidarity of their campaign. I don’t like the thought that buying their products to improve my appearance supports a campaign telling me that appearances don’t and shouldn’t matter.
This is a shout out to Guerrilla Girls, the original culture jammers. Thanks for keeping it real. Keep taking the country by storm!
