My interpretation of Private Lives, Public Spaces

On the topic of constructing an identity, I believe that identities are constructed subconsciously through the actions and the beliefs of the individual. Additionally, due to the fact that the human experience is so vast and diverse, there are multitudes of different identities being formed every day. Judith Howard, in her Social Psychology of Identities, mentions how “the concept of identity carries the full weight of the need for a sense of who one is, together with an often overwhelming pace of change in surrounding social contexts”, emphasizing how societal views, as well as location, play a role in developing the identity of the individual.


This may be why a white farmer in, say, Pennsylvania may come to identify himself differently than a black teenager growing up in New York. Alternatively, the human experience is so complex that these two individuals, despite growing up in two different settings and living two completely different lives, may find an identity that they both have in common.


One way identity is being represented, particularly through these home videos can be seen by who is being recorded and who is doing the recording. One video depicting a native dance, seemingly recorded by someone who is outside of that particular culture, is also an indicator of both the dancers’ identities in relation to the cultures of their homeland, as well as the identity of someone who’s culture and homeland is so drastically different that they feel the need to document it. The dance is an activity which, to the people of that particular area, is considered normal and commonplace. To the person recording them, however, it does not coincide with their identity, their culture, and their values, so they feel a need to record it to show other members of their ‘identity’ how people outside of their bubble live. The home video is a symbol of what can happen when two completely different identities come in contact with one another.


One home video in particular captured the Walt Disney Strike of 1941, when protests erupted due to Disney employees being mistreated. At first, the video seemingly has nothing to do with any identity, as men, women, and sometimes even children can be seen at the protest. Analyzing the video through Judith Howard’s notes on identity, we can see that the footage of the strike does not display identities based on gender or sex (although I’d be willing to bet that such discrimination was also taking place amidst the employee abuse), but rather the identities of being a Disney animator, particularly a unionized animator.


Howard’s notes on class identity, for example, show how the voices of those with less privileges, i.e. Disney animators, are not heard within the inner circle of Walt Disney and company who have the power to make change. Put simply, the footage of the Walt Disney strike puts the viewer right in the middle of two conflicting identities: the unionized animators who wished to give the overworked animator their proper dues, and the corporate heads of Disney who feared a decrease of production at a unionized Disney Studios.


The purpose of home movies lies directly in its name: they are movies that are made at home and are usually for the entertainment of those in that home. It is the same experience we go through when recording a video on our phones for personal entertainment, the slight difference being how easily we can choose to share them with others. The footage of the father swinging his child in his arms, for example, was most likely not made with the intent of it being displayed in an art museum decades later, but it shows that, essentially, nothing has changed in terms of documenting our everyday lives for the sake of posterity. However, the exhibit shows that while the main purpose of home videos may be for the entertainment of those who filmed them, the other, grander purpose of documenting what goes on in our lives may be so that future generations can see how our lives were in this particular stage of our society. That could also be the reason as to why the exhibit is called “Private Lives, Public Spaces”. The private lives of these men, women, and children are being analyzed in a public space so we can learn more about what life was like for them during a different point in time in society.





Or at least that’s what I got out of the experience, anyway.