As a child, my mother instilled the importance of keeping my life private and using discretion when sharing details to others. The photo albums of my childhood are empty and videos of my youth or family moments can only be found in my memories when a smell or sound brings me back to the past for an instant. The Private Lives Exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art made me realize how much my mother’s identity took shape in how I interpreted the home movies and how much I wonder if my childhood memories would have been different and captured if I were another race. Although the purpose of this paper is to analyze 3 home movies, I would like to discuss three theme I noticed from almost every single individual movie.
In Judith A. Howard’s article Social Psychology of Identities, she analyzes the social psychology of race, sexuality, gender, age, class and disability. The home movies at the Private Lives Exhibit can be categorized into primary themes of race, sexuality, age and gender. Within these primary themes the subcategories of interactionism, social bases of identity and identity struggles can be further analyzed. First and foremost, I would like to say that the home movies chosen for the Private lives exhibit display a time-looped false reality. Much like artistic and commercial cinema these home movies appeal to the masses. Images of happy families, innocent babies, and more importantly homogamy, can be seen as an underlying pattern behind the façade of candid unknown actors and actresses.
While I enjoyed the exhibit, I could not wrap my mind around the never ending projections of people of the same race interacting with one another. The concept of diversity seemed to be too public for this private exhibit which clearly displayed the past history of our country’s racial inequalities. In each frame groups of like individuals were filmed participating in activities ranging from civil movements walks to family lunches or beach trips. The few films displaying people of color in my opinion displayed individuals as perfunctory bodies. Subconsciously, I truly believe that this exhibit plays on cognitive structures of self- schemas and group schemas. The majority of the frames exhibit a group schema of the white race equaling happiness, togetherness and family. These images convey a common message of in-group favoritism, white privilege, and a reflection of self-esteem amongst the races.
Along with the videos of happy families, arises another issue of a lack of gender and sexual identity diversity. While I am fully aware that some of these videos were filmed during a time of gender and racial inequality, I find it hard to believe that every woman was a happy wife, a mother of a big family, a kitchen woman, or a nurse. My eyes watch awaiting a video of a girl graduating high school or college, a non-heterosexual relationship, or even a woman defying gender roles and wearing a suit walking into an office. Much like social media and commercial content, the depiction of what makes a good woman revolves around her success as a wife or mother and the common image of a happy family typically displays a male father and a female mother. While the image of a single mother was not specified as a theme in any of the videos, a large screen with a woman of color in the kitchen with an apron and a look of distress can be connected and interpreted as black women typically lacking the components of a happy family while the white women in the exhibit were seen with their family.
Lastly, the concept of age was an important theme within my analysis of the Private Lives exhibit. Like many captivating commercials or media content, the ultimate symbol of innocence revolves around a cute baby or little kid with big eyes and chubby cheeks. The chosen movies of babies by the curators in the exhibit create a light hearted touch on the overall content. I begin to wonder what the identities of these babies will be as they become more exposed to the world. The curators of these home movies taught us that photography, videography, and social media are small sections of the truth. As terrible as this many sound, the happy family eating lunch might have only smiled for the video in public but may hate each other behind closed doors. The girls on social media who promiscuously displays her body for attention and is deemed a “hoe” may be a virgin. The happy couple you see walking down the street may struggle with infidelities. The truth about home movies, commercial movies and social media circulates around the idea of giving the audience content they want to see.
After watching these home movies, I learned that gender, sexual identity and racial inequalities will forever be found in traces through art and media. Regardless of how much our society has become accepting of different lifestyles our individual and group identities will ultimately determine what we do and who we are. An innocent baby will only be a blank slate for so long until their exposure experiences determine their perspectives. Overall the Private Lives Exhibit lacked a true reflection of America’s modern society. If the point of the exhibit’s theme was to preserve the past, the curators did a great job, making me, a woman of color who disagrees with gender and sexual identities inequalities feel caged.
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