Pot Roast is a Little-Known Aphrodisiac

In class we talked about how during the Victorian Age, a proper woman could fill one of two roles pertaining to her sexuality.  If she was unmarried, she could be pure and virginal in hopes of one day gaining a husband.  Once she was married she could be seen as a "sexual" being.  To be a bit hackneyed, society basically realized that it takes two to tango.  The woman had to be involved in sex in order to have children, so only then was it okay.  If women couldn't be wrapped into either of these pretty little boxes and tied up with ribbon, then she was a whore. End of story.

There was a similar notion in the 50's when the nuclear family came about and image became just as important as it had been in the 1800's.  We can look at the characters in Blue Velvet (1989) as a quick example.  Sandy is the ideal that society want's Jeffery to fall in love with.  She is pure and wholesome and could easily settle down and pop our 2.5 children.  Dorothy is a woman who is married and has a child, so her sexual nature is established.  But because she is perceived by society as a sexualized single woman, she is looked at in the role of the whore.

The image of Audrey Hepburn shown above is a depiction of this sexuality in its controlled state.  Do we know if this woman is married?  No.  She fulfills the fantasy that men were trained to have at the time.  What makes this picture so erotic, despite being completely pg?  A woman, cooking for you in a flattering dress, with a cigarette dangling casually- but sexily- from her lips.  If she's someone's wife, you better believe that dinner will be on the table when her husband walks through the door.  If she is a girlfriend, she'll be that kind of wife someday.

What makes this photo so sexy? Subservience of course!  If that's not a reiteration of Victorian ideals, I don't know what is.  Seems like a reoccurring theme don't it?

Everyday Wonderland

"When you look at things differently, stories emerge. There is beauty in the everyday. And when people learn to look for it, they'll find inspiration in the least likely places. That's when the narrative in the situation and in the subject comes into focus. And even fashion is dull without the right style."

This is Modernism.  This is Gothic.  Characteristics of Realism blasted away by the magical, sublime, unreal.  Isn't it bloody beautiful?

Let us imagine living in this place for a moment.  The walls are deteriorating, the concrete floors are filthy.  I don't see any heating vents or an air conditioning unit.  Not to mention the bathroom appears to be placed in the main living area. And what do we think the view through that window will reveal?  Probably another brick wall from another towering building.  Don't look down unless you want to see a bum pissing in the alleyway.

Cade Martin manages with one click (probably through the process of thousands of clicks) of a camera to break away from this real place.  An apartment who's resident probably dreads coming home at night, turns into a wonderland. 

So what makes this image- and the other images from Martin's website- Gothic?  Not unlike the paint chipping away to unveil the brick that lies underneath, Martin manages to place an extraordinary moment in an ordinary setting to break us out of what we would usually see.

I guess in my quest to understand the Gothic, I have come to see it as a huge contrast between realism and the mystical.  Martin successfully illustrates this contrast in this photograph.