Our guest lecture during the class did an incredibly contextual analysis of 17th Century Genoan depictions of the Virgin Mary and the controversy of crowning her the queen of Genoa. While I cannot say that the inter-workings of the Genoa Republic will be useful in any of my future scholarship, it was an incredible example of how to dig deeper and use all available avenues to really dissect an image more than merely discussing its aesthetics.
In encouraging us to apply interdisciplinary principles to the study of visuals, we discussed Clifford Geertz and Victor Turner. While this was not my first time working through Geertz, I think that the value of thick description should not be underestimated when applied to visual images. In my Elivs-Stormtrooper image you could continue to read the image in terms of what made Elvis so popular and imitable as well as what makes Star Wars, and specifically Stormtroopers imitable. However, it is probably more than merely the symbol of these two popular images that prompted this individual to don his attire, but a larger cultural impulse of media convergence that has become popular. The media technology that we now possess (or those of us who use and possess) has encouraged all sorts of re-interpreting and re-inventing of popular images that makes something like a Elvis-Stormtrooper possible. There are so many layers to what could be said: Is it that Elvis will live on--even into the future? Or perhaps because Star Wars was "a long time ago and a galaxy far far way" that no one can escape the influence of Elvis? Is it a commentary of what he wished was under the Stormtrooper helmet? Do the values of Star Wars and the values of Elvis coincide? Is it merely an attempt to get extra usage out of both an Elvis costume and a Stormtrooper costume?
But perhaps I should point out that this particular image is also tied to the place in which I took the photograph, San-Diego Comi-con, which comes with another set of "cultural" values as well. Comic-con has an atmosphere of festival and performance that is not typical of everyday settings, and one in which dressing as a convergence pop-culture imagined figure would not be unusual, and perhaps encouraged. I find Victor Turner helpful here, and wish that I had read his material before when for a previous class I attempted to discuss some of the aspects of convention costumes. When you think about performance as an integral part of culture, that life is very much like theater, it is helpful to see very obvious manifestation of this in the costume culture of dressing up at a convention. We perform as part of a space that brings social cohesion and inscribes meaning in an event. Comi-con is a kind of imagined community that only appears physically once a year, and so in participating in one of its most popular events, the masquerade, one could be said to have credentials to show one belongs in that community. Our Elvis-Stormtrooper is as much at Comi-con to see as he is to be seen. While most of us don't don superhero or pop culture costumes everyday, there is performance for all of us in the way we select clothing, wear appropriate work attire, or style our hair, that makes the costuming of Elvis-Stormtrooper less unusual that I would have previously thought. Our own everyday performance enables us to show what communities we belong to, as much as Elvis-Stormtrooper is proving his part in the Comi-con community.
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