Lyndsay Tipton - Annotated Bib #6

Observation: This photograph is focused on the subject who is a tall black man standing in the center of the photo. He is standing straight with his legs close together and his arms pulled in close to each side of his body. His hair is sculpted and stands high on his head. He looks directly at the camera, his eyes wide open but his face otherwise expressionless. In his hands he holds a very large watermelon. He is not doing anything with the watermelon or really paying attention to it at all. 

Inference: The main reason that I chose this photograph is that in reading up on Weems, I discovered that a lot of her photography is printed at a full size. Therefore, this photograph was most likely life size, so when a viewer looked at it, they would be meeting the man in the photograph face to face. I think that this would be incredibly effective in getting Weems' point across to her audience, which has to do with the still very present racism embedded in our society. Although the photo series from which this came (Ain't Jokin') was originally produced in the 1980s, I believe that its message is still incredibly relevant today. I am sure that every person in our class has heard some sort of joke pertaining to an black person eating watermelon, fried chicken, etc. Often times people laugh, thinking nothing of it. But what these "jokes" are doing is perpetuating negative stereotypes on an already oppressed group of people. What is interesting about this particular photograph is how uninterested the man is with the watermelon. It is as if he is unaware that he is holding anything and is much more intent on staring into the camera (or at the viewers). Weems does this to basically show, and in turn, mock these kinds of racial jokes that are found in popular culture. In an article that I found pertaining to Weems' work, the author says of this photograph, "Between his aloof posture, his frank stare, and his unadorned background, the composition suggests that whatever burdens you bring to this image — watermelon or otherwise — are yours, not his" (Davis). I definitely believe that this statement is true because this picture, just like many others in the series, makes the audience really think about how they react to jokes like these in everyday life and what kind of person that ends up making them,

Works Cited:

Davis, Sara. "Ain't Jokin (about Watermelon, among Other Things)." Scenes of Eating. WordPress, 10 Dec. 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.