Blog Post

“Irony, humor, and subversion are the most common guises and disguises of those artists leaping out of the melting pot into the fire.” I think this testifies to all people and what they are known as by society rather than what they want to be known as. I think the artists in this chapter are lessening the over exotic image they are given a lot of times. They are claiming a place just like any other person and are all yearning to be “normal” whatever that is. Ideas and beliefs that are commonly accepted are being tested by the artist in this chapter like Eater Hernandez’s piece of the Sun Maid Raisins photograph. “They hold mirrors up to the dominant culture, slyly infiltrating mainstream art with alternative experiences” (199). The resistance to assimilation and the melting pot is very obvious in the work of these artists and conveyed many times throughout this chapter. “Turning Around is sometimes just that: the simple (and not so simple) reversal of an accepted image” The mainstream belief is being denied and what people want others to believe about them is what is being taken. The portrayal of certain groups by Hollywood is usually what all take in subconsciously; I think having art that challenges the main stream belief is the only thing that will broaden our spectrum of other groups.