The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations

Abstract

How we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others is based on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation.' Images searches through the resonances of the term representation' analysing images in terms of why they matter, what they are made of and the material realities they refer to. While retaining a sharp sense of the social functioning of images, Richard Dyer insists on the complexity and contradiction of even the most stereotypical examples and on the political importance of their understanding. His analyses move from considerations of the strongly negative representation of out' groups - especially women and gay men - asserting that poverty, harassment and discrimination as shored up and instituted by representation - to representations of dominant groups in society - men, heterosexuals, whites. Dyer's discussion encompasses the eclectic texts of contemporary culture, from royalty, to queens and dykes, politically correct labels, film noir, representations of Empire and contemporary films such as Night of the Living Dead . Much has been written about images of out' groups in society. Images is distinctive in its commitment to a political project in writing about contemporary culture, while insisting on the importance of understanding the complexity of the images it investigates.

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