Apologize to the Pork
A Video Essay by Yasmin Shemer & Lorene Wang
Artist Statement
Yasmin Shemer & Lorene Wang
Inspired by the split-cutting style of the dissected material at play, “Apologize to the Pork” uses films Tampopo (1985), Daisies (1966), and One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977) to visually analyze the use of food in film in relation to discussions of sex and gender.
Divided into three sections, the video essay explores the presented films’ depiction of (1) gendered expectations of eating etiquette and the performance of perception, (2) the role of gender and class in domesticity, and (3) food as an erotic tool, paralleling food play with body play.
Harking on the writings of Carole Counihan and Steven Kaplan in their piece Food and Gender: Identity and Power (2003), our work underscores scenes that play with the “power relations around food [which] mirror the power of the sexes” (Counihan & Kaplan). Showcasing the power of domesticity that food highlights, we intended on including the portrayal of “woman as caretaker” in Tampopo and One Sings, the Other Doesn’t in contrast with the rebellious eroticism of food play in Daisies.
Delving into the role of food as a tool for gendered and sexual defiance, we build on Rosalind Galt’s theory of pretty (2009). Much like how the scene is a character whose “attractive skin [is deemed] false, shallow, feminine, or apolitical” (Galt), food, both in its labor and consumption, carries range in its character, with Tampopo using it to portray delicate, “pretty”, creation, versus Daisies that utilizes its defacement to provoke against expectations of the feminine ideal.
We ask what it means to embrace the intentional of both care and destruction in food and gender.