Textual Poaching

American Modernist
American Modernist                                                                American Gothic

In Jenkins “How Texts Become Real,” the author relates a classic children’s story titled the “Velveteen Rabbit” in order to shed further light on a concept called textual poaching. In this story, the toy rabbit comes alive only through its interaction with a child who received the rabbit as a gift. On a deeper level, the rabbit becomes real only because the boy actively gives the inanimate toy significance through his adoration of the rabbit. We too in modern culture continue to do the same with the art that has preceded us. Movies, games, stories, and all media arts come to life through an intermixing of our own schemas and the denotation of the referent itself. Because of our individuality, each work of art makes it own impact as we interact with it. Taking this idea to heart, I chose to interact on a deeper level with some sort of art piece that represents American society as a means of better understanding my role in the ongoing American legacy.

I first thought of recreating a historical painting and replacing those aspects of the art piece with personally significant meaning. I wanted my poaching to not only shed light on my association and respect for those events and their influence on laying the groundwork for my society, but also make a commentary on how American culture has shifted. As I looked through various historical events, I began to realize how important cultural context played into the historical events I was observing and I wanted to emphasize that point further in my work. This realization led me to think about how I am currently participating in dynamic cultural and historical events that define what it means to be American in the 21^st century. Thus, rather than looking for famous images of historical events, I began to look for iconic American images that presented a sort of past microcosm of American life from which I could recreate my experience with American culture in the same form. Although there are many images that idealize certain “American” themes, I fell upon “American Gothic” by Grant Wood. This simple painting grew to fame due to its unique manner of highlighting the classic, small-town American virtues of self-reliance and rugged individualism.  For many, the painting is even seen as an embodiment of American society in general and an homage to those who laid the foundation for our current society. Because of these social connotations, magazines and many others have made parodies of the painting in order to highlight changes in American society and give individualistic as well as cultural significance to their modifications.

 Artists using parody in order to play on the connotation of “American Gothic” to make social commentary on how they perceive the stereotypical American.

Inspired by some of these parodies, I chose to play on this same connotation of “American Gothic” by replacing certain aspects with my own cultural experiences. Certain changes are inherent; such as hairstyle and clothing. However, I did include a few other changes that emphasize aspects of my American experience.

First, I realized the pitchfork represented the farmer’s occupation and manner of livelihood. As a student and a “millennial,” I realize that the computer embodies the new manner of “earning your daily bread.” Manual labor continues to make a less significant mark on our lives as society continues to progress and innovate. In many ways, the computer has impacted my way of working just as much as the pitchfork has for the old farmer, thus giving me reason for the switch. The second switch has to do with the original painting’s depiction of the woman and her dismissive, unfocused demeanor. While the wife gives off a sense of stern superiority in the original, my experience with people who seem disconnected with the world has to do with mobile technology. Finally, I flipped the profiles so that my role was reversed with my female friend. This was a subtle (probably too subtle) attempt at displaying how gender roles have drastically changed in my America, insomuch at times that we literally have “switch places.” I thought about replacing the iconic farm house background with a modern cityscape or a shot of campus, but I wanted the fact that I poached “American Gothic” to be evident given the changes I made.

If I could take this art piece further, I would set up in a high foot traffic area the same farm house background and allow people to recreate “American Gothic” using their own experiences with modern American culture to change the subject matter. I would photograph each one and display them together as a means of showing how diverse American society has become and how difficult it is to pinpoint “ideal” American values. At the same time, however; the photos together give the impression that such diversity, freedom to express one’s individuality, and technological changes are the hallmarks of modern America. Additionally, much like how hardworking farmer legacy of “American Gothic” laid the foundations for our modern society, we are also laying down our own history and legacy. Above all, awareness of the never-ending creation of history both individually and collectively might be the most important insight we glean when poaching historical pieces.