Untitled Film Still #45 1979

Cindy Sherman made this black and white photograph, Untitled Film Still #45, to look like a still from a movie, though no such film exists. It’s one of a series of photographs, all made in the late 1970s and early 80s, that question the representation of women in cinema. Sherman’s a Long Island native, and she’s playing a role here, one that’s instantly recognisable from American film and TV. With her dark swimsuit and goggles perched on her head, she could be the girl next door. But something's not quite right: her face looks anxious, and the black and white film invokes a sense of nostalgia, of familiar stereotypes. In this period, Sherman was interested in challenging the institutions of art. She did this by using the visual codes and cultural references of popular film to question the stereotypical roles assigned to women at that time. As historians, our job is to examine such visual material, placing it in its social and institutional context. What do images like this one tell us about the complex social structures of the 1970s and 80s?