Skip to main content

Beaver Valley

Janice Tanaka

1980 00:06:50 United StatesEnglishB&W and Color4:3Video

Description

In this angry answer to the expectations advertising culture places on women and their bodies, Tanaka deftly edits commercial images and sound-bite slogans to underscore the message such images carry: that women exist to please men, as wives, mothers, and lovers. Tanaka balances such mainstream images with black and white footage of herself lying naked next to her own doubled image, rejecting the mainstream model of female sexuality that regularly consists of seductive glances and suggestive poses arranged and pre-ordained for the male gaze of the spectator. The video reveals the commodification of women and their desire.

This title is also available on I Say I Am: Program 1.

About Janice Tanaka

California-based Janice Tanaka is considered a pioneer in the use of processed images within experimental narrative form. She brings a painter’s sensibility to her intricately textured video collages that blend social and political observations, philosophical inquiries, and personal introspection. Her work uses original footage, appropriated media images, and densely layered electronic processing to transform the autobiographical into the universal. Her videos treat issues of Asian American history and identity, from the enduring trauma of internment camps during World War II to the blending of cultural values from the Old to New World.