Lopez: This essay expresses Alma Lopez’s attempt to give voice and visibility to Latinas through her portrayal of the Virgen de Guadalupe as a “contemporary Latina.”
Latorre: By placing women at the center of visual discourses and exploring sexuality in art, Chicana artists unveiled sexual and gender diversity within the Chicana/o community.
Similar to our past readings of how the Black Panthers and African-American artists used visual imagery to empower the African-American/Black community, Lopez and other Chicana artists used this medium to represent the gender and sexual diversity within their communities as well. In “Silencing Our Lady,” Alma Lopez uses digital art to fight gender and cultural oppression through her contemporized version of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Despite Lopez’s brilliant attempt, Our Lady received criticism from a predominately male audience (with the exception of older women) because of the Virgen’s “exposed legs, belly, and [….] breasts” which, according to New Mexico’s Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan, classified it as “sacrilegious” (251). I, too, disagree with Archbishop Sheehan’s and other critics’ criticisms of Our Lady because I find it to be an image of women empowerment due to the confidence portrayed by the woman through her hands-on-hip posture, chin-up facial expression, and stern gaze. Even the Virgen’s cape-like attire screams strength and power to the audience. Additionally, the fact that the Virgen is being upheld by another woman also signifies strength in the absence of a male figure. Ultimately, the reason that protestors view the image of the Virgen as a “threat to masculinity” is because it disrupts the cycle of oppression that continues to manifest through the ignorance created by the censorship of the patriarchy.
Another interesting fact to note is the protest of the older women against Our Lady because it exposes the generational differences of values among women, which can be a symbol of the new generation breaking away from the restraint of male dominance. I also find the protestors’ demand to remove the image unsettling because it undermines the ability that viewers have to think for themselves.
Overall, such negative views of Our Lady call into question how we view women’s bodies. So often in art and media, women’s bodies are perceived as objects used to satisfy the male gaze and cater to the desires of men. This recurring representation of women is a problem. Why can’t a woman’s body be seen as admiration of a God-given gift, natural beauty, a nurturer of life, or a call for women to develop self-love and love the skin that they are in?