Representation the Commutation Test and Intersectionality

The concept of intersectionality highlights the way in which categories such as race (including whiteness), gender, class, heteronormativity, and nationalism are never mutually exclusive but always work together to inflect images, texts and bodies with complex cultural histories. These histories often naturalize traditional understandings of cultural power and legitimacy. When it comes to images, the commutation test can be very helpful in un-doing this process. When we perform a commutation test on an image we change its overall meaning, thereby potentially illuminating the subtext at work within the logic of that particular image. The term "commutation test" was first coined by Roland Barthes in his book entitled Elements of Semiology (65). A commutation test is very simple to do, in fact you have probably already done this in other circumstances: identify one component of the image, then change it in your minds eye, taking note of the way in which the meanings within the image/look commute as a result of this change. The degree to which the logic of the image is transformed via the commutation test, tells us the degree to which the image relies on specific cultural knowledges and histories. With the help of AdobePhotoshop we can experiment with the commutation test in a literal way.

First let's contextualize the image below, then ask a few questions of it, and finally do a commutation test on it. The image below appeared in an advertising insert in a very popular liberal national newspaper, The New York Times. The insert was selling this Johnny Deer Collector's Doll to its national audience as a valuable -- collectable even -- bit of "americana." Consider the following question in regard to the image: What does "Johnny" symbolize? What cultural narratives are spoken through this doll/image? How does this advert "hail" -- to use Althusser's term -- the viewer or, in other words, what does it assume of you its viewer? After you have considered these, select "commuting gender" below the image followed by "commuting race." Consider the set of questions that appear with each commutation test. When you are finished, select the "next" button.



.commuting gender ..................commuting race ...........

By applying a commutation test we begin to sense the logics at work within the image, what that i