Ethnological Exhibitions

“Couple in a Cage” dir. Coco Fusco
November 26th, 2007

The film “Couple in a Cage” documented the “reverse ethnography” performed by Coco Fusco and her collaborator Guillermo Gomez-Pena. The experiment allowed Fusco and others to see how “the gaze” and “othering” was performed first hand by people who would in normal circumstances consider the co-conspirators to be civilized members of Western society.

While watching the film I felt uncomfortable with the extreme performance as well as the reactions, which ensued because of the performances. I find it really strange that no one really protested the fact that these people were in a cage, an almost barbaric way to treat a fellow person. Although it has been done for many centuries previously, especially in the case of Saartjie Baartman, otherwise known as Hotentot Venus, who exhibited for her abnormally large behind. However, we would think that these types of practises had ended a long time ago, which should be enough for people to protest. One gentleman did comment on it, but that wasn’t the reaction of most people. In one scene, Fusco and Gomez are in the cage at a party and people are paying the male to show his genitalia to them. This act in particular was disturbing to me, and I would argue was actually too far for the purposes of this experiment. It was interesting to note that people actually paid for this at the expense of those “others”, but it seemed wrong and unnecessary none-the-less.

The gaze performed by those audience members was very similar to the gaze Laura Mulvey discusses. She insists that the gaze has a psychological relationship to power, and that the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze. Thus in the case of the couple in a cage, the people in the crowd, assumed more power than the couple. This was demonstrated when people were able to pay for the couple to perform some kind of act (ie. showing genitilia, telling a story, etc). The couple seemed to have very little control over how they were treated.

In her article “The Other History of Intercultural Performance,” Coco Fusco comments that “the cage became a blank screen onto which audiences projected their fantasies of who and what we are. As we assumed the stereotypical role of the domesticated savage, many audience members felt entitles to assume the role of the colonizer, only to find themselves uncomfortable with the implications of the game” (152). In the article I found it very surprising that people actually said that it made sense that the people were caged because they could attack or and basically because these people were different (157). Furthermore, Fusco describes Homi Bhabha’s essay “The Other Question” (153) as explaining, “how racial classification through stereotyping is a necessary component of colonialist discourse, as it justifies domination and masks the colonizer’s fear of the inability to always already know the Other.” She continues, explaining that her experience within the cage has shown that despite living in a society where democracy and equality are predominate ideologies; ideas of colonialism have been internalized within society’s population. This can be seen through the audience’s reactions of horror, humour, and voyeuristic curiosity.

The film demonstrated the array of reactions, however it would have been nice to have commentary or a voiceover from the artists talking about their experience in the cage, their interactions with the people and observations of the people. The article written by Coco Fusco provides context but as a film it would have been beneficial for the medium.