Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21

Why It Matters

Sherman's series forces a reevaluation of how popular visual culture defines gender, offering artists and marketers a blueprint for subverting entrenched stereotypes.

Key Takeaways

• Sherman mimics 1950s‑60s film stills to critique gender stereotypes
• Each photograph presents a lone, ambiguous female figure in tension
• Narrative gaps force viewers to project personal assumptions onto the images
• Sherman treats photography as performance, blurring artist and character roles
• Imperfect, grainy aesthetics celebrate cheap media images as legitimate art

Summary

Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled Film Still #21” is part of her seminal 1977‑78 series that recreates mid‑century movie publicity stills. By dressing herself in period wigs, makeup and costumes, Sherman stages a self‑portrait that looks like a discarded film frame, inviting viewers to confront the visual language of Hollywood’s golden age.

The series foregrounds stereotypical female roles—housewife, ingénue, femme fatale—presented as solitary figures caught in a moment of uncertainty. Sherman deliberately leaves the narrative open; the viewer never sees what lies beyond the frame, prompting personal assumptions about the character’s fate and exposing the marketing of women in mass media.

Sherman describes the images as “cheap throwaway” stills, yet she celebrates them by using grainy, imperfect processing—sometimes developing the film with hot chemicals—to mimic the low‑budget aesthetic. She likens the photographs to pulp‑fiction covers and emphasizes that the medium itself becomes a performance, blurring the line between photographer and actor.

By turning mass‑culture imagery into fine‑art critique, Sherman challenges the stability of gendered identity and underscores the power of visual consumption to shape self‑perception. The work remains a touchstone for feminist theory, contemporary photography, and any discourse on how media constructs—and can be reclaimed—personal narratives.

Original Description

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21, 1978, gelatin silver print, 18 x 24 cm (Art Bridges Foundation) © Cindy Sherman

A conversation with Dr. Sarah Myers, Associate Curator, Art Bridges Foundation, and Dr. Beth Harris, Smarthistory

This video was made possible by the generosity of the Art Bridges Foundation