The work „Men don't cry" can be seen as one of the attempts to deconstruct the gender stereotype, in Boris's case, on a personal level. In his work Boris doesn't deal with traditional empty phrase „men don't cry" proving it to be false, because certain men do cry, nor is he encouraging men to show their emotions, because if he did that, he would find himself in the middle of the stereotypes' net and there would be no way out.
Boris firstly deconstructs the sentence „men don't cry" on the basic and the most banal way - crying has nothing to do with the emotions. Everybody cries. Every human being cries and he is proving it when he seats down and like an experiment, induces tears chemicaly, while he's cutting the onions. While repeating the mechanical action of cutting the onions, Boris goes from physiological to emotional cry. Or he doesn't. It is impossible to see the moment of transformation when allowed physiological cry becomes angry, masculine cry of despair or trandgressional masculine emotional cry.
With this work, Boris levels up the physical and psychological experience, alluding to his own experience, when, based on the physical appereance of the author, audience places his work into a certain context. Every discussion regarding weather he's „induced" tears are real or not (because the truth is that all tears are real, no matter „induced" or not, one way or another) doesn't speak that much about the works itself, but about the construction of the artist among the audience, which places the the work in one frame or another. In his work Boris doesn't promote the answer to the stereotype „men don't cry", he is basically annihilating it, avoiding to deeply consider it on personal, social, ethical or political level.
This work is Boris's answer to the clishe, which stands as his political decision, and that is that some clishes are so banal that they need to be discarted on the most basical level as being untrue and put to end any further discussion. This policy is entirely confronted with dominant ideologies of tolerancy to the „other" and to the „different", because through his work Boris says that there is no other way and that artistic response has to be radically supportive of that thesis. Every act of tolerance confirms and renews asimetry of humans' relationship to the weaker ones. In this work the one who cries is the weaker one, he is not a man. A man who cries is not man enough , he is either powerless or he isn't strong enough or responsible enough.
Identity problem of the other -- the weaker one is deconstructed through Boris's work and discarted as a worthless construct which was created on a foundations of an unstable thesis that someone's cry is a reflection of weakness. This radical act of discarding the whole socially-cultural context of the patriarchal society in which this construct was created is a response of the artist who has been up backed to the wall. Boris, as a member of a majority, also becomes bearer of the dominant stands of the society, and he has no arguments to call upon his individuallity, because, in the eyes of the audience, he is a member of that desirable majority, desirable stronger, who has a priviledge to make a choise in his personal life weather he wants to be a macho or gentle, discriminatory or tolerant. If he makes a step forward or one step over the edge motives for doing so will be looked for (and found) in his „shovinism", desire to provoke the weaker from his comfortable position of the stronger one, or to mock them when dealing with gender issues and questions „normal" and desirable.
Marija Ratkovic
www.borissribar.com
Loading...
0:42
Hawk Chocolate Commercialby werethylacine1,581 views
HAOS..!
aoxomoxoa011 1 year ago
odlicno je Boki!
danenada 1 year ago