My mystery

DISCLAIMER: The following comments are not intended to distract the viewer from a complete observation of this photograph, which includes compositional and other ideas unrelated to those below. The photograph is not intended as an inducement to wager or to break any laws.

Today I came across a mysterious mural on Yorkville St. in Toronto. It is less mysterious to me now than it was then, but, despite being less of mystery, it is still a mystery.

As a result of my poor acquaintance with popular culture (with unpopular culture too, come to think of it) I failed to recognize any of these women (although one, whose head I have, for aesthetic reasons, chopped off, is Sandra Oh, and I should know her, eh?, since she’s been a public figure in Canada for a long time, but there you go, I responded to the mural as a whole rather than to the people in it, which turned out to be part of the mystery, as we shall see, if ever I find a right parenthesis to close this interjection with).

I thought the photo had the air of an object of religious veneration – which is to say, an advertisement – but there was no text. Can’t have an advertisement without either text or a picture of the product, eh? If each of these women had been holding a can of Pennzoil, well yeah, then that’s an ad. But – no Pennzoil!

What were they up to, then? It seemed to me they were stoically demonstrating their resignation while under the male gaze – their faces are stern, their poses stiff, they all seem to have been overwhelmed by lassitude, the lassitude of people with no alternative but to please the powerful on the powerful's terms. This impression seemed to have been heightened by a slight disproportion between the subjects – perhaps this is a composite – that lends a touch of surreality to the portrait.

Luckily I noticed that, unlike most public photographs, this one was attributed to its photographer, Miller Mobley of the Hollywood Reporter, so a-Googling I went (a-DuckDuckGoing, as well, but it was Google that found the photo, although I suppose I have now been entered in a database as a fan of the Reporter; I’ll be watching my spam). The photo turned out to have been on the cover of the Reporter’s May 23 number, promoting the article “It’s a Revolution: The Drama Actress Roundtable”.

And guess what – the article was about the predominantly male portrayal and treatment of actresses! In other words, I had been right, or close to it, and that has been so rare an experience in my life that I had to resign myself to waiting patiently for some time for my mind to finish boggling. So kudos to Miller Mobley for this stunningly appropriate and witty pictorial embodiment of the article, and to the Reporter for putting it on the cover.

But a mystery remains – why is this photograph covering an entire gigantic window of the Four Seasons? It’s not advertising Pennzoil, that’s for sure. It’s not advertising nothing. Is it a well-deserved tribute to Miller Mobley? Is it a monument to an anonymous subject? Is it what Schrödinger’s kittycat turned into before escaping from its box and trying to climb the Four Seasons? Is it? Is it?