Judging America: Photographer Exposes Our Prejudices In Portrait Pair Series
Dallas-based photographer Joel Parés challenges our most common prejudices with a straight-forward photo project called “Judging America.” The project has a GIF animation for every one of his subjects, which are first presented as caricatures of horrific or simply ridiculous common prejudices against their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, profession, or marital status. Then, the GIFs slowly reveal how these people look in reality, presenting a great contrast with their prejudice-inspired images.
“The purpose of this series is to open our eyes and make us think twice before judging someone, because we all judge even if we try not to,” explains Parés to Peta Pixel. “The first image is not necessarily what you actually see, but it is what you categorize them in your head without knowing who they truly are. The second image explains the truth about the person and how incorrect they were judged initially.”
More info: joelpares.com | Facebook | 500px (h/t: petapixel)
Harvard graduate Jefferson Moon
New York City nurse Sahar Shaleem
Pastor/Missionary Jack Johnson
Fortune 500 CEO Edgar Gonzalez
Stanford Graduate School student Sammie Lee
Iraq Combat Veteran Jacob Williams
Widowed mother of 3 Jane Nguyen
iPhone app inventor Joseph Messer
Family outreach program founder Ben Alvarez
Famous painter Alexander Huffman
Got wisdom to pour?
7/10
The “widowed mother of three” is actually the photographers ex girlfriend who is actually not a widowed mother of 3 at all. Look her up Marie Madore Mao so chances are the rest are fakes too.
A widowed mother of three cannot also be an exotic dancer? I think this series speaks more to the constraints of normative identities held by the artist than by the viewers of this project.
There are a LOT of “exotic dancers” out there that are single moms.
I’m sorry, how are a student, a beautician and a gardener bad stereotypes?
Er, if someone’s waving a gun about, I think they probably deserve to be judged… I don’t feel any great need to challenge my preconceptions here. Naive, and a bit of a waste of everyone’s time.
This completely fails as a stereotype challenge”. I once pre-judged a guy who wanted me to build a website for his “3-wheeled motorcycle” garage in a rough part of Los Angeles. I didn’t really want to do it but finally gave in. Turned out he was the President of Mars, Inc., the candy bar company.
I think I get what the intended message was, but this is not a very effective photoset.
I’m not judging that guy because he’s black; I’m judging him because he’s pointing guns at me.
I’m not judging that woman because of her religious attire; I’m judging her because SHE’S HOLDING A FUCKING AK-47
I think the photos are suppose to juxtapose the individual in actually against the stereotype frequently depicted in the media. In tv and movies if there is a role written for a black person, arab, asian or hispanic person they’re more likely to be a criminal, terrorist, salon worker or manual laborer.
really stupid. This in no way “challenges our most common prejudices” …
“The first image is not necessarily what you actually see, but it is what you categorize them in your head without knowing who they truly are. The second image explains the truth about the person and how incorrect they were judged initially.” pay attention
I’ve been trying to explain this to people, no one seems to understand. The people on the right get labelled as the non-existent falsified image on the left without ever looking like that. People seem to be taking it as a personal attack from the artist telling them that they think these things about these people (most probably still do in certain cases without realizing it). But its really just a statement about the labels certain groups of people face daily.
people also didnt read this part “which are first presented as caricatures of horrific or simply ridiculous common prejudices against their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, profession, or marital status”
This makes absolutely no sense. If I see what the person actually is, which is what I’m going to see, why would I catagorize them as someone in the first picture?