Mieke Bal Question 2

..THURSDAY, YES! (why not?)

In discussing Ken Aptekar's After his license was suspended, Bal points out that the reframing of the Herbert Regnault original, rather than creating or maintaining a distinction, as frames usually do, serves to "de-otherize" or familiarize the subject of the original portrait. Is that just because it is reframing something in a way that is less otherizing than the original frame, or can an original framing also lead to an "embrace" in some way? In the context of social research, then, can a theoretical frame be empowering to or embracing of a group only if it reframes an existent, divisive frame? I mean, I guess the answer is yes, because there can only really be no frame around something if no one is aware of it as a distinct category. And in that case, any indication of a distinction is necessarily divisive in some way. But maybe that's taking this idea too literally. So how does a researcher use a frame to empower? Bal says that "for art to empower, it must be performative." I'm not sure I understand this concept, or the concept of theatricality in this context. And if Carrie Parker was necessary to make Aptekar's piece empowering, who is the Carrie Parker of research?