The male
gaze is a term that has been used to describe how various forms of media, such
as painting, television, and movies, assume the male perspective. In most of
these forms, the perspective that is being used is not openly revealed; one
must recognize the demographic that the media is trying to reach. From
Renaissance nudes to 21st century car advertisements, it's very clear that
media calls for the attention of those in power, and unfortunately in the world
that we have lived in thus far, that has not included women, especially not
women of color. Through the writings of Laura Mulvey, John Berger, and bell
hooks, we can uncover the truth behind the Male Gaze, as well as the
Oppositional Gaze, as described by hooks, and see why the Male Gaze is a pervasive
form of vision in popular culture.
From
treating women's bodies as objects to overtly displaying sex (and RAPE) in
advertisements, it's quite certain that designers who cater to the female form
through their clothing have a severe lack of respect for the female form in
society. As Mulvey mentioned in Film: Psychology, Society and Ideology,
the media caters to the Male Gaze by displaying men as active and women as
passive (Mulvey, 837). She also writes “women are simultaneously looked at and
displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so
that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness,” (Mulvey,
837). This all suggests that women, in the eyes of popular culture, are to be
seen and not heard; they are to submit to the “phantasies” of men and that in
the end, it’s their fault for being looked at. “Why does she look so enticing?
No one says that she has to dress that way. She’s dressing that way for
attention,” is what some members of society say about the objectification of
the female form. But in truth, WE tell her to look that way. We validate a
woman’s worth by how tantalizing she is to males and how challenging she makes
it for herself to be won.
It was
mentioned previously that the media aims to attract the attention of those in
power (males). As Berger discussed in Ways of Seeing, “Men watch
women. Women watch themselves being looked at,” (Berger, 47). This notion of
being looked at, of being watched, is
the key to understanding the power of the spectator. bell hooks speaks of the
power of spectatorship in Black Looks: Race and Representation.
hooks describes the viewership of the colored woman to be the least powerful
audience in society. The Oppositional Gaze is the denouncement of the
stereotypical representation of colored women in media by colored women in
society. hooks encourages this criticism and rejection of representation by
presenting the idea that the colored woman has a job to go against the
prevailing notion that she is a spectacle to be gawked at. Black women don’t
have to worry about punishment brought on by looking and have to know that they
are have to look the media in the eye and criticize what is seen. They are
responsible for representing themselves and to not let anyone
else stereotype them into false roles.
The Male
Perspective is the wall that subliminally obstructs the public from seeing the
truth behind their favorite paintings and magazine advertisements. The
Oppositional Gaze gives power back to the most neglected faction of society and
provides a sense of agency within its members. I have come to understand the
structure of the Male Gaze as unfair and restricting to the potential of women
in society. With the male perspective as the norm in media, we as women will
have to fight endlessly to defend our place as equals. In the eyes of the
public, a woman defaults as the submissive individual; she is dainty and she
can always be won with the right kind of wooing and persuasion. A woman does
not have her own voice. She must earn a voice through becoming a wife, a
mother, or a woman in a “masculine” role. She cannot simultaneously be a mother
who bakes cookies and wears sundresses while still being a disciplinarian and
the matriarch of a household. A woman is either silently passive or she is
trying to be a man. The objectifying displays of women in various forms of media
leave little to no wiggle room for women to overthrow the patriarchal paradigm
of our society. This is not a factor that I am willing to accept lying down. I
will not allow my potential to be stifled at the hands of some median
heterosexual Caucasian male who somehow got a hold of the freethinking world. I
am not here to be subservient to anyone. I am not an object. I am a female who,
through determination and dedication, expects the same compensation as any male
for the same caliber of work. At the end of all this, we as a society must
educate ourselves with scholars outside of the traditional cannon and, as
women, we must represent who we are in a just light. This is the only way that
the pervasive Gaze can be blinded once and for all.
This is one of my favorite
paintings of ALL time. It is Grand Odalisque (1814) by
Jean August Dominique Ingres. I've always thought that the colors and
composition were beautiful but I never really thought about the story behind the
painting as much as I did once I finished reading Berger's Ways of
Seeing. She's a concubine (odalisque) who is waiting for her
suitor (or master, whatever you prefer). I never realized that she was only
there waiting for a man. That took away a small chunk of interest from the
painting. I still think that it's one of the most beautiful paintings to be
created in the 19th century in France. I just always thought that the
proportions were strange and that it was unusual that her boob was jutting out
of her underarm, but HEY Ingres was French so he must know a thing or two about
fancy paintings, right?
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