Post 2 - Male gaze/oppositional gaze - Miguel Alfau

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
In our society however, the media almost always produces works in which the spectator in mind is male.  Thus the beholders of sight are men.  This is the basis for what constitutes as the "male gaze".  According to Berger, the sexualization of woman is the fundamental aspect of the male gaze.  In modern paintings, magazines, artwork, films, and so on, just like in old historic paintings, the women usually pose in such a way in which they are looking right at the spectator, while offering her charm to him.  The women of course doesn't know the man (or men) who will be looking at her, but she "offers up her femininity as the surveyed" (Berger, 55).  In terms of looking on account of pleasure, the male engages in active looking while the woman is passive, she notices she is being looked at by the man and she must accept such a way (Mulvey, 837).

I found this image by searching "ideal woman" on Google.  Anita Page is a perfect example of what an ideal woman was in the 1920s.  The image details body part measurements on Anita and of course she was depicted as practically imperfect.  She was blonde haired and blue eyed, and seen as the prettiest face in Hollywood during her stardom.  Of course she was a perfect candidate for the reality of the male gaze.

An African American woman would of course never have been able to achieve the status and reception of Anita Page.  Even today African Americans face much discrimination. They are exploited with a different kind of gaze, known as the oppositional gaze.  The oppositional gaze is a critical and interrogating look towards blacks which is mainly concerned with issues of racism (Hooks, 117).  Bell Hooks also states that these oppositional looks are rarely concerned with gender unlike the male gaze.  While the woman in general is highly "marked" in the media, the African American woman was even more disgraced.  She was considered inferior to the white woman (and to this day still is on account of modern racism).

I have always known of the existence of the male gaze, even if maybe just subconsciously on a day to day basis.  It's come to a point where it's normal for a woman to be displayed sexually explicit in various media outputs and I would practically expect this to be the way media presented women.  It always seemed highly logical to me growing up.  I however also always considered this to be a problem ironically.  I simply passively (or actively) accepted it as it is the norm in our society, but after learning of civil activist movements such as feminist movements and such I realized that the way in which the media operated highly undermined women in our society.  They are almost nothing more than sex objects and while of course any straight man would be expected to enjoy such a reality, I find it to be a pathetic aspect of our society.

These readings helped me understand the severity of the problem further. I never really thought of that fact that even since very old paintings the women were portrayed as simply exhibits of sexuality and charm for men spectators.  Also, I find it so awkward that so many movies that come out have women as appealing to every aspect of the male gaze.  For example nearly every party movie always consists of male protagonists who set out to get the sexiest girls at their school or wherever.  Meanwhile, approximately half of the income the movie industry makes has to be from women, as women constitute half of the human population.  It just truly bothers me that so many people (especially considering women) just willingly and obliviously accept these facts of the media they consume.  The media very effectively undermines and lowers respectable status for women and minority races in our society.

Here's an article bringing up the problem on how the media is dangerous for women:
http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/?p=2565232

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Miguel Alfau