The Male Gaze + The Oppositional Gaze

The male gaze is a term that was first applied to art and paintings, but is now applied to film, photography or any kind of visuals.  The male gaze occurs when the viewer or the audience is put in the perspective of a heterosexual male.  The woman is the subject of the visuals, but rather portrayed as a woman, she is objectified for not only the audience, but for the creator of the visuals as well.  John Berger in Ways of Seeing states that “men act and women appear” (47).  Berger is starting that men are the active participants, where they are the creators and the viewers of these visuals, while the woman simply just “appear.” Laura Mulvey also points out the relationship between men and women in the media in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, where she discusses the male gaze.  She states “pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female”.  (837)

Take this bra ad for instance. The woman has a fixed gaze into the camera or the viewer.  Although this is an advertisement to convince women to purchase the bra, to me, I think it speaks more to men than women.  The text of the ad, “I can’t cook. Who cares?”, seems to be speaking to men rather than women and telling them why to purchase their bra. Beger states that “every one of her actions - whatever its direct purpose or motivation -  is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated” (47). The manner in which she is holding the straps of her bra reminds me of how farmers (or guys in general) would hold their suspenders when they mean business (or want to get to business).

Another example in popular culture that the male gaze can be applied to is a music video by Jennifer Lopez, If You Had My Love. The video features Jennifer Lopez is the object, where we, the viewer are supposed to relate to the male figure in the video, who is watching Lopez through the video cameras.  Lopez is performing for the male character, and for anyone who was watching the stream, as if she knows she is being watched by the world.

                   

In The Oppositional Gaze, bell hooks examines another gaze, similar to the gaze that Mulvey writes about.  The gaze the hooks discusses is the oppositional gaze, which pertains to race, and how it is portrayed in the media.   She states “even when representations of black women were present in film, our bodies and being were there to serve - to enhance and maintain white womanhood as object of the phallocentric gaze” (119).  Black women were portrayed in films and television shows, but not in the most accurate and realistic manner.  They were portrayed in an unrealistic manner to make white women to be more attractive and more desirable on screen and camera.  Although it may not seem present as much now, it does still exist and it is a problem that does need to be addressed.
Reading these journal articles reinforces the notion of “sex sells” that I was always aware of.  But reading Berger, made me open my eyes more, and realize that there is more to look at.  I never really thought about the relationship between men and women in terms of men “act” and women “appear”.
As a media maker, think I have to do my part and help educate others or to not include these stereotypes, and hopefully they will appear less in our society and the media that we all consume.