On Ways of seeing / viewing

The “male gaze”  is the  concept that women are portrayed as objects to be desired by the white, male spectator. In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey writes “ In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.” (Mulvey 837). This concept is heavily present in all forms of media from video games to cinema. The examples in cinema are vast and to the point where a female character will often seem flat because of a dissonance between the story and the how they are visually presented.

In Michael Bay’s Transformers, Meghan fox’s character embodies this dissonance perfectly. Her character is written as an intelligent, loyal, reliable character who consistently saves the protagonist from peril but is presented visually with close-up shots of her constantly glistening skin. This can be seen here. As a male viewer I have often overlooked this sort of thing, not realizing the impact this has on perceptions of gender in society. Having this be brought to my attention has completely changed my view on characters.

The above example is notable especially because my initial impression of the character when watching the film when I was younger was that she lacked depth even though, as written, she is almost more fleshed out than the protagonist. This reflects the quote by Berger “men act and women appear” (Berger 47). The male protagonist is shown to be an agent of his own character arc, moving through his own story as a sort of undeserving hero, while Meghan Fox’s character is portrayed from an overly eroticized lens. This kind of portrayal reinforces the idea that women are here to be watched as objects of sexual desire, not agents of self-fulfillment like male characters.

                This problem even exists in the way movies are advertised. I recall a few years ago when a key visual from Avengers (2012) depicted the only female superhero in the film In a hyper-sexualized way while the male characters took stances of imposing power. The female character was portrayed with her butt facing camera while the male characters were standing tall and resolute. It was almost comedic to a degree because of the level of absurdity in this seemingly obvious problematic portrayal.

The male gaze has been incredibly pervasive because it reflects the patriarchal structure of our society and the heavily reinforced norms that it comes with. If films are made mostly by and for white male spectators, then it will reflect that. The “oppositional gaze” is a phenomenon described by Bell Hooks, while she explained the power that exists within a gaze. The oppositional gaze is a black woman’s response to the lack of proper representation in media. The idea was that Black men could still subscribe to the gendered structure presented on screen but a Black Woman could not subscribe to the ideas of whiteness, or male power presented in these films. The oppositional gaze is the resistance by black women to the stereotypical presentations of black women in film. Bell hooks states “ it was the oppositional black gaze that responded to these looking relations by developing independent black cinema” (hooks 117). Black people gained a voice in media that was different from that of white cinema, one that forgoes the traditional ideas of black women represented by jezebel and Mammy characters.

Works cited:

Mulvey, Laura (1999) “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford UP: Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen.

Berger, John, Dibb (1972). “Ways of Seeing.” London: BBC Enterprises

Hooks, Bell (1992). “The Oppositional Gaze.” In Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press