Post #2 - On Ways of Seeing/Viewing

The male gaze is a pervasive form of vision in popular culture that sees the world through the lens of a rich, straight, white and probably old man. This vision is one that has been indoctrinated from birth when a person is categorized as being a man or woman. Men gain the upperhand because their role assumes them to be spectators and power holders that have the abilities to form their specific type of women. According to Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey she states, “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female” (Mulvey 837). In other words, the perspective is that men act whereas women appear and men do whereas women are.

Male Gaze Picture by Affinity Magazine 2017

Women are believed to be unable to exist without the presence of a male. Therefore, women are deemed as being completely dependent on men. Examples of the male gaze can often be found in many European paintings depicting the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Eve also referred to as the embodiment of all women, stands with Adam unclothed and knowing yet the negative emotions of shame and nudity are emphasized onto Eve alone. As Berger states it in Ways of Seeing, “...Nakedness is simply to be without clothes, whereas the nude is a form of art” (Berger 53). To put differently, nakedness is created in the mind of the beholder who not so shockingly is man. Men the typical artists of this time period intentionally placed their version of Eve as objects on display to fulfill their own pleasures and fantasies while still finding a way to displace some of their own shame onto her. Berger’s debate between nakedness versus nude emphasizes the difference in being oneself and being for others. The male gaze remains popular today because men still demand the service of the industry they’ve created.

Looking back, I have always been surrounded by media involving the male gaze, especially when it comes to Disney movies. Characters such as Megara from Hercules, Jasmine from Aladdin, Ariel from Little Mermaid, Bell from Beauty and the Beast, etc. all have small waists and a more than small chest size. These females were made to be seen as flawless almost to the point where it could even be deemed sexy. All of these qualities were designed to appeal to a male audience. Even the story lines all surround the topic of a guy. Disney is mainly catering to the male portion of audiences wants, and what society has been conditioned to accept.

Sexualized Jasmine in Disney Aladdin 1992

The oppositional gaze is the idea that there is power in looking. Bell Hooks uses the argument of race and gender in the Oppositional Gaze saying, “Even when representation 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” (Hooks 119). To put differently, a black woman’s role back in the day was to remain unseen/ complicitly adopting her role as opposed to actively critiquing it. An example of this would be the Mammy character which was initially created by whites to demasculinize the black man and defeminize the black woman so that they were deemed unfit for civilization since they supposedly could not follow gender norms. The Mammy is typically portrayed having a deep voice, who is large in stature and tough by nature. However, what the oppositional gaze does is resist misinterpretations such as these that try and maintain the idea of subservience that has been passed down since slavery.

I’ve come to understand that a gaze is not just about looking someone deeply in their eyes but rather a way in which media can communicate non-verbally with audiences. Gazes can in fact be beneficial in the way that they can infer power, control and confidence. Although, as a media consumer I’m going to get myself more in the habit of critiquing these gazes that the films want me to follow. Given that many stereotypes exist and content that is not seen is just important as what is, I would like to re-examine history and get those missing parts to even up with what I think I already know. Other than that there are moving dynamics that I see having been applied to social relationships which include the heterosexual male, the internal surveyor (myself) and other women, and I have to learn that I don’t always have to watch myself like society wants me to believe.

Citations:

1. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Oxford UP, 1999, pp. 837.
2. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. 1973, pp. 53.
3. Hooks, Bell. "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators." Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End Press, 1992, pp. 119.