Ways of Seeing/Viewing: The Male & Oppositional Gazes

"In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly (Mulvey, 837)." There it is, the ‘male gaze.’ A term that is both literal in definition, as well as a representation of the gendered hierarchy of power and control within patriarchal society. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger presents it in a more simplified way: "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at (47)." Both Mulvey and Berger attempt to elaborate on this idea. Mulvey talks about how, in film, woman is the goal/moral/object, but not the subject of significance itself - it’s what she represents to a man (the protagonist, the presumed viewer), rather than who she is. Berger, on the other hand, discusses a variety of pieces of classic European art that exemplify women as subject (or rather, object). The viewer, who doesn’t physically exist within the context of the painting but whose invisible presence is still acknowledged, is a man by default (Berger, 54). In a nutshell, those who look, those who are allowed and expected to look, hold the power. To truly understand this concept, you have to consider it within the context of the patriarchal culture we live in; the male gaze is just one symptom of many of a prevailing power structure that aims to exert male authority and dominance as a rule. Of course, this idea extends far beyond art and film.

It’s not all that hard to see just how pervasive the male gaze is unless you’re blinding yourself to it, especially if you’re a woman. It’s everywhere. It’s in advertising, art, comics, film, manga, TV, video games, and… I mean, do I really need to go on? Granted, while everything I just listed off is an explicitly visual medium, it’s just as much a factor in things like literature as well, although perhaps in a slightly different way. Hell, I could give you a hundred examples involving video games alone. It’s a medium that almost prides itself on its boys’ club nature, the culture centering itself around its toxic masculinity by objectifying and othering women. (In the midst of typing this up, I just came across an excellent thread on Twitter that reinforces my point; plenty of examples of the advertising of video games utilizing a more explicit sort of male gaze.)

One of the most relevant and widely talked about examples in recent memory is that of Lara Croft, a symbolic character who’s been around for approx. 22 years. The newest movie reboot (and the choice of actor therein) seemed to ignite a ‘discussion’ about her identity as a sex symbol who happens to adventure, rather than an adventurer who happens to be sexy. While not central to the male gaze, there’s a rather good article about the dehumanization of women in the somewhat niche, but definitely hyped game Agony. It’s tempting to list hundreds of other specific examples in an endless plethora, but let’s look at something a little different instead.

L-R: Lara Croft, Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), and Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander). I think you get the gist of it.

Let’s talk about Minoru Mineta from the anime/manga Boku no Hero Academia. The majority of his characterization revolves around his obsession with girls and the predatory/voyeuristic tendencies he exhibits. Viewers laugh because he’s seen as ‘pathetic,’ a physically small and weak teenager who’s depicted as goofy and (almost) worthy of pity. Despite legitimately sexually harassing his classmates, he’s still regarded as fairly harmless, likely because of his stature (and the aforementioned silliness). But he’s the walking embodiment of the male gaze, a boy who sees even his fellow classmates as objects of desire rather than heroic comrades worthy of respect. This wasn’t the intent of the author, the ‘perverse but ineffective boy’ is a long-running archetype, but it’s interesting nonetheless. 

Yes, this is the guy who has a fandom divided between those who find him funny and harmless, and those who think his existence is entirely unnecessary.

Being a woman who’s attracted to women, a part of me felt complicit in this gaze for a time; I just sort of assumed that I somehow played a role as both the observer and the observed, that this ‘gaze’ was contingent on attraction rather than as a form of power. However, I’ve come to realize that that’s not really true. It took me a while to untangle the mess in my brain regarding this false equivalency. For so long, it was so easy to equate attraction with objectification when I had no other reference point for it outside of my (mostly heterosexual) male friends. Even to this day, I still wonder if I at least somehow reinforce the culture. But deep down, I know that’s not the case. I don’t (and almost can’t, I’d argue) view women through the lens of entitlement, of domination and power. I don’t suffer from the heterosexual male belief/delusion that women, or the portrayal of women in media, exist for my pleasure.

On the other hand, in The Oppositional Gaze, bell hooks explains an alternate sort of gaze that challenges this male-centric view. This ‘oppositional gaze’ is an act of rebellion, a way of reducing some of the power of looking that’s reserved for (white, heterosexual) men and repurposing it in a way that benefits those marginalized by it. But black men, hooks argued, despite lacking representation themselves, still had the option to take part in the repressed phallocentric gaze and objectification of (white) women without punishment (118). It was black women who were almost devoid of representation in film, and that what did exist wasn’t sufficient beyond perpetuating a stereotype. Because of this, as bell hooks says, "Black female spectators actively chose not to identify with the film’s imaginary subject because such identification was disenabling (122)." Instead, they chose to look at and assess these depictions through a critical, feminist lens and not accepting the status quo, it gave them the means to construct and frame their own narratives of identity. Of course, things have slowly changed over time. Film and TV shows featuring prominently black casts are finally getting attention and recognition within popular culture. Of course, there’s still a lot of work to do.

While these readings helped clarify the long history of the topic, it’s something I believe many of us are unfortunately cognizant of and accustomed to. Just as well, I’ve only grown more and more critical of what I see as I’ve gotten older. Unfortunately, if I want to enjoy much of my favorite media, I have to make the conscious decision to look past the reductive portrayals of women as the sum of their parts, rather than the whole of their selves. It may not sound like it, but I’d argue that they’re two very different things. I can’t escape the gaze, but I won’t gaze back long enough to pretend it’s not there, either. The more discussion we can generate with a variety of voices, the more awareness we bring to why this way of viewing is so important to critique, the more change will come.

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Citations:

1. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. 1973, pp. 45-64.
2. hooks, bell. "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators." Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End Press, 1992, pp. 115-31.
3. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Oxford UP, 1999, pp. 833-44.