Group Presentation #2: Yarelyn, Jennifer & Adel

Our presentation focuses on the theme of performance of gender. Gender is always considered as a binary concept with the result of categorizing people as either male or female. Consequently, each gender has a binary within those concepts as well on ways to act known as the feminine and masculine binary. All of these factors feed the performance of gender that becomes a cycle and manual for all to follow. Those that fall in between the binary are marginalized and chastised in society.

We use examples of transgender people to further these points. Laverne Cox and Chaz Bono  (Click names to see YouTube videos) are transgender and have publicly expressed their struggles with being born into a world that expected them to embrace the life of their respective gender, as directed by their genitalia. When Cox and Bono got to outwardly express the gender they knew was a part of their identity, they finally felt empowered. They embodied the traits of the default heterosexual male and female to get their ideas of femininity and masculinity. Where do heterosexuals get the manual for this normative behavior? We explore the idea that maybe heterosexual expression of gender is a parody of an idea of what is natural.

Drag queen Courtney Act of LogoTV's
Ru Paul's Drag Race.

With this idea of parody, gender performance among drag queens and kings are explored in our presentation using Courtney Act and Murray Hill as examples. How much of drag behavior is a parody or critique on the way a woman acts? We discuss transgender and drag in the media and what it says about society's exclusivity with respect to gender.

On ways of seeing/viewing

The male gaze is the audience view from a man's perspective.  History has shown us that the male gaze has been prioritized ever since the 1800's.  During these ages several nudes were painted to illustrate women in a vulnerable state in which she expresses nothing but a gaze towards the spectator in this case the male viewer.  The only thing women offered was to satisfy the viewer therefore she lacked of any emotion.  As John Berger Way of seeing describes "this nakedness, is not, however, an expression of her own feelings; it is a sign of her submission to the owners feelings and demands".  The male gaze is not only restricted to the male but women as well in a sense is a participant.  Berger simplifies this by saying "Men look at women.  Women watch themselves being looked at."  This statement greatly portrays the relationship women have among each other and how the male gaze has some involvement in this interaction.  Today's beauty contests are a mere example of women competing to engage and satisfy the viewer, in this case the judges who are more likely to be male.

  The male gaze is a pervasive form of vision in popular culture because this way of thinking has been part of humanity ever since the first days. The male persona is glorified and given power while women are put in this position of compliance and acceptance from the moment we are born.  Bell Hooks describes it as "Patriarchal gender roles are assigned to us as children and we are give continual guidance about the ways we can best fulfill these roles".  Not only are male to blame but women "can be as wedded to patriarchal thinking and action as men".  An example that hits close to home is about how girls are given dolls while boys are given Lego's or are allowed to play outside.  From an early age girls learn to be more communicative and expressive while boys become more spatially aware and take more leadership roles.  This is the reason why men are more prone to excel in mathematics.  The mother will frown upon a boy that will play with dolls and will correct that behavior.  

The "Oppositional Gaze" is a protest against the white supremacist capitalist imperialist.  It is the voice of the minority.  As Bell Hook looks back at the history of slavery and how many were punished for simply looking, she gives and insight of how "all attempts to repress...produced in us an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze".  She realized that although whites were to blame for this repression it was not exclusive to them because she was pained to recognize that it occurred among black communities.  Blacks were critical about issues with race and racism but lacked to consider gender.  This oppositional gaze its a declaration that "not only will I stare, I want my look to change reality".  That is its key purpose, its not only meant to defy the opposition but in some form or way to transform the world around us.

   An example of this oppositional gaze in which black females share their struggle for subjectivity is shown in Sanfocca's Passion of Remembrance.  In this film two black females attempt to change the old norm and disrupt sexist and racist portrayal of black female bodies.  Now a days many women are coming out and addressing this strong desire for subjectivity.  A short film was shared on facebook of women in Hollywood being interviewed "11 Empowering Messages to Young Women from the Oscars Red Carpet"  The common view of all these actresses and women that are part of the media was to be yourself and "do not let any institution define who you are"
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=593409397470145&fref=nf

I have come to understand this structure as part of our world.  It is present on the daily basis and it is hard to scape.  Although it is undeniable it is our duty to observe, interpret and make our own conclusion.  Liberating ourselves from patriarchal norms and fighting with an "Oppositional Gaze" will guarantee that the following generations will continue to do so.  As of now our generation is very attuned to change.  This very differently than that of older generations.  For example the recent feature of a plus size woman for their Sports Illustrator magazine.  This is a great breakthrough because what was consider to be appealing is changing with time and impossible beauty standards are changing.  

Work Cited 

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Britain: British Broadcasting Company and Penguin Books, 1972.

Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze.” Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992. 115-31.

Hooks, Bell "Understanding Patriarchy" The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love.
Washington Square Press, Dec 21, 2004.

The Male Gaze

In the mainstream representation of men and women, women are always made to be desired and guys are just there. I mean of course at times they have good looking actors but most of the time it's some average looking dopey guy with some hot wife or girlfriend, especially in comedies and action films. Generally mainstream cinema is usually aimed at heterosexual males or teenage boys. The male gaze whether its in film, art, and or music videos it presents with the same male heterosexual point of view. In these forms of media, women are usually seen as objects. 

A great example of how objectified women are in films because of the male gaze is in the film series "Transformers" by Michael Bay. Through Michael Bay's male gaze, Megan Fox is objectified when shes fixing the car, even though she is supposed to be fixing the car you would imagine the audience would like to know what she is fixing but instead the whole camera is all over her body as if it were a landscape.

Jon Berger also speaks on the male gaze in various forms of media in "Ways of Seeing". Berger discusses the male specifically in art. He explains in various painters how the observer or even the artist himself has to be a heterosexual male. "The observer is active, the image of the woman is static. She's present for the use of the man and her image is objectified sexually, cheating her body language toward him" (Berger, 47-49). Berger is simply stating how even in art the female presented in these works are simply for the male to stare at. Even at times if a male is in the painting the female in the painting is still giving us her full attention. This is because not only are the owners or observers of this work are male. The artist is also male therefore he puts the female for his enjoyment as well.

Another example of the male gaze is in advertisement. The male gaze is seen in a lot of adverts which makes no sense, but since society believes in "sex sells". A great example of the male gaze is in an advertisement for Calvin Klein. In the the ad which is trying to sell us a cologne named "Obsession" for men. The advertisement shows a fully nude Kate Moss, and no sign of a cologne. At this point not only is the advert objectifying the model but again they show no sign of the cologne they are selling. This is the male gaze at its finest (or worst). 

bell hooks speaks about the male gaze. To somewhat tackle the issue she brought up a term called the opposition gaze in one of her books title "Black Looks: Race and Representation."The oppositional gaze is the nerve to look at media in the eyes. To rebel and hold a critical eye against media depictions of black people and how massmedia effects are impacting society as a whole. (hooks, 116). bell hooks not only was a feminist but she was also against racism. Being a black female she completely ill represented. So by creating a way to attack the male gaze not only for females but for blacks and minorities as well shows a lot guts and it's definitely something that should be done more often

In the end the male gaze is really destructive and negative. It could exclude a lot of women from being a part of media for their looks either not being pretty enough or not having the right body type. But even when chosen for a part they are simply just items to be looked upon and have no further meaning other than just being there to look pretty and stimulate men for no reason. It also not only lets media dictate how women should look like or act but then also gives reasons for men to just view women as sex toys with no other function than their own stimulation.

Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Britain: British Broadcasting Company and Penguin Books, 1972.

hooks, bell. The Oppositional Gaze. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992. 115-31.

Keep Looking

Male gaze is when the audience sees the world from the perspective of a heterosexual man. The male gaze is everywhere. It hypersexualizes the female body, often focusing on female body parts considered sexual in modern culture. In Author/Auteur: Feminist Literacy Theory and Feminist Film, Magie Humm describes the female in Marie- Guihelmine Benoist’s Portrait of a Negress as “a black citoyen-therefore man’s social and political equal-yet her naked breast and naked hands, nevertheless, display the black female body as evidently available to a male gaze” (106).

As an audience we internalize these images and messages, and normalize them. Creating one form of women, discrediting actual women that exist in the real world. Women like Beyonce and Nicki Minaj are “idyllic”, women and men cherish and aspire to be them. But these women are not real, they are manufactured bodies of work by the hands of corporations that are most likely led by old, white men. Take for instance Nicki Minaj. She entered the mainstream music industry as a hyperseuxalized woman with assets that seem to increase in tandem with her fame. Her latest video, Anaconda, demonstrates how the female body is really just a tool for the male gaze. Her video devalues women and focuses their existences purely for sexual purposes.

Nicki Minaj-One of the Biggest Female Rappers to Exist, Yet Still a Caricature of the Male Gaze

Oppositional gaze defined by bell hooks is the ability for people of color, especially blacks to criticize and challenge the messages they see. “The ‘gaze’ has been and is a site of resistance for colonized black people…subordinates in relations of power experimentally that there is a critical gaze, one that ‘look’ to document, one that is oppositional.” (116) Challenging the system that exists creates a sense of agency for people of color. Resisting the hegemonic system of sexism and patriarchy, spectators gain power. Being critical of the images that are viewed, taking note of the repressive messages and engaging in a discussion that places these issues to the foreground. Oppositional gaze also results in products that resist images of black womanhood erasure, the hypersexualized female body, and the otherness of the black body.

There was a point in my life that I stopped watching movies that did not have a person of color starring in the film. I did not want to watch anymore, I was tired of not seeing anyone that looked like me. My oppositional gaze was no gaze. I told this to someone, my stance against movies without black people, and she said, “You’re missing out on so many movies.” But I don’t think that the young lady I was speaking understood why I was upset. Watching films with people perform roles that I cannot relate to, and then I cannot even relate to them on a racial level was disheartening. For me there were too many things distancing me from a film before I get the opportunity to create a connection.

Maybe not looking is a bigger issue because it limits the discussion that can happen after a viewing of a film. But it is frustrating to be a woman of color, as John Berger wrote in Ways of Seeing, women consider themselves “the surveyor and the surveyed…as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman,” I have to assume multiple roles while rejecting the images I see everywhere. Below is a GIF of Sista Queen performing a portion of Try Being a Lady. There are women who do not want to become the caricatures of women that permeate through media. Sista Queen does an amazing job of disassembling the image of women, analyzing the images that are everywhere, and stating that she is not that. She is a voice for the women who do not have a public platform, they have something to say that is different and is worth listening to.

  

Work Cited 

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Britain: British Broadcasting Company and Penguin Books, 1972.

hooks, bell. “The Oppositional Gaze.” Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992. 115-31.

Humm, Maggie. “Auteur: Feminist Literacy Theory and Feminist Film.” Feminism and Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997. 90-110.

NickiMinajAtVevo. "Anaconda." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 19 Aug 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.

SistaQueen. SistaQueen. stankonia.tumblr.com. Tumblr 22 Feb. 2015.

Miss Representation Summary

Miss Representation Summary

The film Miss Representation is an excellent documentary that sheds light on the ideals that have helped to build and maintain a system of patriarchy around the world. The film specifically addresses the mass consumption of these ideals through the use of media outlets dating as far back as the late 40's with the invention of the television. Barbara Berg states in the film"We needed a huge campaign to get these women back in the home. One of the most effective ways to do this was through television. So television was part of the re-domestication of women." The film goes on to outline the push for women to leave the workforce en masse in order to make room for men to return to positions they held prior to leaving for war. The film highlights other forms of media like movies and advertising that prey on women's anxieties about their looks in particular. Caroline Heidman states"throughout any type of mass media there is, we see the wide spread acceptance of women as sex objects, in rock videos, rap and hip hop videos and in all the summer blockbusters, women are just basically body props there for young male viewers."Many of the young women and girls featured in the film discuss the difficulties of living up to these standards of beauty set by rich white men in power. This concept is reiterated throughout the entire film. Another important concept that is represented in the film is the degradation of women by other women. Jennifer Pozner says "I think one of the worst stereotypes in reality tv is that...women are considered bitchy, catty, manipulative, vindictive not to be trusted, especially by other woman. She talks about the portrayal of women on reality tv shows like Bad Girls Club and The Bachelor where women are constantly fighting amongst themselves for the pleasure of the viewer. The film on another important concept that is often over looked which is how patriarchy affects men and how it continues to exist. "We're socializing boys to believe that being a man means being powerful and in control. Being smarter than women or being better than women or our needs get met first in relationships with women. That's not genetically predestined. That's learned behavior" says Jackson Katz. The film ends with the message that young women have to be empowered to by other women in order to tear down the patriarchal system that is in place.

The Male Gaze

The male gaze is described in media as a perspective of film created for and by a male audience. Inside the male gaze is where you can locate females being overly sexualized, objectified, and in other words, dehumanized.  With males dominating essential creative roles important to American media and its production, the male gaze is almost unavoidable. Images of women being passive, submissive, and often naked as compared to the male counterpart are what has become the standard, and is widely accepted and recognized in popular culture.

In John Berger’s article, “Ways of Seeing” he acknowledges the origin of the male gaze in European oil paintings. He states, “One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at…thus she turns herself into an object.” Berger sheds light on the fact that women are aware they are being watched by men and accept it. Women behave in a certain persona due to their recognition of being watched by men.

[In this recent picture we see a fully clothed Male, posing with a posture that extends his foot towards the viewer in an approach to state his dominance, as well as his arm being around her shoulder to convey her belonging to him. We also have a female, with more revealing clothing showing almost all of her legs and arms smiling to promote happiness, while at the same time the male doesn't require or possess a smile.]

[Male gaze in full affect here]

Bell Hooks responds to Laura Mulvey’s take on the male gaze, and coined a resistive term, “The Oppositional Gaze,” originating with black females wishing to challenge the male gaze and elaborate the ideas of what the male gaze offered. “When most black people in the United States first had the opportunity to look at film and television, they did so fully aware that mass media was a system of knowledge and power reproducing and maintaining white supremacy… it was the oppositional black gaze that responded to these looking relations by developing independent black cinema (117)”. In this selection, Bell Hooks designates the male gaze as not only an issue for females, but for black women in particular, and blacks in general.

I’ve come to recognize the influence of media and how it’s affected my own identity. I’ve become more conscious, acquainted, and cautious of the media I consume. It’s important to realize the motive behind the imaging that take place with not only with gender roles in media, but also with representations of all people in media. This is directly associated with racial, religious, and cultural stereotypes and how they affect society all together.

It’s important to really dissect these visuals and get an understanding of what it is really promoting. As a result, we have women being bombarded with images in the form of film, photography, and advertisements being told that their way to success is through the validation of a male. That in order to succeed one must sacrifice their own identity, and be sexually desirable towards men in any situation.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/02/07/sexualized-culture-still-views-women-pieces-meat/22992605/

G A Z E

            The male gaze is the eye through which life for the modern day American and many other cultures around the world are perceived.  The stereotypical heterosexual male is the target audience for all media where female characters are overtly sexualized and undermined by the male presence.  It is the typical form in popular culture because most of the power players behind the scenes that control the media are heterosexual males This perception has become the norm in the industry, so much so that women have accepted it (Click to see the status of women in media http://wmc.3cdn.net/6dd3de8ca65852dbd4_fjm6yck9o.pdf). This blind acceptance of women's objectification by women themselves is followed by many consequences for women internally, as John Berger describes, "A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself." As we become more aware of the forces making women accepting of the belief that the objectification of women is the norm, we begin to fight back against being trapped in a man’s world by beginning to be more critical of the world around us and not just critical of ourselves.

A parody (but pretty realistic view of the relationship between men
and women back then) of a woman's relationship to a man
from the perspective of a heterosexual man.

            The male gaze has been pervasive in our culture for centuries even before the media was as widespread as it is today. Author Laura Mulvey writes about artist Marie-Guiihelmine Benoist’s painting in 1800 named Portrait of a Negress featuring a somewhat half naked woman and its male gaze connotations: “…man’s social and political equal – yet her naked breast and naked hands, nevertheless, display the Black female body as evidently available to a male gaze”. This speaks to the concept of women being constantly watched by men and being seen as nothing more than her body. This standard for women is constantly maintained not only by men, but also by other women judging others like her. It is almost like a brainwashing system that girls internalize from a young age, and believe is their duty to fulfill the norms of a woman set by man. 

The oppositional gaze is similar to the male gaze in that it is the perspective of the ‘other’. In the case of oppositional gaze, the focus is more on race and cultural differences between the norms and ‘other’, as opposed to gender. This phenomenon has been more pronounced in popular culture for African Americans. The typical negative portrayal of African Americans in the media continues to force the race disparity to widen. This type of gaze can be used as a weapon to combat these effects as described by Hooks when writing, “Looking at films with an oppositional gaze, black women were able to critically assess the cinema’s construction of white womanhood as object of phallocentric gaze and choose not to identify with either the victim or the perpetrator.” Identification is a strong part of the media. To be an engaged audience, many tend to identify with characters on the screen, entertaining themselves, but also picking up values and lessons on how to act in the real world as they watch. They are forcing themselves to live up to a fictional characters' standards. When women stop trying to identify with the made up characters, and the fictitious ways that we should act, we are combatting our oppositional gaze to turn away from the cage that continues to enslave us. The same is also true for the standards given to men by the media on how to act like an appropriate heterosexual man.

     

Bell Hooks traces back time to when she believes the gaze originated. Hooks begins at slavery where white slave-owners punished African American slaves for simply looking. The literal gaze taught African Americans not to look and it moved over into parenting where children were taught not to look as a connotation of having manners. The oppositional gaze of not looking was transformed with media.

When most black people in the United States first had the opportunity to look at film and television, they did so fully aware that mass media was a system of knowledge and power reproducing and maintaining white supremacy. To stare at the television, or mainstream movies, to engage its images, was to engage its negation of black representation. It was the oppositional black gaze that responded to these looking relations by developing independent black cinema. (Hooks, 117)

Cartoon showing that feminism does not
exist for the sake of pushing the idea that
women are better than men, but that
we should work together
towards equality.

            Hooks speaks a lot about viewing the media critically as a part of the oppositional gaze. After this class I have truly been critical of the things I watch to get to the root meaning of what it is that I am watching. Now as I watch my shows and see racial and gender offensive undertones, I wonder who wrote the script, who was in the room and approved, and why am I as a woman in the audience so accepting of it. The structure put in place today is set up in such a way that the heterosexual white male is always on top.  The worst part, and the seemingly consequential part, is when society reflects the disparity and discrimination of the media world. It is best to stay out of Hollywood and start looking at the issues in the real world in a deeper context than just the surface, and bring men along for the cause. By acting ignorant of the injustices before me, I am supporting the belief that women are solely sexual objects, and I am supporting the fact that the world should accept me as a second-class citizen.

Work's Cited

Berger, John. "Ways of Seeing." 1972. 45-64.

Hooks, Bell. "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators." Black Looks : Race and Representation. 115-130.

Mulvey, Laura. "Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film." Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. 90-110.