Male Gaze and Oppositional Gaze

The “male gaze” is a phrase coined by Laura Mulvey in her literary work “Visual Pleasure”. In today’s word male gaze is a term we never pay attention to but is ever present. From most advertising involving women, to most music videos, women are portrayed as a sexual object, where we want it or crave it and your attention is drawn to her. From looking at photos and old paintings from the article, the attention is lingering on the curves of the female body and the events in which occur to women are presented largely in the context to a men’s reaction to these events. It makes the woman more like an object. “…Becomes his property, los [t] her outward glamorous characteristics… her eroticism [was] subjected to the male star alone.” (Mulvey, pg 840)

The female viewer of any of the text must experience the narrative secondary, in the context of the man’s reaction to these events. The presences of a woman in mainstream film texts are something that can be vital. The female is not really important, it is how she makes the men act or feel which is important.

In this particular music video by “Nick and Knight”, they are speaking about a relationship, but you as are the viewer are not thinking about the music or the lyrics, you are thinking about the girls in the video dancing and shaking, and seducing the men. Understanding the male gaze the can best be described as the power an individual or a group has over another individual or group. For example in this video the men are taking photos of the women and they are posing and moving their mouths in a provocative way. This reminds me of this quote from Berger:
“She turns herself into an object and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”(Berger, 47) In regards to the male gaze, it can be defined as the sense of power a man has over women and the way in which women are objectified in different forms of media in order to cater to the predominant male audience in this case would be the girls posing and flirting in front of the camera This concept of the male gaze in film and other forms of media is created due to the notion that the individual behind the lens is a white male and anything captured is for the pleasure of this male. The best part about the example is that the two men are white males, and basically summing up the example in this one media text.

The male gaze can be seen in many forms of media targeted towards men in which women are used to sell whichever product and almost always either provocatively dressed or naked, in this case however two old “boy band”, members are singing and targeting a female white audience who fantasizes are dreams of how life with “Nick and Knight” would be.

The oppositional gaze is the power of looking in contrast to the male gaze in general. In my life for example I related to this because being a female, it is a confrontational gesture and a gesture of resistance. bell hooks coined this theory because in order to develop an oppositional gaze and a critical consciousness, we must all consider the perspective of how we look, and encourages black woman and all women for that matter not accept the stereotypes in film but to actively critique and learn about them. The extent to which black women feel devalued, objectified, dehumanized in this society determines the scope and texture of their looking relations. Those black women whose identities were constructed in resistance, by practices that oppose the dominated, were most inclined to develop an oppositional gaze.”(hooks, 127) 

 A black oppositional gaze offers a critical space to replace the oppositions of Mullvey, and a new pleasure too. In order to understand this perspective coned by bell hooks, her readings mean to me that us as females should be more conscious and critical when coming into contact with the media. In order to fully understand this term a person should be more aware of how the media is and modify the messages and images as well as have an educated critical eye. Basically hooks, argument is for us to be conscious of the media content rather than accept the subject positions and the values of the people who are putting that media context out there. The oppositional gaze is a conscious and mindful way in which the modern media engages in the selling of culture.

I never realized how many things in all media had all these ideas coined into one. It opened my eyes as a consumer and as a woman to see these things that are out there and try to analyze and critique them as now a more educated person on the subject matter. For example only one Disney Movie has made things "not about a man" and the true love of a sister. The clip from "The Weekend" from the "50 Shades of Grey" soundtrack, show the women as sex toys, and the man as the leader. Is this the message we want to give people about how men truly view us? You decide.

Works cited:

1.Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books
2.hooks, bell (1992) Black Looks : Race and Representation, Chapter 7 "The Oppositional Gaze"
3. Mulvey, Laura (1975) "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and Criticism