Blog Post #2
The male gaze is defined as the objectification of women in the media when only being portrayed through the the heterosexual male lens. As women and men and viewers we see this taking place on a consistent basis and as time wears on it has gotten increasingly worse. For instance when watching a scene on any number of shows on the local networks and a female character walks in the room, typically the character is panned by the camera from bottom to top for the pleasure the male viewer at home. Female characters are hypersexulized not for the sake of adding depth to the character but in direct pleasure for the male viewer. This occurs whether its a show regarding heroism of a commercial on yogurt.
I remember once since a short commercial during the superbowl where John Stamos is enjoying said yogurt and intentionally puts it on his face and of course our beautiful model/prop first uses her fingers to remove the yogurt and sexually licks the yogurt, then she continues to lick Stamos’s lips it continues in this sexual manner until Stamos deliberately drop yogurt between in his legs sexually suggesting that she go down under and perform oral sex. Of course this commercial did not depict an asexual female but a willing participant with a sultry look who seemed eager...mind you this is a YOGURT commercial. We have all these films and portrayals of women for the sake of the male gaze not the intellectual merit of the female or her character or even her as a person.
(John Stamos Commercial)
Laura Mulvey continues to stress the difference of women being objectified and being represented on the screen. She reviews Broken Mirror and A Question of Silence and supports how the film explores “women's experience and sexual exploitation ,violence and the everyday domestic abuses of heterosexuality and sexual division of labor (Mulvey,108).” These films touch on this issues and do not objectify the women but depicts them as characters. However, as time progress the industry is not going in the right direction it is essentially moving backwards in an uncensored manner. Its no longer a question of creating a female character of merit but getting the sexist actress that will drive men and boys to go to the theaters.
Megan Fox I'm talking about you! Just a sexy actress to drive men to go to the theaters.
John Berger who made this observation in the 70’s about art from the 18th century that “One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear.” Even from hundreds years ago the systematic placement of creating women as the object is what takes occurs center place. They are there for the pleasure of men not as a representation of self. They are to be surveyed and analyzed and judged BEFORE their treatment. Berger again words it as such “The prize is to be owned by a judge-that is to be available for him (Berger,52) .”It could be an image, a painting, a commercial,a music video, etc but 99% of the time the result is the same, the sexuialized female who subconsciusly suggests she seeks her make arrival through the form of her body.
Bell Hooks states in The Will to Change “Patriarchy requires male dominance by any means necessary, hence it supports, promotes and condones sexist violence(Hooks, 24).” This occurs in the public discourse of the male/female relationship. Even though its not presented in this manner to the public the overt way it is suggested with the strong male character who expresses anger at the female character are contributing factors and is conveyed to the public which in turn results in domestic abuse and other situations of abuse. The oppositional gaze is the gaze of defiance to be objectified and to fight against the norm of being objectified by men. The female as an individual is no longer valued but at body value and this is where the opposition must come.
As long as the situation continues in the realm media and mainstream media does not take action against these stereotypical objectified women the result will always the same over and over again...or worse. Oversexualized women available and viewed for the sake of men and not as a representation of a real women.
Perfect Example of the Oversexualized Male Gaze
Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books
Hooks, Bell (1992) Black Looks : Race and Representation, Chapter 7 "The Oppositional Gaze"
Mulvey, Laura (1975) "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and Criticism
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