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Is the male gaze still a relevant concept? Using historical and contemporary visual examples, assess whether the male gaze still exists.
The male gaze is a concept that refers to how visual culture is designed to please a male viewer by sexually objectifying women. It was first coined by Laura Mulvey, a British feminist film critic, in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975). She argues that Hollywood films use women as “erotic objects” [1] in order to provide pleasurable experience for heterosexual male audiences.
John Berger, English art critic also refers to the concept in “Ways of seeing” (1972). He observed that “(…) men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” [2] As even in situation
where woman might be the viewer she will still be watching through the male gaze.
[Woman's beauty] gives the eye the comforting illusion of intellectual control over nature. (Paglia, p.17)
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
Mainstream movies are about men’s lives, and the few movies about women’s lives, at their core, still also revolve around men (Newsom, 2011). These female leads often have male love interests, looking to get married or get pregnant. Strong independent female leads are still exist for the male view, as they are hypersexualized, or the “fighting fuck toy,” (Newsom, 2011). This depiction has created a culture where women are insecure and waiting for a knight on a horse to come rescue and provide for her as well as the acceptance of women
know beauty in any form”(86). We are so conditioned to see female beauty as what men
For my breaching experiment, I decided to break the social norm of looking at someone while engaged in conversation with them. Today, it is socially unacceptable and impolite to avoid looking at someone when talking to them. The background assumption for a typical conversation is that direct eye contact will be made more often than not; otherwise social norms are being violated. Avoiding eye contact during an exchange tends to dehumanize the person that is not receiving the eye contact. It is impolite and offensive, not looking at someone who is talking makes it seem as though the topic being discussed is unimportant. For my research experiment I would constantly talk to someone without initiating eye contact, or with my back facing toward the subject, not turning around or making eye contact until I had to ring up their order or make the drink for them. This research is important because it uncovers what happens when the social norm of
By focusing on the production of Absent through the lens of a feminist spectator it is possible to clarify the effect of immersive spectatorship on the male gaze. Feminist spectatorship entails readership of a performance against the dominant ideology to exhibit how a performance address the ideal white, straight male spectator. Typically, performances will “employ culturally determined gender codes that reinforce cultural conditioning.” These representations encourage the male spectator to identify with a male hero, while both women in the production and as spectators are passive. For example, the Duchess has no agency in her story. Every news articles refers to her not as her own person, but as an ex-wife. Every aspect of her narrative is
modern media is objectified and put on the screen for male viewers. Films are a
[3] John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapter 1, The social presence of men and women, page 5, 1972
AKECHI, H. et al. 2013. Attention to Eye Contact in the West and East: Autonomic Responses and Evaluative Ratings. PloS one, Vol.8(3), e59312
A common phrase used about the eyes is that, “the eyes are the window to the soul.” This phrase is not necessarily true; however, it gives a good perspective on how people use eyes to judge a person’s character. First of all, eye contact is a great communication tool and can be used effectively in social situation. Second, a teacher can use eye contact to help their interaction with students. Third, employers want a future employee to have good eye contact to know that the employee is listening and will understand the job they are asked to perform. Eye contact is important and can determine a person’s true thoughts and opinions. The use of eye contact in socializing is important.
Feminist theory was derived from the social movement of feminism where political women fight for the right of females in general and argue in depth about the unequality we face today. In the aspect of cinema, feminists notice the fictitious representations of females and also, machismo. In 1974, a book written by Molly Haskell "From Reverence to Rape: The treatment of Women in Movies" argues about how women almost always play only passive roles while men are always awarded with active, heroic roles. Moreover, how women are portrayed in movies are very important as it plays a big role to the audience on how to look at a woman and how to treat her in real life due to the illusionism that cinema offers. These images of women created in the cinema shapes what an ideal woman is. This can be further explained through an article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' written by a feminist named Laura Mulvey in 1975. She uses psychoanalysis theories by Sigmund Freud to analyze 'Scopophilia' which is the desire to see. This explains how the audience is hooked to the screen when a sexy woman is present. In a bigger picture, where Scopophilia derives from, 'Voyeurism' is also known as feeling visual pleasure when looking at another. Narcissism on the other hand means identifying one's self with the role played. It is not hard to notice that in classical cinema, men often play the active role while the women are always the object of desire for the male leads, displayed as a sexual object and frequently the damsels in distress. Therefore, the obvious imbalance of power in classical cinema shows how men are accountable to moving the narratives along. Subconsciously, narcissism occurs in the audience as they ...
16.)Utt, Jamie. "Navigating The Difference Between The Appreciation of Beauty and Sexual Objectification." Everyday Feminism 18 Apr. 2013: n. pag. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. .
“Woman…[are] bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command, by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning not maker of meaning” (Mulvey 1). Laura Mulvey, a British feminist film theorist who wrote a psychoanalysis paper called Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, believes that the gendered gaze, a symbolic theory that holds that men drive society while woman act as mere “provoking” objects to men, is beginning to take hold of society and everyday life. John Berger, who interestingly enough wrote his book, Ways of Seeing, two years before Mulvey’s paper, explains how “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at… thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” (Berger 47).
The old saying that "eyes are a reflection of your inner self" holds true in most cases. There are a lot of meanings to eye contact. It can be a glaring look when a person is defiant or angry. A stare when we see something unusual about the person (staring obtrusively is rude!). A glazed over look when we are hopelessly in love with the person. It can also be a direct look when we are talking and trying to make a point.
From my first observation, I was located at my local Starbucks. It was a good day to go that day, because there was many different types of people there. I was able to see quite a few different types of interactions. I had noticed that I was also displaying nonverbal eye behavior while I was there. Such as, the use of scanning, which in the textbook states on page 92, “our eyes scan, focus, and collect information about the world around us” (Richmond, McCroskey, and Hickson 2012). I also noticed that I was not the only person that did that. Most of the costumers that walked in did that. I also exchanged the eye behavior of civil inattention with a Policeman. I watched the interaction between two friends, whom were woman. They were in mutual gaze pretty much most of their conversation and rarely would get out