On Ways of Viewing/Seeing

In Laura Mulvey's work, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," she explains the concept the "male gaze". The male gaze is focuses on the prominent way film and media is viewed. According to Mulvey, film and media is made specifically for white heterosexual males. The "male gaze" shows women as subjects rather than their own person. Mulvey states " The presence of woman is an indispensable element of the spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a storyline," (Mulvey 837). Mulvey also states that the use of women in media is mostly for "erotic contemplation", which means they are not seen as characters or people but as sexual objects (Mulvey 837). The male gaze proves to be problematic and can cause problems for women and men in everyday life. It can hurt the development of women because in real life they will only be seen and treated as objects, and it can hurt males by reducing them to only being interested in the objectification of women. 

In order to understand the male gaze we have to learn about the bigger issue that continues to support it, otherwise known as the patriarchy. The patriarchy continues to produce the idea that men should be more dominant in every way. But through this dominance they have to remain unemotional and uncaring; choosing to focus on mostly feelings of anger and sex rather than anything else. The male gaze is a product of this, proving that women should be viewed as sexual objects because there is the idea that males cannot like anything else. Hooks states in "The Will to Change", "patriarchy demand of men that they become and remain emotional cripples." (Hooks 27). Men are affected because they aren't allowed to feel any more emotions and unable to comprehend or care about affects on females.   

In Berger's "Way of Seeing," he writes, "Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be teated" (Berger 46).  In film and media women are treated very poorly and it affects how they are treated in real life. Women are seen as one dimensional and then are treated as objects in real life. These negative images of women produced in the media can be severely damaging because women are being treated as objects because they are constantly being showed as nothing but products that men can use. An example of this is the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, the show features models in lingerie walking downs a runway, although it can be seen as empowering for some, it can also be seen as objectifying because the women are not celebrated for anything other than walking in their underwear. The article posted shows that it is another way of objectifying women and also relates it to Berger's "Way of Seeing".  Another example of this is in perfume ads; most perfume ads are for female perfume and almost every image is of a half-naked woman. When I googled almost all the pictures were sexualized images of women. It is almost as if ads for female products were advertised to appeal for men. 

This photo is one of the first images that appears when googling perfume ads.

Women continue to be treated badly in real life and in the media, not only is sexism prominent in the male gaze, but also racism. Because the "male gaze" is seen through the white heterosexual gaze it allows for little to no room for minorities to be represented in the media accurately.  If a women is also a person of color, her role in the media is subjected to problems of both sexism in racism. In Hooks, "The Oppositional Gaze," she shows that the male gaze also focuses on maintaining white supremacy and their ideals. Minorities in the media are constantly stereotypical and unrealistic. African Americans particularly have always been harshly stereotyped and reduced to objects or funny portrayals for viewers. Even though they are seen this way the "oppositional gaze" is a way to see that there is a predominantly white view that surrounds the media and that they should not side with the negative images that are portrayed. 

In "The Oppositional Gaze" Hooks writes, "Looking at films with an oppositional gaze, Black woman were able to critically assess the cinemas construction of white woman hood as object of phallocentric gaze and choose not to identify with either the victim or the perpetrator." (Hooks 122). This shows minorities can understand the interloping lines between sexism and racism but also understand that the white perspective can be more damaging because there are other issues at hand. Sexism has dominated media and is talked about widely as a problem but racism is often more subdued. The problems are being reduced as one or the other and are not being seen as intersectional. As I got older I continued to notice the negative views of women in media. Although I usually saw white women as main characters, I tried to align myself with their ideals. Reading "The Oppositional Gaze" gave me a different outlook on perspectives because it shows that even though it is not talked about very often, that there can be a recognition of both racism and sexism.

Work Cited: 

Berger, John. Chapters 2,3. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1972. 

Filipovic, Jill. “There's Nothing Feminist About the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.”Cosmopolitan, Cosmopolitan, 18 July 2017, www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/a8387719/victorias-secret-fashion-show-empowering-feminism/.

Hooks, Bell. In Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992: 115-131.

Hooks, bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Atria Books, 2004. 

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. NY: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-844.

Young, Meghan. “Radiantly Wild Perfume Ads : Avon Instinct Fragrance.” TrendHunter.com, TREND HUNTER Inc., 9 Aug. 2013, www.trendhunter.com/trends/avon-instinct-fragrance.