The Male Gaze, The Oppositional Gaze, and My Gaze (post 2)

          Media images are controlled images. They are purposefully constructed to grab or direct the attention of an audience. To direct the audience, the use of a gaze is employed. This gaze is meant not only to hold the attention of the audience, but also to denote relationships between characters on screen. As it stands now, the gaze that is employed to do so, is called the "male gaze." This gaze is exclusionary and does not allow for each viewer to take part in the pleasure of viewing equally. In fact, as Laura Mulvey and John Berger, both prominent feminist writers, conclude the male gaze only engages men (white heterosexual men) and unjustly uses women (white heterosexual women) as a way to fuel the male ego. While Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema describes the male gaze in the context of cinema, John Berger’s Ways of Seeing gives multiple examples of the gaze in action in the category of oil painting known as the nudes. It is only through the juxtaposition of race and gender that a different gaze, an oppositional gaze, is formed. This oppositional gaze, which is further explained by Bell Hooks in The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectatorship, is slowly  being put to use in media  today.

various example of the male gaze in cinema, advertising, etc.

          In Laura Mulvey’s essay Visual Pleasure and Cinema Narrative, she states that through the male gaze men become “bearers of the look of the spectator (838).” That is to say that the eyes of the audience are directed by the male on screen. She goes on the say that due to this relationship the male has power and can command the space around him. “ As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look on to that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence (Mulvey 838).” Mulvey inherently states that as the spectator, a male, relates to the male figure on screen the spectator places himself himself in a position of power. I presume the reason that this relationship exists is because of relatability—people can relate to those of similar origin. As a result the man that feels free to command will, identify with the male protagonist that is also free to command. In contrast, she asserts that women that are viewed through this gaze are “passive images” whose bodies are turned into objects that “[play] to and [signify] male desire (Mulvey 837).” These women do not exist on their own. They have no agency for themselves, and their bodies are “displayed for men’s enjoyment (Mulvey 839),” never their own. Viewed through the male gaze, the presence of a woman is dependent on the relationship she has with the male.

          The male gaze that Laura Mulvey describes is such a pervasive way of seeing because it has been continually employed in various media forms. I believe the gaze has been reused so many times because these media, painting, video, cinema, and so on have all been male dominated or have simply catered to men, a white heterosexual man. In John Berger Ways of Seeing, he analyzes how oil paintings, a very traditional media, employ

A visual comparison from Ways of Seeing,
between Ingres's
La Grande Odalisque (1814) and a pinup:
"Is not the expression remarkably similar in each case?

the same male gaze in regards to the category of the nude. However, he does make convincing parallels of the nudes from early renaissance to the representation of women in advertising and pornography (Berger 36-42, 55).  These nudes and even the women from advertisements and nude photographs were reduced to their bodies. They existed for the purpose of the spectator-owner (male) that commissioned such images. The body of the nude, and all those that follow the example, was arranged in a way to be seen. The image of the nudes’ body was meant to “appeal to the [man’s] sexuality. [The image] had nothing to do with her sexuality (Berger 55).” The woman exists to affirm the spectator’s view, ownership, and manhood. She has no agency of her own.  

Archetype of a black woman that cared for
 the children of a white family

          While Mulvey and Berger seem to echo one another’s ideas, they do not consider how other factors such as race, class, and sexual relations inform spectatorship (Hooks 117). Mulvey, while she uses the word women does not insist that the race of a woman plays a part in the male gaze, nor does Berger. The examples of the male gaze in action that Mulvey and Berger give are all of white women. Therefore, this male gaze is epitomizing white womanhood, even while turning white women into objects of desire. What then is the role of a woman of color in the male gaze? Bell Hooks writes that the representation of black females in film were either “to enhance and maintain white womanhood (119)” (which introduced the image of the Mammy), or “to soften the image of black men, to

 The Sapphire  Archetype is meant to
emasculate Black men. Black female are
domineering and masculine  in this archetype

make them seem vulnerable …unthreatening to a white audience (120)”, by emasculating black men, as a result the image of Sapphire was born. Both images the Mammy and the Sapphire show that under the male gaze black women become tools to the further the desire of white male while also maintaining the status quo of white supremacy. These representations of black women were detrimental, repulsive, and caused many black female viewers to abstain from watching movies too deeply or all together. These women had to watch movies “at an arm’s length” in order not to be hurt by damaging stereotypes. However, it is only through resisting this gross misrepresentation/absence of black womanhood that the oppositional gaze in formed. When black women actively “interrogate” the works that have erased or distorted their images and promote white womanhood (Hooks 128), they are employing the use of the oppositional gaze. Examples of this oppositional gaze have steadily moved into the sphere of today’s media. Television shows, books and, plays that feature multi-dimensional black female characters, serve as a way to critique and depose harmful stereotypes of black women that are still being portrayed today.

Some highly skilled female Martial artists(?) from
 manga series History's Strongest Disciple
 Kenichi

          I as a media consumer have seen countless examples of the male gaze being used on women. Manga, anime, comic books, video games, and movies were all my favorite ways of escaping reality for a moment. However, as I grew older I noticed that depictions and story lines concerning women were all so similar that they could have been identical if not for the medium used. The woman always inspired action in her male counterparts, but never took action herself.  For every zoom in on an ample bosom gleefully “boing-ing” or bouncing in manga/anime there was one for a movie. For every camera that painstakingly outlined the legs of a woman, or every seen shot taken between a woman’s legs there was one in a video game. I as a young woman saw these images so often that they did not shock me after a while. It is only recently that I have snapped out of my numbness. In regards to consuming media as a black female, I learned at a very early age that finding a convincing representation of a black woman in any media was nearly impossible. When it came to black women/girls, they were angry, loud, high school dropouts, unwanted, and unloved. They were Mammies, Jezebels, and Sapphires in makeovers. They were stereotypes stacked on stereotypes. They were never black women. However, I never turned away from media that did not include the presence of black females or represented black females negatively. I considered those moments as a learning experiences for when I decide to make my own media, my own characters--my own representation.

  

Works Cited :
-Laura Mulvey Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema 
-John Berger Ways of Seeing 
-Bell Hooks The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectatorship