Socialization
is a key component in understanding the ways of seeing. It is the continuous
process by which individuals come to identify and comprehend the world around
them. Images within the media play a significant role in an individual’s
understanding of the world, in that it provides examples of the supposed ‘accepted’
norms and cultures within a society. In that individuals are constantly
learning and developing through observation, mass media images formulate the general
narratives and understandings within popular culture. The political-social
system of patriarchy plays a major role in creating the narrative for social
learning in that traditional and modern forms of mass media, to a large extent,
have been curated by financially powerful heterosexual white males. The media images
thus overwhelmingly reflect their skewed story.
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| "She is not naked as she is. She is naked as the spectator sees her (Berger, 50)" This painting clearly depicts the way in which the nude woman is a portrayl of what the male viewer spectator owner wants to see, not a representation of the woman herself. |
The
concept of the male gaze, established by the feminist film critic Laura Mulvey,
argues that the visual arts, particularly film, has been formulated for and
around the male viewer. Within varying forms of media, women are the ‘image,’
the object. Inherently women have no importance other than to be seen and
sexualized for the man, the ‘bearer of the look’ (Mulvey, 837). Similar to
Mulvey, in the Ways of Seeing, Berger
reflects on depictions of women in media, particularity European oil paintings
of the 1800s. Berger discusses the representations of women through highlighting
the differences between nakedness and nude within these painting. Berger argues
that to depict a women as naked it to depict her merely without clothing.
Berger displays two paintings of women represented as naked. Within both of the
photos the women are in action, they have agency because they are in control of
what is being viewed (58-60). A nude, however, is a stylized painting or photo
which has been created for and/or by the viewer spectator owner for their own
pleasure. Women, within these paintings, are constantly depicted as passive, as
to not pose a challenge to the spectator (50-57). The woman is there to ‘feed
the appetite’ of the owner of the painting, not to have an appetite of her own.
To take it a step further, Berger explains that society (as created for and by
heterosexual white males) then blames the woman within the painting for her sexuality.
Berger acknowledges the painting Vanity. Berger
thus comments on the fact that the artist placed the mirror in her hand, stylized
the women as a nude for his own pleasure and blamed her for being narcissistic
(51). Through observation and absorption, individuals within the society, who
view these images in art, begin to see the male and female through specific
lens.
The
concept of the male gaze transcends past the sexualized two-dimensional image
into reality. The way in which women begin to see themselves is in reflection
to the objectified woman within the image. Within the essay The More You Subtract, The More You Add, Kilbourne
states,
“The culture both reflected and reinforced by advertising, urges girls to adapt a false self, to bury alive their real selves, to become “feminine,” which means to be nice and kind and sweet, to compete with other girls for the attention of boys, and to value romantic relationships above all else. (130).”
“The culture both reflected and reinforced by advertising, urges girls to adapt a false self, to bury alive their real selves, to become “feminine,” which means to be nice and kind and sweet, to compete with other girls for the attention of boys, and to value romantic relationships above all else. (130).”
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| Each Disney Princess argues the meaning behind the images presented in these movies and how it could be understood within a society. |
Women and girls learn through
images in the media of which qualities are important to have. It is important
to be ‘feminine,’ to be passive, to be beautiful, to have a body. It is
important to become the ideal women in order to attain a man. The phallocentric
gaze, however, to a large extent, has only been present within white feminist theory.
Not to say that women of color cannot feel objectified, but to say that in
traditional forms of media, particularly Hollywood film, the “…phallocentric
spectatorship where the women to be looked at and desired is “white” (Hooks,
118).”
As a means of resistances, as a
means to establish agency for feeling largely invisible within media, Bell Hooks
establishes the concept of the oppositional gaze. The oppositional gaze is to
look in opposition to patriarchy, to white supremacy, to forms of domination
and misrepresentation. The oppositional gaze it to be critical and “to engage [mainstream
movies] images, to engage its negation of black [female]
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| Photographer Carrie Mae Weems captions an image of herself, "Looking into the mirror, the black woman asked. 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the finest of them all?' The mirror says, 'Snow White, you black bitch, and you don't forget it!!!" Weems, using the critical eye of the oppositional gaze, questions conventional ideas of beauty. |
The inherent problem with media is the
unconscious absorption with which individuals consume these images. In order to
discuss my ways of seeing and viewing I must first establish my relationship
with the media. Before taking media classes I was largely unaware of the way in
which the images were affecting my sense of self, as well as others sense of
self. Being a white woman I was largely blind to the racism and the gendered
norms depicted in media before the exposure. Although mostly gendered through patriarchal
norms, at least representations of myself were in existence. Being a white
woman it could be easy to understand Mulvey and Berger to see the phallocentric
gaze and the objectification of the white woman. What I have come to know and
understand of the oppositional gaze is to be critical in looking. To fully and
constantly think about misrepresentation in media and to also analyze what is
and what is not being shown.
Works Cited
Bell Hooks: Black Looks: race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.
Jean Kilbourne: The More You Subtract, The More You Add
John Berger: Ways of Seeing
Laura Mulvey: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
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