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Wednesday 26 December 2012

Representations of Gender 'The Gaze' / Study task 2


We have our own subjectivities, capabilities and characteristics that make us who we are, as we go through life we tend to objectify others, as oppose to seeing them as individuals. ( Purposely for the reason of power ). During this session we'll be dissecting the core of 'the gaze' and looking at how we control this socially... "We can 'gaze' but never want to be 'gazed' upon, looking away sort of validates that its ok for us to look."

Relatable themes of: POWER, DOMINATION & PATRIARCHAL IDEALS OF FEMININITY....


If this is the start of representations of gender, then they're automatically biased due to a lot of Art historians being predominately Males until the mid 20th century. Males who conceived ideas of being the more dominant race as oppose to the passive female... who was simply seen as an objectified sex object due to the culture of society.

An example of this sexual imbalance would be 'Katie Price' who is solely treated for her visual value...


She's exaggerated, vain and simultaneously publicised, looked at and displayed. Her appearance has a very strong visual and erotic impact, making her a spectacle for men. 


Both of the images above relate to the power of men over women. Really demonstrating the fact that males are seen as the more powerful and clever species. Hitting on the issue of social control, "Hypnotism - Cure for Frigidity?" "Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere." It's these Patriarchal ideals of femininity in modern society that are falsely representing females, could it all be to demonstrate that men are still the more powerful in society while women will always be the domesticated/ sexy and passive objects.


Although the TMG should primarily be female, the advertisement is essentially aimed at men, however it seems that the women is the dominant, her gaze powerful and her notions obvious "I have these - what else do I need". She compensates for her inability to cook by sexually presenting herself, tricking men to gaze upon her. 


TASK: Find an image from the mass-media ( This can include Photographs, adverts, magazines and Cinema ) Analyse the 'gaze' relationship and the notions of power of both masculinity and femininity. Use 5 references from Coward, R., 'The Look'.


As you can see, the woman is looking into a mirror, with her reflection facing us, Probably because Culture dictates that women are more vain and have a deeper fascination with their self-image "Freud casually added to his account of the development of all humans that women were, however, more 'narcissistic"Her 'gaze' is elsewhere, allowing us to look unchallenged, hence the Male feeling of control, dominance and Power. If Scarlett Johansson WAS gazing back at the viewer, the male ability to exercise control over women by representing them in visual means as passive would not exist! The women would have an opportunity to take control and knock man off his pedestal. "The ability to scrutinise is premised on power. Indeed the look confers power; women's inability to return such a critical and aggressive look is a sign of subordination, of being the recipients of another's assessment". The lipstick is a visual indication of her submissiveness to oral sex, a commonly desired quest and fantasy of males of all ages. The symbolic sexual message is elevated through a mere touch of the neck, 'heightening pleasures' & reinforcing the idea that she is an object of visual value, presented as a raw material "Self-image in this society is enmeshed with judgements about desirability. And because desirability has been elevated to being the crucial reason for sexual relations", the 'linger' of her form has been styled accordingly & her appearance is obviously coded for a strong visual and erotic impact, displaying herself as a sexual object ( "Women cultivate their looks, make themselves all the more appealing and siren-like, and lure men to a terrible fate" ) which is a technique used in entertainment "It is crucially predicted on a masculine investigation of women, and a circulation of women's images for men". Were not seeing Scarlett Johansson as a person with personal subjectivities, capabilities and characteristics, but as an object. An object of desire and domination, glorified through sexual implications.

Useful notes

'Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze is one of the most interesting analyses of Freudian desire because rather than pure psychoanalysis of a subject, it analyzes specific visual examples in addition to context; in other words, film aesthetics become a manifestation of the unconscious in a way verbal self-insight cannot obtain. Further, because the behavioral glance is rooted in the id and superego, as well as the collective unconscious, the theory provides valuable insight to identity on a micro and macro scale. Common shots that are concrete examples of the male gaze include medium close-up shots of women from over a male’s shoulder (opposed to close-ups of a male’s face from straight on or extreme angles), shots that pan and linger on a woman’s form (opposed to shots of a male that do not pan and show his full body), as well as scenes that frequently occur which show a man actively observing a passive woman.'

'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Woman displayed as sexual object is the leit-motif of erotic spectacle.'
(Mulvey, L. 1975).'


'Mulvey introduced us to the term 'male gaze'. In her essay, she uses psychoanalysis to explore our fascination with the human form, the pleasure of looking and how women are represented as image vs. men as 'bearer of the look'. Gaze refers to how men look at women, how women look at themselves and how women look at other women. Mulvey references Freud in her essay, mentioning his three essays on sexuality. From this she states how as soon as we pass the mirror stage as a baby (the first time we recognise our reflection as ourselves in that moment, not someone else) we start to develop identification with ourselves and others. We rapidly learn an 'ego ideal'. From this stage, we interpret our surrounding media as taking other people as objects and subjecting them into a curious and controlling gaze.'

'Voyeurism is the pleasure one takes in looking whilst not being seen looking.' (Sterken and Cartwright, 2009, Page 134). This is a term that I also came across in Mulvey's essay. She argues that the camera acts as a mechanism for voyeurism in cinema, which again, I feel also can relate to images in the mass-media. Women are powerless in those images, as they are viewed by people she cannot see looking at her. Voyeurism gives a sense of power to the viewer, again, making the woman no more than an obect of visual value.

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