In response to something I posted recently about “the female gaze,” I got an email from a male reader who appeared to believe that “the female gaze” refers to “movies women like to watch.”
It doesn’t. Not even close.
But his email got my thinking that perhaps I need to explain what “the female gaze” is about, and why it’s become so much more important to me lately.
There’s a lot of detailed information available about the concept of “the gaze” and “the male gaze” — this TV Tropes page will be illuminating to someone with an interest in pop culture — and the obvious retronym of “the female gaze,” and there’s no point in me parroting it. But in extreme brief, the male gaze was coined by Laura Mulvey in a 1970s feminist critique of film, but it has since been retconned into applying to all realms of visual art. The very basic idea is that throughout Western art, from the Renaissance painters through modern film, television, advertising, videogames, and comic books, there is an unspoken assumption underlying the vast majority of the work that the viewer/reader/consumer/player is male and heterosexual, because the creators have been and are, in the vast majority, male and heterosexual. And if a straight woman or a homosexual man wants to appreciate these works, she or he must at least temporarily assume the perspective of a straight man. (We can presume, I think, that the fact that in some instances, a lesbian woman wouldn’t need to adjust her perspective to fully appreciate these works is an entirely accidental matter of circumstance: because the creators were not consciously crafting a work to represent male heterosexual perspective, there seems to be no likelihood that they consciously considered that lesbian women would identify with their work.)
So, when it comes to TV and film and other pop culture, the way the male gaze manifests itself is in such hideous examples as these, all recent, and all of which infuriated me:
= In Marmaduke, ostensibly a children’s movie, male household pets get hot and bothered over human women, and the camera looks at female animals the same way other films look at human woman: gauzy, slo-mo; it makes them (supposedly) sultry and seductive and provocative. A male director and male screenwriters were “naturally” compelled to create a story about a male dog, from the male dog’s perspective, with the perspectives of the two female dogs he romances all but ignored as unimportant: what is important is what Marmaduke wants, what Marmaduke does, what Marmaduke learns.
= The interesting twist of the gay male gaze of director Michael Patrick King turned the normally lovely female stars of Sex and the City 2 into hideous freaks. It’s the terrible flip side of the usual hetero male gaze on beautiful women, which typically fetishizes them, reduces them to body parts. King doesn’t find women sexually attractive, so he makes them ugly and freakish.
= At a very popular gossip site (which I won’t link to), a certain young celebrity (whose name I won’t mention) who may have gained a little weight is discussed in appalling terms that reduce her to less-than-human status. She is
a lump of shit. This little butterball is just nothing but grease and fat and vodka. She’d be a good fuel source. Probably burn for at least a month.
This is meant to be “funny.” But it’s also meant to remind this celeb that she is only useful as long as men want to look at her.
= Playboy gleefully catalogues how “breast shapes” have gone in and out of fashion in the postwar period (as discussed at Jezebel). Women cannot change the shape of their breasts, of course — aside from some very narrow changes that implants can create — so what’s really changing is the appearance of the breast that the male gaze is willing to gaze at.
= Bret Easton Ellis recently insisted that women cannot be successful as film directors because they lack a “male gaze”; the medium, Ellis believes:
really is built for the male gaze and for a male sensibility….
We’re watching, and we’re aroused by looking, whereas I don’t think women respond that way to films, just because of how they’re built.
And therein is one particularly insidious assumption of the male gaze: that women are not aroused by looking at men. You’ll find this idea parroted by lots of people — including lots of women! — who will say things like, “Well, of course there are more female nudes: the female body is simply more beautiful than the male body, which is weird and strange.” The notion is self-perpetuating, because as long as art (in all its many incarnations, from fine art to videogames) fails to look at men as beautiful and worth looking at, viewers will not learn how to appreciate men as beautiful and worth looking at. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it’s also something we learn. (Look: “Vincent and the Doctor” just demonstrated wonderfully that people had to learn how to find Van Gogh’s paintings beautiful!)
Now, caveats: The male gaze is not necessarily lascivious (though sometimes it is) — women’s bodies are beautiful. And critiquing the male gaze is not to say that there’s anything wrong with straight men finding women beautiful. The problem with the male gaze — and the desperate need for a more prominent female gaze — is its dominance, not just visually but as the provider of the perspective. Because most filmmakers and TV creators are still straight men, we are still bombarded with stories that, even when they are ostensibly about women are still really about women seen from a male perspective. (And I should say, “stories that are about straight women”; mainstream stories about lesbian women are all but nonexistent, from any perspective.) It results in movies such as The Ugly Truth, which appears to give us two sides of a battle-of-the-sexes coin but actually only smacks down the female side while giving the male side a hearty, approving slap on the back. And like Knocked Up, which seems almost ignorant of the stuff of women’s experiences even where it directly impacts on the story (such as the female protagonist, an adult woman, appearing to have never been to a gynecologist prior to her manifesting as a character in a pregnancy comedy).
And even the good and great movies are still overwhelmingly from a hetero-male perspective — why are we limiting our art this way?
It’s when you see a movie that embodies the female gaze that you realize how startling it is to get that new perspective. Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways is all about girls claiming and using their sexuality for their own purposes and their own needs. Jane Campion’s Bright Star looks with desire on Ben Whishaw’s John Keats from the fully engaged perspective of Abbie Cornish’s Fanny Brawne, not only with her eye but with her mind as well. Andrea Arnold’s astonishing movies Fish Tank and Red Road aren’t only female-gazy: they’re actually about women looking at men.
It’s no wonder, perhaps, that in the story linked above, Bret Easton Ellis admits that he is totally stymied by The Runaways and Fish Tank. I imagine that for some men who are so used to having their perspective be considered the “norm,” the “default,” it can be disconcerting to see themselves removed from the center of the universe. If art is meant to be disturbing — and we still think that way, don’t we? that art should be unsettling? — men like Ellis should welcome a new viewpoint. As should anyone who truly cares about film and TV as mediums for telling important stories.
I’m actually not sure if you’ll want this in the comments or not so I take no umbrage if you delete it, but since you’re talking about the female gaze, and they’re making a magazine specifically trying to satisfy the female gaze, I thought I should mention that Filament Magazine exists in case you hadn’t heard of it.
One of the early battles in even trying to get the magazine published was the completely shocking idea of putting men on the cover. Because magazines for women cannot have men on the cover! Distributors wouldn’t carry it because it broke a “rule”. And finding anyone willing to print it was a second battle in itself, since the printers could somehow lose customers by printing explicit material containing men (?).
Interesting. My brother and I talk films quite a bit, and I’ve noticed that he identifies films (when he can’t remember the title, which happens to us both a lot) by the actresses in them. I much more often will identify the film by the actors in them. He’s often baffled by the names I throw out as I am often baffled by the names he throws out. When we finally realize what film we’re talking about, we’ll both say, “Oh! Was that _____________ (insert unrecognized actor/actress name here)?”
Seems I have been exercising the female gaze without knowing it wasn’t supposed to exist.
Your comment is fine, Magess. But I think it’s worth pointing out that the female gaze doesn’t necessarily have to be erotic, just as the male gaze does not. And what I’m talking about in the post above encompasses a perspective that is about more than just sex.
We females have to force the gaze, sometimes, when the material we’re presented with does not offer it itself.
I had actually never heard of the female gaze before — as an English student, I’m interested in how people of certain genders and sexualities (in particular) are portrayed in stories of all mediums. I guess this is my roundabout way of thanking you for writing about such an important subject.
As for Ellis, it appears he’s still stuck in the Victorian mindset when someone told Charlotte Bronte that “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be.” Except in regards to film, of course, — either way, it’s absolutely awful — I am deeply saddened and angered that people still actually think this way.
Another point about the male gaze is how it relates to conventional standards of beauty. The idea that someone could find a woman of darker skin, or larger size, or of a certain shape and height attractive or eye-catching is also something ignored in favor of more “traditional” modes of female beauty. The idea that there is in fact a large spectrum of what is considered beautiful is apparently unheard of.
Marie Claire put David Beckham on the cover in the UK and nobody complained.
There was a kinda sex mag that everybody in my school used to “read”, that just had completely naked men in it but I do believe it went bust. It was weird though, because legally they couldn’t use pictures of erect penises either because of some stupid law or it would have classified the magazine as porn and no shops would sell it. I always thought that was unfair when you think about the variety of men’s sexual tastes that are catered for and we weren’t even allowed to look at erections! Like it would cause a riot or something!
Joan Bakewell did a show on pornography, I think it was, on the BBC, a few years ago. She was allowed to show an erect penis but they had to pixelate it! It’s come to that level of ridiculousness!
The male gaze is the aesthetical expression of patriarchal ideology. Being in the dominant position in societies arranged hierarchically according to gender gives men a particular outlook on life and perception of life, and it also gives them the means to inscribe that aesthetic throughout society, so that the self-expression of men is privileged at the expense of women’s. The oppressor’s view becomes the default, agency is defined as masculine and passivity and objectification are attributed to women (and conversely, agency becomes a sign of evil in women, and passivity and objectification unman men since they reflect the loss of the oppressor’s prerogatives).
A female gaze is possible when a woman reject identification with patriarchal ideology and inscribes her own point of view in her works of self-expression, but the position of women as oppressed gender makes it difficult for us to have the means to both reject patriarchal ideology (consciousness-raising is an ever-ongoing process, not a one-time revelation) and express our own aesthetics, and furthermore to engage in and perpetuate a public discourse exchanging ideas from and about the female gaze, because the oppressor’s discourse also divides us, demands that we engage with it, and generally unreciprocically hogs our resources.
The mull of kintyre rule.
The people at the BBFC used to define unacceptable penis engorgement by comparing to the mull of kintyre – it the angle of the dangle was more erect, then the penis was unacceptable.
That would be the oblong of the region marked as Kintyre on this map, not of the one marked as Mull?
http://www.seachest.co.uk/acatalog/SC5611_coverage.jpg
I’ve never understood this thing about how women are not supposed to look at men and find them beautiful, or that women’s bodies are supposed to be intrinsically more beautiful somehow (have these people never looked at a man with broad shoulders and a muscular back, or a rugby player’s forearms? Sheesh!). Or this whole thing about penises being supposedly ugly – I don’t get that, either.
Anyway – thanks for this MaryAnn; it’s something I’d come accross before in literature but it is interesting that it’s also something that someone had to email you to question.
True! Although following up with a shirtless photo of Bradley Cooper… Hee. Though it is a nice photo. ;)
Seriously though, yes, it is also or perhaps just as much having the *power* to look or have a perspective or opinion without having to justify it.
Talk about a perfect combination for this site:
http://cuteboyswithcats.tumblr.com/
Isobel- weird, isn’t it? I remember sitting in a group of men and women some years ago, and they were ALL saying that tired “women’s bodies are more beautiful and men are repulsive” line. I was the only one arguing the contrary; after all, I’m very attracted to my husband’s body (and no, he’s not a stud and I’m no beauty. We’re normal, reasonably-attractive people, but definitely not in a Hollywood way at all).
I remember feeling surprised at the women’s assertions that they found penises ugly and male bodies indifferent at best. One of them said it right in front of her husband, and he agreed! O_o. Then, of course, the convo turned to how much more “natural” it is to have naked women in media rather than men, because we are more “beautiful”. That’s when I started feeling that anger/annoyance I often felt at these issues, but since I hadn’t gotten into feminism, I was ill-equipped to debate. I even felt a bit bad for feeling angry; after all, what’s wrong with being “beautiful”?? (I know better now; it is NO complement.)
Because this was before my getting into feminism, I couldn’t articulate how these women sure had internalized the Male Gaze (and sexism) completely. Also, self-defense: under patriarchy, women who openly lust after male bodies will eventually be called “whores”, or at the very least, “unnatural”. Even within a married couple it’s accepted that MEN will be the ones lusting, while their wives want “emotional connection”. 100% of the time.
Guys: we straight, red-blooded females LOVE male bodies. I’m crazy about my husband’s body. Of course, it also helps that he’s loving, attentive, brilliant and funny.
I also find plenty of men viscerally sexy. My heart belongs only to husband, so I look but never think about touching. But I still look! Society tells me I don’t, or that I look for what car he drives (psht, please).
It sounds so obvious when we talk about it now, but it’s strange that it took the articulation of it to make it seem obvious. And still, even today, some people don’t get it.
i think this notion that the male form is “ugly” is fairly modern. if one looks at classical sculpture through the ages, it is mainly male forms that are depicted, quite frequently nude,or partially nude. from egypt through the monumental period of post WWI, it is the male form that is considered the ideal.
interestingly, notions of what is attractive — or manly –about male bodies has changed. today, it’s pecs and abs, in classical pieces it’s shoulders and buttocks. even male genetalia has had its fashions; until fairly modern times, it was the testicles that were considered the epitome of manliness. their size and heft. the length of a penis was secondary. one need only gaze at michaelangelo’s statue of David to note that.
also, the idealized form of the young male went through interesting changes. michaelangelo’s david, completed in 1504, is far different from the idealized form of donatello’s david circa 1430.
i don’t know where or when the notion that women don’t like to look at pleasing male forms (of all shapes and sizes) developed. it’s easy to blame puritans, or the victorians, but perhaps it started when technology and industry made it easier for women to work full days and pay for their own entertainment. no one can tell me a young woman growing up in a rural or agricultural society didn’t let her gaze linger, in a meditative sort of way, over the young men that were around her. and probably saw a good many of them nude or partially nude. once we became less agrarian and more industrial, where most work was done indoors, and women became both more economically independent, and more restrained in their world view, the chance to see men out of their clothes lessened, and the need to control their gaze became more important, perhaps. this is a question worthy of several years research. alas, that researcher is unlikely to be me. although i’m perfectly willing to do the visual research.
As a straight guy, I have no problem with women wanting to exercise the female gaze.
One example of the male-centric perspective from a foreign classic is in Bergmann’s Smiles of a Summer Night. In it, a male character dressed in a ridiculous bedtime getup says (best from memory) “How is it that a woman can love US men?” The answer: “We don’t care about aesthetics, and we can always turn out the light.” Funny, but it does display that mindset.
I also remember that cartoonist Berkeley Breathed has sort of “repulsed male gaze” of lumpy men in undies that he would trot out from time to time. One example was a “Male swimsuit issue” with repellent-looking men. That and other examples on their own were funny, but collectively it indicated some kind of obsession he seemed to have.
The ever present male gaze allows the commodification of female bodies/sexuality to go unchecked. Women’s bodies become accepted as public property under the guise of being more “beautiful” (and therefore more marketable, more Othered.)
Then it’s all fucked up further by the Madonna/Whore complex, slut-shaming and extremely narrow female beauty ideals.
Bronxbee, technology has nothing to do with women’s ability to pay for their own entertainment. Women’s economic independence is a matter of legal rights and politics.
Think more along the lines of decades of feminist lobbying to change the Married Women’s Property Act (in 1870 and 1882 in England, and in 1965 in France!!), so that women could legally own their income and inherit property, instead of its automatically becoming their husbands’ property, to give you an example.
Does anyone care what Bret thinks? Hasn’t he been struggling for relevancy since the 80’s?
I wonder how much rejection of the female gaze has to do with male insecurity. Let’s face it, most men (and most women) are too busy/tired from making money to keep in shape. Our lives feel almost structured in ways that ruin our bodies. Sure, when we’re kids we can eat and drink anything and have time to do sports, but take all those eating and drinking habits into our thirties and bam, beer bellies galore, then in our forties the beginnings of heart attacks.
Then women want to turn their gaze on us and all we can think about is our belly, and women turn their gaze on people whose job it is to stay good looking (actors, professional athletes) and all we can think about is our jealousy. I’m sure women have these insecurities as well, but, yeah, we also own the magazines and studioes so it’s our insecurities and hang ups that mostly get projected instead of yours.
That insecurity you’re talking about? That’s the world women live in, until we consciously try to find some liberation to “un-train” our own internal male gaze and be nicer to ourselves, validate our own sense of perspective. I can understand why men find it uncomfortable. It IS uncomfortable.
Women live with this every day! Our bodies, boobs and butts don’t look like the constant parade of actress’s or porn stars (women paid to look good as well). Despite men telling women they are fine the way they are, women aren’t stupid; they see how the men focus on these fabricated images of women to get off. (I’m not talking about any particular individual here. btw.)
But you are right, because men are in power they can deny womens’ sex drives and keep the idealized female images flowing.
in fact, women are actively attacked for not looking like Supermodels and getting older. Men don’t have to deal with that.
Ide Cyan:
These points are well put, and I agree pretty much down the line. The question that comes to my mind is, couldn’t the male gaze and the female gaze coexist in a film/TV show/work of visual art, etc., at least in theory?
I’m not disputing the current privileged status of the male gaze. However, consider for example The A-Team. Maybe a flimsy example, since I confess that I have not seen the movie, but I understand from others that it includes several instances of Bradley Cooper going shirtless. I assume – and I trust others will correct me if I’m wrong – that the movie also contains no shortage of male gaze fodder, probably far outweighing the smattering of shirtless Cooper. Nevertheless, his bare torso remains… so does it count?
Again, I generally agree; I only wonder if the situation is as bleak and intractable as you paint it. Is no progress being made? Anywhere? What of The Runaways and Fish Tank – true, they’re not packing the multiplexes at the moment, but doesn’t their existence and their bafflement of Bret Easton Ellis count for something?
Don’t mistake me as an apologist for the patriarchical status quo. I share Cameron’s sentiment of welcoming more expression of the female gaze. For one thing, I feel that the ubiquitous male-gaze stuff around us is, with few exceptions, very trite. For another, as a straight man I personally find the very thought of the female gaze to be not only refreshing, but kind of hot.
I did a good deal of considering before I included that last statement. I fear it may piss you off, which is not my intention – or worse, that it may be perceived as patriarchical condescension. I can only aver that my regard for the female gaze is rooted in awe and respect.
The female gaze has been catered to as far back at least as Clark Gable. Captain Kirk had unnecessary shirtless scenes, which they even joked about in Galaxy Quest. And a few years ago an expensive gym’s advertising in Portland, OR, was so balantly designed to appeal to the homosexual gaze I started laughing at the shock of it.
But these are limited examples compared to feeding the male gaze, and since the power structure favors the straight male, the psychology of it is different, too.
[blathering nonsense deleted by maj]
Tim1974! You’re back, and ready to advocate for MOAR OPEN LABIA PLZ!!!11!
I deleted Tim1974’s comment because he has been warned about his monologing multiple times prior, and also because it’s off-fucking-topic.
Change the record, Tim1974. Your monologuing is not welcome here. Start your own damn site if you want to try to control the conversation.
The labia is NOT an external organ, plainly visible in natural, everyday nudity. The penis IS an external organ plainly visible in natural, everyday nudity. The comparison of the penis and labia is inane.
oh, that makes no sense after Tim’s comment was deleted!
A few (possible) bones thrown toward the female gaze is nothing more than that. And if the producers of *Trek* had bothered to talk to the female fans who were tuning in to the show, they’d have had Spock shirtless in every other episode. :->
In a single work, created by a single artist? Probably not. I don’t think that anyone who critiques the male gaze is suggesting that this could or should happen. What’s needed is more female gazing to counterbalance the male gazing.
Not really, actually. *A-Team* certainly is an anomaly. Unless we see more movies like this, in gaze terms, I don’t know if we can read anything from it.
In general, I would say no, no real progress has been made. So few women are making movies, and the numbers have actually gotten worse in recent years, that these two films may be coincidental outliers. (I’d like to think that more progress is being made on TV, but while there are more shows than there used to be featuring strong central female characters, those shows are almost universally made by men.)
But that’s because you welcome it, Derek. Imagine if you didn’t welcome it but were powerless to stop it. Imagine if you were made to feel less than human merely because of your gender and because of what you look like, and were considered useful only because you arouse something in the gazer. Imagine if you were made to feel even lesser than that if you *didn’t* look the way those in power decreed you should look.
So you don’t piss me off, Derek, but I wonder if you do understand the power dynamic at work here, and whether you would find it hot if it meant you were powerless before it.
But it works just fine with JoshB’s. :->
Aw, the Penis Guy returned! He must be having conniptions at being unable to post his screeds here.
And Derek, this comment isn’t specifically addressed to you, but you got me thinking, so I shall pontificate.
Lots of times, well-meaning guys will wish that they would be recipients of a female gaze. A woman friend might tell them stories of guys hitting on her (in an UNwelcome way) out in public somewhere and he’ll grouse to himself, “what’s so bad about that? I’d love to have women all over me like that!”
They imagine a sexy, sexy world where the female gaze exists, and suddenly it’s not taboo for women to express sexual appreciation their way.
But you guys are missing a very big piece of the picture; the reason women are uncomfortable with/angry at/afraid of the Gaze: rape culture. It’s a “feminism” word, but basically it refers to the cultural attitude that women exist to pleasure men, visually and physically. We women have no say; in fact, protesting this “attention” is not socially condoned. We are judged first and foremost on our appearance, whether “beautiful” (read: appealing to men) or ugly. Our personal boundaries aren’t respected. There’s always the ever-present threat that the “nice guy” being a little too friendly on the bus might rape you.
So, if you put yourself in these shoes, all of a sudden it doesn’t sound so sexiful, does it?
I am glad you seem to be an ally, Derek.
I ended up coming across an episode of America’s Next Top Model last night (an experience I will not be repeating, and it left me flabbergasted.
This very beautiful girl with equally beautiful figure:
click here for the photo
This girl, is plus sized?
This is how crazy the expectations on women are getting? That someone who looks this good is labelled so fat that she’s ‘plus sized’?
Well censorship at its finest ! I responded to a comment that was made. Interesting that Lisa’s comment was not deleted or called blathering nonsense. So it is ok for a female to discuss seeing an erection but not for a male to discuss seeing an open labia. What a sexist, male bashing website. You should be ashamed for your double standard actions for deleting a response that stayed on topic of what was presented. And this is what feminism is all about ? What a pathetic joke !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t see naked men waving their genitalia in the air everywhere. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places – help me out here Tim. I want names, dates and photos. Video footage!
I guess I was trying to make a point about access/control/availability/power. Images of naked women are constantly pushed at us and scrutinised. Images of naked men are not. In my country, we have naked women on page 3 of national newspapers. How would you like to open your newspaper in the morning and see 2 naked men embracing? You seem pretty offended by a naked Bart Simpson, so I’ve a feeling it might put you off your cornflkes.
Welcome back!
I’m going to get my snob on and say ‘newspaper’ in inverted commas if we’re talking about The Sun here, Lisa! But I get your point entirely re: page 3 girls.
Tim, I’d imagine that you’ve not had to sit next to a girl on the train on a daily basis who is perusing pictures of naked men? This is what happens to me almost every morning on the train to work – I end up sitting next to a random man spending an inordinate amount of time looking at page 3 of The Sun. I’ve read your complaints regarding male nudity on this site before and I have to say I don’t think you’ve a leg to stand on.
Please don’t feed the trolls, and please don’t engage Tim1974: he’s interested only in dominating the conversation.
Tim1974: I am not censoring you. You are free to post whatever you like on your own Web site. Your freedom of speech has not been impeded in any way.
Lisa, the fact that you don’t understand is the problem. You will never learn about the reality of the situation in this website. I was trying to enlighten you to what is really taking place in the world and how males are victims of a nudity double standard that people here do not want to either acknowledge or discuss. With that said, I realize that females face double standards in other areas too and I am supportive of change to bring about equality for all. If you are interested, do some research in regards to male nudity in films, etc. and you will see what I was pointing out to you is accurate.
I remember one show that did try to satisfy the male and female gaze at the same time: Enterprise. The pilot included a shower scene, explained by the need to de-contamiate after visiting an alien world or something, in which a hot actor and actress scrubbed off.
I didn’t see it the first time around, so when I logged onto a group discussion I just read all these women complaining about the shower scene objectifying the woman (no mention of the man in the scene) so I pointed out that since women, evolutionary speaking, respond to power more than appearance (but appearance can suggest power) it makes sence for men to be shown in uniform, because the uniform itself is a turn on for many women. Well, that argument got ugly until the moderator put an end to it.
Then I saw the episode a few months later, and there was the guy and those naked muscles right next to the woman as they showered off, and had myself a good old laugh.
As for Nimoy shirtless, MA, I think you’re overestimating how good a shape the actor was in at the time. It might have been disappointing. But you are right about the fan preferance; at one point 90% of the Spock fan club was women.
Tim1974:
Ever notice the number of magazines featuring naked pictures of people and how the ones which exclusively feature pictures of naked women way outnumber the ones which exclusively feature pictures of naked men?
Ever notice the number of clubs which use naked people as a form of entertainment and how the number of such clubs which use naked female entertainers outnumber the clubs which use naked male entertainers?
Ever notice the number of female celebrities who often pose either nude or semi-nude and the comparatively small number of male celebrities who do the same?
The large number of female celebrities who have posed in Playboy at some point in their career and the small number of male celebrities who have posed in Playgirl?
As for your request for more female frontal nudity, well, you did see the Harrison Ford film Crossing Over which came out a few years ago, right?
Fair point, Isobel – the Sun isn’t really a “newspaper”!
Instead of giving attention to the endless lists of male gaze films and artists made by companies owned by ancient white males…… Why not lift up the opposite? Check out Artemis Eternal and director J Stover for instance.
Really excellent post. You asked “And even the good and great movies are still overwhelmingly from a hetero-male perspective — why are we limiting our art this way?” –I think the answer is, yes, most of the cinema I have enjoyed has been from a very exclusively heterosexual male point of view, I would love to see the same issues explored from a different point of view.
Perhaps one could argue that TRUE BLOOD employs both the male and female gaze to a successful degree in the same production, but of course that’s TV rather than cinema.
Easton Ellis’ thing is interesting and points out that there’s a double whammy in putting the ‘female gaze’, as it were, on film. In Fish Tank the heroine is attracted to her mum’s boyfriend (See also Somersault). If the audience is to identify with the heroine on a base level they should too, according to typical filmmaking rules of thumb. However the male audience is going to have trouble with this and probably actively resist it; The actor might not appear attractive to men in the audience (I think this is just the way it works) and/or if they did, putting yourself is her shoes is decidedly gay and to be avoided at all costs.
I’m not suggesting this is a good thing, but just that, culturally, it’s not been something men have a lot of practice at dealing with. And, as we can see, plenty of people are going to be opposed to having to do it. The collision of assumed male-centrism and homophobia makes things more difficult than even outright misogeny would by itself, I think sometimes anyway.
Anyway…It’s a laff riot how this stuff always gets some response from precious, outraged blokes. Every single time. They must counter any vaguely feminist PR on principle.
In the last week or two in the game-o-sphere a throw away, irritation venting, joke game about a woman shooting men who incessantly proposition her (called ‘Hey Baby’) got the most hysterical response. Hysterical in all senses of the word; Some men were calling it hate speech, which is some stratospheric level of ironic amusement (“what if it was a game about shooting Arabs!!?!”).
It was a tsunami of preciousness and equivocation. I swear some guys think because equality and equivocation have the same root they must be the same thing. Equality is also a mathmatical/legal concept completely divorced from history and culture. Oh, and of course any bloke taking the females’ side is just White Knighting to try and get some of that hot feminist action.
Most of the men involved seem quite rational and sensible until this topic comes up too. Extraordinary.
Point is, clearly this stuff has a ways to go yet. I applaud MAJ’s direction to filling this particular niche, even if it makes me feel like I’ve walked though the wrong door on occasion.
Paul, I saw that shower scene, and I rewatched it on YouTube to clarify my memory. There was a lot more camera-lingering on T’Pol, the female Vulcan officer. Fingers inching under her panties and longer shots on her belly and legs and butt. The male officer had a little bit of lingering, but one of the striking things about that scene was that the camera kept on his face when he was talking most of the time. Whereas during her lines, the camera refused to sit still. Sure, he was there and shirtless and buff, but THE CONTEXT, people! The mood and where the camera lingers is the whole thing. Yay for giving us some Trip, but it was still predominantly written (the scene, that is) to show us T-Pol’s scantily clad body and perky nipples.
Well, at least they didn’t stuff her into a latex body suit like Jeri Ryan.
And please don’t start the whole “women are attracted to power CUZ EVOLUTION” Evo-Psych BS. Ever occur to you guys that for centuries, it may have SEEMED that women were attracted to “power” simply because women were severely curtailed in their own power and money-making ventures?? Women had no choice, if they didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives in poverty of course they chose the richer suitor!
Women like attractive men! Hard to believe? Geez Louise. Get rid of sexism and you’ll see a lot more women exercising their natural, physical preferences. Oh, wait, now we are, and women have more earning power today than in times past and we still get told what we like isn’t what we REALLY like.
Tonio and everyone: Troll’s not gonna get it. We’ve all had this long-ass conversation with him. In fact, he revealed his contempt for women some time ago and now he’s a joke to me and he should be so to everyone else.
can’t speak for the lesbian women, but as a gay (asian) male, there’s absolutely no adjustment needed for your female gazing at all. thank you for doing this, and please keep them coming.
@Muzz, misogyny is the CAUSE of male-centrism and homophobia. When the feminine is seen as less-than and inferior, you get this. Males (the superior) are shunted to the forefront and gay males, who have dared take on the “feminine role”, get vilified. If women were fully human and not considered “inferior”, then straight men wouldn’t hate gay men the way they do in pop culture and macho attitudes would make no sense.
Putting themselves in a woman’s shoes is hard for men? I can’t say I’m sympathetic; I’ve been asked to put myself in male shoes all my life. It hasn’t made me any less heterosexual, as far as I can tell. Sometimes I wish.
Those gamers, gah…What about fucking Adult Swim games like Zombie Hooker Nightmare and that stripper-pole one?? But, oh, if a woman complained, she’d be a lambasted as a humorless feminist bitch who needs to get laid.
It really shows just how much privelege these precious boys have and how rarely said privelege is ever questioned or examined.
Accounting Ninja:
I’d say you’re right traditionally speaking. But past misogyny doesn’t neccesarily tell us about the way people (men) think now. A good portion of them anyway.
It’s like racism in a way (lengthy explanation coming up). The conservative, anti- ‘PC’ position is popular and gets a boost when people cry racism at seemingly innocuous things. And it’s because many unsohpisticated folks have been well instructed that racism is bad. Very bad. They look in their heart of hearts and don’t find themselves to be racist “I’m a live and let live sort of person. I harbour no desire to herd people into camps and gas them. I’m not a racist”. I think they’re correct too. But this doesn’t make them immune from implicit racism that arises from prejudice and oblique, taken for granted, cultural aspects that they’re not even aware of (and may not be inclined to give credence to either, but that’s another matter). Illustrating this to people is often difficult and slow.
Now hopefully bringing up racism isn’t too distracting to folks. Like that example, I think most men generally don’t consider themselves misogynists and they’re correct. There’s no content of their mind that peculiarly wishes women ill, considers them inferior, thinks they shouldn’t have equal pay and so on. Obviously this varies a lot, but I think there’s enough well meaning males who can’t get with the female gaze for reasons that might stem from misogyny in the past, but do not involve any particular misogyny on their part right now.
Hence my distinction that identifying with a female protagonist can run into the ‘don’t be gay’ wall and be alienating (and the ‘don’t be gay’ wall is something posessed by men who aren’t all that homophobic too).
This is dumb, of course, but something I think can be undone with time. It’s just evolved as a more particular hurdle than “the patriarchy”, broadly speaking, and worth considering on its own.
Hopefully that makes some sort of sense.