Post 2

The male gaze is something we cannot escape.  Whether it be in real life or in media the male gaze is everywhere.  In Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" she describes the use of the male gaze in cinema.  Mulvey describes the male gaze as an interaction between the active/male and the passive/female.  This is hardly an "interaction" because the passive role of females in this concept is basically just to exist.  The male gaze suggests that men turn women into objects as they look at them with desire.  Mulvey uses some of Freud's ideas about how gazing starts as early as childhood.  Children are always trying to see new things, especially things that are meant to be private (Mulvey, 835).  This suggests that not looking leads to curiosity.  What I found interesting about this is that all children are curious and want to "look" at things, not just little boys.  As we grow up, however, women stop "looking" and naturally start becoming what men have to look at.

In films, the female figure is "styled accordingly" to the fact that a man's gaze is going to fall on her (Mulvey, 837).  This is still passive because the woman is not doing anything to make herself more "gaze-able".  This comes from those who are in charge of dressing the woman and creating her image.  It is important for those in charge of all aspects of filmmaking to work male desire into the narrative (Mulvery, 837).    Filmmakers do this to satisfy the male gazers in the audience, as well as the male gazer in the movie to make it more realistic.  Films are meant to create an alternate reality, so including such prominent concepts that occur daily is important to keeping the film natural.

This shows that in the film development process, the male gaze is even written into the script so that it can be an important part of the film.

I disagree with this link, I think men should learn not to gaze rather than women learning not to draw attention.

A still from Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window".  This proves male gazing in cinema to be true, even through a camera lens.  The woman does not even know this man is watching her, making her even more passive.

Bell Hooks describes "oppositional gaze" which helps to challenge the male gaze.  Similarly to Mulvey, Hooks starts off by talking about children's gazes.  She makes a good point by showing the contradictory concepts of telling your kids "don't stare" but then telling them "look at me when I talk to you" (Hooks, 115).  Hooks explains the power that comes from looking and the authoritative undertones of people who tell you not to look at something (Hooks, 115).  Once black people started being allowed to look at films with the portrayal of black people, this brought up a new kind of gazing; the oppositional gaze (Hooks, 116).  This gaze is a more critical gaze, one that can spark confrontation and opposition to what is going on.  If we are not allowed to look how are we going to see all of the wrongful things that are going on?  If women gazed back at men with the oppositional gaze maybe we could fight the male gaze.

This gaze has developed as black people have been more and more able to voice their opinions.  Whether it be through social media, protesting, etc. now black people are allowed to talk and say how they feel rather than just looking, internalizing, and feeling uneasy.  This can show that gazing has a parallel to being aware.  Hooks described gazing as a way of resistance (Hooks, 116).  It is as if those who are looking are saying "now that I can look I can see all of the horrors that occur, and I can have an opinion about it".  As more and more people started to look, that is when change happened.  Without most people being able to look at most things, our society would not be as far as it is today.  

These concepts are very obvious.  However, they are the kind of obvious that not everyone picks up on.  The kind of obvious that we have to stop and think about because it has become so natural.  Men viewing women as objects is obviously a negative thing, but the concept of where our gaze lands intrigues me.  

This is a picture of my boyfriend and I at a New Years Eve party.  It is one of my favorite pictures of us because of all the things happening around us we still choose to look at each other.

I know my boyfriend would never think of me as an object.  I find it endearing that he chooses to look at me so much and I would like to think it is out of love.  Because the male gaze is such a fixture in society this could just be a result of that, with better intentions.  I think that is the key part to any gaze; the intentions behind them.  That is why the male gaze is so unacceptable in media.  Every single part of every film, tv show, book, magazine, etc. is carefully planned out.  When a screenwriter is writing a movie they are intentionally placing the male gaze in there.  These kinds of concepts have really opened my mind and have changed the way I look at media.  

Hooks, Bell. "The Oppositional Gaze." Black Looks: Race and Representation.1992. 

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. 1999