The
male gaze from what I understand from what Berger, is objectifying a female's
identity into a sex object and the female herself objectifies herself into an
object in her own eyes. It is pervasive in art and pop culture because females
are the attention grabbers and bring a lot of people to a certain thing. Berger
says, “Men act women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being
looked at.” (Berger, 47) When you look at pop culture, you sometimes see how
the women are the center of attention and she’s either half-naked or completely
naked. In art, the women look very promiscuous and allow the male artist to paint
her. You also see how sometimes when the male is included in the painting, they
are made to not be the center of attention. That can include having small genitals,
very small, in the corner of the paintings. You can ask every male about what can
bring extra attention to their ideas and will easily say very attractive
females. Attractive females appealing to the male eyes are the key to success. That’s
why we have strip clubs, Playboy, go-go dancers, etc. the male gaze is what can
bring people success and trap them into the art. If you were to change the women
in the art and make them look unpleasant, it would attract a much smaller
audience. The same would go for pop culture.
Patriarchy through
Bell Hooks, is a political-social system that states that males inherently dominate, and superior to everything and everyone, especially females, and have
the right to dominate and rule over females and to maintain that dominance
through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence. Some examples of
patriarchy include beating your wife and children to assert dominance, sexual
violence, yelling, etc. Patriarchy allows the men to get away with a lot more
than usual in order to assert their dominance within their area. Bell even
states, “Patriarchy requires male dominance by any means necessary, hence it
supports, promotes, and condones sexist violence.” (Hooks, 24)
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| In this photo, you can see how it talks about the woman is under a spell so whatever you do she will follow |
Patriarchy
in a sense the root of the male gaze. Patriarchy allows the male to do whatever
they want to create the art for the male gaze. The male dominance causes the
women to feel weak and meaningless, which gets them to feel as if they are only
objects to look at and nothing more. It is always culturally referenced, like in the ad I posted earlier. You see how the female is submissive to the male and the words proclaim how she will follow him anywhere. Patriarchy and the male gaze go hand and hand, and it is impossible to not have one without the other.
Some contemporary arguments that can be made that in modern times there is more female gaze growing. In art, there will be more seductive men painted or photographed into a piece. In cinema, you have a male protagonist that is very attractive and have the female in awe because that's what attracts them. A film even came out specifically to showcase male attractiveness to women, the movie was called, "Magic Mike". In this Trailer, you see how this movie bring the life of a half-naked man who has a troubling life trying to balance love and the sex appeal at his job. So there is a case to be made that if you have a male gaze there is possible to have a female gaze too. Another example would be in "Captain America", you see in the beginning how Steve Rogers was a scrawny male and no one was looking his way, but when into the machine and he turned into the ultimate soldier and he was buff. All the females started looking his way and tried to get his attention. You can even see here how he has females wanting to kiss him and another lady got jealous. It's an example because no female would even want a relationship with him until he looked attractive in terms of society.
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| Female gaze would be attracted to this because of the male being half-naked and very attractive |
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin, 2008.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005
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