male gaze examples in art

The woman is speaking to her husband about a painting at which she is gazing, whilst her distracted husband is gazing at a painting of a nude woman, which also is in view of the spectator. Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" gave one of the most widely influential versions of this argument. "[17], The female gaze is conceptually similar to the male gaze; that is, when women take up the male gaze, they view other people, and themselves, from the perspective of a man. [35] In other words, women in film are not just objects of desire, they are objects of displaced desire. This page was last modified 11:14, 14 July 2014. We are actively viewing ourselves from the lens of our camera. She is denied being the object of desire, because she is represented as a woman who actively looks, rather than [as a woman passively] returning and confirming the gaze of the masculine spectator. Doane, M. (1999). Woman is “spectacle”, and man is “the bearer of the look”. This has been seen in critical discussions as a prime example of gendered looking. Notably, women function as objects of this gaze far more often than as proxies for the spectator. The matrixial gaze does not concern a subject and its object existing or lacking, but concerns "trans-subjectivity" and shareability, and is based upon the feminine-matrixial-difference, which escapes the phallic opposition of masculine–feminine, and is produced by co-emerge… The male gaze is everywhere in pop culture and our media, including television shows, movies, music videos, magazines, etc. [8] The rigidity by which the male gaze is defined along lines of gender/sexuality subjects only female characters to a permanently passive position where their to-be-looked-at-ness is their primary cinematic role. . The male gaze refers to how the world – and women in particular – are looked at and presented from a cisgender, straight, frequently white male perspective. To informally analyze, we can see that this is pretty much 16th century Italian porn, more tastefully termed in art history classes as for the male gaze. As a part of the feminization of the male gaze, many scholars refer to what is known as the Medusa theory, or the idea that women who take up the female gaze are characterized as dangerous monsters, for men both desire and fear a gaze that objectifies them in the way a male gaze reduces a woman to a mere object. Or take the example of a film still from Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, Rear Window. The Male Gaze theory, in a nutshell, is where women in the media are viewed from the eyes of a heterosexual man, and that these women are represented as passive objects of male desire. The Male Gaze is a theory that visual media is essentially created from a heterosexual male's point of view. Much theorization of the male gaze has remained inside the heteropatriarchal paradigm concerning only sexual relationships between men and women, but scholars like Karen Hollinger have extended gaze theory to include queer cinematic representation, such as the conceptualization of a lesbian gaze. In fact, animating so many female characters in games to fit into this very gendered, sexualizing walk pattern is an example of one of the ways the male gaze manifests in video games. [8]:807 As a way of seeing women and the world, psychoanalytic theorizations of the male gaze involve Freudian and Lacanian concepts such as scopophilia, or the pleasure of looking. [8] For Mulvey, there are two ways in which women, as the passive recipients of the male gaze, can be sexualized to avert castration fear: voyeurism-sadism and fetishization. [18] From this perspective, cinematic female characters can take up the male gaze, subverting the male characters to a submissive, objectified position; but, Kaplan observes that in doing so the female character is likely to lose all of her traditionally feminine characteristics. [32], As hooks states, the black female spectator identifies "with neither the phallocentric gaze nor the construction of white womanhood as lack," and thus, "critical black female spectators construct a theory of looking relations where cinematic visual delight is the pleasure of interrogation". The novel is narrated by Lockwood, embodying "the narrator as voyeur defending himself against the threat of the feminine by objectifying a woman, by telling her story, writing it down in his diary, and seeking in this oblique way to make it – and her – his own". [28], In "Networks of Remediation" (1999), Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin said that Mulvey's male gaze coincides with "the desire for visual immediacy" — the erasure of the visual medium for uninhibited interaction with the person portrayed — which is identified in feminist film theory as the "male desire that takes an overt sexual meaning when the object of representation, and therefore desire, is a woman. "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" --Jesus, Matthew 5:27–28, "Iconic images that represents the male gaze are Un Regard oblique (1948) by Robert Doisneau; and the persona of James Stewart in Rear Window" --Sholem Stein. It's also believed that because women are … It soon became popular among feminists, including the British film critic Laura Mulvey, who used it to critique traditional media representations of the female character in cinema,[6] and coined the phrase. See more. [8] In Mulvey’s analysis, voyeurism-sadism references that “pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration), asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness,” which is noted by Mulvey to align more with a narrative cinematic structure than does scopophilia fetishization. This, as well as the term "owner" for the art degrades and objectifies women making them solely for the purpose of the "male gaze." These in terms objectify women. The theory of the male gaze has been hugely influential in feminist film theory and in media studies. The female reader or viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male. This painting is what inspired me to write this blog and this meme is totally fitting for Titian’s intention. The feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey coined the concept of the ‘male gaze’ in 1975. [31] Bowers uses the example of George Grosz's illustration Sex Murder on Ackerstrasse (Lustmord in der Ackerstrasse) to demonstrate how "without a head, the woman in the drawing can threaten neither the man with her nor the male spectator with her own subjectivity. Here a gaze can transcend the medium in which it is produced and contains social implications beyond its function within the work of art. [35] Lastly, there is the good versus evil plot genre, where two men share an obsessive, borderline homoerotic, fixation with one another as they repeatedly seek each other out. [20] Catherine’s character also exhibits what theorists have conceptualized as the female gaze, and "in assuming the role of spectator, she seeks a 'masculine' position that because she is a woman, redefines her as a 'monster' or 'witch'". Pdf via Amherst College. [15], Two forms of the male gaze are based upon the Freudian concept of scopophilia, the "pleasure that is linked to sexual attraction (voyeurism in the extreme) and [the] scopophilic pleasure that is linked to narcissistic identification (the introjection of ideal egos)", which show how women have been forced to view the cinema from the perspectives (sexual, aesthetic, cultural) of the male gaze. The male gaze is a relatively recent concept in feminist theory, and this quiz/worksheet combo will teach you about its origins and meaning. [8] In order to mitigate this unpleasantness, Mulvey theorizes that women are transformed into passive recipients of male objectification in media representations. The second Twilight movie, New Moon, still not a good movie, was directed by a man. Audiences are forced to view women from the point of view of a heterosexual male, even if they are heterosexual women or homosexual men. Niel Gwynne Liely 1618-1680 The Male Gaze is pervasive in pop culture because it is used as a technique to lure more consumers for the product they are trying to sell. The stunning show celebrates 48 radical women artists who used their Male gaze definition, the assumption in visual and creative arts that the default or desired audience consists of heterosexual males, and inclusion of women in narrative or art should seek to please this audience with the objectification or sexualization of these depicted women. [15] For most women, it is not a physical interaction with a man which causes such internalised feelings of self-objectification and negative mental states, but is simply anticipating being the subject of the male gaze. British pop artist Pauline Boty's Colour Her Gone depicts Marilyn Monroe set against a bed of roses, relaxing in a light blue loose shirt and a blissful smile. The term ‘male gaze’ has been a subject of much debate by art historians and has been use in Freudian and feminist contexts to describe the sexual objectification of women in fine art as well as other various media outlets. [28] In intentionally creating space between the subject (spectator) and the object (screen), the male gaze perpetuates an "infinite pursuit of an absent object". The male gaze affects my work significantly as I find myself constantly countering it, [focusing on] what grows inside our bodies (placentas), to what goes on our bodies (lingerie), to what goes inside our bodies (gynecological instruments). [8] The mere presence of a female body on screen, "her lack of penis, [implies] a threat of castration and hence unpleasure," which is subverted through the oversexualization of her femininity. The definition of gaze has thus evolved from just a “look” into an “intent” look (i.e. Let’s clarify with an example. [24], In the production of art, the conventions of artistic representation connect the objectification of a woman, by the male gaze, to the Lacanian theory of social alienation — the psychological splitting that occurs from seeing one's self as one is, and seeing one's self as an idealized representation. Viewing in the Dark: Toward a Black Feminist Approach to Film. She is denied the picturing of her desire; what she looks at is blank for the spectator. The first Twilight movie is also a good example of the female gaze, but not in a good movie. The first part of the lecture will review the tradition of female nude in western art history, and introduce concepts of objectification and the gaze. Here a gaze can transcend the medium in which it is produced and contains social implications beyond its function within the work of art. Hobson, J. One can look at paintings such as Venus of Urbino by Titian and see the elongated features, welcoming smile, and (obviously) nude position of the woman. LOCATING FEMINISM (USING MARXISM) • Marxism taught us that social structures are based in Economic relations • Ownership of CAPITAL (money) leads to POWER and AUTONOMY • DIVISION OF LABOR: Men : Paid work, the “breadwinners” Women: Unpaid work, the “homemakers” • Consequence: Women are economically dependent on … google_ad_client = "pub-7609450558222968"; google_ad_slot = "0516006299"; google_ad_width = 336; google_ad_height = 280; Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on, http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Male_gaze, About The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia. Adam gazes at Eve in The Garden of Earthly Delights, perhaps the first instance of the male gaze in the arts. [34] Lefebvre states that "when the male gaze is affirming and one’s identity is validated, it may be a motivator to continue to conform to consistently be correctly gendered and avoid harm for not conforming". (2002). [18] Therefore, the degree to which women who practice the male gaze are masculinized demonstrates the rigidity of associated gender roles and characteristics in media representations of heterosexual romantic relationships. For example, Titian’s Venus of Urbino. Male directors, cinematographers, and editors were the ones whose visions were being realized. In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts[1] and in literature,[2] from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer. Women were portrayed in various mediums in order to please the male client purchasing/viewing the piece. The definition of gaze has thus evolved from just a “look” into an “intent” look (i.e. Theoretical discussions emphasize how the camera lens is a surrogate of the male gaze. In … Sex and the City: Shifting Past the Male Gaze … ….. Today, the male gaze of the camera has clearly persisted. Here the male inside the painting definitely does not control the gaze: he looks up at his wife questioningly, while she does not return his gaze (though she puts her hand on his shoulder with a gesture of intimacy unusual in painting). The development of feminist ideologies paralleled the emergence of film as the most prevalent entertainment media, earning the creative contingent of film the enmity of several feminist thinkers. (Catherine Lucas, 2006) Using the Psychoanalytical Notion of the ‘Male Gaze’ to Analyse Visual Examples from Film, Photography and Advertising: Challenging whether this concept is still relevant to an understanding of our cultural production. FEMINISM & ART 2. Is the Gaze Male? That the male gaze applies to literature and to the visual arts: Łuczyńska-Hołdys, Małgorzata (2013). [31], In the essay "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators" (1997)[32] bell hooks argues that Black women are placed outside the "pleasure in looking" by being excluded as subjects of the male gaze. The fashion industry is built on selling a female ideal, and the Angels are a strong but not singular example of this. The Ads: The ads below constitute all of the levels of the male gaze that I have described. Nonetheless, in the genre of the Renaissance nude, the woman who is the subject of the painting is aware of being looked at, by the spectator who is gazing at the painting in which she is the subject. See more. In other words, it depicts women from a masculine point of view, which presents them as objects of male pleasure. It treats the women at its center with nuance, depicting their complicated relationships and motivations, rather than portraying them one-dimensionally, and the film avoids using a leering gaze … Across the gallery is David’s double portrait of the great scientist Lavoisier and his wife, Marie-Anne Paulze. In a 1983 essay by E. Anne Kaplan, titled "Is the Gaze Male," Kaplan states that "men do not simply look; their gaze carries with it power of action and possession which is lacking in the female gaze". If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. [9] The male gaze is a manifestation of unequal social power, between the gazing man and the gazed-upon woman; and also is a conscious or subconscious social effort to develop gender inequality in service to a patriarchal sexual order. [35] The movie Point Break is an example of the third plot genre, and provides context for the analysis of the male gaze as a tool for subverting repressed male homoeroticism on screen. In considering the way that films are put together, many feminist film critics have pointed to the "male gaze" that predominates in classical Hollywood filmmaking. [31] As such, just as in Greek mythology, it requires the violent dismemberment of women’s heads - symbolizing their capacity to return an equally objectifying gaze to the male character - in order to subjugate the female gaze to acceptable heteropatriarchal norms. Socrates in David’s Death of Socrates ( 1787 ) worked for these earlier movies became standard... A strong but not singular example of this argument at 21:58 of film served... Feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey coined the concept of the male gaze '' female! Berger in Ways of Seeing, is a perfect illustration of what each aspect of Laura Mulvey coined concept! 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