Gaze

The male gaze seems to dominate every single photograph, advertisement, movie or any piece of media that is made. In “Ways of Seeing” John Berger writes that “Women watch themselves being looked at” and he illustrates this through many images, both painting and photographic. From his analysis it is apparent that women who appear in media are very aware of the fact that they are being looked at by an outside audience, an audience they cannot see, but one they assume is male. This is the male gaze. However, what is attractive to males can also be attractive to females and not every image that bombards us has to be solely the gaze of a male. There are plenty of women artists, and I’m sure male artists, who make art that isn’t about the male gaze. Take the two photos here, both by Annie Leibovitz, and both of Angelina Jolie, who is undoubtedly the fantasy of men across the globe. The picture on the left is obviously shot with the male gaze in mind. But the picture on the right has no trace of that. As I was reading “Ways of Seeing” I was very aware of the fact that time has passed since it was written and that it was very indicative of its time. I am in no way discounting Berger’s arguments and analysis, I just believe that things are a little bit different today.

Bell Hooks writes that the oppositional gaze is one of rebellion or resistance on the part of a subordinated group. For her, it is black female spectators as well as the greater black community creating their own “gaze” because they are not present or accurately represented in entertainment produced by white people with a white gaze. The rebellious gaze is also one of critique. Hooks finds it important for black female spectators to develop a critical gaze, “One learns to look a certain way in order to resist.” The oppositional gaze allowed black female spectators to reject the white supremacy that dominated all forms of media. Hooks also makes the distinction that when she watches media made by black women she does not “need to ‘resist’ the images even as I still choose to watch their work with a critical eye.” This distinction is important because it shows that Hooks identifies with the images on the screen in front of her, so her rebellious and oppositional gaze is unnecessary, yet she can still be critical of the material as a spectator. In the video below filmmaker Julie Dash talks about the making of one of her movies, Daughters of the Dust. This is a first hand look at media being made from the black female spectator’s gaze.

While it is apparent that the male gaze exists and dominates media images, a lot has changed since articles like “Ways of Seeing” were written. And obviously a lot has changed since the paintings that John Berger writes about were painted. But even a lot has changed in a much more recent time. While there are still many “male gaze” images and advertisements, there are also many that aren’t from that perspective. Or if they are, they could also be seen from another perspective. It is true that women have always been trained to care about what other people think when they look at them. That is still very prevalent in society, I just don’t think it manifests itself as harshly as it used to.