Gaze and it's effects on the viewer is
the subject for this week's readings, with a link to the
MissRepresentation film in
regards to how women are treated.
The reading explains gaze, stating it “helps to establish
relationships of power...awarding more power to the person who is
looking than the person who is the object of the look.” (111)
Being the viewer of the image
grants authority over that which they are looking at, but
also gaze within an image creates situations of dominance
“There
is a long tradition in art of understanding the female nude as the
project and possession of the male artist. In these paintings, the
women are posed as objects of an active or ‘male’ gaze, and their
returning looks are more often downcast, indirect, or otherwise coded
as passive.” (123-124)
1)
The following Calvin Klein ad, a classic representation of male
gaze in media, features three men fondling a nearly nude woman. In
this image, male fantasies of domination are projected on to a
passive female, successfully asserting the prominence of male
perspective in our culture.
Figure
1, Calvin Klein jeans advertisement
Retrieved
from: https://mahagha.wordpress.com/tag/advertising/
Please
respond to at least one of any of the following questions regarding
Figure 1:
- “In systems of representation, meaning is established through difference” (111).
Only
the men in the image are wearing the advertised jeans. What do you
believe is the implication/purpose of this “difference?” What do
you have to say about the ad’s disparities in representation--there
being 3 men and only 1 woman? Does this say something about the ad’s
intended audience?
- “The act of looking is commonly regarded as awarding more power to the person who is looking than to the person who is the object of the look” (111).
Who
are we forced to focus on in this image--the three male figures, or
the single female figure? Who is “looking” and who is the “object
of the look?” What do you think this aesthetic choice says about
gender roles, power and representation? Feel free to also draw on
past readings such as Bordo’s "The Empire of Images", discussions we have had in class
and on the blog, and the documentary we watched, Miss
Representation.
2)
“In systems of
representation, meaning is established through difference.”(pg.
111) Essentially everything
we understand about representation comes from knowledge of one side
and basing the other side on it's opposite (in the sense that we know
what culture is because it is the opposite of nature, or what Eastern
countries are like because they are the opposite of our own Western
ideologies).
I
would like you, the viewer,
to consider the following picture.
Figure 2,
Opposite Sides (Illustration by Malcolm Evans from
http://www.evanscartoons.com/index.php)
From
understanding only one side of the picture, we start to make
generalized assumptions of the other side. These assumptions
translate into stereotypes, and eventually, these become common ways
of viewing these opposite side (here, “white” or western culture
versus eastern culture).
Instead of ask your opinion
on this, I implore you to look over your initial thoughts on images
of other countries, cultures, and people different from you (that I
ask you put here). What are these thoughts and where do you think
they stem from? (I am asking you to open up a bit and be honest about
your own possible bias toward other cultures, and explore
possibilities as to why and how to correct them)
Sturken,
Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. “The Gaze and the Other.” Practices
of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. 2nd ed. Oxford:
Oxford Univ., 2009. 111-120. Print.
Sturken,
Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. “Gender and the Gaze.” 123-136
Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture.
2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2009. 123-129.
Print.
