Berger/Mulvey/Hooks

To gaze means to look upon something steadily, intently and with fixed attention.

We assess the thing at which we gaze. We endow it with it’s meaning. As we believe it relates to, highlights, conflicts, challenges, rejects or includes us, we take meaning about our selves from it. Often what is assessed and found meaningful during the gaze is framed dualistically and hierarchically; good/bad, attractive/threatening, valuable/worthless, etc. As Jonathan Schroeder states,

“To gaze implies more than to look at-it signifies a psychological relationship of power in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze.”

The male gaze, then, is the process by which men look at things and assess their superiority, authorship and ownership over the thing and take meaning about them selves from it. This way of seeing is not limited to men; however, the male gaze can be used by anyone viewing something, someone or themselves from the perspective of a (primarily white) man or with similar assessments and expectations. For example this Beyonce video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QczgvUDskk0&ob=av3e

Burger describes the historical pattern of objectification, ownership and entitlement existing in images of women in fine art that has come to define the male perspective. White, (supposedly) straight men, with extensive interest in personal power structures, being the owners of wealth, were the purchasers of art. To appeal to this market of viewer/purchasers a successful artist’s prevailing subject were nude women, painted in subordinate postures, their bodies idealized, their attention directed at the viewer/purchaser, their expressions and gestures submissive, sexually suggestive and available; their own desire absent. In Berger’s apt words, “To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for one’s self.” In this context the artist becomes a pimp whose procurement has historical reach. The perpetuation of this image, over and over and over again, and the cultural popularity of it established this an acceptable way in which to view women and for women to view themselves, standardized modes of desire for men and legitimized a style of painting that was, essentially, pornography.

These images of women as “less then”, objects to be owned, objectified, and consumed, as Laura Mulvey points out, continue to be pervasive today due to the subjugation of women and their roll as phallusless foils to men’s phallocentrism within the pre-existing mass unconscious of patriarchal society. In that women are seen as castrated beings, a terrorizing physical state to be denied, rejected, dominated and conquered, horrifying images of Non-males, women are first and foremost bearers of the meaning of what it is to be male. Women are not seen as makers or owners of intrinsic meaning themselves; they are only reminders of what would be to not have a penis. Their sorry state of dicklessness and the necessary subjugation of the dickless being is shown, again and again, in media; reminders of how great it is to have a dick and how much it would suck to not have one; all in order to pacify male castration anxiety. Mulvey says more but I’ll stop there for now because it’s infuriating. Because it’s all true.

Bell Hooks offers a way straight through the white male gaze and it’s limited perceptions of the Other. In her illustration of the oppositional gaze, Hooks’ describes a shield, a tool and, potentially, a weapon in the constant onslaught of images that degrade, diminish, dismiss, disappear and misdefine via critical thinking, viewing from a place of solid personal experience and understanding of what we're subject to/of. Hooks suggests the oppositional gaze is a vital, perhaps the only, position from which black women can view the products of a racist patriarchal culture and maintain a sense of safety and valuable selfhood. Just as anyone can use the male gaze to oppress, anyone can use the oppositional gaze to liberate ourselves from the oppressive and mindless consumption of oppressing images. We can "look in a way in order to resist." For me, this is an entirely new way of thinking about media. Possibly even change what watching and gazing fundamentally mean.

For me, these readings and Hooks key through this is profoundly supportive and empowering. I've often wondered why I don't go to movies, fall asleep watching almost any TV show and generally avoid the internet. Since reading these essays (more than once) and looking through the oppositional lens I see I have often felt disappointed and bored at best, down right disgusted and turned off at worst by images, story line and premises in these media. At times I am drawn to them (Beyonce, I love you). These readings give me a way to understand that and feel I don't have to hide from this, but have a solid ground from which to watch and assess for myself.