Your Gaze Makes Me Feel Unconfortable...

A woman, naked, stares out of a picture looking sensually at the audience. She surely is not looking at ME with those eyes. She is being exposed to the male gaze. Laura Mulvey says the “…male gaze projects its fantasy on the female figure, which is styled accordingly” (Mulvey 837) this means women are being objectified and basically owned by men because in their minds they are doing what they please to women. As a result women have to, in John Berger’s words be “the surveyor and the surveyed” because she has to watch how she is to others since this impacts her sense of being appreciated by someone else (Berger 46).

The male gaze is prevalent in popular culture through magazines, movies, advertisements and television. Women are told what is acceptable for them to wear, act, and eat. Clothing advertisements show flawless, skinny but voluptuous women staring attractively and posing provocatively at the consumers, as a result many young girls, teens and women feel they need to look just like these models forgetting that these women have been photoshopped; they are allowing themselves to be owned by the male gaze. To be objectified as something sexual.

Another form of popular culture the male gaze is present is in television. When “hot” women are shown on TV, the camera focuses on their body, I do not want to look at her toned legs or breast but they focus on these areas for the pleasure of men. The women who are part of a game show are always young and beautiful, the camera somehow manages to focus on their body, “wow look at this beautiful car” but in reality they are reaching out to heterosexual men “look at how sexy this woman looks next to this cool car, you can get women like these if you get this car” is the real message.

The oppositional gaze is a response to the gaze. Bell Hooks states that slaves were not allowed to look at white people as a form of domination. However, this oppression has caused black people to want to look, to rebel, the oppositional gaze. In media, black people looked critically at shows that portrayed black people such as Amos n' Andy.  Even though some movies tried to bring down black women, black women chose not to identify themselves with these characters but rather see them critically.

I had an idea of what the male gaze was before reading Mulvey. I believe the media encourages and supports the male gaze more than they should. When I look at advertisements, movies, T.V. shows, and novelas I feel like women are not always put to be role models to me but to please men. The oppositional gaze still confuses me, when I see latinos in T.V. shows or movies I get offended because they stereotype latinos. I do not know if I will ever distance myself from these portrayals and look at them critically but I do hope I can help change the way latinos are portrayed.