Male Gaze: Men Afraid of Women/ All About the Tittaes

The male gaze is synonymous with the erotic look. It is a way for men to normalize the image of the woman—an object. Touching back on our class discussion, the dehumanization of the female body in art and media instilled a culture where the female identity is built upon the idea of being looked at and displayed. The male gaze functions to oppress women and make it acceptable for us, as a society, to oppress women.

It can be argued that the male gaze is the image of the woman as an erotic object for the pleasure of men. But what I noticed from Laura Mulvey and Jean Kilbourne’s articles is the idea that the male gaze is a tool to oppress and suppress the potential power of women. In Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” she provides a deeper psychoanalytic reading of the “active/male and passive/female” roles. While she acknowledges that the female image serves as a pleasure factor for the male phantasy, she states that it is a way to undermine the power that women actually have. The image of the female, “her lack of penis, implying a threat of castration and hence unpleasure. Ultimately, the meaning of women is sexual difference” (Mulvey 840). From this psychoanalytic approach, the image of the female should be one of those extremist, anti-male, Amazon feminists; but its not. This is where the male gaze comes into the picture. Mulvey later says of the male gaze that, “The argument turns again to the psychoanalytic background in that woman as representation signifies castration, inducing voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to circumvent her threat” (843).

I related Mulvey’s psychoanalytic assessment to the Kilbourne article because she too talks about the idea that mass media is distracting girls from reaching their full potential. "Powerful women are seen by many people as inherently destructive and dangerous" (Kilbourne 137). So what better way to undermine their potential than by convincing women to focus their energy on looking at themselves and each other? Mass media, similar to the male gaze, instills a culture of oppression. Albeit more subtle, mass media makes women believe their goals should be superficial, and "empowers" them to believe that obtaining unattainable "beauty" is the only way to achieve "success". Kilbourne says, “Girls in false quests for power and control, while deflecting attention and energy from that which might really empower them” (138). 

Bell hooks’s oppositional gaze was a way for non-white, females to choose how they look at the media. It was a way to create an identity based on yourself rather than what mass media tells you to be. Bell hooks states this identification better, “enables both black women to define their reality, apart from the reality imposed upon them by structures of domination” (129). In a way, the oppositional gaze was a way of looking not as a passive female, but as an active female. I don't think its enough to say that the oppositional gaze is just reclaiming something. In fact its claiming something that was never thought of. Its a creation of "a special syntax for a different articulation of the female body" (hooks 129). I agree that identification can stem from recognition and representation of what already exists. But I also understand bell hooks's understanding of the oppositional gaze roots itself in creation and as a "form of representation which is able to constitute us as new kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover who we are" (131). 

One example I immediately thought of was the Axe Hair commercial which perfectly illustrates the male gaze. It tries to satirize the idea that men only initially pay attention to women’s breasts. But in the ad, it blatantly objectifies women. “She” is just a set of breasts on legs. While Axe tries to romanticize this “office love” it turns the objectification of women into something that should be humorous and even encouraged, saying "its not our fault we're visual creatures." As if males, or society, should take absolutely no responsibility for perpetuating this idea that women are merely objects to be looked at. I guess I could understand the thought behind the ad to make both males and females guilty of objectification but it doesn't work. Even though it says "we're visual creatures," the man (hair) is still the one calling the shots, the male is still in a position of power. This ad further reinforces my idea that males have instilled the male gaze into society and mass media so not only do men judge and objectify women, but women are placed in a position to judge and objectify not only themselves but other women too. 

Forehead Tittaes w/ Marion Cotillard (Funny or Die link)

I believe this Funny or Die video actually satirizes the idea of women being on display for men. It not only makes it funny, it illustrates the ridiculous sexist issue that exists. While it is still a comedic video, you can tell it wasn’t just made for male viewers, but also female as well, unlike the Axe Hair commercial. It makes light of the frustrating situation, but it still (at least I hope it does) make you think twice about what the deeper issue is. It addresses the problematic male gaze in a way that is relatable to both men and women. It satisfies women because it isn't just all about the tits and men's attraction to them, and it doesn't turn men away because it is too preachy/feminist. I love this video not only because I love Marion Cotillard, but it also give me some hope that there is a way to have this conversation, bringing the male gaze into consciousness while still engaging both male and female.

Works Cited:

hooks, bell. "The Oppositional Gaze." Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992: 115-31

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. NY: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-844

Kilbourne, Jean. "The More You Subtract The More You Add Cutting Girls Down To Size." Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel. Touchstone, 1999. 128-54.