Male gaze (1975- ) is the idea that women are shown in films not as they are but as men see them. The idea comes from feminist film theory but it applies just as well to television, video games, comic books, advertising and even paintings.
As John Berger put it in “Ways of Seeing”: “Men ‘act’ and women ‘appear’. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”
Women are often shown in ways that men rarely are.
You see it in hip hop videos. Why do so many have half-naked women? They do not sing or rap, they are not part of any serious storyline. They are just there for men to look at.
You see it in advertising too, Many ads have a pretty woman, the idea being that if you buy what they are selling you will get the girl – or be the girl who gets her man. “Sex sells”, as they say.
At times you see men presented this way, presumably for female viewers, like when James Bond takes off his shirt. But for the most part men are presented not as something to look at but as those who act and move the story along.
Why is this? Because sex does in fact sell. Because film, television, videos and advertising are largely made by men, not women. It is men for the most part who write the lines, direct the actors and man the cameras. Read the credits and see. And they do it all largely with male viewers in mind.
So what about female viewers? They have a choice: either they watch as if they were men or do what advertisers assume they do: see themselves as the woman being looked at and desired.
And so women unthinkingly take in male ideas of themselves as objects to be looked at, desired and possessed. That idea of womanhood is hardly an invention of television or advertising, but they do help to strengthen it.
Feminists say that the male gaze is an example of how much power men have in society, that it affects everything, even something as simple as how women are shown on television.
So while the video vixens in hip hop videos are there for men to look at, it affects the women and especially the girls who watch it too. For good or ill, it helps to teach them what it is to be a woman and does it through how men look at them.
It also affects women when they compare themselves to these women being gazed at. It helps to make them unhappy with how they look.
In America the male gaze affects white women more than black women since the gaze is largely a white male gaze. In some shows it is clear that the white women are being presented to be gazed at but the black women are not. This may be part of why white women are unhappier with their bodies than black women are.
See also:
- Examples:
- Jody Watley on Soul Train – playing completely to the male gaze
- women
- hip hop
- advertisement
- film
- television
- anorexia
- James Bond
This may sounds stupid…but I didn’t really notice that much how this industry mainly consisted of men :s
But I agree with you when you say that it affects the way girls see it. I’m 15 (don’t know if I still count as a girl :S) But I remember when I was a bit younger being intimidated by the women in such videos and ads.
Now, I’m almost not as I don’t watch a lot of things on TV these days, usually the internet, that and I choose to mainly just listen to Hip Hop instead of watching the videos that go along with it too.
But even today, when I watch a few of these videos… I look at these women and think that I don’t want to end up like them, as they give the wrong message about black women to other races.
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Speaking as a man, the women in hip hop videos are nice to look at, but they cannot be sending a good message either to black girls growing up or to men of other races, who already have stereotypes about black women as loose and being all about sex.
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I would say this is not just a problem with hip hop videos. The Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpsons videos send out the wrong sort of message to young girls as well. And the Bratz Dolls..all short skirts and additude. They were selling Bratz thong panties in toddler sizes…their is something very wrong about that.
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Not just wrong, it is sick.
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Wow you got it I am honestly shocked you understand that when you focus so much on the white beauty myth in portion to your feelings on empowering black women as equal holders of the male gaze. And the anti fat comments you make. But I guess this is all a part of intersection like Kimberly William takes about.
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Also modern day feminist believe in owning the male gaze as a pat of our womanhood while wanted to live in a world that sees us as
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Males have always been visual creatures. You can argue that the female gaze does not exist in a sexual context as much as female gaze toward male achievement, fame, status, combined with decent to good looks.
Change the wiring and you’ll change the images. Men are wired to like cute chicks. Castrate everyone if you want to solve the biological cause..It’s perverse at times I agree on that.
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