#The Male Gaze

[centuriespast]

Susannah and the Elders Guido Reni (1575–1642) The National Gallery, London

[diana-andraste]

"Man Ray gives the female body, through his photographs, an unexpected dimension, a spectral eroticism, a surreal intensity. Primacy of matter over thought, represents the quintessence of Man Ray's work, in its vocation to sublimate the soul, to reveal the unrevealable, to materialize the dream. The subject lying down, naked, and enveloped in an irradiating light, invites the spectator to go beyond the mechanism of recording the visible and disrupts his "classical" perceptions." ftp

Kiki de Montparnasse, Primat de la matière sur la pensée, Man Ray, 1929

[jgvfhl]

Absolutely losing my mind over the opening cutscene for the Zaya Observatory mission in multiplayer CoD: MWII bc of one thing: cinematography.

These are examples of Ass Shots of Female Characters bc the male gaze exists. The shot is focused on their rear and everything else follows, and this is where the viewer's eye is drawn. Ends up emphasizing and objectifying their physical (and therefore sexual) value instead of other characteristics.

SO SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME:

Framing! His ass is EXACTLY center.

THE RED GLOW STICKS??? AGAINST THE BLACK BACKGROUND??? My eye goes right there. RIGHT THERE.

WHY DOES ACTIVISION WANT ME TO STARE AT PHILLIP GRAVES' ASS??? @cod-dump look at this what is this what is happening

[maybe-itsforthebest]

- j (x)

[asteria-of-the-stars]

Grown men preying on young women:

‘If I was some paint did I splatter on a promising grown man? If I was a child did it matter that you got to wash your hands?’ - Taylor Swift, Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve

Alicent Hightower and Viserys Targaryen, House of the Dragon // Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber // Sansa Stark and Petyr Baelish, Game of Thrones // Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Inspired by this post.

[morallygay]

“Blackwashing” goes in the same box as “the female gaze” and “transandrophobia” for terms that are coined as a parallel equivalent to an existing term but miss that the core aspect of their counterpart (whitewashing, the male gaze, and transmisogyny) is a power imbalance. Hegemony. Oppression. The original terms are critiques of these (racism, more specifically colorism and antiblackness; misogyny; transphobia x misogyny). They are not equivalent and can only work in one direction.

[catgirl-catboy]

Saw an extremely bad post about lesbians and the male gaze.

Anyone can shoot with the male gaze, regardless of their sexuality!!! It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with what you expect from your audience.

If the camera takes the time to stare longingly at the chest/ass of a woman for no in-universe reason, that's the male gaze. It doesn't matter if the rationale is "I, the director, find that hot." or "the actress wants this kind of shot here" or "a lot of movies are shot this way!" or "This would look great for marketing purposes!"

Reducing it to "the male gaze is what happens when straight men" is robbing everyone of accountability for the institutionalized sexism at play.

Also, stop applying it IRL, this is about filming and composition. >:(

[piecesbythestars]

“the bus ride home” /// a poem about the male gaze

[victusinveritas]

The in-story reason: the catsuit was a medical device designed by the doctor, to protect and rejuvinate her Borg-damaged skin.

The real reason, of course, had something to do with the male gaze.

[lyledebeast]

Voyeurism vs. Provocation: The Gaze in The Patriot

In my copious reading/video watching about The Patriot I've found very little interpretation focused on sexuality. Perhaps this should be unsurprising since the only characters who definitely have sex are Benjamin Martin and Charlotte Selton, as evidenced by the baby in her arms in the film's final scene. When commentors do address it, focus tends to be on the male gaze; the camera lingers on Charlotte's decolettage in times of danger and romance alike. It is hard to imagine a character who more fully exudes, to use Laura Mulvey's words in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975), "to be looked at ness." Apart from getting the Martin children to safety in a dragoon attack (which, to be fair, is more than their father could do!) that is her main purpose in this story. This is to be expected given the film's cardboard flat representation of women generally. but what is surprising is the insistence of some commentors that William Tavington's bare chest in the famed river scene serves the same purpose, only for a specifically female audience.

According to Mulvey, "Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectators in the auditorium, with a shifting attention between the looks on either side of the screen" (2013 reprint in Feminism and Film Theory). All of this applies to Charlotte. Though Ben Martin can barely be bothered to glance her way early on, he has no problem allowing her to care for his current children and bear him future ones. Indeed, given that their first and only kiss happens after caring for his children costs her a plantation, the second appears to be a reward for the first. Lucky woman :/

The costume Charlotte wears after this encounter is her most revealing of all: her arms as well as her chest left bare. Now that the hero has deemed her worth looking at, the audience also gets a greater share of the bounty he has uncovered for us. Tavington, meanwhile, gets dressed down several times, but no one undresses him but himself.

Tavington is a significantly more active figure in the story, and he only appears thus improperly dressed here and the deleted scene in the DVD bonus features/extended cut when he advances on General Cornwallis, urging him not to withhold his reward (ok, whore). Not only are women notably absent from both of these scenes, but Tavington has no interaction with women in the film whatsoever. Anna shouts at him in the church he is about to burn, and he ignores her. Two women appear in the foreground when he shoots back champagne after the militia-engineered ship explosion, but it is as likely that they all wanted drinks at the same time as that they were engaged in conversation. The best opportunity for Tavington to engage with a woman is his surprise visit to Charlotte's plantation, but instead that honor goes to Martin's son, Nathan.

Not only is Tavington uninterested in women, and they in him for all we see, the film's female characters exist to do one of two things: have and/or care for men's babies or die for their motivation. But the filmmakers are getting the main villain out of his clothes exclusively to provide eye candy "for the ladies" . . . sure.

It is a little disorienting when he emerges from having washed the smoke out of his hair in the river like Venus rising from the sea. Every other British soldier is dressed to regulation in every scene (apart from one blink and you miss it glimpse of dragoons dining in their tent with their jackets off . . . ohh, scandalous!). Tavington, with his shirt open to the sternum and only his jacket over it, looks positively obscene in comparison. None of this was lost on the film's gay director, Roland Emmerich, who made the absolute most of it. But let's assume, just for a moment, that this wanton spectacle actually has some relevance to the plot and reveals something about this character.

This is the final scene of what I call the film's Golden Hour (you do not have to tell me it is significantly less than an hour!) that takes us from the prisoner exchange to Gabriel's death. These scenes also reveal a new strategy on Tavington's part. Up until this point, he has been bent on killing as many rebel soldiers and making examples of as many of their supporters as possible. Once he recognizes Martin, though, his tactic shifts from executing men to provoking attack by men.

Gloating about killing Martin's son: provocation

Targeting militia men's families: provocation

Collapsing with his back to his assailant and his ass in the air: provocation

Initially, Tavington appears to get more than he bargained for in the river scene. He seems to be caught unaware, at a distance from his weapons, vulnerable to attack. If he is, he gets over it quickly, running to arm himself while his men fight and casually dispatching the attacking rebels who get past them. Gabriel is able to wound Tavington not by outfighting him but because Tavinton's latest victim throws him a loaded musket before falling down dead. Handy.

Tavington puts himself in an extremely vulnerable position. Not only is his back to Gabriel, but he lying prone, which means he needs even greater speed and agility to flip over and stab Gabriel than Gabriel's father will need, while kneeling, to avenge him later. And it will be all for naught if Gabriel reloads and shoots him again like a sensible person. But he is not thinking sensibly; it is called bloodlust for a reason. Tavington is banking not only on his backside proving too tempting a target to resist but on Gabriel's desire to stick his weapon into him at close range. Even the roar Gabriel lets out as he raises his knife aids in Tavington's aims.

Bathing after burning someone's house down is a risk too, especially so soon after taking out several militia men's families in one swoop, but it is one Tavington is willing to take. Perhaps the way he looks is "for" someone here, but it is someone he is expecting, and it is not the Loyalist Ladies Sewing Society. He already knows Martin prefers to have the advantage of surprise when he attacks, so surprised is what he'll be.

Martin, however, is not only less susceptible to this tactic than his son, but he employs it himself. For a moment, it looks as though Tavington's goading in front of the fort is going to work, but once he is so close that only Tavington can hear him . . .

"Before this war is over I am going to kill you."

Tavington, without missing a beat: "Why wait?"

Martin, considering, looking Tavington over sultrily as he does so: "Soon."

(Ok, whore)

Tavington is skilled at using other men's dark desires to his advantage, but he is the subject of such desires too, and this proves to be his downfall. Martin's tactic of provoking a British attack works not because Cornwallis holds the militia in contempt but because he fears Tavington will steal his glory. Tavington charges into battle ahead of his men because he wants Martin.

Desire is not in short supply in The Patriot; it just mostly exists between men. The river scene provides perhaps the best example of this. Tavington is not like Charlotte, or the heroines Mulvey describes as passive objects of a controlling, sexualizing gaze. He knows what he's about. That does not mean women should not be tantalized by him--that would be ridiculous. But there is a big difference between enjoying something and believing it exists solely for the purpose of your enjoyment.

[scrambleofwords]

There is a doves carcass on the corner that the boys laugh and parade around like a trophy.

Dull irises, grey pupils rolled into its skull

The skin of its chest pulling back to reveal a row of pretty white ribs,

Enough blood to obscure its face, enough to make a sin feel more like a toy and less like a tragedy

Enough to not feel human.

At the bench my friend asks me if I trust him

If I know him, if I’ve seen him at all

Less like a human and more like a man

He runs his finger along the dimpled skin of my ribcage

Says that that’s the best look on a girl

I say I know him, he’s a good man, the best.

I remind him of a bird he once knew, he says.

Back when they were untouched, white skinned and famished of humanity

I say I’ve never met anyone like him, he laughs.

He doesn’t know the colour of my eyes,

But he’d tell his friends the only way he’d remember them is rolled back, they’d laugh.

His hands on my chest, tugging at the skin

Like he’s digging for my heart, desperate for a possession to take home and show them;

A trophy of my love, I’d chorus, he’d choir.

Mine was a ballad of devotion, he was slightly off tune.

[verilybitchie]

[censored] The Lesbian Gaze, now on Youtube!

[thekittyfox2999]

Untitled

[ubu507]

Nuns and Can-Can R. Dawson Islington Local History Centre and Museum

[frankensteinsfairy]

The Obsession with Female Rage in Media by Final Girl Studios

[stephyytheseeker]

Ornament

My worst fear is becoming an ornament to society. Oh, wait… I already am one. That’s all a woman is in this world; an object. If she’s not seen as pretty by the standards of today, then she is nothing; but if she happens to fit the mould, then she is an ornament. She will never be known for her curious mind or her compassionate soul. Only for her face; only for her body. That is what is of use to the male species.

Her mind and soul threaten the power and authority of the fragile male ego, so they ignore her intellect; devalue her emotions. Men can’t allow their ego to break, but the ornament? Let it shatter. And once it is broken, he’ll replace it. Because us “bitches” are all the same. We are just one of many hollow, shiny, ornaments hanging on the man’s tree. Aren’t we? Maybe not to you. And certainly, not to most other women. But to the pathetic, simple-minded, “alpha” male; to the society he created, I’m just a pretty, little ornament that only exists for his objectifying gaze.