To gaze is to look with fixed attention upon an object. The male gaze, a term coined by Laura Mulvey, is the idea that the portrayal of women in the media is created for and by men. The voyeuristic tendency of men to abuse the wandering eye using it to objectify any given woman he might encounter. However, the male gaze is not as innocent as being attracted to a women on the street insisting how beautiful her smile is or lovely her hair is done today. The male gaze is premeditated and intentional; everyone is aware of it and everyone exploits it.
Take for instance this 1960's Tiparillo Ciggarette ad "Blow in Her Face and She'll Follow You Anywhere", this ad not only suggests oral sex but the dominance which the male asserts over the women with his intense fixated gaze. This ciggarette advertisement justifies the male gaze by encouraging men that in purchasing these cigarettes the ultimate prize is a woman, and idea explored in Laura Mulvey's work Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, "Women then stand for in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other" (Mulvey,834.) But is this ad appealing to men and women; it's difficult to tell without knowing a brief history. In the 1920's women were used as props of sorts in the background of tobacco campaigns, ladies who admired the strong man who took a pull from his cigarette but had little interest in smoking herself. Some might have believed it controversial to depict a woman smoking in a tobacco advertisement. But soon enough women became a target audience for the tobacco industry, a woman smoking was no longer taboo but stylish and attractive and thus the tobacco industry began the exploitation of women in their advertising. However, how could the male dominated advertising world of the 1950's and 60's ever truly know what appealed to women, when women had no influence over what went in to these advertisements. Again enter the male gaze, the notion that somehow women positively received degrading attention from their male counterparts, and thus this type of advertising could appeal to the masses.
Wandering eyes feast on a woman the second she presents herself in public. The male gaze is uncomfortable and unforgiving subjecting a women to uninvited scrutiny picking her apart, dividing her in to pieces. John Berger's asserts "To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself" (Berger, 54), in his work "Ways of seeing". Society has somehow grown to tolerate this idea and sexually suggestive sexist advertisement is becoming more and more prevalent. Take for instance this ad campaign for a Tom Ford Cologne for Men, the creators and visionaries behind this masterpiece (sarcasm intended) couldn't even dignify the model by giving her calves let alone a face. Once again this presents a women as a commodity intended for male consumption.
Bell Hooks, explores the nature of the gaze through a slightly different lens, through the eyes of oppressed black people. Hooks refers to this as the oppositional gaze, a sort of rebellion for the injustices imposed upon black people throughout the ages. "That all attempts to repress our/black people's right to gaze had produced in us an overwhelming longing to look, a rebllious desire, an oppositional gaze" (Hook 116). Hooks also explores the representation of black womanhood in film and the response from black female film goers, "They resented the way she was mocked. They resented the way these screen images could assault black womanhood... And in opposition they claimed Sapphire as their own" (Hooks, 120.) Black spectators rejected the idea of black womanhood imposed by Amos n' Andy and adopted there own interpretations. Perhaps spectators of all backgrounds can benefit from the oppositional approach and perhaps ads will begin to start look a bit more like this one:
These ads are really great examples. I think the cigarette ad is particularly interesting because the woman looks 1. vacant and 2. hypnotized by the man. Both are used as incentives for a man to buy this brand of cigarettes, telling him that women are vapid beings, so it's okay to dominate them.
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on the readings. There are two things that stood out to me. First of all, I don't think you have to point out that you're sarcastic.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, is the last advertisement really something that we want to see? How is that any better than the other ads you discussed (and discussed well, I might add)? Not only is it generally offensive, you could argue that it says a few negative things about women. For example, that they need men to get anywhere, that they need to conform to a specific body type to acquire those men, and so on. Maybe I'm stretching things a bit, but my gut tells me that the ad you've posted is not a desirable alternative.
Objectifying men wouldn't be the solution to selling products or sparking female interest, as women were shown not to be as interested in male nudity as men are with female nudity. Rendering the male form as less of a commodity than the female form. Thus objectifying men in such a manner seems laughable because it is so rare. I do love how you incorporated the Tom Ford ad because it is very telling on how the female body is packaged in parts, the greasy reproductive organs more valuable to the male viewer than any actual identifiable part of this woman.
ReplyDeleteThe Tom Ford perfume ad is a perfect example of what John Berger addesses in his article. It objectifies women and displays nudity to sell an object made for men.
ReplyDeleteI found your cigarette ad very interesting because of its connotation of oral sex. The woman in the ad is leaning in, her breasts pressed towards the male counterpart while he is holding the phallic symbol of the cigarette. He is in control, he is acting (he is the one who is smoking), just like Mulvey and Berger point out, while she is passively taking in his second hand smoke, what he is "blowing in her face." The Tom Ford ad was interesting as well. Woman is no longer, she is replaced by body parts, objects that can be taken apart for men's enjoyment. It definitely makes a strong statement of what woman is supposed to be. Woman is not a complete, autonomous being, she is a set of parts for the sexual use of men.
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