Bell Hooks and John Berger are two authors that stress very important themes in art and society; the male gaze and the oppositional gaze. For centuries, women have been downgraded, not only by male artists but by males in general, to pieces of meat that are only meant to pleasure them. They’ve gone from figures that were meant to care and nurture to figures that please and pleasure. Racial inequality has allowed this to continue even further by downgrading black women throughout media. These "gazes" are responsible for the downgrading of women's role in society.
John Berger suggests, “... a woman's presence expresses her own attitude towards herself and defines what can and cannot be done to her” (Berger 46). Artists in earlier years painted female nudes portraits that depicted the subject looking out at her audience in an alluring way. The audience was usually a male patron that the portrait was painted for. This allowed the males looking at the subject to gaze at her in a sexual manner and as a sex toy. Women were often painted to reflect a “perfect” woman and this same idea is still apparent today. Magazine covers are flanked with pictures of models or actresses with photoshopped bodies to provide viewers with a sex appeal and a sort of perfection that is impossible to attain.
Berger goes onto say “”To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men” (Berger 46). In society, men are the ones who decide what women are worth. Male artists would choose one female’s hands and join it with another female’s boobs and another female's legs and so on and so forth to attain the image of a perfect woman in their mind. They would bring the value of women down to the point where they were only there to provide the male gaze something “sexy” and “perfect” to look at.
Bell Hooks brings Berger’s idea of a male gaze and adds some color into it; literally. Hooks stresses the issue of racism in the media and how black female artists are portrayed by the media and cinema. She state, “To stare at the television, or mainstream movies, to engage its images, was to engage its negation of black representation. It was the oppositional black gaze that responded to these looking relations by developing independent black cinema” (Hooks 117). Shows such as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” allowed many viewers to get a proper glimpse at what racial equality meant. The oppositional gaze as Hooks says is, “... an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire…” (Hooks 116).
And to this day, the oppositional gaze and the male gaze is scene throughout the media. Beauty pageants, magazines, porn, all allow one thing: gazing. They are meant to be watched. Beauty pageants allow women to walk down a runway, wearing a skimpy bikini so that people may stare and gaze and admire her beauty and sex appeal. Magazines make it okay for people, both men and women, to stare at a photoshopped body of their favorite actress. Porn allows males to gaze at their computer screen at a woman strip teasing. The male gaze and the oppositional gaze are what allow the media to thrive.
Kim Kardashian on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine
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