Post: The male gaze and the oppositional gaze

The male gaze and the oppositional gaze are terms that are used to identify patriarchal and sexist views in our society. Both John Berger and Bell Hooks expose the bias that is present in art, media and our class based society towards women. “Ways of Seeing” explores the male gaze in the context of the fine arts and media. “The Oppositional Gaze” takes it a step further and describes the struggles that black females face. Both excerpts deal with the prejudgments that females face in western based cultures.

“The ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him.” (Berger, 64) This statement encompasses what the male gaze is, men are assumed to be the dominant gender so they are catered to when it comes to images of females. Females, whether they are in paintings or magazines, are depicted with a degree of perfection and sex appeal that is not achievable. Even if what was depicted was achievable by a female it says nothing about her intelligence, what she want look like and how she wants to act.

An example of what Berger is trying to convey can be seen on the cover of any magazine. Fitness and Shape, both magazines for women, depict their September 2013 cover models in bikinis, smiling at the viewer with their long hair down and slightly wavy. Most women aren't wearing bikinis in September or when going to the gym, they don’t leave their hair down when they are sweaty and usually it doesn't look perfectly wavy even if you are at the beach. These images, although found on a women’s fitness magazine, are intended for a male spectator. This exemplifies that “men act and women appear. Men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at.” (Berger 47) As The Guerrilla Girls point out, most art in museums are done by men and through the history of art women have been undocumented as artists, thus making it redundant to state the thousands of women not represented as artists in the area of fine art.

from Hannah Davis Blogspot

from justjared.com

The oppositional gaze is a gaze of defiance used by black females who are challenging societal structures in media. It has developed as a resistance to the controlled parameters of the predominantly white media. “With the possible exception of early race movies, the black female spectators have had to develop looking relationships within a cinematic context that constructs our presence as absence, that denies the “body” of the black female so as to perpetuate …where the woman to be looked at and desired is “white.”” (Hooks 118) This statement reinforces the need for the oppositional gaze. If you look at the dominant media and feel you are not represented, you do not “fit” in where do you turn to?

It is not only the lack of representation for the black female spectator but the misrepresentation of her as well. As Hooks points out and reinforced by Melissa Harris-Perry in Crooked Room “Mammy, Jezebel and Sapphire are common and painful characterizations of black women…black women are either seen as “oversexed” or as “fat mammies who aren't thinking about sex at all.” (MHP 33)  Some examples in the media of this are Kerry Washington’s character on the TV show Scandal or Tyler Perry’s Madea. Washington’s character is an over sexed female caught in an affair with a white man while Madea is a modern mammy.

 The social structure and archetype of the male gaze has been presented though my childhood and into my adolescence by popular culture. Barbie was the idea girl growing up, owning an easy-bake oven and playing dress up was a gateway to the expectations I face as a female, look pretty and cook well. Fortunately my immediate family structure was more female dominated than male, allowing me and my sister to be able to make choices that would otherwise seem “masculine” or “domineering”. Through a better understanding of the male gaze and the oppositional gaze from class last semester, I find that I am less tolerant of media and so called cultural norms. I shut off the radio if they are being sexist (which most morning shows are), I teach the little girls I watch that it is OK to be stronger and smarter than boys in class and I only worry about impressing myself.