OUGD501. COP2. Lecture - The Gaze and the Media.

the lecture looks at the impact this has in the everyday, and how the prevalence of the male Gaze normalizes these perceptions of women and their bodies and is internalized by women themselves. This is a complex area of investigation, and rather than a simple ‘reversal’ of the Gaze onto the male body, the lecture seeks to address and question image makers as to the possibility of an alternative portrayal of the body. 

'men look at women. women watch themselves beeing looked at' - john berger.

The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets. fashion/photography/.advertising all based on idea of sex sells and because most people straight means women are the icon to target men to sell. so in turn over exposure of women and depiction of nude form in global culture lessens the sanctity of the female form and nover normalises the naked women making it appear ok for men to objectify women.

xVoyeurism: the compulsion to seek sexual gratification by secretively looking at sexual objects or acts; the actions of a Peeping Tom.

 Male nude as challenging the gaze

Gym- sports-power

Cult of fitness – male ideals of body image.

•Women ‘marginalised within the masculine discourses of art history’

•This marginalisation supports the ‘hegemony of men in cultural practice, in art’

•Women not only marginalised but supposed to be marginalised

"I'd say it's a constant undercurrent, when women write about feminist issues or are exposed in a lot of media for speaking out about sexism they tend to get a barrage of abuse and threats," 

social media furthers the theory of the male gaze and is used by both men and women to objectify and sexualise women and the female form.

The body is broken into fragments-could be any female

Plays on teenagers body consciousness, potentially carrying those  perceptions into adult life

The act of photographing is more than passive observing. Like sexual voyeurism, it is a way of at least tacitly, often explicitly, encouraging what is going on to keep on happening' susan sontag

reality tv furthers the ideas of voyerism and gives the viewer seemingly free invitiation to 'the gaze' however there is no freedom of viewing or really freedom of thought - editing and camera angles etc means the production company can sway the viewer any way they want an it becomes so much more entrenched because the viewer thinks they have the freedom and the autonomy to come to their own conclusions about what their watching but in actual fact there is no freedom and only the re affirmation of the male gaze and women being lesser.

Looking is not indifferent. There can never be any question of 'just looking'.
Victor Burgin (1982)