It’s everywhere. Guys constantly sexualise women online, physically, mentally, whatever you can think of. It has become a norm to society and we often ignore it. We find it in films, adverts, tabloid newspapers and yet most of these are created by men; men are the cause for the male gaze and its’ existence. The male gaze is described as how viewers engage with visual media and it refers to how we look at visual representations. (Loreck, 2016).
Adverts are made in ways that sexualise women where men can use the ‘gaze’ on them. It could be a advert for perfume where the woman is wearing minimal clothing and is dressed to a man’s liking. This can be shown in the form of movement, physical touch, or word of mouth. Unfortunately, this is a constant problem in the media and has been carried on from years ago. Pulp Fiction, by Quintin Tarantino, is a great example of how the male gaze is portrayed in film. Uma Thurman who plays Mia Wallace, wife of Marcellus Wallace, is represented as a skinny, rich, white woman who is treated as royalty. The cover of the film is Uma Thurman herself, who is shown to be laying down with her legs up. Firstly, she is wearing heels, red lipstick and is looking at the camera as if she is in control. Realistically, this image gives men a chance to sexualise her in ways that’ll give them a reason to watch the film. When we first meet Mia, we see her as any other woman but also a mysterious woman. She almost creates a female gaze towards Vincent Vega, who is played by John Travolta, as he attempts to get a job done but somehow get’s distracted.
The male gaze is used everywhere, even uncontrollably. It’s bizarre how easy it is for a man to sexualise a women so quickly, it’s quite scary if you think about it. Although, we can say the same about females but who’s going to judge them? We are all in control of our own actions, so whatever we do and how ever we do it, it’s on us completely.
Reference list
Durham, M.G. and Kellner, D. (2006). Media and cultural studies: keywords. [online] r2.vlereader.com. Available at: https://r2.vlereader.com/Reader?ean=9781405150309 [Accessed 15 Nov. 2022].
Loreck, J. (2016). Explainer: what does the ‘male gaze’ mean, and what about a female gaze? [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486.
Ross, K. (2010). Gendered media: women, men and identity politics. [online] r2.vlereader.com. Available at: https://r2.vlereader.com/Reader?ean=9781442201040 [Accessed 6 Dec. 2023].
I think with Media specifically – the male gaze will always be at the forefront and it doesn’t even matter what gender is behind whatever is being perpetuated, especially when awful constructions exist such as the hierarchy. It’s very black and white with the media — Sell this image and you will gain so and so. Not an ounce of empathy is involved whatsoever which is simply terrifying.
I think behind this topic is a long-standing social problem, because in a patriarchal society, the social status of women is not as high as we know, on the contrary, men are always prone to the objectification of women, demeaning women, and this demeaning does not necessarily mean that it is a very excessive speech or behavior, but just to look at women’s eyes may be full of contempt or desire, but they are often not aware of their own, and I think that it is because it is difficult for the two genders to fully understand each other because of the different social status and the environment of the growing up of the different perceptions!
I think you pointed out a very good topic as it has become a real issue nowadays given all the stereotypes that have been followed for decades on the media industry and using pulp fiction being it one of the most successful movies in history is a very good example of how women have always been sexualized just for the “pleasure” of men on media and it has to change. Even though it has improved over the last few years, there is still a long way to get rid of all of these stereotypes and sexist attitudes on the media industry.
Great post!
Your point is very making sense. Male gaze makes a lot of woman burden more worried of their behavior and wearing. There is a lot of “all known” rubric about how should woman behavior like and wearing like. This is ridiculous and unfair. Everyone has their own right to do whatever they like. We can ask a human to do exactly what they expect, just because her gender is female.
I agree with you when you mentioned how we are all in control of our own actions, the male gaze, unfortunately, has become so normal, especially with the media normalising sexualising women, I fear there is not a way to stop it, it is human nature.