Monday 5 November 2012

Task 2 - Richard Miles - The Gaze

Men have the power of the gaze—they can watch women in private (voyeurism) and in public.
Clearly, a woman can have more power over a man in certain situations, but the real issue is the prevalence of male power in this society, not a few cases of the contrary. 
A classic look at the nature of the male gaze is Walters (1995), specifically “Visual Pleasures: On Gender and Looking,” pp. 50-66. In this chapter Walters draws on the work of Berger (1985) and Mulvey (1975) and suggests a tripartite construction of the male gaze. 

Taken by the man, is projected on multiple screens; and in ad 13 in which men watch the woman while the woman enjoys it. You might also note that the scenario of the woman gazing at herself is an increasingly common one. 



The relationship represented by on this image is specified toward 'The Male Gaze'. This relationship is portrayed through the use of 'using' a woman as a main sexualised focal point. The man in this photograph seems to be holding the power as he is observing the woman and is dominant in body position. This image particularly focuses on the 'male Gaze' as the photographer is a male, he centres the woman and projects this image on this screen at the background, this allows permission for men to observe while it looks like the woman is enjoying the pleasure. 'The Look' by Rosalind Coward highlights this point well; 'The photograph profession is no less  bastion of the values of male professionalism. While i don't wish to suggest there's am intrinsically male way of making images, here can be little doubt that entertainment as we know it is crucially predicted on a masculine  investigation of women and a circulation of womans images of men. This means that 'looking' is largely controlled by men, if men control photographs, films and editing processes then you have all visual culture basically produced for men viewed through the eyes of men. 


No comments:

Post a Comment