Tag: male gaze

The Secret is Out: Someone IS Watching You When You’re Alone

by No Rules Cornell, posted in Featured, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

by Leio Koga //

This piece was originally published in Issue 1: Secret Edition (Spring 2022). To see past print publications, click here.

Another swipe of mascara and her lashes look voluminous and flirty. Another flick of black eyeliner and her eyes look bigger and more striking. Another line of light gloss and her lips look full and alluring. She’s beautiful to look at but as she tilts her head, a flash of contemplation and dissatisfaction crossing her face. Does she look good enough? Pretty enough? Should she add more eyeliner to make her eyes look bigger; wear a red lip to look sexier? What will people think of her—what will the guys think of her?

I consider myself an unapologetic, passionate, capable feminist. How can these thoughts be mine?

Wait – back up. Who is she? And who is describing her? Well, that girl is me. I am the one imaging myself this way, viewing myself from another perspective, and having an inner debate about the “looked-at-ness” factor—does she look good enough to be looked at? Admired? To be found attractive? It is a misogynistic, objectifying, male perspective, and to be honest, this feels like a dirty confession. I mean, I consider myself an unapologetic, passionate, capable feminist. How can these thoughts be mine? How can I think like this?

For a long time, I felt embarrassed, disgusted, and alone. It was just me and this unwanted male voice inside my head. And then, I stumbled across Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” an essay that first introduced the world to the concept of the male gaze in cinema. According to Mulvey, in terms of traditional narrative film, we identify the active protagonist (male actors) and desire the passive objects (female actors). Consequently, this puts viewers “in the position of men looking at women, identifying as male and desiring the female.” Unfortunately, this holds true for perspectives outside of film as well. The reality is that many girls are subconsciously performing for an audience that does not exist.

Self-Commodification and Social Media Under the Patriarchy

According to Mulvey, the male gaze enables the commodification of womens’ bodies. Our external and internal value weighs in the amount of our “looked-at-ness,” and we view each part of our body through a value system assembled by men. Another similar concept is “thingification,” which is the making of ourselves into “things”: commodities for others’ consumption. In a famous quote by Margaret Atwood, she explains how we not only are subject to the male gaze around us, but also an internalized form of the male gaze. In other words, we unconsciously objectify ourselves based on a male’s perspective.

Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up
on a pedestal or down on your knees, it’s all a male fantasy: that you’re strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren’t catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you’re unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur. (Margaret Atwood)

When we grow up with the harsh influence of social media and society, it is nearly impossible to escape self-commodification and objectification of our bodies.

Social media is a prime example of self-commodification. For example, when we post selfies or pictures of ourselves, we desire all the likes we can get, because we associate the amount of likes with our desirability. Here, there is a transaction between women and the price they are willing to pay for attention. When we are wired from a young age to engage in social media and this type of toxic transaction, we find it hard not to find validity from others. The constant societal conditioning of looking pleasing to others, and being likable and desirable, largely induces these attitudes. When we grow up with the harsh influence of social media and society, it is nearly impossible to escape self-commodification and objectification of our bodies. According to objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) many users choose to construct their online personas through photo selection of their profiles. These photos are not chosen at random; female users “wish to present themselves as ‘affiliate and attractive’ and have been shown to regard presenting aesthetically pleasing photographs as more important than male users.” As a result of these predominantly image-based apps, “our society has been given a new arena in which appearance evaluation, appearance comparison, and sexual objectification have the potential to occur,” thus endorsing the
idea that one’s value is placed in their outward appearance.

The Male Gaze in Cinema

We consume, learn, and form the perspectives of white men, practically eliminating the facets of gender, race, economic, social, cultural and political rights of all people and the agency of people of color in the film industry.

White men have created the majority of films we have ever seen in American mainstream cinema, which means that they have made all the decisions related to the shots, framing, lighting, sound design, the intended audience—all of it—including the way characters are written and perceived. This means that we consume, learn, and form the perspectives of white men, practically eliminating the facets of gender, race, economic, social, cultural and political rights of all people and the agency of people of color in the film industry. Ultimately, this means
that we have all been conditioned to adopt the male gaze because that is the way we were raised by traditional cinema.

Considering that almost all films are written and directed by white men, there are countless examples of the male gaze in films. Let’s look at Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). It follows the life of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he secures a high-powered job on Wall Street and transforms into a sex, drug-fueled, and money obsessed stockbroker. From the beginning, we can see the objectification of women and the misogyny that carries out throughout the rest of the movie: Belfort passionately says, “Money doesn’t just buy you a better life, better food, better car, better pussy, it also makes you a better person.” Besides the derogatory commentary, the cinematography of this film reinforces the normalization of demeaning women; the camera angles capture women in a way that is pleasurable to the viewers. The exact scene introduces us to Naomi by showing us the back of her head as she performs oral sex on her husband, followed by a montage of her in lingerie, posing on the bed as Belfort brags about her. While the montage shows her face, she looks seductively at the camera while Belfort says, “she was the one with my cock in her mouth in the Ferrari so put your dick back in your pants.” This is the gaze.

What to Do When Feminism Fails Us?

So, how do we cope with our deep-set hypocritical desires? Is it possible to stop commodifying ourselves and live through our own eyes and not a man’s? I am not going to lie, sometimes I still have thoughts like “do I look pretty enough today?” or “Should I wear something more feminine, something that looks better?” and I struggle with feelings of guilt and shame because of it. However, as Atwood made clear—we are all victims.

Women grow up and are conditioned to view themselves as a man might. Women grow up and are taught to be looked at and exist as if we are always on display.

Women grow up and are conditioned to view themselves as a man might. Women grow up and are taught to be looked at and exist as if we are always on display. Thus, it does not make sense to blame young girls and women for being absorbed into this sexualized economy. It is not abnormal to want attention or to be desired. And yet when it comes to the commodification of girls’ bodies in particular, we find that there is a restrictive framework surrounding the idea of “my body, my choice.” From an outside perspective, it can be argued that women want to be a part of this transaction, that it is empowering to post a selfie where you feel confident. This framework, centered around the language of “choice,” holds that young women “can and should be able to project themselves across a variety of social media platforms in whatever way they please—their body, their selfie.” However, as Nancy Jo Sales describes in “American Girls,” our agency is “circumscribed by a patriarchal power structure that equates women’s value with sex appeal.”

Perhaps empowerment has been overused and turned into an empty phrase—one that does not give power to women, but distracts from the real lack of power held by women and girls around the world. In this sense, empowerment is “apparently not about the equitable allocation of resources, or influence in politics or policy, or really power at all. It is shorthand for ‘I wanted to do this and it made me feel good.’”

Subversion and Understanding Power Dynamics

If movies, tv shows, and media in general teach us to live through the male gaze, then this is the type of industry we should challenge. In Duke Mwedzi’s piece The Critical Assessment of the Male Gaze in Contemporary Film and Video Games, he argues for subversion as a creative technique. Subversion is “a method of creating culture that critiques dominant norms and promotes radical ideas.” If we take this idea into the world of cinema, it means that first, filmmakers can choose not to use the male gaze and second, we should critique the male gaze at the cultural level. According to Mwedzi, by creating a film that resists the male gaze, they can also resist the dominant ideals that are reinforced by it, such as male activity and female passivity.

Recognizing this conflicting binary as the heart of the

internalized male gaze can help us better navigate relationships with ourselves in order to restructure our consciousness to stop surveying our own femininity and to stop turning ourselves into objects of vision.

Interpreting the male gaze from a cultural perspective requires an understanding of power dynamics between men and women. The male gaze portrays women as objects of vision. Put in other words, men act and women appear. For women, there is a constant struggle in forming our own identities. A woman’s self can be described as “split into two” because she must “consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.” Recognizing this conflicting binary as the heart of the
internalized male gaze can help us better navigate relationships with ourselves in order to restructure our consciousness to stop surveying our own femininity and to stop turning ourselves into objects of vision.

Concluding Thoughts

While I have come a long way, I am still working on blinding my internalized male gaze. Sometimes I still catch myself objectifying my own body. The reality is that we live in a fucked up society that is sill largely dominated by the principles of the patriarchy. However, we are slowly but surely unlearning these principles and re-learning our value, finding our voice, and advocating for intersectional equality. As we continue to learn and internalize feminism, I believe it is possible to find ourselves in a state of awareness and empowerment. Understanding that our insecurities regarding the way we view ourselves is significantly influenced by the patriarchy is the first step in
learning how to reject the internalized male gaze. Once we can see how pervasive the gaze is and notice when we engage in it, we will be able to see how the male gaze exists everywhere outside of us. Sharing our experiences can be helpful in knowing that you are not alone in your insecurities. While it may take some time, subverting the internalized male gaze is possible. We do not exist for men’s pleasure, and we are not objects to be viewed like we are on display.

Works Cited

Austin , Andrew. “Understanding the Male Gaze and Hegemonic Masculinity in the Wolf of Wall Street.” RTF Gender and Media Culture, 2 July 2020.

Feltman, Chandra. “Instagram Use and Self-Objectification: The Roles of Internalization, Comparison, Appearance Commentary, and Feminism.” Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange, 2018.

“Feminism’s Greatest Obstacle in the Digital Age Is the Commodification of Women’s Bodies.” Quartz, Quartz, 17 Apr. 2016, https://qz.com/658036/feminisms-greatest-obstacle-in-the-digitalage/.

Imerai, Fiorela. “Leave Your Internalized Male Gaze in 2021.” Politically Global, 30 Dec. 2021, https://politicallyglobal.com/leave-your-internalised-male-gaze-in-2021/.

Jones, Naomi, and Naomi McDougall JonesView profile ». “Inside the Fight to Dismantle the (White) Gods of Hollywood.” Bitch Media, 20 Feb. 2019, https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/thewrong-kind-of-women-male-gaze-excerpt.

Lazar , Samantha. “The Prolongation of Work.” Williams Education, 2017, https://sites.williams.edu/f18-engl117-02/uncategorized/jordan-belforts-male-gaze-and-its-effect-onfilmgoers/.

Leonard, Kim. “How Does the ‘Male Gaze’ Work and How Is It Subverted?” StudioBinder, 25 June 2021, https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-the-male-gaze-definition/.

Mwedzi, Duke. “On Subversion: A Critical Assessment of the Male Gaze in Contemporary Film and Video Games.” Liberated Arts: A Journal for Undergraduate Research, 2021, https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/lajur/article/download/13515/11236/28959.

Oliver, Kelly. “The Male Gaze Is More Relevant, and More Dangerous, than Ever.” Taylor & Francis Online, 12 Oct. 2017, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17400309.2017.1377937?scroll=top&needAccess=true.

Qiu, Christina. “The Male Gaze.” The Harvard Crimson, 17 Feb. 2017, https://www.thecrimson.com/column/new-r

Sales, Nancy. “Social Media and Secret Lives of American Teenage Girls.” Time, Time, 2016, https://time.com/americangirls/.

Þóroddsdóttir, Valgerður. “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” Skemman, Sept. 2020, https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/36999/1/BA%20Thesis.pdf.omantix/article/2017/2/17/qiu-the-gaze/.

The Glasses Off Makeover Trope

by No Rules Cornell, posted in Movies & TV, Opinion, Pop Culture

by Aditi Hukerikar //

We’ve all seen it in at least one movie. The awkward, nerdy girl realizes the lack of attention towards her, especially from the men in her life, and decides to drastically change her looks. She takes off her glasses, puts on more makeup, and suddenly, everyone around her notices how gorgeous she is.  

Listen, I love the Princess Diaries movies, but Mia’s iconic makeover by Paolo in the first film is the epitome of this problematic trope. Paolo breaks her glasses (after Mia mentions that she doesn’t enjoy wearing contacts) and Mia’s curly hair is straightened during her transition from unlikeable geek to a gorgeous princess. A turning point for her character in the film, Mia’s new looks quickly catch the attention of her crush Josh and eventual love interest Michael, sending the message that Mia’s looks were what was standing in the way of her and the men she wanted to be with.

Now, discussing the issues with naturally curly hair being labelled as ugly compared to straight hair could take up its own article; straight hair tends to be associated with Eurocentric beauty standards, and though Mia and other curly-haired protagonists may be white, young BIPOC girls will still see scenes like this and start to feel that their ethnic hair texture is less beautiful than straight hair. I certainly thought so when I was a child watching these movies. But let’s look towards the role of the glasses in these scenes and how girls who wear them, according to certain pieces of media, become less attractive because of their desire to see clearly. 

women in movies are constantly changing their looks in order to better appeal to the men in their stories. And while many times, the made-over woman realizes in the end that she didn’t need the man to be happy after all, she still retains her new look throughout the course of the film.

The Princess Diaries is certainly not the only example of this trope; women in movies are constantly changing their looks in order to better appeal to the men in their stories. And while many times, the made-over woman realizes in the end that she didn’t need the man to be happy after all, she still retains her new look throughout the course of the film. So even though this character decides that she isn’t going to focus on adjusting her looks to look attractive for a man in the film, she must still look appealing to the audience, and that includes keeping her glasses off. These makeover scenes are a clear illustration of Laura Mulvey’s cinematic theory of the male gaze: essentially, the camera itself takes on the perspective of a heterosexual man, leading to the sexualization of the women on-screen. Even in movies marketed towards young girls, such as The Princess Diaries, the male gaze promotes beauty standards that the characters must follow, and when those standards include ditching a pair of glasses, young girls who wear glasses start to associate the objects that help them see with being less beautiful.

Taking a Closer Look at Glasses

In 2018, the Vision Council reported that an estimated 164 million adults wore glasses in the United States, and even more wore some type of corrective vision. So why is removing glasses such a common movie trope? Despite how frequently you’d see someone wearing glasses in your daily life, it’s not very common for film or television protagonists to have them on. 

It’s worth noting that oftentimes, glasses can be seen as a sign of intelligence. So what does it say about the message of these films when a woman removes her glasses to become more beautiful? Teen movies especially end up typecasting characters who are women as either smart and unattractive or attractive and unintelligent.

It’s worth noting that oftentimes, glasses can be seen as a sign of intelligence. So what does it say about the message of these films when a woman removes her glasses to become more beautiful? Teen movies especially end up typecasting characters who are women as either smart and unattractive or attractive and unintelligent. There shouldn’t be an expectation for women to choose between being attractive and being intelligent; really, someone’s appearance shouldn’t comment on their intelligence at all. But if movies continue to utilize tropes and archetypes that reinforce imagined dichotomies, the danger of these tropes will grow.

Blurring The Lines Between Cinema and Reality

We shouldn’t be sending the message to young girls that they need to change aspects of their appearance to be considered beautiful, especially when the metric of beauty is set at male attention. Sadly, this is exactly the message sent when the makeover trope appears yet again and has a woman on-screen remove her glasses in an attempt to become more attractive.

When movies targeted towards younger audiences use these tropes, they promote ideas that could impact how children see themselves. As someone who started wearing glasses in first grade and had characteristically bushy hair for most of my life, seeing this nerd-girl-turned-gorgeous trope—in which a girl whose appearance wasn’t too different from mine was constantly the one in the ugly “before” photo—certainly impacted my self esteem. If I had seen more characters who didn’t have to take their glasses off or otherwise change their appearance to become well-lied by their peers, it’s likely that I would have felt a little better about myself back then. 

We shouldn’t be sending the message to young girls that they need to change aspects of their appearance to be considered beautiful, especially when the metric of beauty is set at male attention. Sadly, this is exactly the message sent when the makeover trope appears yet again and has a woman on-screen remove her glasses in an attempt to become more attractive. It’s no secret that the characters we see in our favorite movies or television shows have an impact on us, especially when we’re young and impressionable. Therefore, it’s essential for popular media to ensure that women on-screen removing their glasses isn’t associated with a significant change in their attractiveness.

Looking to The Future, Is There Hope?

As opposed to the simple archetypes of the past, more women in films today are written as complex, interesting characters. Still, I could not tell you the last time I saw a woman who was a main character in a popular movie wearing glasses. Fortunately, there does appear to be change in sight: when I saw the trailer for Encanto, an animated film in which the main character Mirabelle is wearing glasses, I was thrilled to finally see a woman on-screen who keeps her glasses on. Let’s hope this change also continues with live action films in the near future.

Reminder: All Cosplayers Deserve Respect

by No Rules Cornell, posted in Nonfiction, Opinion, Pop Culture

by Aditi Hukerikar //

After transitioning to a virtual format due to the pandemic, comic conventions are finally returning to their former glory. October 7-10 of this year, droves of fans eagerly attended New York Comic-Con. Sadly, along with the return of Comic-Con comes another pre-pandemic occurrence: the criticism women face for cosplaying at conventions. Women who cosplay often face harassment if their outfits are deemed “too sexy” or are criticized for supposedly pretending to have interests in comics for attention. 

Cosplaying Is A Commitment

Clearly, people of all genders who cosplay are dedicated to their art

Women who cosplay spend a lot of time, money, and effort on their cosplays. The motivation for cosplay stems from passion, not a desire for attention. If they’re proud of their art and eager to wear and showcase their hard work, they should be respected. 

Why Should Women “Prove” Their Interests Are Real?

The belief that women’s interest in comics and other “nerdy” media is disingenuous isn’t a novel form of sexism.

For example, in 2012, YouTube user albinwonderland posted a video titled “Fake Geek Girls.” This post was a response to a Facebook post by a male comic book artist who was berating women who cosplay for “faking” their interest in comic books and “seeking male attention.”

Most of the content produced in this community is tailored towards an audience of men, which only fuels the cycle of men feeling that women aren’t allowed to occupy the same space they do within the comics community. 

Though this video was posted nearly a decade ago, albinwonderland does an incredible job of illustrating how women feel uncomfortable in nerd spaces due to the hostile, elitist communities that men create within them.

The fact that women in comic or geek spaces face this treatment can be partly attributed to how the creators themselves tend to be overwhelmingly male. According to The Beat, in the last six months of 2018, 83.7% of Marvel’s credited comic creators were men (with 16.3% representing women and non-binary creators) and 82.8% of DC’s credited creators were men (with 17.2% representing women and non-binary creators). Given these statistics, it’s unsurprising that most of the content produced in this community is tailored towards an audience of men, which only fuels the cycle of men feeling that women aren’t allowed to occupy the same space they do within the comics community. 

Not Everything is for Male Attention

In general, many are quick to label women and girls’ interests as means of seeking male attention: women who wear makeup are supposedly aiming to be more attractive to men, women who like sports are just trying to impress men, and so on. This false logic fosters the belief that unwanted attention from men is the woman’s fault. Just as a woman who is wearing makeup or a miniskirt does not want to be harassed as she walks down the street, women who cosplay do not want to be harassed based on the style of their costume.

Women’s interests in such media, regardless of how much they engage with interest-based communities, are valid, and it is no one’s place to tell a woman that her interest in something is fake.

Bottom Line: Respect Your Fellow Fans

Women who cosplay do so out of a passion for comics and geeky media, pouring time and effort into creating and perfecting their cosplay. Women’s interests in such media, regardless of how much they engage with interest-based communities, are valid, and it is no one’s place to tell a woman that her interest in something is fake. There is little more to say besides a final reminder: respect your fellow fans.