COP2-lecture 2

The gaze and the media

In 1972 John Berger said something like that women are forced to carry an image of themselves in their heads. They regard themselves as being looked at so maybe make more of an effort and put themselves out there.

In this image by Hans Menling called vanity, it seems as though we are given permission to look at this womans body because she is looking at herself. This breaks eye contact with the audience.

Another example of this is Alexandre Cabanels birth of venus.

In this image, her arm is over a lot of her face. Again this means she isn't looking back which means we aren't being challenged and she is giving us permission to look at her body.

This is the same kind of image but with photography. It is used as an advertisement. Unfortunately the nature of this photo was considered too sexualised. Partly the hand on the breast which actually covers her modesty and partly because the attention is drawn to her body.

However when they turned the image on its side, the focus became more on the face so this was considered okay. 

In the below images (left: Titans venus of vurbino-1538, right: Monet-Olympia 1863) they are quite similar in composition. However there are subtle differences. On the left the woman is very relaxed with a soft look of her face whereas the right is more rigid, also pay attention to the hand positioning. The left is just draped over herself whereas the right is more definitely placed as if she does not want that part of her body on display. Both images are like you have special access to their bed chambers but one is more inviting than the other.

The below images (Ingres Le grand odalisque 1814 and the edited version for a poster for the guemilla girls) They used  this image to put on their poster advertising that less than 5% of the artists in the modern art section were women but 85% of the nudes are female. They are basically asking why are women the ones being sexualised? However this poster was seen as being too sexually suggestive with the fan in her hand so it got pulled. People are trying to speak out again these things but keep hitting brick walls so nothing will ever change.

This is Coward.R the look from 1984. In this image there is a barely dressed woman in the city streets and everyone around her is just going about their daily business as if she wasn't there. This shows the normalisation of nudity. In this image the camera is an extension of the male gaze.

This image of Eva Herzigova was on a billboard and ended up stopping traffic because people were slowing down to look at it. That shows that sex sells because people want to look at it! I quite like the 'hello boys' bit its like a play on words like it's saying hi to the audience like she wants to be looked at but its also advertising the bra because wonder bras are supposed to enhance the look of your breasts so she is saying hi to her breasts too.

This advertisement for dolce and gobannas male underwear line still had nudity in the ad but the way the models are all looking directly at the camera is challenging the viewer so it makes it not as okay to look and you pay more attention to their faces because they're connecting with you...which kinda defeats the object of advertising the underwear... There are male ads that dont challenge the viewer they are just few and far between and mainly for male fitness ads etc.

Laura Mulvey explores how the female body is portrayed in film in 1940's/50's and how the womans body is usually fragmented so you just see parts of her at a time which shows she is something to be looked at. 

Lara croft is a great character and shes very clever and fights etc...but she is still extremely attractive and that is done purposefully its like the lead in a film has to be attractive or people wont want to go see it.

Images such as this which is a celebrity caught unaware by Cindy Sherman are liked because everyone wants an insight into a celebrities life and want to see more of them. The sunglasses here are used much like the mirror at the beginning of the post and the arm over the face. It's to distance the gaze from the viewer to make it okay to look at her.

An example of people wanting to see more from celebrities is big brother. people just sit there and watch other people. But the women on the show are very aware they are being watched and almost perform to it like they are very aware of how they look.

Your gaze hits the side of my face by Barbra Cruger has like a double meaning. Its like yes you look at the side of her face but also the word 'hits' could mean like you literally hit the side of her face like this whole thing with the media and portrayal of women is damaging her. 

Tracey Emin challenges this kind of portrayal of women with this photo showing that money is more important-thats what people want, thats what they see in this photo. Not the fact its between her legs. Another way you can look at the photo is that a womans body makes money.

When Andy Murry won Wimbledon not long back, he was advertised as the first to win Wimbledon in 177 years but actually a woman did it 33 years ago it was just not covered by the news much because she was a woman. I think it's wrong that she was overlooked even in todays society.

We were directed to a site called vagenda magazine which sounds really interesting so im going to have a look at that.

Unfortunately, the way women are portrayed in media shows a certain way we perceive beauty and that  can harm young women of today if they dont fit that criteria. They feel they are not good enough or people bully them because they dont look perfect.  which is when we see things like this happening and I do believe media is partly to blame for this.