An Invitation to Experiment
Finding the Female Gaze: Meera Vijayan responds to Tom Ford and Vanity Fair in a reconstructive rant.
Dear Friends:
I am writing this out the simplest rage and exultation that comes with a call to arms, to those that I know this will interest.
I am sure many of you have read or heard about or seen the new issue of Vanity Fair, which features Keira Knightley and Scarlet Johannson nude, erotically enframing Tom Ford as he nestles into Keira Knightley's ear, fully clothed and in command of the representation that is being put forth. From where I am sitting, it seems as if the biggest battle that images present us with today is the almost aggressive assault of images that fetishize the female body (music videos, fashion magazines, cinema, you name it). We all know this, we bristle, we read the theoretical rants, we sigh a breath of relief that it has been articulated, and we move on. You've read Laura Mulvey's article "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema," dig it, if you haven't, you will, and we all know there is a male gaze that has shaped the history of cinema since its inception (from the pornographic kinetoscopes to the laughable Vanity Fair spread this month, we haven't come very far, have we?).
There is a feminist art history of body in performance that has tried to fight back by reclaiming ownership over the female body, by pointing out the desperate circumstance through exaggerated (and often mistaken) critique. What I am saying here is that perhaps this has not been enough, that a discourse that relies only on critique has failed, and that perhaps it has come time to fight fire with fire. DISCLAIMER: THIS RANT WILL BE FOR THE PURPOSES OF HETERONORMATIVE RECONSTRUCTION, if only to simplify a course of attack on the male heterosexual gaze through the female heterosexual gaze, to assault the male body with its own image, as women are done on a daily basis.
This is not to say the male body has never been eroticized. This is to say that the language of it has not been demonstrated as aggressively as has its reverse.
This is presupposing that fantasies are based in images, to eradicate the notion that the heterosexual male fantasy is more easily fulfilled by images of nude women that the heterosexual female fantasy can be by images of nude men, that images and fantasy are always inextricably linked (Freud) and that we can not be led to believe otherwise. This is a musing on experimentation, on activating the heterosexual female fantasy into the cinematic plane, and refusing to allow the fetishization of the body, if it must occur, to remain unilateral.
It is the goal to create a language of fetishization for the male body that "Hollywood" (a neat word that really signifies the male gaze) has neglected to offer. This is to say, to every lingering shot up the back, for every smooth cross of the legs, for every invitation that a sultry, pouty mouth can give, there lies a male corollary, a hip bone, a jaw line. i propose establishing a set of visual cues, compiled and investigated through your help in offering to concretely visualize your fantasies, that can be utilized to finally do what has been so far elusive to the convention of images: to eroticize, decontruct, and objectify the male body. Equalize the playing field, male bodies as persistently erotic as female bodies, we just need to find the
language.
So I propose a photographic project, enabling the creation of such a language, through the sharing of fantasy-ridden possibility, through a series of exchanged and established evaluations through which we can collectively discover, articulate, and distribute the elusive but (and this I can not stress enough) present female gaze. I am absolutely positive of its presence, that in between the myth and reality of the male gaze there was a process of construction, and so this is why I write this e-mail, to urge you all to construct, to photograph, to visualize, to answer to the persistent eroticization with persistent eroticization.
All I'm saying -- equalize the playing field. Frame your fantasy for mass consumption. That's how we got here in the first place. In the end, then, to write it down, film it, get others addicted enough to film it, to make it on billboards, to make problems.
Hit me back with ideas, enthusiasm, rage, disappointment, unbridled reactions, and lists of adjectives,
Meera Vijayan
Dear Friends:
I am writing this out the simplest rage and exultation that comes with a call to arms, to those that I know this will interest.
I am sure many of you have read or heard about or seen the new issue of Vanity Fair, which features Keira Knightley and Scarlet Johannson nude, erotically enframing Tom Ford as he nestles into Keira Knightley's ear, fully clothed and in command of the representation that is being put forth. From where I am sitting, it seems as if the biggest battle that images present us with today is the almost aggressive assault of images that fetishize the female body (music videos, fashion magazines, cinema, you name it). We all know this, we bristle, we read the theoretical rants, we sigh a breath of relief that it has been articulated, and we move on. You've read Laura Mulvey's article "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema," dig it, if you haven't, you will, and we all know there is a male gaze that has shaped the history of cinema since its inception (from the pornographic kinetoscopes to the laughable Vanity Fair spread this month, we haven't come very far, have we?).There is a feminist art history of body in performance that has tried to fight back by reclaiming ownership over the female body, by pointing out the desperate circumstance through exaggerated (and often mistaken) critique. What I am saying here is that perhaps this has not been enough, that a discourse that relies only on critique has failed, and that perhaps it has come time to fight fire with fire. DISCLAIMER: THIS RANT WILL BE FOR THE PURPOSES OF HETERONORMATIVE RECONSTRUCTION, if only to simplify a course of attack on the male heterosexual gaze through the female heterosexual gaze, to assault the male body with its own image, as women are done on a daily basis.This is not to say the male body has never been eroticized. This is to say that the language of it has not been demonstrated as aggressively as has its reverse.
This is presupposing that fantasies are based in images, to eradicate the notion that the heterosexual male fantasy is more easily fulfilled by images of nude women that the heterosexual female fantasy can be by images of nude men, that images and fantasy are always inextricably linked (Freud) and that we can not be led to believe otherwise. This is a musing on experimentation, on activating the heterosexual female fantasy into the cinematic plane, and refusing to allow the fetishization of the body, if it must occur, to remain unilateral.It is the goal to create a language of fetishization for the male body that "Hollywood" (a neat word that really signifies the male gaze) has neglected to offer. This is to say, to every lingering shot up the back, for every smooth cross of the legs, for every invitation that a sultry, pouty mouth can give, there lies a male corollary, a hip bone, a jaw line. i propose establishing a set of visual cues, compiled and investigated through your help in offering to concretely visualize your fantasies, that can be utilized to finally do what has been so far elusive to the convention of images: to eroticize, decontruct, and objectify the male body. Equalize the playing field, male bodies as persistently erotic as female bodies, we just need to find the
language.
So I propose a photographic project, enabling the creation of such a language, through the sharing of fantasy-ridden possibility, through a series of exchanged and established evaluations through which we can collectively discover, articulate, and distribute the elusive but (and this I can not stress enough) present female gaze. I am absolutely positive of its presence, that in between the myth and reality of the male gaze there was a process of construction, and so this is why I write this e-mail, to urge you all to construct, to photograph, to visualize, to answer to the persistent eroticization with persistent eroticization.All I'm saying -- equalize the playing field. Frame your fantasy for mass consumption. That's how we got here in the first place. In the end, then, to write it down, film it, get others addicted enough to film it, to make it on billboards, to make problems.
Hit me back with ideas, enthusiasm, rage, disappointment, unbridled reactions, and lists of adjectives,
Meera Vijayan
posted by Thessaly | 6:06 PM
6 Comments:
Yes, the gendered gaze is a patriarchal one, and identifying it and thinking critically about it has not necessarily liberated culture from its mysoginistic control. However, wouldn't an equally oppressive matriarchal gaze still operate under the same visual logic as the patriarchal gaze? A small movement that calls for the propagation of counter-gendered images seems defeatist: it justifies the language of patriarchy and functions according to the same codes, only inverted. Perhaps a resistance of all forms of objectification would be more appropriate. Granted, it will never result in total victory, but, I believe, still preferable to participating in the same dubious ethical codes of phallogocentrism.
However, I agree with you that alternative visual languages should exist, but why should they be constrained by ideas about gendered views of objectified bodies? In surprising -- and in this context almost too ironic -- ways, I view blogging and the potential for future forms of Internet discourse as important steps toward further resisting the codes of patriarchy.
On second thought, after a fruitful debate with Eremi, Thessaly and Emily, what do we think of an alternative gendered gaze as appropriating gendered codes, thereby disrupting them, and producing a larger body (no pun intended) of critical thinkers?
Last year's cover indicates that VF seems to make a habit of female disempowerment. Looking at the covers from the past year or two, the consistancy of the objectification (and the reaction it provokes) makes me think that maybe it is all a deliberate business ploy.
After all, we are talking about a magazine called Vanity Fair; this kind of cavalier glorification of the high life seems to be the basis of their appeal. Which makes me think that engaging in critiques (no matter how insightful) is not going to do anything except fan the flames. If all criticism is being appropriated to strengthen the original subject of critique (if you will, appropriating the critique, thereby disrupting it, and producing a larger body of objectifying images), than reappropriation and (heteronormative?) reconstruction seems (nihilectically) like the best form of deconstruction.
Of course, the notion of a genuinely female counterpart to the fetishistic male visual language of desire is an interesting one. But I have to wonder if one isn't overstating the significance of the male version. Vanity Fair's cover and other photographic excesses aside, these aren't reality; they're as much a fantasy as unicorns. We have horses, we have narwhals. It doesn't require the skill of a medieval chef to combine the two into a single, accessible image.
Hetero men will probably always imagine the more improbably-shaped figure and improbably-expressed desire in the female subjects of their lust. What Vanity Fair and their ilk are doing is just cutting to the chase--as much as does Playboy. There's plenty of room to criticize VF and Annie Liebowitz for pandering to the crowd, but the crowd was there first, clamoring for more. Change the crowd, if you can.
But--presuming that your intention is to replace a stereotypical sexual desirability as women's primary appeal--I suggest that a more valid tactic would be to elevate the value of other qualities in women than merely their utility as fetishistic objects. Make them more independent, more intellectually bracing, more creative. Discover what other virtues women might have that men could value and build them up.
As a man, I have to say that a physically attractive woman is appealing, but a strong, independent, gracious woman is more so. Having said that, how many women who consider themselves physically attractive would be willing to exchange that for a higher IQ or a better self-image? Very few, I suspect. Could this be because women also value the canonical aesthetic (and even sexual) appeal of women?
Can women have it both ways? Do they expect to be considered sexually desirable for their appearance and demeanor AND be equally valued when they're not considered so? If this is the case, then I think it's as impractical to expect men to be considered as desirable for being poor as rich, charmless as charming, powerless as powerful and poorly-endowed as well.
I am, apparently, a fallen academic. I do not purport to know the answers to the big questions anymore, because I've reached a point in my (temporally) short but (intellectually) long life where to discuss things in broad generalizations seems the acme of naivety. I no longer want to change human beings in radical ways; I simply want to exist, to eek out a living, and to stick to the principles that have helped inform me as much as humanly possible. I cannot seek to know – nor do I wish to know – the "meta text" of politics and cultural. I see what's before me, and I hope to help change it in small but important ways. The issues to which I am ethically beholden, as a writer and a political creature, are material. They are real, they affect the lives of millions of human beings, and they have solutions.
I know this is an odd way to introduce a response to a piece on the March Vanity Fair cover, but I felt I had to get those guiding principles out of the way early on. I want it to be perfectly clear where I stand, and why I am responding to this piece in this manner. I really have no opinion on the photo, except to say it's not particularly good, and it's not particularly bad. It just kind of is. So, this is not a defense of Vanity Fair; it's a response to the language used to discuss the photo, and the radical logic that clearly underpins said language.
The oppression of women is a problem, and a real one. It is horrifyingly real in sub-Saharan Africa, China, and the Middle East. There, the barbarism is total and inescapable. In "developed" countries, the oppression takes on different forms: the glass ceiling in business and life, unjust treatment in the legal system, double standards of sexual behavior, and the like. I realize that this is cliché, but I'm using it for two reasons: 1) like most clichés, it's true, and 2) it is the material analogue to your aesthetic critique. The tragedy of the oppression of women is not how they are photographed or depicted on a canvas: it is how they are abused, controlled, and put down in male-dominated societies. To claim that this fetishization is not only endemic of the problem, but also largely the cause, is fallacious but and shortsighted.
From a visual arts sense, this much-ballyhooed "patriarchal male gaze" is a relatively new phenomenon. Beyond the obvious religious iconography, the stylized female form – or, the "beautiful" female form, as we have come to know it – was not widely depicted until the Romantics. If anything, men were held up to a far stricter visual language: think of the Greeks' idealized athletes, the cherubic young boys of the Romans – of Michelangelo's David! Now, this is not to say that it doesn't exist – you are absolutely correct in believing that in the modern world, particularly in America, there has been an undue emphasis on the "perfect" female form, in all its vainglorious falseness – but to assert that this "male gaze" is some sort of "attack" or tool of oppression is absurd when there is physical and political attack occurring in very real, oftentimes very violent ways.
To put it quite simply, the oppression has been occurring for millennia; the "patriarchal male gaze" is a relatively modern phenomenon; therefore, the "patriarchal male gaze" cannot be the cause of this attack on the body, mind, and freedom of women. Look to the old superstitions of the religious, to the conflation of women with property (and women as property) in feudal states, to mysticism and injustice and cruelty – but not to art.
But most importantly, leave art alone. Unless it is clearly agitprop, art is not beholden to you, me, Eve Sedgwick, Marx, Derrida, Santa Claus, or anybody. It stands on its own, as a manifestation of the artist's vision, laid out on the canvas or page. To believe that you are in possession of the only correct aesthetic standard is a massive critical fallacy, especially when (as I discussed) your aesthetic standard is so reductive as to become nearly nonexistent. If we want the FCC and right wing politicos to keep their fingers out of art, then we should expect the same from left wing radicals. Art is art, politics are politics: they should inform one another, but to completely conflate them is, artistically speaking, a huge mistake.
In other words, let's not run and burn Goya's "The Nude Maja" just yet, friends.
It seems wrong to funnel the great gift that intellectuals such as Ms. Vijayan clearly possess into highly specialized rants that will, in the end, inspire no meaningful change in the way women are treated in the United States or the world. We should be rallying behind a common cause, and pushing forward a program that will help in an empirical, material way the conditions of those around us. Ms. Vijayan and her ilk must eventually come to terms with the cruel, simple fact of the matter: so long as there are starving people, and so long as there are genuinely oppressed masses, we cannot obsess over such petty details. It's counterproductive, and we end up driving each other away when we should be coming together to at least try and make things better: for women, for all of us.
For someone who "does not purport to know the answers to the big questions" and seeks only to change the world "in small but important ways," calling for us to rally behind a common cause in order to make things better for all of us seems quite an ambitious project. I have no doubt that Ms. Vijayan and her ilk are well aware that there are "bigger" problems in the world to be solved than the depiction of women in western pop culture, but I think it is fair to let people choose their battles. You seem to be aware that just because there are people starving in Niger doesn't mean that the problems of women in America or Europe aren't real or important. Bearing that in mind, it seems a bit hegemonic, and --dare I say it-- smacks slightly of the rhetoric of imperialism, to imply that the problems of the third world need to be solved before we can address those of the first.
In response to your call "to leave art alone," I don't think that the author was advocating that the images she deems offensive should be somehow banned or censored. Rather, I think she suggests that perhaps experimentation in an alternative aesthetic might be more effective than simply trying to battle the dominant one. Creating a plurality of gazes might be more effective than the already-tried methods of critique and deconstruction. Does "leaving art alone" mean that we should not interpret, respond to, criticize, write rants about? If art is not allowed to inspire dialogue, then what exactly is its purpose?
I personally agree with your preface to your comment, that perhaps it is better to effect change in small but important ways. And I think that the author does just that. Despite the polemical language, her essential message -- an invitation to experiment as a way of combating gender inequality-- seems a modest tactic to me.
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