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imagination term 2 bodies in cultural perspective (Berger - ways of seeing…
imagination term 2 bodies in cultural perspective
gender and visual culture
bodies are at once cultural and biological
physical materiality of the body is shaped by social, economic and political forces
bodies are marked by structures of gender, 'race', class, sexuality, religion, ethnicity and disability and nation
Mulvey
visual pleasure and narrative cinema
concept of male gaze
how films depict the world from the viewpoint of a presumed heterosexual white mans
male gaze instantiated through three perspectives
camera
male characters
whitest we are invited to identify with the male protagonist e.g. bond films
spectator which is presumed male
women taught to see themselves through mens eyes
old hollywood films
panning up the womens body
women made to invite the gaze in the films
marilyn monroe
suggested in some way that she wants you to look
license withdrawal
women's bodies coded with a 'to be looked at ness'
disciplinary power
Bartky
Femininity and domination
how femininity his socially regualted
women's bodies subject to constant display and scrutiny
disciplinary power makes women self-regulate and discipline their own bodies
The regulation of femininity in this way reflects the need of advanced capitalist societies to maintain high levels of consumption
disciplinary power is a productive form of power: it brings certain relations into being
women valued on their sexuality
shift on how femininity is shifting
most people just go with normative femininity
Foucault
Discipline and punishment
Panopticon: designs for prisons system by jeremy bentham in late 18th but Foucault developed theory
panopticon becomes metaphors for the operation of power in modern society
power operates in subtle but effective ways
effect of panopticon is to make the inmate or person under surveillance induce into a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power
subject self-polices then
cctv, media,
womens bodies becoming subject to constant scrutiny, idea of being constantly visible, failing, scrutiny
state of permanent visibility
e.g. shaving legs
Tincknell
Fragmented femininity
women's bodies seen as a series of problems with each problem requiring a product-solution
advertising, makeover tv, cosmetic surgery, make-up products, beauty prodects
eye area, heels on feet hands, all problems that need to be fixed and worked on an only way is products and services
boots, huge area fro women and small for men
high levels of consumption for women then men
socialising surveillance
Winch
Post feminist sisterhood and girlfriends
mutual surveillance
trinny and susannah
girl friendships helps them but compete with each other and yourslef
other examples fearne cotton and holly willoughby
investment in self and individual
holly & fears have ebook about friendship but content is actually on how to be a normative female
sex and the city
post feminine sisterhood
not much on male gaze
male gaze disappears from view
disgust fro ones body is so normalised that body discontent is now mortise discontent
naturalisation of body hatred
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girlfirnship as means to realise an aspirational body and lifestyle
competitive but also friendly and intimate
women saying they feel pressure from other women not men
catty, judgmental
be a good person though bodily practices and avoid judgment
female friendship becomes an investment
male gaze apparently 'disappeared'
women's relationships at the core of femininity identities rather than relationships with men or search for male approval
this makes the male gaze benign,
wider system of power and commercial interests also 'disappeared
body hatred naturalised as component of femininity
visual culture becoming ever more intimate via social media and mobile technologies
pinterest, instagram etc and highly feminised
online women offer their own bodies for surveillance- winch
choosing to conform- stuart and donaghue
beauty practices seen as normative social group dynamic and par of fitting in
beauty pressures seen as coming form women
women described as being judgmental, catty and backstabbing toward one another and conforming to beauty standards has been seen as a way of avoiding negative judgment from other women
Berger - ways of seeing
examines ideological underpinnings of visual culture
focuses on conventions of western, especially european, art
mainly nude painting
how they are always women
compared to portraits which could be male / female and any age
how the bodies are arranged, lighting, poses etc
always assumed male viewer and painting always arranged to appeal to him
to be nude is to be an object of sight
how the body is represented as an object of sight, something to be looked at
people who own and look at the painting are men and men are the ones who commission them
presumed male viewer
way of saying i own a piece of art but also i own the women in it
women come to understand themselves as an object of sight
becomes psycholigcla
drives womens consciousness into two
argues that how we see is not pre-given but socially constituted and politically interested
category of the nude in european oil painting almost exclusively concerned with female subjects
womens bodies arranged and displayed to appeal to the assumed male viewer
distinction between naked and nude
“Most nudes in oil painting have been lined up in paintings for the pleasure
of the male spectator-owner, who will assess and judge them as sights”
(Berger, 1972, episode 2)
ways of seeing
representation affirms social divisions - men as active women as passive
'splitting' of womens consciousness
thought expeiemrnt
can you imagine a man in the sorts of poses women are put in and why
imagine a man posed int he same position and nude in this way
a lot of thought goes into how the person is painted e.g. angles, scenery
was written in 1972 renaissance era
essential way of seeing women hasn't changed though
theorising masculinity
De Beauvoir
the second sex
'Male' as an unmarked category
"a man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex: it goes without saying that he is a man" De Beaver 1949
broader problematic of men as 'genderless'
Connell, 2000
hegemonic masculinity
some forms of masculinity are more culturally authoritative than others
a particular version of masculinity becomes hegemonic when other masculinities are defined in relation to it
"the ability to impose a particular definition on other kinds of masculinity is part of what we mean by 'hegemony' carriage, connell & lee
not more idea form of masculinity but rather the most culturally inflated
central patterns of hegemonic masculinity in western context commonly include:
power and control
disapproval of femininity
toughness and competitiveness
other kinds of masculinity interact with and sustain the hegemonic form:
marginalised masculinities
subordinated masculinities
complicit and resist and masculinities
heterosexually key marker of hegemonic masculinity
new visibilities
Nixon
Hard looks
eroticisation of male bodies in images from 1980s in creased in fashion and advertisement mainly
mainly eroticisation in the media sealed to a number of wider social and cultural developments
feminism and womens seal empowerment
gay liberation and the 'pink economy'
advertisements not just selling underwear to men or eroticising women for men but eroticising men for men
rise of the style press
growth in consumer culture
men low consumers so advertisements trying to make the market bigger
new representation patterns challenged long-established conventions
male bodies presented and shown in ways that women are traditionally coded and shown- "to-be-looiked-at-ness'
combination of 'harness' and 'softness'
cultural contradictions about 'what i means to be a man'
predominantly white bodies but often coded as 'latin' e.g. dark hair, olive skin
Calvin Klein Advert
gender differences made obvious by the differences in power, facial expression, camera angle, body size, muscularity
use of women in the image to make sure it is seen as heterosexual incase it faces homoeroticism
Simpson
mirro men
new figure of 'metrosexual'
fashionable form of masculinity drawing and informed yby gay culture
embedded in consumer capitalism
body projects
Gill et al
the changing man
changing representations = changing psychologies?
five key interpretative repertoires
individualism and being different
what united what all the men (140) in the survey said was that they were different from other men
libertarianism and the 'autonomous body'
unselconciousness and rejection of vanity
notion of a 'well-balanced' ad non-obsessional self
self-respect and moral responsibility
bodies as projects closely connected to identity
masculinity regulated through bodily practice
socially diverse in terms of class, race, ethnicity and sexuality
embodiment and economics
Hakim
fit is the new rich
economic downturn turn in wake of financial crisis resulted in the decline of men using money and wealth as as a way of showing traditional breadwinning capacity and instead using other ways to show value in society
new pattern of self-representation tied to changing economic conditions
provides alternative form of value where economic capital harder to come by
physical labour of cultivation a 'spectacular' body
digital labour of marketing the self via social media
value seeking
'Spornosexual'
Lawrence
radicalising the 'great man'
incase in self regulation from men tied to greater social and economic uncertainty
loss of racial and gendered intitlemnts
white men 'earn' muscular physics in contrast to 'natural ' athleticism of black men
asian bodies almost entirely absent