Thursday, 18 September 2014

The gaze and the media- COP 1 lecture

Berger quote 1972

he's not saying that women are vain, they are forced to carry around an idea of them selves.

Women think that they're being looked at when they're not.


Hans Memling Vanity 1485

 - The mirror is used as a device of justification and moral condemnation. The mirror signifies that because the woman is looking at her self, the audience feel it is allowed to stare also.

Relates to witches and ducking stools.



Mirror and woman in fashion magazine

Woman looking at her self in the mirror - absorbed in contemplation. giving the audience 'permission' to look at her.

Fact that she is not looking back gives permission - The gaze.

Idea surrounding whether people have or don't have permission to look (gaze) at another person, typically women. "invisible observer"


Birth of Venus
No eye contact between the viewer and the female figure allows the audience to gaze at this woman without feeling like they're being interrupted for starring.

'Put a mirror in a woman's hand and you condemn her'


Sophie Dahl for Opium
Overtly sexual. Similar pose to the others. Central focus being her breast/hand on breast.

The image got refused but then the orientation was altered to portrait. 'Less focus on the breast rather than in horizontal orientation.

Titans Venus of Urbino
Differences between this and Mona's Olympia are very subtle.

Peeping Tom starring at the figure. Her face suggests permission to look.


Manet's Olympia
Post modernism - more direct. Less permission etc
Her hand slightly different, shows as if the figure is pushing the audience away. 
More direct, More challenging.
She's a prostitute. Sexual being.

Identify the difference when the gaze isnt and is challenged



Ingres Le grand odalisque 
Guerrila girls - unequally represented
Object too  sexually suggestive to be placed on buses / in public

Manet - Bar at the Folies Bergeres
Open pose. Bar maid.
Incorrect register of perspective. Showing the bar maid's role is to look open and friendly, but in actual fact, that is now how this woman wants to be.

Man's face standing infront of her.

Redefining the way in which reality is portrayed from realism.

Odd view points

Jeff Wall - picture for women 1979

Modernist version of Manet's work ^
Containing the artist/photographer - Jeff Wall

Typical of Jeff wall to divide the picture up into 3rd. Golden ratio in use. Mini images similar to Manet's

exactly in the middle of the frame is the camera. All the curves and angles of the room lead to the central camera. '4th wall'

typical of post modernism - active viewer

Coward  R - The look 1984
The camera has even more power rather than the style of Manet's paintings etc

Typical of an underwear advertising project. Everyone is ignoring the woman, when she's clearly aware of the audience watching her.

Normalising the idea of nudity in a public place.

Eva herzigova Wonder bra 1994
Giantess, 'Hello boys' Traffic jams. Disrupting the flow of the city.

Implication of this style of advertising. 'Laddism' Laddette' Fashionable to not be bothered whether you were being objectified. "I do not want to be portrayed as a sexual object"

The quote on this ad refers to the fact that she knows people are watching and she is playing along with the impact of her nakedness


Coward R 1984
"-Coward, R. (1984)- The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as an obsessive distancing of women… a form of voyeurism -Peeping Tom, 1960"

Peeping Tom - Murderer and filming women in the moment of death

She is saying that there are real world consequences of objectifying women this way



Male images 
Gender Ads. Created by a lecturer.
Shows examples of the objectification of both men and women

'the number of ads in the section of men were very small in comparison to women'



Men not challenging the gaze - I feel this comes down to psychology and the sense of masculinity and also the ways in which women generally want to feel feminine etc and if a male was not fighting back against the gaze, it would look like he had been beaten etc,


This style of the gaze is not applicable for both genders. 

Marilyn: Willian Travillas dress from the seven year itch (1955)
Looking at the way which female bodies are portrayed in film etc
rather than being an active driver of the plot and having a role, women were only there to be looked at rather than being treated equally as men and having a similar role.

All results down to sexism and opinion based

Active male and passive female

Jane Campion
Griselda Pollocks Lecturer at UOL - Old mistresses
There were women painters but we don't necessarily know about them

Judith Beheading Holofernes 1620 - Psychical way. the woman and the painter is really powerful

Women Marginalised within the masculine discourses of art history

It will always continue unless it is addressed

"Women are supposed to be marginalised"

Cindy Sherman 
Partially clothed female, but the posture of this woman is different to the ones seen before int he paintings, but the vertically orientation shows the woman being sat up rather than laid horizontally.

We're not invited to objectify the body, the woman folds her hand under her face, in a fist like motion.

Holding a mirror but not using a mirror, no indication of vanity or an invitation 

The way Cindy Sherman works is that she makes poses look artificial and awkward to perturb the viewer and challenge the gaze. 

Celebrity emerging, using sunglasses, no return of the gaze inviting the viewer to look without feeling judged.
I'snt a paparazzi image.
Special access. Different to the others due to sunglasses on the face rather than a mirror in the hand.



Barbara Kruger 1981 - Your gaze hits the side of my face
Piece of graphic design post modernism.

The quote referring to the statue of a female's face in which her cheek is the body part in the fore-ground of the photograph rather than her full on face.

Sarah Lucas Eating a Banana
Challenging the gaze
Due to the fact that women may feel self concious eating a banana in public, so this YBA is


Self portrait with fried eggs 
Masculine pose with eggs on chest to challenge the conventions

Tracey emin - money photo
Tracey Emin trying to portray the fact that she is only interested in the money in the art world, where generally this is known by all

Reality television
 Big brother, all seeing eye
editing means that there is no reality
Contestants are aware of their representation 
Passive role for the viewer - voyeurism

The truman show 1988 director Peter Weir 
born into a film set and a reality show

Gets to the sky and realises that its not the sky, its a stage set and he's trapped


"looking is not indifferent. There can never be any questions of 'just looking'"

Caroline Lucas MP in June 2013
Wore a t shirt saying no more page 3 to the House of commons and got told to cover it up.


Criado-Perez - Report abuse button on twitter
Trying to get women's faces back on bank notes after thingy Fry's face was removed


Lucy Ann Holmes received threats after trying to end page 3


Virinia Wade won wimbledon 30 years ago and her win was overlooked by Andy Mury's win in 2007


Susan sontang on photography
"To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed"

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