The outsiders within

The iconic pop idols Beyoncé and Jay Z challenge the white supremacist capitalist imperialist phallocentric gaze in their new music video “Apes**t”. When they take over what is considered one of the most prestigious institutions for fine Western art – Louvre – as their location for the music video, it clarifies the lyrics for the audience: “I can’t believe me made it”. The Carters show that they are holding the power now. They have taken over the elite space and challenge our white western male gaze and the stereotypical viewing of black people.

In this musicvideo, the Carters put themselves at the center of the scene, in the position of the “to be looked at-ness”. We as the spectators get the pleasure of looking at their beautiful powerful rebellious appearance. In big parts of the video, the couple is staged in front of the Mona Lisa painting with their backs turned against the painting as the opposite of what you would normally do in that space. By placing themselves in front of the Mona Lisa and not giving it any attention by looking at it, they are questioning what’s usually considered as the object of desire. They are challenging the notions of her value, and in the broader context, the value of the perspective and the gaze that all the art at the Louvre was made from – the white western patriarchal perspective.

At the same time, they also take on the role as the spectators as they constantly hold their eyes at the camera almost through the whole video.  In a lot of the clips, they stand in a static non-moving pose, as if it were a picture, the only thing moving is their eyes always following the camera. This video is a prime example of what Hook means when she says, “there is a power in looking” (Hooks 1996, 247). With their ice-cold gaze, they show their resistance – the resistance of the white supremacy and the claiming of a predominantly white space. They show their power by steering, calming black people’s right to gaze as a political commentary to what has always been the white man’s right.

“My mother taught me the importance of not just of being seen but of seeing myself,” said Beyoncé to the magazine Vogue in August this year. In this sentence, Beyoncé pinpoints Hooks notion of the black female spectator. The fact that the representation of black women in media has been so sexist and stereotypical has forced black women to look critically at what they have been shown. “Given the context of class exploitation, and racist and sexist domination, it has only been through resistance, struggle, reading, and looking “against the grain” that black women have been able to value our process of looking enough to publicly name it” (Hooks 1996,258). Beyoncé shows this theme in the clip where she and the troupe of dancers stand in front of the Jaques-Louis David’s The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine. Again, neither the dancers or Beyoncé ever takes a look at the classist painting behind them. By their dancing, they claim the spectators’ attention, while the painting again works as just a background. The black women, of different shades, marked by clothing fitted for their shade, holds hands and show their strength and resistance as a critique of their lack of representation within the western art canon.

As they celebrate their beauty trough amazing choreography and a majestic powerful appearance, they also present a resistance by challenging the stiff predominantly white museum institution and transform the Louvre to a marker for their own success. With this video, the Carters blur the lines of high culture and pop culture. The lyrics saying “We made it!” gives hints about the ambiguous aspect of their roles as outsiders within with an oppositional gaze ­– they spot the hypocrisy of the supremacist power dynamic, but also take advantage of it. This is not just a happy celebration of their own success, but an ironic identification. The short clips of real black lives, with the recreation of the NFL players kneeling, as a reference to police brutality stands in stark contrast to the couple rich, successful couple at Louvre. By being a part of both worlds, the black experience and being a part of the pop culture elite, it gives more power to their “fuck you” to the white supremacy.

The Carters seem like they are very conscious of their double standard of appreciating high art, but also being conscious of the historical inequality and repression that art represents. Their power lies in the counterpoint they represent by appropriation Louvre. Being a part of a marginalized and often stigmatized community, but also by being a part of the pop culture elite and acknowledge that, they have the power to both correct and remind us of the erasure of black lives and also potentially ordain a new status quo by establishing a new black elite.

 

Sources

Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators”. New Jersey 1996

https://www.vogue.com/article/beyonce-september-issue-2018

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/beyonce-jay-z-louvre-apeshit-1304711

Deadly Female Sexuality

The movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith was released in 2005 and was about a hot, young married couple, played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who were both secretly government hired assassins. The irony of the film comes from the fact that while both the husband and the wife were assassins, neither of them were aware of the other’s status. Accidentally crossing paths out in the field creates the plot of the movie in which both of their agencies request that they eliminate the other. A cat and mouse type of game ensues as both Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith attempt to hunt each other down but ultimately realize that they love each other and cannot complete their mission.

Despite being a highly skilled and powerful female character in the movie, Mrs. Smith, aka Angelina Jolie, is portrayed in a highly sexualized manner. Wearing lingerie, men’s shirts, and sexy dresses throughout the movie, the character Mrs. Smith is defintely exploited through her sexuality which she then uses to do her job and assassinate her targets. The movie depicts Jolie’s character in an overtly sexual way which is not necessary to the progression of the main story line of the film. It can be inferred from the story line of the movie that much of Mrs. Smith’s power comes from her ability to manipulate men using her sexual charisma. The portrayal of the Mrs. Smith character in this way

“[goes] beyond highlighting a woman’s to-be-looked-at-ness [and] builds the way she is to be looked at into the spectacle itself”

(Mulvey, 38)

This example directly represents the idea presented by Mulvey of women as the image and men as the bearer of the image. The purposeful representation of the Mrs. Smith character in this way serves as visual pleasure for the male audience while subjecting the female to being a pawn in the story without true depth other than the manipulation of her outward appearance.

Laura Mulvey; Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Screen, Volume 16, Issue 3, 1 October 1975,  https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6

Indiana Jones, and the Examples of things not to do

Media Example

 

 

The Indiana Jones movie series directed by Steven Spielberg has been one of the most successful in Hollywood, and well loved by many including myself. However, looking back at the famous series I have noticed  lot of things that are unacceptable, but still exist today in the cinema. A prevalent example of this in the Media is “The White Savior Complex”  – in a nutshell, it refers to a white person who rescues people of color from oppression. Author Julien Gignac mentions this his piece “The Revenant’s White-Savior Complex”. Indiana Jones and the temple of doom takes place in India, where the locals are portrayed as uneducated, backwards, and untrustworthy compared to the westerners, not to mention that the whole town is considered a haven for thieves which has been seen in the west as  accurate  portrayal of India, and its constituents.

 

The town in question is target of a cult that kidnaps its victims and have had their hearts removed to please the Hindu goddess Kali. Prior to Jones’s arrival the victims are unable to stand up to the cult, and fail recognize their freedom to exist, however that all changes when Jones presence. He is the Savior who can overcome the antagonist freeing the village of oppression, and let’s not forget that with Jones’s arrival the idea of western civility is brought to the under privileged village and all his gifts are celebrated by the locals. (e.g. archaeological practices, eating etiquettes, and religion). As Julien Gignac puts (in context of Revenant) – “ indigeneity seems ultimately subservient to the white protagonist”

 

Source: “The Revenant’s White-Savior Complex” The Globe and Mail. January 21, 2016

We Can’t Stop (But We Really Should)

The objectification and hypersexualization of black women in many of Miley’s music videos is painfully obvious and distasteful. In her music video for We Can’t Stop, a song about living and partying freely without the concern of others, black women are portrayed as objects, usually seen twerking, embodying a to-be-looked-at-ness that Mulvey describes as the woman as image, man as bearer of the look. The women seen twerking with Miley are not shown throughout the rest of the video in the scenes of the party, and not only are they seen twerking in the video, but Miley is shown grabbing their ass and focusing primarily on the sexual objectification of these women. The only men in the video are seen partying and dancing with women, holding the power of the gaze. Images of black women twerking litter the video, while white women are shown partying and swimming. Not only black women are objectified in this video, as all of the women portrayed in the music video are reduced to sexual objects to be looked at by men.

Mulvey writes, “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” (Mulvey, 33)

The emphasis on the black female body and the tokenization of hip-hop culture in this video and many of Miley’s other music videos depicts an unfortunate reality of racist tropes in popular media. Perpetuation of the Jezebel trope of black women further reduces people into stereotypes, and honestly there are so many other directions Miley Cyrus could have gone with a music video about partying without sexualizing and displaying the black female body as the object of male gaze.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, 1990, pp. 33.

Spring Breakers – Just No.

In case we needed more examples of young, hot girls in tiny bikinis on a beach ready to party hardy for spring break, this movie does literally exactly that. With some pretty big name actors (Selena Gomez, James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens) I expected so much more from this movie.

The opening scene is something reminiscent of a late night Girls Gone Wild commercial; lots of boobs and alcohol and sexual licking of popsicles. Not exactly the most subtle way to indicate what is to come of the movie, but hey, it least they got the point across! The focus is completely on the women in the footage, turning them into sexual objects right off the bat.

We learn early on that Selena Gomez’s character, Faith, is from a religious family and participates in behaviors with her friends that her family would not approve of like smoking, drinking, and partying with her friends. By acting rebellious to earn enough money for spring break (such as stealing her teacher’s car with her friends to go and rob a business at gunpoint) and spending spring break in Florida, Faith is acting in resistance to the small town conservative life she grew up in. Not bad, right? A coming of age story about a girl learning to make her own decisions, leave her parents, and do what she wants! Right? Oh how I wish it were that simple…

The focus on the spring break vacation as a spiritual and invigorating trip for this group of girls but painting the entire experience as nothing more than a giant objectification of women’s bodies just doesn’t quite sit right with me. I’m all for partying and having a good time and there is nothing wrong with nudity, sex, and sexuality – but this film really missed it big time to show a transformative story focusing on empowerment and autonomy for Faith and the other characters of this movie. The film contributes to the narrative that the best time of your life and the most fun you can have as a young woman is getting drunk and being objectified by a bunch of dudes slapping your ass and encouraging you to strip and take body shots.

All of the women in this film are portrayed as nothing more than an object for male satisfaction, including a pretty problematic scene that depicts a very drunk girl and an encounter with a large group of men. She is shown heavily drinking with the men and encouraged to strip and participate in sexual activity with them, and at many points she is saying “you can’t have this” and telling them she won’t sleep with them while taking off her bra and what is portrayed in the movie as enticing them. So much for “no means no” and enthusiastic consent!!! The movie reallllllllly got some things wrong and the perpetuation of rape culture isn’t my cup of tea. This reminds me of Mulvey’s argument and when they write, “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” (Mulvey, 33). The scene is shown while we hear Faith on the phone with her parents assuring them she’s not partying, having a good time, and staying safe. Meanwhile the girls are living out their fantasy of sex, drugs, and violent/threatening crimes. Faith’s clear internal struggle with her new lifestyle and the conflict with her morals is honestly kind of hard to watch because the entire premise of her fantasy of spring break revolves around the use of the female body as an object for the male gaze and male satisfaction and perpetuation of rape culture.

I’m pretty sure this movie was aimed to be a satirical mockery of the spring break culture, but it wasn’t funny at all – it was just the worst of the worst parts of spring break culture wrapped up in a box with big celebrities on the cover. James Franco’s character was the only comical part of this movie just because he was so ridiculous, but his character was still pretty dang problematic. He appears in the movie when he bails the group of friends out of jail, saving them as the heroic gangster prince charming he is. His character romanticizes what it means to embody a badass gangster and running with “bad bitches.” The race of the characters in this movie seems to be no mistake but yet a pointed decision in who would play these roles. Smith argues that every prop, setting, actor, and moment is a thought-out decision made by the directors and producers of media (Smith, 130). The gangster and the group of girls are able to conveniently move around the concept of race in this film as they are mostly white or white-passing.

The way women are portrayed in mass media and in this movie reinforces the power in Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze; the position of power in the male, heterosexual, masculine viewer and the female body as an object of sexual pleasure. bell hooks theorized about the oppositional gaze, in which black women reclaimed cinema and media through the power of the gaze. In this film, I am reminded of hooks’ concept that black women were (and unfortunately still are) not only represented in media as hypersexual tropes, but they are expected to be the viewee and never the viewer. The power in gaze is seen in this film as it is directed toward heterosexual male viewers who want to see the “good girl gone bad” and not the women who are being objectified.

By the end of the movie Faith and her friends evolve into true violent criminals, still reliving their days over spring break. They are seen threatening people with guns on multiple occasions, spending hours doing nothing but drinking and doing drugs, and romanticize a lifestyle of drugs sex and crime. Encouraging young women and our society as a whole to engage in this spring break culture is problematic and the movie literally wasn’t even funny at all. So just no.

hooks, bell. (2002). “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation, 115-131.

Mulvey, Laura. (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16(3), 6-18.

Smith, Greg M. “‘It’s Just a Movie’: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes.” Cinema Journal, vol. 41, no. 1, 2001, 128-131.

I Know What You Did Last Summer, it wasn’t great

Being spook month and all, this is the perfect time to conjure up some scary movies. They are the perfect way to get the blood pumping without leaving the comfort of your couch (or bed, I don’t judge). However, the horror genre tends to be very problematic, especially towards women. I tried to find a mainstream classic slasher flic with a female queer character; but shocker, there wasn’t one. Women are typically the brunt of violence and harassment within horror movies, with their screams being music to Hollywood’s white ears. This is heavily evident in I Know What You Did Last Summer, but I will especially be focusing on moral agency and personhood assigned to women in the film, using the Oppositional Gaze bell hooks defined in “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.

bell hooks states “even in the worse circumstances of domination, the ability to manipulate one’s gaze in the face of structures of domination that would contain it, opens up the possibility of agency,” (250). As a woman, the oppositional gaze is critical when watching horror films. The screams on women on screen are music to Hollywood’s ears, even as the damaging effects circulate through society. Watching I Know What You Did Last Summer, I saw the typical violence against women, but also the inability of a woman to save or speak for herself in any situation. The movie is not only phallocentric in that it focuses on a man going around stabbing people with a rather phallic shaped hook, but also in the sense that women cannot do anything about it. The women exist solely to be saved and stabbed.

Before diving in to moral agency in the film, it is important to note that in the beginning of the film, Julie recognizes that the Hook Man myth is sexist and only exists as a way to deter girls from having sex. They tried to be meta, they really did. Regardless of Julie’s awareness, the Hook Man kills them anyway. Granted they killed a man, but they had sex too.

Moral agency in film is the ability a character has to distinguish right from wrong, and do something about it. The female characters were allowed to know right from wrong, but they couldn’t do anything about it at all. Barry, Ray, and the hook dude had all of the moral agency, good or bad. The bad guy had more backstory than the other four characters put together.

The biggest slap in the face to women is Helen’s death scene. She witnesses Barry’s death, and the cop essentially calls her crazy and an idiot. We then see him and her sister (we met her like 3 times for 0.2 seconds each time) get killed. No man would listen to her, and then she gets killed because a night parade (who holds a parade at night???) masks her screams. Then Ray comes to the rescue of Julie after she climbs onto the killer’s boat (silly girl). Julie runs from the killer for about 3 straight minutes with no success, but as soon as Ray comes back the killer dies in 30 seconds. The death and chase scenes demonstrate the stupidity and weakness of women, while enhancing the strength and intelligence of men. As I said, the women existed solely to be saved and stabbed.

There is one woman of color in the movie, but we do not even learn her name until the end in a passing conversation. Deb seems to be the caretaker and worrywart roommate of Julie, which is very reminiscent of the Mammy role assigned to many black women in film. I guess we should be thankful at least Deb doesn’t die, like she would have in every other horror movie.

Deb, the only person of color in the whole damn movie

Overall, the movie is not great and I would not recommend it to any woman. We can do better, and I’m sure this is not what Lois Duncan had in mind when she wrote the book.

hooks, bell. (2002). “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation, 115-131.

Mulvey, Laura. (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16(3), 6-18.

Sixteen Candles and Objectification: A Look Back at the Problematic Past

If you’ve seen the movie 1984 film Sixteen Candles starring Molly Ringwald and directed by John Hughes, you know the film is a staple of the entire decade of the 1980’s. And you definitely know all about the teen heartthrob JAKE RYAN *heart eyes!!*

For me, I grew up watching this film hoping I would never wake up to my family forgetting my sixteenth birthday like Samantha’s family did in the film and I also spent my younger years wishing to cross paths with someone that made my heart flutter like Jake Ryan did for Samantha. I’ve seen the film numerous times, but it wasn’t until recent years that I realized the film was feeding into many of the negative stereotypes of women I had come to resent and that I needed to sit down and view the film from a new and critical perspective. I realized the film was constructed through the male gaze, was meant for male consumption, and portrayed women in whatever way necessary to appease the male viewer.

*world: shattered*

The film highlights a patriarchal influence in more ways than one, and Bell Hooks eloquently shows us the value in critical viewership through adopting the oppositional gaze when she asserts, “Even in the worst circumstances of domination, the ability to manipulate one’s gaze in the face of structures of domination that would contain it, opens up the possibility of agency” (Hooks 248).  Hooks articulates the concept that adopting a critical viewership can foster a larger change by promoting critical thought and creating a conversation around problematic elements. With this concept in mind, I would like to argue in this post that the film Sixteen Candles’harmful depictions of women constructed through the male gaze illustrate the need for adopting an oppositional gaze while viewing the film in order to begin to make reparations for the problematic ideas of women that have been perpetuated by the film.

On her sixteenth birthday, Samantha wakes up concerned only about whether or not her breasts have grown and if the center of her world, Jake Ryan, has come to love her yet. And, nope, the rest of her character arc doesn’t seem to deviate far from this narrow set of concerns.  

As viewers, we’re meant to spend the entirety of the movie under the impression Samantha exists only to visually appeal to and win the love of Jake Ryan. She doesn’t have any other meaningful endeavors throughout the movie having to do with self- love and acceptance or anything that would allude to the fact that her value as a character doesn’t derive from the approval of Jake Ryan. When (spoiler alert) she ends up with Jake Ryan at the end of the film, the iconic final scene of the two sharing an overdue birthday cake is meant to signify that Samantha has finally reached her only goal, to be the object of Jake’s affection.

Laura Mulvey touches on this phenomenon in her work Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema when she introduces the concept of “to-be-looked-at-ness”(Mulvey 33). She explains the common issues seen in narrative cinema where women serve to be the objects of male desire. The character arc of Samantha serves as the perfect example of this concept, as we see her value as a character dwindled to the role she plays in Jake Ryan’s life, and when we view Samantha’s character critically, we are able to gain insight into the patriarchal dynamics at play operating through the development of the film toward appealing to the male gaze.

At other points in the film, we see blatant objectification of women that distances the audience from the humanity of women and perpetuates harmful perceptions of them. In the middle of the film, Samantha is made to feel sorry for one of the characters deemed as a “geek” and ends up giving her underwear to him to show off to all of his “geek” friends. The iconic scene has been deemed as a “humorous” representation of “guy talk” but is really anything but.

This hypermasculine display is entirely frustrating, as it perpetuates the objectification of women by placing value on the ability to (appear to) have sexual relations with women and diminishes the value of the humanity and personhood of women. This phenomenon suggests ties to Mulvey’s writings on psychoanalysis and the idea of castration, as she engages the concept of female fetishism (and subsequent objectification) as an avenue to soothe anxiety of castration (Mulvey 35). We see in this display of fetishism through the spectacle of the underwear viewing while the intimate and eroticized details about Samantha are made for the entertainment and anxiety relief of males under the guise of comedy. The entire situation is devaluing to women, however, developing an oppositional gaze and viewing this critically can help us identify the problematic elements of the situation and start a conversation that helps to dismantle the harmful ideas perpetuated through the scene.

And when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, our beloved Jake Ryan fails woman-kind miserably.

To even further perpetuate the objectification of women seen in the movie, we see another example at Jake’s house party. Jake’s incredibly sexualized girlfriend for the duration of the film, Caroline, becomes incredibly drunk. After deciding to go and pursue Samantha, Jake decides to leave incapacitated Caroline with the same incapable underclassman that, just hours prior, had proudly displayed Samantha’s underwear in the school bathroom. (Seems like a great idea, right, Jake?) And with his final sendoff, Jake tells him “she’s totally gone, have fun.” Jake’s failure to treat Caroline with the slightest human decency in this instance is saddening and further perpetuates the objectification of women throughout the film.

Thanks for reminding us what rape culture looks like, Jake!

I haven’t even touched on the blatant racism in the film, and we can already clearly see there are various problematic elements of the film Sixteen Candles. Watching the film as the person I am today after developing so many close ties to it in childhood is difficult, I hate to see the aspects I once loved dissolving in front of me, but I would never wish to return to my ignorant state. Developing an oppositional gaze was pivotal in developing my sense of agency. Through stepping away from the position of passive viewer and employing the oppositional gaze, I have been able to find solace in the conversation that can be ignited by viewing media critically and calling problematic instances to attention. Laura Mulvey refers to film as “an advanced representation system” that reflects current societal conditions (Mulvey 29). And by developing critical viewership and taking on the oppositional gaze, we are able to change the world around us by drawing attention to the problems we see and starting conversations.

 

 

 

Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Movies and Mass Culture. Rutgers University Press. 1992. pp. 248

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminist Film Criticism. Indiana University Press. 1990. pp 29-35

Scott Pilgrim’s Toxicity vs Women in the World: An Oppositional Gaze

The comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World came out in 2010 and in re-watching it (yet) again, this time employing an oppositional gaze, I was reminded of the reasons I have loved it for nearly a decade, but I was also reminded of all of the reasons why it is important it be viewed with an oppositional gaze or at the very least, a critical lens. 

If you have not yet indulged in the comic book movie adventure, with visual onomatopoeia and commentary and a (WHITE) cast composed of now extremely well-known actors that is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World I will warn you there will be spoilers throughout the remnants of this essay (all for contextual purposes). Scott Pilgrim follows Scott, an awkward 22-year-old trying to navigate this awkwardness within his love life. Scott then goes on to battle the seven evil exes of his new object of desire, Ramona, so he can win her as his girlfriend; he must defeat them if he is to date her.

In this essay by employing an oppositional gaze and utilizing various psychoanalytic feminist perspectives from Laura Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, I will highlight how Scott Pilgrim vs. the World trivialized the dangerousness of an abusive relationship by using woman as an object of gaze and desire for man and placing her in a position of off-limits so that male viewers can resonate with Scott as he fights to win her for himself.

One important dynamic of this film that I have yet to mention is that of Knives Chao. While not the direct focus of this thesis, I still feel it’s important to recognize her role in this film with a female oppositional gaze and how she further develops active looking and protagonist identification in male viewers.

Not only is she the only non-white character (besides her briefly shown best friend and one ex (whose role is also brief)), she is the 17-year-old Scott is dating at the movie’s open. The movie itself acknowledges the stereotypical trope Knives portrays of a young, innocent, Asian school uniform girl, unknowledgeable about the world. She falls hard for Scott who ultimately ends up cheating on her with Ramona. Knives’ role as object varies throughout the movie. Significantly, she is the object of Scott’s sexual desire until another woman becomes the new one. We watch how Knives’ actions once adored by Scott quickly turn to perceptions of annoyance and uncomfortableness though only after having found his new desire of Romana. Knives’ presence in the film, as Mulvey explains, a woman’s visual presence in the film, “…tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (Mulvey 33). Knives’ heartbreak spurs her desire to win Scott back and gain vengeance on Ramona, but she does this by slowly transforming herself to look more and more like Ramona as she schemes, as Ramona is clearly the object of Scott’s desire. Knives freezes Scott’s and the male viewers story line of triumph in winning Ramona with her presence once her “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 33) in the film was transferred to a white woman.

In continuing with more direct focus on my thesis, some more context is required to understand what exactly Scott must do to win Ramona. After beginning to fall for each other the first battle begins, without even Scott really understanding what’s happening. Matthew (our other non-white character) arrives and proclaims his position as Ramona’s first evil ex before their battle ensues.

Upon clarification Ramona explains this is true with little detail as to why.

Skip ahead to five battles later (one of which super problematically addresses the above quote, when Scott’s forced to fight Ramona’s ex-girlfriend, a relationship she promptly dismisses as being just a “bi-curious” phase) we learn why Scott is forced to fight all of these exes to obtain Ramona as his girlfriend.

Gideon, is number seven of the evil exes. Early in the movie Gideon comes up and we learn that leaving him behind was the reason Ramona came to town in the first place, but not much else. When we finally meet Gideon, it is right after a slight riff between Ramona and Scott, we see Gideon talking with Ramona. To Scott and male viewers for whom she is the object of desire, this scene being the first unveiling of her brand new green hairstyle, she appears to be receptive and just slightly reciprocal of his flirtation/seduction, despite her actions that more so mimic compliance out of fear. Quickly after, Ramona tells Scott she cannot date him, that she must be with Gideon. Stuttering saying “I just can’t…I just can’t help myself around him”. To someone for whom  Ramona is the object of desire it’s easy to ignore the toxic language used by Gideon and the way it impacts Ramona’s behaviors.

Viewing with an oppositional gaze as a white woman and as someone who has experience with toxic relationships, it’s easy to see that Ramona is trapped within her own. It’s then learned that it was Gideon who formed the league of seven evil exes. With an oppositional gaze as a female, this indicates an abusive power dynamic between Gideon and Ramona, making him a subtle enemy to Ramona all women while to Scott and male viewers this makes him an enemy competing for their object of desire. By employing more of Mulvey’s psychoanalytic feminist perspectives, it’s possible to observe how the male unconscious tries to escape castration anxiety in this situation by “the devaluation, punishment, or saving of the guilty object” (Mulvey 35). Ramona still serves as object to Gideon as he devalues and punishes her for being the source of both his desire and anxiety, forcing her close, and still serves as object to Scott who believes he can still win her for his own. This is significant in seeing how the abusive relationship is trivialized through this pure objectification. When we assume that male viewers are taking active pleasure in viewing the same woman as object as the male protagonist Scott, we know that Ramona’s well-being and safety is not the question they’re preoccupied with for the rest of the film; rather it is will they be able to be triumphant and obtain their object?

In the scripted sense there does need to be some sort of outcome that may directly or indirectly the answer male viewers question, in other words how will the protagonist they’ve been identifying with, Scott, end up? I will now focus on Scott’s final battle against Gideon and how Ramona isn’t able to play a part nor have a say in her own liberation from an abusive relationship save for one physical action. In this last battle, which focuses on Scott finding his sense of confidence and utilizing it to obtain his intense desire of possession gives him endless dramatic fight shots. After one dramatic blow, Ramona softens her expression and puts her arms around Gideon. He says arrogantly “Yeah. Still my girl” with a smirk” before Ramona says “Let’s both be girls” and kicks him in what he cares about most, only before of course he slaps her and she falls again, this time literally to his feet at the bottom of the stairs. Even when a woman’s desire in film is to liberated from abuse and fear, as Mulvey states “women’s desire is subjected to her image as bearer of the bleeding wound, she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it” (Mulvey 29). In the end it is Scott of course who defeats Gideon, meaning finally he has reached the top of the hill he has been climbing to reach his object of desire (even though she’s still laying on the ground below them).

I will not explicitly state what occurs finally between Scott and Ramona. However, I will state that the male viewers taking active pleasure in looking throughout this film, for whom Ramona too was their object of desire for 113 minutes (minus the few where Knives was object) likely left the theater feeling triumphant, not because Ramona was finally safe, not even because there was success in the physical battles, but because the object of their sexual desire was finally obtained.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminisms, 1975, pp. 28–40.

Netflix’s Message to Teens: They Would Love You if You Were Thin

This September, Netflix released their new original romantic comedy Sierra Burgess is a Loser, which starred Shannon Purser and new heartthrob Noah Centineo. This movie promised to be the answer to many a fat woman’s prayers; finally, a movie that focused on a fat woman finding love. What’s more this was a movie clearly aimed at teens, so maybe a large corporation, such as Netflix, was finally learning that the way it portrays women has a deep effect on their teenage viewers. It was supposed to be a movie that taught teen girls that it is okay to live in the body that you are given. It claimed to be body positive and to show a woman falling in love with a man who loved her back not despite her body, but with respect for her body. Sadly, Netflix greatly missed the mark. Instead of providing the beautiful and long awaited story that was promised, the streaming service gave viewers the same narrative always presented around fat women: You are ugly and the only way a man will love you is if he accepts that you will never be beautiful. Sierra Burgess is a Loser portrays fat women as unlovable by using scopophilia as a means to portray thin bodies as the only bodies of desire.

Sierra Burgess, the problematic protagonist (some might argue the anti-hero) of the film, is a teenage girl entering her senior year of high school. She is a fat girl who is also incredibly smart, and this leaves her labeled as a loser by her fellow classmate Veronica, the beautiful captain of the cheer leading squad, who constantly berates Sierra for her size and intellect. A boy from another school, Jamey, develops a crush on Veronica and starts to text her, but he accidentally texts Sierra. Sierra then decides to pretend to be Veronica through text, and begins a relationship with Jamey where he believes he is in fact dating Veronica.

Jamey, when he first starts to text “Veronica”, knows nothing about the girl he has a crush on. He has only seen her, and has never spoken to her before. He develops his feelings for her purely based on her physical appearance. Laura Mulvey discusses scopophilia as the sexual pleasure that is derived from looking. In film, she argues that women exist solely to be the bearers of the male gaze of desire (Mulvey, 30-31). This is Veronica sole role in the film. She serves to prove what is desirable to men. Sierra exists as the antithesis to Veronica. When Jamey first meets Sierra, not knowing that she is actually the girl he is virtually dating, he has no attraction to her. While he asked for Veronica’s number within moments of first seeing her, he simply greets Sierra and pays her no further attention. In later interactions with Sierra, it becomes obvious that she has been friend-zoned by him, and he has absolutely no sexual or romantic interest in her. By using Jamey’s gaze, the film shows that certain bodies are inherently desirable, while other bodies are to be ignored.

In a way, Sierra’s body is portrayed in the same manner that bell hooks discusses black female bodies. Because these bodies differ from the normal female body of pleasure portrayed in film (white, young, and thin women), they are pushed to the background and given no attention for the men in the film. These bodies are portrayed as less than (hooks, 230).

Other than these visual cues throughout the movie, Jamey’s monologue which concludes the film serves as verbal confirmation that this film regards fat women as ugly and undesirable in comparison to thin women. Upon discovering that he has actually been engaging in a relationship in the virtual world with Sierra, Jamey goes to her house to declare his love for her in a very John Hughes-ian cliched manner. Although, his boombox is replaced by a sunflower. He delivers the following speech: “Honestly had we not met the way that we had, maybe I wouldn’t have noticed you. I mean you’re not exactly everybody’s type. But you’re my type — you are exactly my type.”

Jamey admits, point blank, that based on her physical appearance, he never would have paid any attention to her. And then, on top of that, by saying that she isn’t everyone’s type, he is saying that no one else besides him could love her because they are unable to see past her gross physical form. He loves her despite her body, not with her body. Jamey wins Sierra’s love through admitting his fatphobia, and somehow, this works! They go to homecoming together and dance the night away in each other’s arms. Sierra is magically able to forget that her dance partner thinks she is less than other women.

Fat viewers, however, have been able to watch this film and recognize the problematic representations of themselves. They have taken to twitter, movie review websites, and even OpEd columns to fight against the message of the film. They are taking the film to task for implying that fat women are not beautiful and attractive and lovable in their own right. There is significant push back on the idea that star quarterbacks, like Jamey, could never fall for clarinet-playing fat girls without being tricked into doing so. By calling the movie out for what it is, a sad attempt at body positivity, oppositional viewers are not only holding Netflix accountable for its actions but are taking part in exactly what hooks describes as the oppositional gaze. She writes the gaze is utilized “wherein we can both interrogate the gaze of the Other but also look back, and at one another, naming what we see” (hooks, 248). We are naming the fat phobia and we are fighting against it.

I sincerely hope that Netflix will learn from this error and start to portray fat characters of all gender identities, sexualities, and races in a better and more accurate light. The representation of this group is currently riddled with stereotypes, and I am counting the days until I can see myself in a fat character on the silver, or streamed, screen.

Sources:

Hooks, Bell.  “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators. Movies and Mass Culture, 1996, pp. 247-269.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminisms, 1975, pp. 28–40.

Dystopian Disaster: Analyzing Gaze In Divergent Series

Since I can’t focus on the series as there is WAY too much to discuss, I will concentrate on Divergent- the first book.

The Divergent series was written in 2011 by Veronica Roth. She wrote four books for the collection, and turned three into a 4-part series. When the film first came out, I was extremely excited and fell in love right away. Whilst in the middle of this class, however, I’ve noticed that this young girl is quite fond of following a negative female stereotype outside of her strong woman portrayal. Beatrice Prior is presented as whiny, indecisive, and dependent.

Divergent is about a young girl who lives in a divided world. Everyone is divided into factions based on their characteristics; whether you are kind, brave, honest, smart, or selfless. The main character, Beatrice, was born into Abnegation (selfless), but has felt that she doesn’t quite fit in. When children become of age, they are able to make their own choices and a test can help them decide which faction to choose. Her results are inconclusive, stating that she fit into more than one faction which makes her a Divergent. Apparently, this is not a good thing as they are people to be feared and could end up killed or factionless. In the end, she pulls through… with help from a man.

Throughout the story, she proves herself to be strong. Unfortunately, it all seems to be in the hands of Four, one of the leaders and trainers for Dauntless (brave). He navigates her around being a Divergent and how to go about their training and tests undetected because he is Divergent as well. This plays to be a huge factor in her survival because it is played out through the entire series. The other male characters work hard to belittle Tris (new name for Beatrice) as much as possible and make her the focus of their gaze. In one scene, Tris gets jumped by three guys who are said to be intimidated by her. They attempt to throw her into a chasm when Four comes along and saves the day. He lets her spend the night in his room to be safe. He teaches her how to fight because, coming from a “weak” faction, she really doesn’t know how. Although, you never see Four attempting to correct anyone else’s fighting stances and practices. Before initiation, she takes off a jacket while Peter yells “yeah stiff, take it off…  [mumbled] put it back on…” May I also mention, “stiff” is a taunting slur for the people of her faction basically stating that they don’t have fun.  Tris’ faction is known for being selfless- women wear gray long-sleeved dresses to the ankle, they forbid mirrors, and eat very bland food that they also share with the factionless. Basically, they are just a step above the factionless (homeless) because they don’t use a lot.

Tris does indeed grow as a character; from choosing her faction to saving her family. She controls her fate from beginning to end along with the fate of those around her. She has moments that make me proud that she is portraying a strong woman from her shooting an egocentric trainer in the leg, to her standing up for her friends and biting the bullet for him. Unfortunately, she is mostly portrayed as a whiny child who is upset that she was put in the faction she is in, but when she chooses another faction, she doesn’t want to leave her family. Over time, she seems to grow into a young adult who can take care of herself, but is still dependent on the reassurance of her male counterpart. I believe that this is a great example of male gaze which, while they try to create equality between genders, it still kind of lacks in a sense that men are still displayed as physically stronger than all women featured. Women are mostly displayed as meek or subservient to male counterparts.

Beside the male gaze presentation, there is also a show of the well-off factions versus Abnegation. I related to Abnegation because there was a point in my life that my family didn’t make a lot of money. My mother started delivering meals on wheels and, since we couldn’t afford daycare, my sister and I would go with her. We bought our clothes from the thrift store (and believe me, 1998-2003 were rough for me). Children at my school took my gaze away and were bestowing it on me with nasty looks and judgements.

Moving forward and how this film “appeals” to women, “…it allows them [the spectator] to oscillate between passivity (watching the suffering woman) and activity (empathetically suffering along with her)” (Hollinger 43). Tris goes through a lot of suffering throughout the film. She has to move away from her family with the potential of never seeing them again, is threatened multiple times to be killed/factionless, she has to shoot one of her best friends in self-defense, both of her parents die, and she winds up factionless and being hunted down at the end with the unknown ahead.

BUT OH, LOOK…

at least she has her man.