What people misunderstand about 'the male gaze'

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#shorts

[arktype]

i would really love a more in depth video about this with examples

[FreyjaHerself]

I think a good way this was described to me as a lot of men being written as relatable, while women are written as exotic, or unobtainable. Women are a mystery while men are a given.

[ThatFoxxoLeo]

Lovely informational short. Also, I found it funny that the infamous suit-up from Batman Forever/Batman and Robin with the batnipples was shown while talking about this, even though it was mainly the difference in the showcasing of each suit; I think the implication that in general men would be like "yeah I wanna see Batman's nips so badly' is just funny af

[UnidentifiedReaper]

Another good example of this is just Hugh Jackman. Look at how Jackman is portrayed by male-focused media vs female. He goes from being the vein popping muscle man in “male oriented” action movies to a soft singer in a sweater for female magazines. Neither of these depictions are objectively who Jackman is, they are only how he’s framed

[earlsaverson]

So many people think "male gaze" is thrown around whenever any attractive woman is shown onscreen. The Hugh Jackman bodybuilding magazine vs home/cooking magazine cover comparison shows what happens when you take a dude and target him at a male audience vs when you take the same exact dude and target him at a female audience.

[nomisunrider]

See also: the amount of movies that were called gay not because of actual queer content, but because they sexualized the male characters and men forgot that (straight) women watch movies too.

[Mario_Angel_Medina]

The male gaze is a fascinating topic. I always remember something a female journalist said in a talk show years ago:
_When I see a magazine with photos of naked men I don't think this is a p*rno mag for women" I think "this is a p*rno mag for gay men"_
Is really about the framing, independent from the subject matter

[amiefortman]

This perfectly highlights why it annoys me so much when people say things like, "Okay, but what about Female Gaze(TM) where the male characters are sexified instead of the women?" Even if the male gaze was just about "when women sexy", that still wouldn't be a good subversion of it--that would just be copying it for your own gratification. It's about the *why* and *how* of objectification, not just the *who.*

[U.Inferno]

The problem with the flattening of the definition of "The Male Gaze" to purely mean sexualization of women is the implication that the faults lie at sexuality, which is really morally neutral as a concept. So when the problem is introduced, people are obviously prone to push for solutions, and if sexuality is overly pushed as the source of the problem, the solution doesn't become "stop depicting heterosexual male perspectives as the default, " but instead that "sexuality must be stripped from media itself." Which is a band-aid solution at best and literary self-sabotage at worst. The above assumptions don't go away, they're just there with a puritanical coat of paint.
Not everything needs sexualization. In fact, most things do not. Consider it a flaw with the "allosexual gaze." However, the existence of sexuality and sexualization in a piece of media does not immediately devalue it as a schlocky pornography or obligatory fan-service. While a lot of queer narratives put in the effort to deconstruct how society as a whole treats sexual intimacy and sexuality--which are typically forerunners on the topic--there is still value within narratives that focus on the sexuality of heterosexual men and the deconstruction within that space. A big recent example is Chainsaw Man, which is inseparable from its sexual themes and would become a lesser story without it.
Even cheap fan-service is ultimately morally neutral. The problems lie within objectification and the lack of consent. Devaluing individuals as nothing more than eye-candy, and forcefully placing them under the oogling lens whether they want to be or not. Simultaneously, the assumption that responses to "fan-service" is universal--or at least universal to the "only audience that matters"--is what ultimately shifts it away from neutrality towards immoral or problematic.

[suguaakini]

Quite interesting, never really heard of the original usage of this term.
Thanks for bringing awareness over this

[haruhirogrimgar]

My favourite type of Skyen video. Feminist analysis.

To me a good example of this is the Birds of Prey film. It features a cast including women in sexy outfits but they aren't sexualized for the sake of the male gaze. They don't zoom in on Harley's breasts or butt, but she is at a bar trying to drink the night away and look attractive so her outfit is a bit more sexy than normal. If any movie I have seen was not made in likeness of the male gaze it is that one.

[lydiamourningstar]

It also includes the hypermasculinization of male characters to appeal to a power fantasy. It's not good for anyone, including men.

[jaybee]

I remember one example of the male gaze can be seen in old portraits of women looking at themselves in a mirror, provocatively or not. After looking at a few you can start to tell that the men paint the women to look at themselves the way men look at them, which is obviously wrong. Im not fawning over myself or reveling in my own fragile vanity, im two inches from the glass trying to count how many new eyebrow hairs I've grown.
That to me exemplifies the core issie of the male gaze as the sole perspective, which is ignorance.

[amandasunshine]

Exactly, it's less about sexualizing women and more about androcentrism as a whole 💯

[hydrophobic]

No more male gaze, embrace the male gays

[Noah-kdlq]

This is significantly more interesting than I expected. The concept of the film industry depicting a particular way of looking at the world (not just politically or sexually) brings to bear the question of how human beings individually stylize their self-concept of reality and the aesthetics of life.

[eliza]

Kinda random, but this reminds me of working behind a counter.

As a service worker you never want to sexuality customers (most especially not in front of them) and giving someone “elevator eyes” is a huge sign you’re checking someone out.
So at work you’re *actively paying attention* to where you’re looking. There’s no absent minded wandering of the eye that straight white men were rarely, if ever chastised for. The kind of wavering you see in that Rear Window clip or that famous scene from Transformers.
In both clips the male gaze is used to show that the man has become distracted, *almost as if he’s a victim of his own sexuality.*

As an experienced service worker, the only time that slips is if I have personal chemistry with someone and even THEN the only time I dared give a customer my number is when dude was coming in specifically during my shift for weeks.
He would obviously watch me from the line while I helped the people in front of him. Still, my gaze never got lascivious. Instead it was more about maintaining eye contact for just a little longer than usual and noticing things like what book he was reading or if it looked like he had repaired his own sweater.

By that point literally everyone from my manager to the store owner was like “hey is that guy into you? It seems like he’s into you.” He never used my number so I wasn’t pushing it.
Eventually my manager actually asked this woman outside the company who she knew was a friend of his.
It turned out THAT woman was actually going through a prolonged messy breakup with this guy. 😬 It was so embarrassing. She actually approached me at the next farmer’s market we were both working at.
She didn’t even confront me, I think she just wanted to check me out because she was kind of scanning me with her eyes like a depressed Terminator.

He would still come in and watch me from the line and be flirtatious, but I kept interactions short. When I looked at him I stopped taking in details and cut down on direct eye contact.

At one point I invited him to an *actually* neutral location and gave him a chance to clear the air.

THEN one day he and Schrödinger’s ex gf came in *together* on some kind of date from hell and and sat at the table closest to the register. I took my frustrations out doing dishes in back while my manager was passive aggressive to them until they left.


Anyway, eyes tell a story even if you don’t think you’re communicating anything. Even if you think you’re being subtle with your barista crush, know that there’s a chance that EVERYONE who works there is paying attention and reading your gaze, body language and behavior.
Even if you don’t take yourself seriously, other people do.

[brokenpieces]

I learn so much from these shorts. Never thought of the male gaze like that at all

[magikt]

the socio-cultural context of art is always the keystone to grasp the full model of it, and yes, this is exactly it

[Blueeyesthewarrior]

I recommend Lindsey Ellis’ “The Whole Plate” series. It does a really good job of going into depth the way in which the male gaze applies to the way movies view men. Specifically in the transformers movies.