Gender Roles:
• The characters that look at others are in the active role and are usually the male.
• The characters that are to be looked at are passive, and usually female. They are under control of the male’s gaze and only exist for visual pleasure.
• Females often slow the narrative down; they are the inspiration for the males action.
• Males push the action forward, making things happen, the narrative hinges on them.
• But like everything, there are exceptions to the rule:
• Moana, Us, Ingrid Goes West, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, (500) Days of Summer, Alien, Alita: Battle Angel, Atomic Blonde, Suspiria, Bad Times At The El Royale, Black Panther, Bridesmaids, Bring It On, The Invisible Man, Pan’s Labyrinth, Mean Girls.
And Games are a good example of Narratives that do not just rely on traditional gender roles as well – e.g. Tomb Raider, Control, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy.
Individual Task:
The Movie/Videogame I have chosen is, Batman: Arkham Knight
The main characters are Batman (The Hero) and the duo of Scarecrow and the mysterious Arkham Knight as the villains.
Batman as the main player is a straight, White, 35-year-old male. Batman is portrayed as a hero who is overwhelmed with the chaos that Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight have produced but along the story is seen to make a major comeback that ultimately leads to the villain’s demise.
Scarecrow as the villain is a straight, White, 38-year-old male. Scarecrow is seen as a very intellectual person who wipes out Gotham City in a matter of hours leaving only thugs and criminals in to do whatever they wish. This gives him time to deploy the Militia (His and Arkham Knights Army). For his actions in the early game he is seen to be Batman’s intellectual superior.
Arkham knight aka: Jason Todd, is a straight, White, 29-year-old male. Arkham Knight is portrayed as a very eager young character who seeks revenge against the Bat and is so inpatient unlike Scarecrow that it eventually bites him in the back as his real identification in un-vailed.
Voyeurism:
• Voyeurism is the pleasure of looking while unseen. Pleasure is derived from seeing another person or other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as dancing or anything personal (sexual or non-sexual) that they would not do in front of others.
• From a feminist perspective, the voyeurs themselves are males (active). The subject of the look is female (passive). However, is this always the case?
• Alfred Hitchcock is widely acknowledged as a master of suspense films. In many of his films he puts the audience into the role of voyeur.
Scopophilia:
• Scopophilia literally means ‘love of looking’. (Scopophilia comes from Freud’s studies of the human psyche)
• Movie making and viewing have often been analyzed as scopophilia or voyeuristic practices.
• This is because of the way in which we watch films, in a darkened room, observing the people on screen who are unaware that we are watching.
Exhibitionism:
• Exhibitionism opens a debate – who is exploiting whom?
• Female exploitation vs. female sexual confidence and control of own sexuality – which is a topic widely seen and debated in music videos.
Objectification:
• The way we look at characters or actors – we change them from being a living breathing person or thing to an object of desire only – we want to be like them or want to be with them.
• It is not just us that does this though, the camera shots/angles, editing and costume etc all shape our perception of an actor/character into this object.
• For example – when Gal Gadot was cast as Wonder Woman the internet complained her boobs were too small and she was not curvy enough to play Wonder Woman – immediately objectifying her.
The dictionary definition, is “treating people like tools or toys, as if they had no feelings, opinions, or rights of their own.”
• In media we do this through making certain people or groups attractive in their portrayal – affecting our perception of real-world people and groups – linking in with stereotyping.
Objectification Theory:
• Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) postulates that many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for its use by others.
• Sexual Objectification occurs when a woman’s body or body parts are singled out and separated from her as a person and she is viewed primarily as a physical object of male sexual desire (Bartky, 1990).
• Objectification theory posits that Sexual Objectification of females is likely to contribute to mental health problems that disproportionately affect women (i.e., eating disorders, depression, and sexual dysfunction) via two main paths. The first path is direct and overt and involves Sexual Objectification experiences.
• The second path is indirect and subtle and involves women’s internalization of Sexual Objectification experiences or self-objectification compared to other women (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997).
• This also ties in with our work on ‘Gaze’ and Mulvey’s feminist theories.
Hyper Sexualisation:
• Hyper sexualization of girls can refer to girls being depicted or treated as sexual objects. It also means sexuality that is inappropriately imposed on girls through media, marketing or products directed at them that encourages them to act in adult sexual ways.
• Examples are ads of young girls in ‘sexy’ poses, and girls dressing up and dancing to their favourite pop star’s very adult lyrics. Whether hyper sexualization is new or not – some argue that we have always sexualized girls in pop culture – the widespread use of the Internet, cell phones and other communication devices has made it commonplace.
• Feminists like Laura Mulvey would argue that exhibitionism is the result of women having been raised to view other women through the eyes of males (because of patriarchal society and the way that this filtered through into the media).
• Women are so used to the ‘male gaze’ that they have become at peace with being ‘looked at’ and can therefore exploit it and make it work for them – e.g. “Only Fans” as a platform.
• Exhibitionism is also concerned with the making of images designed to be viewed by others, e.g. Instagram, Snapchat, and Chat roulette.
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