The Gaze and the Media// 300 Word Essay

Here are some of the quotes I managed to find from Rosalind Coward's chapter 'The Look". With these quotes I will analyse an advert that Axe made.

• "Women's Experience of sexuality rarely strays far from ideologies and feelings of self image. There's a preoccupation with the visual image of self and others and concomitant anxiety about how these images measure up to a socially prescribed ideal."

• "Human Beings don't all look at things in the same way, innocently as it were. In this culture, the look  is largely controlled by men. Men also control the visual media. The film and TV industries are dominated by men, as is the advertising industry."

• "Entertainment as we know it crucially predicated on a masculine investigation of women, and a circulation of of women's images for men. The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets. Here, men can, and do, stare at women."

• "Women in the flesh, often feel embarrassed, irritated, or downright angered by men's persistent gaze. But not wanting to risk male attention turning to male aggression, women avert their eyes and hurry on their way."

• "In this society, looking has become a crucial aspect of sexual relations, not because of any natural impulse, but because it is one of the ways in which domination and subordination are expressed. The relations involved in looking enmesh with coercive beliefs about appropriate sexual behaviour for men and women."

• "The saturation of society with images of women has nothing to do with men's natural appreciation of objective beauty, their aesthetic appreciation, and everything to do with an obsessive recording and use of women's images in ways which make men conformable."

• "Clearly this comfort is connected with feeling secure or powerful. And women are bound to this power precisely because visual impressions have been elevated to the position of holding the key to our psychic well-being, our social success, and indeed to wether or not we will be loved."

• "Men defend their scrutiny of women in terms of the aesthetic appeal of women. But this so-called aesthetic appreciation of women is nothing less that a decided preference for a 'distances' view of the female body."

• "Perhaps, this 'sex-at-a-distance' is the only complete secure relation which men can have with women. Perhaps other forms of contact are too unsettling."

• "Thus the profusion of images of women which characterises contemporary society could be seen as an obsessive distancing of women, a fan of voyeurism. Voyeurism is a way of taking sexual pleasure by looking at rather than being close to a particular object of desire. Like a Peeping Tom."

• "In the twentieth century, sexology found a spectacle of incompetent fumbling and rampant discontent with 'doing it'. Heterosexuality, it seemed, was on the edge of extinction. Saved only by porn in sock draw or by the widespread availability of images which could be substituted in fantasy for the real thing. Perhaps in the images, the meanings are fixed and reassuring. Perhaps only in the images could true controlling security could be reached?"

• "Freud casually added to his account of the development of all humans that women were, however, 'more narcissistic'; 'nor does (their) need lie in the direction of loving, but being loved."

• "Fascination there may be, but there's certainly no straightforward identification which women experience with the multitude of images of glamour women. Instead, advertisements, health and beauty advice, fashion tips are effective precisely because somewhere, perhaps even subconsciously, an anxiety, rather than a pleasurable identification, is awakened. "

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Find an image from contemporary mass media which reflects the issues using five quotes from this text. Analyse the gaze relationship in the image and think about what kind of masculinity and femininities are presented. What kind of challenges to the gender roles is happening?

After exploring the internet for a suitable advert for the question given, I decided to go with this Axe advert called 'The Axe Effect'. Using 5 quote from Rosalind Coward's chapter 'The Look' I will attempt to analyse this avert in detail, Identifying how this particular advert has been made to attract and absorb the attention of men.

"Entertainment as we know it is crucially predicated on a masculine investigation of women, and a circulation of women's images for men." (p. 35) 

This is interesting when thinking about who the advert is targeted at and how woman are being portrayed. The advert is quite obviously targeted at a male audience and by using the female body in this particular way it is obvious Axe are using male gaze to sell this particular product. The female representation in the ad work wonders with the moral of this advert. The message to men is by using Axe you will attract woman of this nature.

 "Entertainment as we know it crucially predicated on a masculine investigation of women, and a circulation of of women's images for men. The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets. Here, men can, and do, stare at women." (p. 35).

The way in which the woman in this advert have been filmed almost make it acceptable for a male audience to look at woman in a sexual way with out being caught out. The way the advert has been shot backs this statement up as the woman aren't looking at the camera making men feel free to stare with nothing to loose. Relating to the point of entertainment being predicted on a masculine investigation of woman, is this stating that is indeed a decision of men to how a woman ends up dressing?

"Clearly this comfort is connected with feeling secure or powerful. And women are bound to this power precisely because visual impressions have been elevated to the position of holding the key to our psychic well-being, our social success, and indeed to wether or not we will be loved." (p. 34) 

The example I have chosen isn't the best as these woman are wearing bikinis which happen to be very conventional when being on a beach. In the quote above, the part about whether or weather not we will be loved I feel connects with how females are presented in the media. If this is how men want woman to look like then possibly woman feel they have to present themselves in this way.

"In this society, looking has become a crucial aspect of sexual relations, not because of any natural impulse, but because it is one of the ways in which domination and subordination are expressed."

Today, woman have began dressing in such a way that men will find pleasing, woman dress like this to attract a man. Because woman are being presented in such a way through the media, the female audience take note this is how men want woman to look like and in a result they wear less clothing. Men notice this is how woman are being presented in the media whey expect woman to dress like this on a day to day basis for their own pleasure? It's an odd circle, however this advert on a whole take away any respect from the female species turning them in to an animal more than a human being.