THE GAZE AND THE MEDIA

For the first part of the session we reviewed last weeks lecture on 'the gaze and the media' and listed arguments.

• Women tend to be looked at in the media, in a sexualised and objectified way.
• 'Men act and women appear.' - Berger 1972
• Women are the main focus in paintings, because major it of painters were men.
• Men in positions of dominance, captains of industries.
• Traditional art history books, men are predominant painters. Not because women were not good enough but because they were excluded.
• Alexandre Cabanel vs. Manet. Both depict naked women, but are accepted because the are artistic. Manet is seen as sleazy, prostitute, realistic. Alex is seen a beautiful, goddess, classic, follows what has been before.
• Paintings created social fictions so that these paintings were deemed acceptable, when in reality they are very sexual.
• A tradition of men producing images of females not looking at the audience, to create a feel for them to not be oglers or being perverted. It became normalised in culture.
• Women are the beautiful sex
• Inherent vanity of women, women like to look at themselves so it's okay to look at them.
• A tradition that is not misogynistic but is arty.
• Manet attempts to bring the ideal of women back to reality by using a real women, confrontation, face on to the audience, breaks innocence of fantasy women that were a tradition. 
• Manet vs, Titans venus: difference in animals, dogs and loyal and cats are not. Males fantasy of the ideal woman / situation. 

Perfume adverts:

• Women are the possession of men.
• All sexualised ideal of how women should like to a man
• Don't offer another ideal
• Flirtatious and erotic

We then watched John Berger, Ways of seeing,  Ep. 2 (1972)

"behind every glass is a judement, some from there own."

"from a young age women are taught to survey themselves"

Constant visible reminders of what women should look like and act. It's unchallenged and is negative. Adverts promise you a better life, make women and men dissatisfied with the way they look.

Being naked and being nude to art historians have different meaning, to be naked it to have no clothes but to be nude means it is art. 

Berger disagrees with this and says to be naked is to be yourself and to be nude is for other people to see you naked and to loose yourself. It opens up themes of objectification.

Subject vs, Object.

For the next part if the session we analysed and dissected Roslind Cowards "The Look".

I found this lesson and lecture really interesting, seeing the views on how women are portrayed and how the media manipulates how we see things. I think this subject will be something I would like to focus my essay on.