the female façade- how performance artists are changing the way patriarchal pressures objectify...
TRANSCRIPT
Samantha Weisenthal
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The Female Façade:
How Performance Artists Are Changing the Way Patriarchal Pressures
Objectify Women
Who Sees Through the Lens of the Male Gaze?
It’s 9:30pm on a Thursday night and I haven’t shaved my legs yet. Looking through my
bottom drawer to find a suitable pair of covering yet curve revealing pants, I find the high
waisted leggings my best friend in high school said would, “Show not Tell.” After, I put on a
plunging corset and excessive amounts of makeup, and head down to the pregame I was invited
to earlier that day. The host of the pregame is male. He invited exclusively women, knowing that
a party filled with girls will attract men like moths to flame. I can’t hear my own thoughts. This
is in part because of the alcohol that keeps getting passed my way, and in part because of the
lyrics blasting, “I don’t fuck with you! You little stupid ass bitch I ain't fuckin’ with you!”
Around me, women move their bodies like snakes, slithering up and down the men behind them.
All throughout I am thinking to myself, “They must be so thirsty,” or, “They have no self
respect.” One looks over at me, smiles widely, and says, “You look so sexy in that top! I wish I
could pull off something like that!” I reply, “You would rock it! You can totally try it on for
tomorrow!” I keep getting more strange glances so I go to the bathroom to fix my makeup. I
apply more lipstick and readjust my corset to reveal more cleavage, “Unless you go home with
someone all of this was for nothing, pull yourself together. You probably just need more
alcohol.” I take a swig from the flask a guy at the party had given me. Once returning I head
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straight to the table girls are dancing on, I know my legs look great and clearly this is the only
way I am going to get noticed by the opposite sex.
The expectations presented to women by societal pressures imposed by patriarchal
standards affect the female’s psyche in every aspect of her life. These pressures are explicitly
visible at night, however, as within the boundaries of a party the worth of a woman shifts from a
focus on her ability to be quiet and modest, to the expectation of being visible and open to sexual
exploitation. This phenomenon is implemented through the standards created by patriarchy, and
therefore anyone who lives within it is innately impacted by it. Because women live in a society
dominated by the patriarchy they see through the standards set by the same societal expectations
men see through,
“Observation is always conditioned by perspective and expectation… It involves
asserting the central role that gender plays in formulating those expectations.
Feminism insists, moreover, that these expectations are disproportionately
affected by male needs, beliefs, and desires. Both men and women have learned to
see the world through male eyes… women judge themselves according to
internalized standards of what is pleasing to men… In this sense, the eyes are
female, but the gaze is male (Devereaux, 337).”
These internalized standards have been actualized through the language actively being
controlled by male privilege. Most art, movies, novels, media images and texts, fashion,
colloquial dialects, and many other mediums have all been shaped by men. In our society and
many others, women’s voices are not heard nearly as loudly as men's because men have shaped
the language: “… women, unlike men, do not learn to describe the world from their own point of
view. As the ‘other,’ woman learns to submerge or renounce her subjectivity. She finds her
identity in the subjectivity of the men to whom she is attached (father, husband, lover). In the
eyes of men, she finds her identity as the object of men’s desire (Devereaux, 340).” Because men
control both the language and the lens, women find their identity in the lens created by
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patriarchal dialect. One cannot form a thought outside of the language they are supplied with.
Women are constricted by the idiom we possess, and therefore to claim that women could speak
or act out of this idea would be false. As a society our thoughts and how we communicate them
all must be expressed through the words already given to us: “Not positing themselves as
Subject, women have not created the virile myth that would reflect their projects; they have
neither religion nor poetry that belongs to them alone: they still dream through men’s dreams
(Beauvoir, 195).” Patriarchy has shaped not only how the genders interact, but how women
interact with women and men interact with men.
The vast majority of communicative mediums are formed by this patriarchal dialect,
including the process of expressing sexual attraction. Typically, women inherently play the
passive role in acts of sexual coercion, exemplified in heterosexual and cisgendered relationships
by the active male courting ritual all the way through to having the male text the female
postcoitally in the morning. This lens can be exemplified in movies, where women see through
the male gaze implemented through the lens of the camera,
“…in locating herself in fantasy in the erotic, the woman places herself as either
passive recipient of male desire, or, at one remove, positions herself as watching a
woman who is passive recipient of male desires and sexual actions…woman
speaker largely arranges the scenario for her sexual pleasure so that things are
done to her, or in which she is the object of men’s lascivious gaze (Longacre,
126).”
By immediately positioning a female as passive, the male becomes the active and therefore the
more powerful figure in the relationship. Men do to women, women take, men need from
women, and women provide, whether it is consensual or not. For this reason, many feminist
performance artists use sex and objectification as a means of explaining the exploitation of
women. This occurrence is of course not exclusive to heterosexual relationships, the male gaze
and the expectation that a woman will be subservient is active in female to female relationships
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as well, “… it is important that in the lesbian fantasies… women occupy both positions…
excited either by dominating another woman, forcing her to have sex, or enjoying being so
dominated. These fantasies suggest either that the female positioning is not as monolithic as
critics imply, or that women occupy the ‘male’ position when they become dominant (Longacre,
127).” The assumption that the female who is dominant in a homosexual act is taking on the
masculine role is inherently patriarchal and oppressive to women. Not only this, but the fact that
even in a female to female relationship the effects of the male gaze are apparent supports the
claim that the male gaze can be, and is, the lens from which women see through.
The act of conforming to the male gaze is internally oppressive to women. In our natural
desire to fit in with our environment, women are unable to break the cycle of oppression. By
regulating their appearance, women use the shield of conformance to external standards so as not
to be ostracized by society. These standards are provided by the omnipresence of media images
depicting ‘the perfect woman.’ By having a standard of perfection, women learn to adopt the
view of the outside observer in understanding their own bodies: “The outside (sexist) observer
becomes internalized, and women may come to experience their bodies primarily as they are
seen from the outside and compared against external standards rather than as they are felt and
inhabited from within (The Fabric of Internalized Sexism, 17).” As can be seen throughout both
our research and the male dominated principles upon which society’s expectations are based, we
as a community are trapped under an umbrella of patriarchy in which everyone sees through the
male gaze that both internally and externally oppresses women.
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The interdisciplinary combination of theatre and humanities gave our love of art a sense
of purpose and showed us that because the personal is almost always political, we should
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implement the balance between being an artist and an activist into something tangible, which
thus developed into an interest in feminist performance art. We found that using our own
physical being as a canvas gave us an extensive amount of freedom. The phrase “protest art” is
redundant, in the sense that all art is a form of individual expression and protests the idea of
conformity given that art is an action of individuality. The word ‘protest’ standing in front of
‘art’ emphasizes that the art being produced in this category is made to challenge authority and
contradict a higher collective power for the sake of the individual. We researched how various
performance artists challenged patriarchal authority by subverting the male gaze to transform
themselves from object to subject. Subverting the male gaze is a form of protest because it is a
push against a reproduced and circular societal structure of oppression. Protest has historically
been used to liberally and radically question authority, and the male gaze is an inescapable form
of patriarchal authority. Performance art questions and analyzes the relationship between the
oppressors and the oppressed.
Inspiring Artists
Orlan
As a result of patriarchy, the voices of male artists are heard and addressed more often
than that of women artists. The portrayal of women in art, through the filter of the male gaze, is
both objectifying and sexualized. The role of women in the art world has been restricted to being
‘art’ rather than an ‘artist.’ By using their own bodies as art, women become both at the same
time: “Women have rarely been permitted agency in art, but instead have been restricted to
enacting—upon and through their bodies—the theatrical, musical, cinematic, and dance
scenarios constructed by male artists. Centuries of this traditional sexual division of cultural
labor bear down on … ([any] woman performer) when she performs (Korsmeyer).” By using
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their own physical bodies as art, feminist performance artists become both the art and the artist,
which allows them control over their own agency in the art world. Another important aspect of
protest is the element of surprise, breaking societal code, and subverting the expectations of
authority. When researching protest we asked whether it was more effective to develop change
by liberally working within the system versus radically working against and outside the system.
A large spectrum of performance artists use shocking material to draw attention to the issues
they protest: “Many performance artists hoping to evoke visceral emotions from the viewer use
aggressive themes such as choking to portray their message. Rather than keeping these themes in
the uncanny but clean realms of myth, however, the presentation of entrails, blood, and—
sometimes literally—flesh confronts the audience with a particular and disturbing presence of the
artist herself (Korsmeyer).” The female body is more than just a simplistic outline of her physical
appearance, and performance art gives depth to women’s physical appearance by displaying the
female body within controversial mediums.
One of the first women we researched who was very influential in the performance art
world is the French artist Orlan. Orlan counters the male gaze and society’s obsession with
image by putting her own physicality to the test. Most visual art, including social media,
television, film, etc., is both created and viewed through the male perspective. Through this, the
male gaze has implemented a singular image of the ‘perfect woman,’ by which all women are
constantly forced to compare themselves to. Most people respond to this image of the ‘perfect
woman’ by striving to attain an image as close to this projection as possible. Plastic surgery is
one of the many ways women transform themselves to this ideal image. In her art Orlan subverts
the male gaze by using plastic surgery to create the anti-image of the ‘perfect woman.’ The
female body is in most cases objectified in visual art, and through anti conformity Orlan turns
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her own body into a subjective piece of art. She uses the operating room as a stage by
reconstructing the aesthetics, including the appearance of the operators themselves, to how she
feels will enhance her artwork. After setting the stage, Orlan films her plastic surgery operation
and includes in her performance every possible grotesque and bloody detail of her body getting
disfigured. Orlan is considered one of the most controversial artists of her time because in
watching her performance, the audience is forced to redefine what is considered to be ‘art.’
Without dismissing her sanity and while still respecting her role as an artist, viewers must
question why Orlan feels it is necessary to comment on the objectification and sexualization of
women through the medium of carnal art: “Throughout her career as a well- known French
multimedia artist, Orlan has trafficked in notions of an ambiguous and constantly shifting
identity. Her actions call into question whether our self- representations conform to an inner
reality or whether they are actually carefully contrived falsehoods fabricated for marketing
purposes--in the media or in society at large.” Orlan uses performance art to comment on the
performance human beings take part in every single day, burying our inner realities beneath a
public falsehood. The public falsehood is based on our desperate need for connection and
relationships, consequently prioritizing conformity over individuality.
How women go about conforming to their ideal image has developed the idea that
femininity is a masquerade. Orlan uses plastic surgery as a mask. Her performance is terrifying
because plastic surgery is both painful and permanent; however, so is the performance of
conforming to society’s female beauty standards.
“Orlan's performances might be read as rituals of female submission, analogous to
primitive rites involving the cutting up of women's bodies. But actually she aims
to exorcise society's program to deprive women of aggressive instincts of any
kind. During the process of planning, enacting and documenting the surgical steps
of her transformation, Orlan remains in control of her own destiny. If the parts of
seven different ideal women are needed to fulfill Adam's desire for an Eve made
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in his image, Orlan consciously chooses to undergo the necessary mutilation to
reveal that the objective is unattainable and the process horrifying. Orlan the artist
and the woman will never play the victim: she is both subject and object, actress
and director, passive patient and active organizer (Phelan).”
Orlan has combined art and artist into one being, developing a sense of agency for women that is
continuously suppressed in the art world. Through her art Orlan manages to take control over one
of the most vulnerable and objectifying spaces our community can offer, the surgeon's table. Her
work was inspiring to our project because she embodies the contrasting duality of subject and
object. The male gaze focuses on keeping the subject and object within a woman very separate,
however by combining these terms together in her individual self, she is eradicating the male
gaze,
"Revisiting Orlan’s history, from the early sixties to the present day, means,
above all, rediscovering the history of the poetics of the body, in which body art and carnal art are the fundamental stages. Real body and imaginary body, lived body and emotional body, mystic body and social body, diffuse body and hybrid
body, all merge together in the ceaseless flow of references in Orlan’s work (Phelan).”
Orlan is protesting the strict and objective image of the ‘perfect woman’ by demonstrating the
flexibility and subjectivity of the female body in her art. While all women are striving to
transform into the ‘perfect woman’, we disregard the incredible amount of variety in which our
bodies can be portrayed. We give up the freedom to express our individuality and take on the
burden of conforming in order to avoid potential ostracization.
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman explores the theme of active/male and passive/female in her art. As a
result of the male gaze and female conformity to gender roles, women are simultaneously looked
at and displayed. Their appearance is coded for eroticism and strong visual impact in order to
connote a to-be-looked-at aesthetic. Sherman’s artwork contributes to our thesis: “She explores
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the myths of femininity from the outer of the body to its inner, unsettling the relationship
between authentic body and its pictorial representation, between original image and body
masquerade (Subverting).” In this way, Sherman uses her own body to illuminate the
masquerade of femininity imposed upon herself and all gender-conforming women.
In her piece “The Heroine with a Thousand Faces,” Sherman appears as a character who
could be seen in classic Old Hollywood films. She creates a fifties-esque atmosphere through
dress, makeup, and set, and addresses her work to the young women who grew up in the era. By
showing childhood images from the 50’s to women who are adults in the 80’s, Sherman is
expressing to her audience the socialization that occurred to them in their youth through media
consumption and the cisgendered women around them. Sherman operates as actress, director,
wardrobe assistant, set designer and as camerawoman all at once. She, “creates a range of female
roles stereotyped by the Western patriarchal society, which she then shoots in apparently
solitary, unguarded moments of reflection, undress, or in conversation with somebody off-set
and outside of the frame (Subverting).” In this way, Sherman is never looking directly into the
lens of the camera. In the photos she is in high contrast in order to stand out from her
surroundings, conveying her vulnerability to the outside world. In our own work we were deeply
influenced by the fact that Sherman stands out from her environment to express the isolation that
the male gaze creates.
Sherman encourages audience participation by suggesting through the voyeuristic nature
of her poses that she is the object of someone’s gaze. However, by depicting herself in several
different roles she is creating a profound statement of power, “As a result, she appears as a
hybrid being, ranging between masquerade and vulnerability, between empowered subject and
disempowered object of the gaze (Subverting).” Sherman uses audience participation in the
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process of objectifying herself, and this meta-aspect of the photos in turn transform her into the
subject of the male gaze.
We would like to do a photo collection inspired by Cindy Sherman. Using the blue light
system, we would like to portray how women always feel a sense of danger or looked-at-ness on
Conn’s campus. An important aspect to Sherman’s collection is that she is caught in intimate
moments alone. Because the blue light system is supposed to be visible from any point on
campus, and because it is a rape prevention tool, using the lights as the male gaze will help us to
emphasize the consistency of female objectification through the male gaze. The photos will be
taken during both sunset and sunrise to create both a lighting where the blue lights are distinct,
and to show how this is a day to day occurrence. We will be dressed in our normal clothing and
will not be looking into the camera, to once again portray how this fear is constant.
Hannah Wilke
Hannah Wilke was a pioneering feminist artist and considered the first to use vaginal
imagery in her work. We chose to focus on Wilke’s piece S.O.S. Starification. In this piece
Wilke is posed as a nude pin-up artist with gum placed all over her body. By sexualizing herself,
Wilke reclaims the ways women have been manipulated and victimized through various cultural
representations of the naked female form. In many circumstances, a nude women in the public
eye is naked for the viewing of other and completely objectified by the male gaze. When Wilke
chooses to be nude in her photos, yet does not make it the focal point of the art, she reclaims her
body as natural and subverts the sexual objectification, making herself the subject. By taking
back the control of how and when women’s sexuality is portrayed in art, the feminist pin -ups
have taken themselves out of the realm of ‘objectiveness’ and into the realm of ‘subjectiveness’
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(American Beauty, 1).” The work of Hannah Wilke can be seen as a testament to the overturning
of patriarchal male Western dominance over women’s sexuality and objectiveness.
In the series, Wilke places gum on her body. Wilke claims that she “...chose gum because
it’s the perfect metaphor for the American woman- chew her up, get what you want out of her,
throw her out and pop in a new piece (American Beauty, 2).” Wilke forces her viewer to
empathize with the negative impacts of the male gaze for women. Doing so, Wilke once again
makes her art and therefore body, the subject rather than object. The gum placed on her body is
in a V shape with multiple folds, for it is meant to look similar to a vagina. “S.O.S” exposes the
conception that all viewers can claim to know a female’s identity, and addresses the
preconceived notion that one can judge a woman solely on her external appearance.
We were so inspired by Wilke’s art that we made images similar to hers, while set in a
modern college setting. The first thing we chose to change about the piece was the shape of the
gum. We are aware now as a society that a woman is not defined by her reproductive organs, and
therefore we did not want the representation of a woman to be a vagina. We still appreciated the
philosophy behind the gum however, so we kept that aspect while making the gum shapeless.
Secondly, we wanted to put the piece in a college setting because that is the environment in
which we know and are aware of, and we did not want to appropriate the struggles women in
other environments face. We also wanted the environment to be in a male dorm room to show
how our world is shaped by men. The dorm room itself is hyper masculine to show the stark
difference between masculinity and femininity. We took many photos in the series, but we shall
only explain two. In one photo Samantha is drinking out of a glass in a phallic manner, showing
how alcohol can be seen as a social lubricant in college. In another photo Miranda is conforming
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to the male gaze by lying on a bed in a hyper-sexual pose. Both pictures subvert the gaze through
the use of pin-up philosophy.
We chose not to use these photos for a series for many reasons. One is that the photos we
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took do not progress, but rather each picture itself comments on a separate means of college life.
This was an active choice of course, yet after looking through both series’ we thought it would
be more interesting to use photography to demonstrate a process rather than a spectrum of
women’s experiences at college. Secondly, we felt that this piece was too directly inspired by
Wilke’s work and that we did not think in depth enough about our own lives to find inspiration
rather than direct influence.
Karen Finley
Karen Finley is an American performance artist, poet, and musician who currently works
at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Our research was derived from Finley’s
novel “A Different Kind of Intimacy,” which is a commentary on the production of the majority
of her work. This collection was important to our research because it shows not only how Finley
developed as an artist, but also how she responded to the critique and backlash of the public,
which she used to become a cultural icon in the fight for freedom of speech and women’s rights.
Finley’s urge to protest comes from a deep-seated anger and frustration with long-term injustice.
The explanation of her creative process was extremely helpful for organizing the vast breadth of
information we had accumulated throughout the semester. The book inspired and encouraged us
to move forward with our own project ideas. Through reading this book, we learned how Finley
created success by developing her anger into artwork, which drew attention to what she was
passionate about: issues with patriarchy and oppression. In her own words, “Up until then, I had
seen the culture as being divided into liberals vs. conservatives, and I had expected that issues
like sexism and homophobia and free speech would always break down along those lines. But
now I saw that, more often, they broke down along lines of power.” Language has caused us to
put labels on everything, including ourselves. Being born into a society with pre-created labels
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categorizes us into starkly contrasted groups such as liberals vs. conservatives, and individuals
use the contrasting ideals between groups such as these to define their own specific values.
Finley dismisses labels and does her art and activist work based on power, because power is
what determines our place in the large spectrum of human hierarchy and thus generates
oppression and discrimination.
Finley is also widely known for her intense involvement with the court case National
Endowment for the Arts vs. Finley. This case went to the Supreme Court and ruled that the
chairman of The National Endowment for the Arts had to ensure that "artistic excellence and
artistic merit are the criteria by which [grant] applications are judged, taking into consideration
general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American
public (Bezanson)." Finley talks about how while her body art was deemed “indecent,” the art
being produced at the same time by male artists was deemed acceptable. Although the issues that
were surfacing due to the court case were extremely necessary to address, she was conflicted in
how to balance her roles as both artist and activist. Karen Finley was an individual experiencing
largely relatable pain and anger, but publically and on a stage. Whether or not it was supposed to
be protest, it was going to be taken as protest because this pain is usually suppressed and never
addressed publicly.
Karen Finley dedicates a large section of her book A Different Kind of Intimacy to her
piece “The Chocolate Smeared Women”. This piece is a response to the Tawana Brawley rape
allegations. In this case, Tawana Brawley was allegedly raped by police officers and a
prosecuting attorney at the age of 15. She was found in a trash bag, covered in feces with racial
slurs written on her body. Finley responded to the court case results and to the unsympathetic
reaction of the public by doing a staged performance piece with an audience. In this
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performance, she smeared her naked body with chocolate to both represent the feces as well as to
eroticize the rape. After this, she covered her body in tinsel to exemplify that, “no matter how
bad a woman is treated, she still knows how to get dressed for dinner…” Finley attempts to
eradicate the male gaze in this project by pointing directly to the negative impacts of the gaze on
the female body. The male gaze is a, “concept coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. It
refers to the way visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. It describes the tendency
in visual culture to depict the world and women from a masculine point of view and in terms of
men's attitudes.” The male gaze has been historically prominent throughout art history, and then
reproduced on a societal level. By using her body for performance and replicating how the
alleged rapists viewed Tawana’s body, she turned the gaze around to the audience so that it no
longer was reflecting her physical being but instead reflecting the eyes of the viewer.
The photo series we created was derived from Finley's response to the Tawana Brawley
court case and was mainly inspired by her metaphor using tinsil. We were inspired by her
proclamation that women, no matter their emotional state, still are forced by the pressures of the
male gaze to present themselves as positive and sexual. We saw this pressure most prevalently at
Connecticut College in the social scene on weekend nights.
In the beginning of the series, the photographs illustrate a depressed emotional state that
women feel the need to hide under the public eye. As the series continues, the photos exhibit the
process of manically covering the shame and depression that the male gaze perpetuates.
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Photo #1:
This is the most intimate photo of the series
because it is the first in displaying the steps in
getting ready to go out at night. The lighting in
this photo is evocative of depression through
the blue tones that blanket the image. The white
sweatshirt I am wearing blends into the white
tiles behind me, metaphorically representing
how shame pressures me to disguise myself by
using the environment around me. I am
covering my face in response to the blinding
atmosphere and to shield myself from the
unwanted light and the unwanted gaze of the
viewer. This illustrates the constant tension
women feel between wanting to be seen and
wanting to hide from the male gaze, however the single uncovered eye is a demonstration of the
constant need to recognize it. By acknowledging the male gaze this image also evokes a form of
protest. In her paper “The Second Sex,” Simone De Beauvoir claims, “We shouldn’t try to
escape it because it’s still going to be their so instead we need to return it, protest it.” By staring
back into the gaze, I am acknowledging its presence, therefore taking away the power of
mystery. When the enigma of the gaze is eradicated, power is transferred from the looker to the
individual being looked at: "The conflict can be overcome by the free recognition of each
individual in the other, each one positing both itself and the other as object and as subject in a
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reciprocal movement (Beauvoir, 193).” Sartre explained the existing duality of subject and object
within the human mind through a phenomenon called “The Look,” which is the recognition of
another human being’s consciousness, or the transcendence from seeing someone else as an
object into a subject through eye contact. By returning the gaze I am using Sartre’s idea of “The
Look” to protest my objectivity and exhibit myself as a subject, a consciousness. This is crucial
to the protest aspect of the project because it is threatening to the viewer’s individuality.
By taking a close up, it is showing the viewer how I feel on the inside, in contrast to the
ending photo where the emphasis lies in how I wish to be portrayed on the outside. The photo is
taken in a corner to show how I feel caged by both my emotions and the viewer. The messy
nature of my physical appearance is a representation of the messy nature of my mind. In “The
Laugh of Medusa”, Helene Cixous explains the negative impacts of the gaze upon the female
psyche,
“Men have committed the greatest crime against women. Insidiously, violently,
they have led them to hate women, to be their own enemies, to mobilize their
immense strength against themselves, to be the executants of their virile needs.
They have made for women an antinarcissism! A narcissism which loves itself
only to be loved for what women haven't got! They have constructed the infamous
logic of anti love (Cixious, pg. 878).”
Because the male gaze has created standards for women that can only be justified by the
perpetuator of the gaze, it is impossible for women to have self love created by their own moral
values, unless they consistently stray from the gaze and gain power from this protest. Later in
this paper I will demonstrate why women themselves also possess the male gaze, and why this
makes the gaze so difficult to eradicate and/or subvert.
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Photo #2:
Similar to the previous photo I am in a
corner, however here I am holding onto
a wall to show my exasperation and my
fear of being seen by the outside
viewer. My face is turned half way
towards the objects on the counter,
acknowledging the journey I am about
to take through getting ready to
conform to the male gaze. Having the
viewer far away is the beginning to
how we illustrate the male gaze seeing
my form from the outside, whereas the
previous photo was an exploration of
how I was dealing with my emotions
on the inside. Simone De Beauvoir explains the inborn influence that men hold, “The
representation of the world as the world itself is the work of men; they describe it from a point of
view that is their own and that they confound with the absolute truth (Beauvoir, 196).” The wide
snapshot contrasts the vastness of the male gaze with the individual. The male gaze in many
ways obtains power by keeping women at a distance. This distance keeps women enslaved
through the innate objectification of only looking and not conversing, “...his distance from the
object is the ransom for his being present to himself… (Beauvoir, 194).” We felt that
photography was the most effective way to present this idea because we could play with how
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different shots contained a variety of meanings. As seen in the last photo, I noticed that I
continue to blend into my surroundings by having pants that match the dark tiled floor and a
sweatshirt that melds with the white walls around me. The suppressing surroundings are plastic,
harsh, and dead, contrasting how I as an individual am soft-rounded and alive.
Photo #3:
Here, finally on my feet, I am reluctantly
getting ready to go out to the Cro Dance that
awaits me. I have changed from the
sheltering sweatshirt into a revealing top in
order to show the immediate sexualization
of my body once leaving the floor. The
geometric and triangular V of my shirt
draws attention to the most desired parts of
my body as seen by the male gaze: my
breasts and waist. However, my physical
form is still doused in the feelings of shame
and repulsion, which can be seen by how
my body continues to be pulled down to the
floor. My clothing is now all dark in order to continue the assumption that I must stand out using
my physicality rather than my intellect. This metaphor continues in the noticeable line of square
tiles which cuts off my personality, living in my face and brain from the rest of my sexualized
body. This inherently creates a sense of submission, “She pits neither the hostile silence of nature
nor the hard demand of a reciprocal recognition against him; by a unique privilege she is a
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consciousness, and yet it seems possible to possess her in the flesh (Beauvoir, 194).” The word
‘college’ written on my pants acknowledges my place in a larger social structure, whereas before
by only looking at my mental image I was ostracizing myself from the society around me. The
tears, though not seen in previous photos, are finally revealed to the viewer. I wear the tears to
enhance my negative emotions just like I use makeup to later exaggerate my fake yet positive
emotions. Throughout the series the makeup on my face will change based on how I am
illustrated to the viewer.
Photo #4:
We consider this photo to be the turning point
in the series because it’s the first photo where
I am staring at the doorway, explicitly
confronting the process I will have to
endeavor to conform to the male gaze. I am
looking away from the reflection of the space
where I was in the past (which has darker
tones in the photo) and leaning in to the
brightness of the prospect of being seen. This
is also the first photo where I am looking out
at the outside world and express a sense of
fear, whereas before I felt more depressed or
sad. My facial expression is uncovered and divided by the duality of having one profile face the
gaze, and another face the mirror. We thought the mirror was a simple way to show how the gaze
can be perpetuated by both the outside viewer and the individual being objectified. The idea of a
Samantha Weisenthal
21
mirror entails the need to understand how society views my physical body, which is why my
body is both facing my reflection and towards the geometric environment around me. I fearfully
avoid looking into the camera and the viewer because I am focused on the broader influence of
the social scene outside. I am leaning over the sink, still drawn towards the ground, but I protest
gravity by grasping the sink and using the counter to pull myself up. By bending over, I am also
revealing cleavage to the mirror, exhibiting to myself what I will soon exhibit to the rest of the
world. By creating an explicit awareness of what others will look at on my body, I am seeing
through the eyes of the individuals I fear most, "Not positing themselves as Subject, women have
not created the virile myth that would reflect their projects; they have neither religion nor poetry
that belongs to them alone: they still dream through men’s dreams (Beauvoir, 195).” As stated
before, my body is angular, conforming to the geometric nature and harshness of my
environment, whereas before I was attempting to hide my body by making it soft and malleable.
My entire body is now under the line of boxes on the wall: my entire form is now being
objectified by the viewer. For this reason I am
at the sink, preparing to change my face and
my mental state to conform to what is expected
of me by the viewer and social scene.
Photo #5:
In this photo there is an acknowledgement of
the multiple layers of steps that I will have to
go through to conform to the male gaze,
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22
including the tinsel we derived from Finley’s project. It shows the timeline of the rest of the
series, starting with the shoes, ending with a view of the doorway which creates a sense of
purpose and destination. The arches of light curve over each step of the process ahead of me, the
shoes, accessories, and alcohol. Again, the viewer is placed far away from the individual, and the
gaze is knowingly asking me to take these steps to conform. My body stands completely upright
as if on trial for the viewer, “For women's bodies in western culture have almost always been
viewed as objects of display… (Korsmeyer).” Both the light shining on my body and the dark
clothing I am wearing cause me to stand out in a similar fashion to the objects lined in front of
me, which is inherently objectifying. Simon Burke explains the comparison between woman and
object by claiming,
“... grace and delicacy of line that mark beautiful objects are reminiscent of the
curves of the female body (Burke 1757/1968). If women are the objects of
aesthetic pleasure, then the actual desire of the perceiver must be distanced and
overcome in order for enjoyment to be purely aesthetic. This outcome is one
implication of the notion of disinterested pleasure. This requirement, it would
seem, assumes a standard point of view that is masculine and heterosexual. But of
course women are also subjects who exercise taste. This implies that women are
unstably both aesthetic subject and object at the same time (Korsmeyer).”
Both the distance in the photograph and the positioning of object in accordance with the female
form exemplify this phenomenon. The light continues to be shed on my chest, yet the light is
now making a shadow below me, a shadow very similar to that being made by the Svedka bottle.
This shows how I will soon become like the bottle, an object that is pushed upon the conformist
and fills the conformist from the inside out.
Samantha Weisenthal
23
Photo #6:
This photo is taken from below to enhance my
objectivity. By leaning into the objects on the
ground and making the conscientious effort to put
my body on their level, I am in turn innately
objectifying myself. We have not seen the objects
on the ground this close until now, and by bowing
to become one with these objects, we are
explicitly showing the nature of accepting an
inferior level beneath the gaze. Stefania
Sorrentino explains this by saying, “The gaze
alienates subjects from themselves by causing the
subject to identify with itself as the objet a, the
object of the drives, thus desiring scopic satisfaction. Hence the subject is reduced to being the
object of desire and, in identifying with this object, it becomes a stranger to itself (Subverting).”
By making the conscious effort to put myself physically below my superior, I am in turn
showing my weakness through my body, the form of myself that my superior sees explicitly as
my identity. I took my hair down and I am blushing which shows a submissive and modest
reaction to the close up camera, and these feelings are ones that are accepted and encouraged.
Similar to the tears at the beginning, the neutrality of my face has continued to become falsified
in the makeup which I am wearing. Through the extravagant blush and eyeshadow, I am
transforming into the modest yet sexual being that society pressures me to be. It is not to be
overlooked however that the display of distress on one’s face can also be seen as beautiful.
Samantha Weisenthal
24
Displaying distress is inherently displaying weakness, and therefore by adding blush to one’s
cheeks the individual is allowing the viewer to see the subservient nature which women are
meant to possess. We have set a form of “ideal beauty” in our society, and the journey to
accomplish this goal has become central to becoming the perfect woman. It is not in our
intelligence nor in our passions in which women are judged, but instead in our ability to conform
to the societies standards of physical beauty and positive demeanor. Through a bureaucratic
system comprised of hierarchies and built on capitalism, the beauty we must obtain is controlled
by how many objects we can adorn ourselves with and how much they cost. Carolyn Korsmeyer
perfectly explains this phenomenon as it applies to women,
“… Perfection is the constituent cause of beauty. This opinion has been made to
extend much further than to sensible objects. But in these, so far is perfection,
considered as such, from being the cause of beauty, that this quality, where it is
highest, in the female sex, almost always carries with it an idea of weakness and
imperfection. Women are very sensible of this; for which reason; they learn to
lisp, to totter in their walk, to counterfeit weakness, and even sickness. In all they
are guided by nature. Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
Blushing has little less power; ... I
know it is in everybody’s mouth, that
we ought to love perfection. This is to
me a sufficient proof, that it is not the
proper object of love. Who ever said
we ought to love a fine woman, or even
any of these beautiful animals which
please us? Here to be affected, there is
no need of the concurrence of our will
(Korsmeyer).”
Photo #7:
This is the picture where we explicitly use the
tinsel concept to illustrate the silencing and
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25
choking of the male gaze on the female body. As a result of the male gaze, women are only
looked at and not heard, and the pressures of society (metaphorically the tinsel) are creating this
phenomenon. The camera is below, illustrating how I am growing more worthy in the eyes of
the viewer. I am now looking directly out the door, this time without fear but with purpose. In
my dark clothing I continue to stand out from my environment, just like the colorful bottle of
alcohol that is the final step to my transformation. The shadows created by my body and the
bottle itself intensify our similar objectivity. Usually on college campuses alcohol is used
excessively as a social lubricant, therefore once drinking the alcohol it will be easier for me to
conform.
Photo #8:
Although my hand is still gripping onto the
frame, I have now exited the hallway and
am being completely eroticized. The space
around me is completely illuminated,
following the metaphor of light as gaze.
Svedka bottle in hand, it is obviously
necessary that the act of going out must be
numbed by alcohol. I am excitedly holding
the alcohol above me, and by creating these
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26
levels I am saying that my actual personality is less important than my drunk personality. This
gap in personality we noticed is encouraged in the college social world. My mouth is wide to
exaggerate my positive emotions,, and my eyes are closed to show I am shutting down my
mental state and becoming exclusively my body, “One further possibility of refiguring the
traditional female identity is performing the self explicitly as a masquerade …notion of sexuality
as the realm of masquerade (Subverting).” By explicitly sexualizing my body, both in my
physical stance and in my scandalous clothing, I am putting on a mask for the viewer. I am
finally putting on a complete disguise for the individuals I will interact with. “Women
photographers took this notion of femininity as a distortion, a disguise, as their point of departure
for restoring the tradition of female self-portrait. They transformed their own bodies in order to
proclaim that their femininity, as any other public identity, can be thought only in terms of
disguises. The self is always concealed behind an ambivalent and ever-changing play of masks
(Subverting).” Throughout the entire photo series I don a variety of different masks, adding
levels of disguise, until this false femininity becomes my public identity.
______________________________________________________________________________
As shown through the analysis of our own art and through the performance artists who
we researched, the male gaze can be uprooted through the process of subverting the viewing of
women from object to subject. The patriarchal society which we all attempt to exist in inherently
oppresses women both internally and externally. The medium of feminist protest art allows
women to take back the power of making the personal political, and through the inspiration we
have found in these artists a sense of control and power has been given to us over our own
identity. As Marina Abramovic, one of the most famous and acclaimed performance artists of
our era shows in her piece “The Artist is Present,” “it is not about me [the artist] anymore, I am a
mirror of their [the viewer’s] own self.”
Samantha Weisenthal
27
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Cixous, Hélène. "The Laugh of the Medusa." Feminisms (1991): 334-49. Web
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