jeffy

So a few days ago, matociquala posted a thing talking about the latest episode of Criminal Minds (among other things) and parenthetically said "way to deconstruct the male gaze and whiplash the UNSUB from an object position to a subject one" which sounded interesting, but I'm still working on watching season 2, so I didn't read the thread to avoid spoilage.

Then a day later, pecunium posted his own thing recounting the unfortunate chain of events that occurred in the comments to the above post by matociquala. The chain started with a guy (let's call him "Dumbass") asking what this "male gaze" thing might be.

Well, if you don't know (like I didn't), it turns out "male gaze" is a term of art in feminist media theory (I don't know if there's such a thing as "feminist media theory" or if that's what its practitioners call it if so, but you get the idea). So Dumbass was stepping in a minefield of coded phrases basically aimed at describing what he quickly came to embody in the discussion: the male subjugation of women. Whooee, bad spot to be in. Unfortunately for Dumbass (and why I chose to call him that), rather than learning fast and furiously, he instead applied sarcasm with a broad brush to salve his wounded ego as it became clear that he was completely in the woods about the topic under discussion. And just would not back down until Bear banned him.

Dumbass was acting like a jerk, no question. But I have some sympathy with his plight since his first couple of comments could have been me trying to start a conversation in my socially clueless way. I like explaining things to people, so the gambit of asking someone smart to explain something to me seems like a natural and friendly way to get talking (a tactic I'm having to rethink in light of these events). However, I think (hope!) I've gotten better at noticing when I'm in over my head and should just say thank you and back off.

Anyway, reading through Dumbass's meltdown led me to some cool stuff.

The Bechdel Test is a set of criteria for choosing media that may not be completely clueless about women. It's pretty simple.

1. Does the work in question have two (or more, presumably) women in it?
   
2. Do they talk to each other?
   
3. Do they talk about something other than a man?
   

I've been having fun applying it to the stuff I've been watching lately. (The Wire passes handily. Gilmore Girls passes frequently. Criminal Minds passes more often than not.)

Back to the "male gaze", here it is explained by dinosaurs. Essentially it's the idea that visual media almost always uses a camera point of view that is male. The effect is to make such media seem to be engineered to take advantage of and/or encourage the tendency of males to be mesmerized by the sight of the sexual characteristics of females (and hence to objectify women). As soon as I was aware of the idea it became completely obvious almost everywhere I looked, from TV to movies to advertising to a recent viewing of Edward Hopper paintings.

Part of why the phrase "male gaze" caught my eye was that I'd written a post on this very journal about gazing responsibly, or how to be a guy who admires the sight of a woman without being too much of a creep. (It was inspired by a question from a female friend and a then-current run of gaze-related strips on Sinfest.)

Looking back at that earlier post of mine, I'm reminded that my real-life gazing habits have at times been a source of mild discomfort to me, feeling like an addiction I can't give up. I've rationalized that away with the assumption that it's a biology-driven behavior. But after having the media version of the "male gaze" pointed out to me, I'm rethinking that. I suspect the behavior is largely a learned one carefully nurtured by all the TV I watched growing up. With all the hundreds of hours of adolescent-hormone-steeped late-night obsessive channel surfing in search of any glimpse of pretty girl (phrasing chosen intentionally to acknowledge the complete objectification that was going on), I probably have the equivalent of a doctorate in gazing.

Realizing that what I have is learned behavior is heartening, though. If I learned to be a compulsive gazer then I can learn to tone it down. And had I not read my friendlist for these few posts I'd still be rationalizing and have missed this opportunity to become a better person.