Jennifer Lawrence and Feminism

At the end of class today we discussed when sex appeal was okay. We all mutually agreed as a class that Megan Fox was being viewed through the male gaze, it was a little disturbing, while when Beyonce was pole dancing, she was being a fierce feminist.  We discussed the difference between the situations and the fine like between what is okay and what is not.  Our discussion got me thinking to a few weeks back when Jennifer Laurence's nude photos were leaked.

Jennifer said, "It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime, It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting." She continues by saying "Anybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, ‘Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.’ I don’t want to get mad, but at the same time I’m thinking, I didn’t tell you that you could look at my naked body.”

Jenn then appeared in Vanity Fair with these photos: 

The difference between the leaked photos and the magazine photos are Jennifer's consent: the way a woman wants to be viewed versus the way a man views her. Beyonce made a personal decision as a performer to be viewed pole dancing and as a sexual being. She wanted to make a statement that said, "I am beautiful and sexy because I want to be."

I don't think feminism is over because the discussion Jennifer Laurence brings up is still going on. Women are still not being viewed the way they want to be viewed, and progress is still being made.

This is the ad I told you about. I think it's pretty relevant to the Mulvey reading. Also Axe taking a Daniel Johnston song and doing this to it, pretty fucking crazy.

Saving the World with Abs and Sex Appeal

After this week’s discussion of how cinema and the human form have become intertwined, my thoughts shifted to one of my favorite genres of film. Comic book films hold a lot within their story lines; power struggles, action, good vs.evil, and heroism. However recently with the success of the Marvel franchise, I'm seeing an even bigger shift from the story and its content over to the sex appeal of the main characters.

Female leads are increasingly becoming perpetuated through sexual appeals, almost diminishing their importance as a character, and lending more to their importance as objective prize to their male counterparts.  Even in such story lines that the female is deemed “the hero,” she is only able to thwart evil villains through her distracting good looks which causes them to undermine her actual abilities.  And, more often than not, these female heroes are portrayed in such ways as to use these influences to their advantages—persuading audiences that assets are clearly valued over ability.

Take a look at Black Widow from “The Avengers”, her skills and capabilities pale in comparison to her male counterparts due partly to her tight catsuit and tight camera shots on her body. Yet when characters like Thor and Captain America's forms are played up its to pay homage to their strength and overall godlike presence as superheroes. "Here, curiosity and the wish to look intermingle with a fascination with likeness and recognition: the human face, the human body, the relationship between the human form and its surroundings, the visible presence of the person in the world,"(Mulvey,3).

 We're pulled into these films not only to see fantasy worlds and action scenes, we're attracted to these characters that offer more to the viewers eye than witty one liners. Content is fading and appearance is becoming more prevalent than ever. Comic book movies have taken superhuman qualities into the looks department rather than the focus being on their unique qualities. In order to save the world you better be a looker or else no one will take you seriously.  

Scopophilia

In the reading “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema “ by Laura Mulveys. She  talks about  many of the issues women have encounter  in cinema over the years.  Mulveys brings up the subject that women are objects of visual/sexual pleasure.  She specifically talks about the concept of scopophilia, which means the pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight.  Women have to methods on screen and they are seen as erotic objects. When I think of the theories of mulvey and her concept of scopohilia I start to think about every scary moving I have ever seen. There is always that one “hot” who gets killed in the most erotic way.  I also start to think about scopohilia and how we all are in a way looking woman and sometimes men in films. Sometime not even recognizing it, the way some of these films are made, draw an erotic attention. The way the camera is position an shots are taken they kind of make us all become scopophilia and without even recognizing it we use the other person as a subject of sexual stimulation.

Scopopholia and Cinema

In Lauren Mulvey's article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," she discusses the role of women in film and how eroticized they have become. She discusses how film has made this possible because of the Scopophillic tendencies it produces. When watching a film, the viewer has an extremely voyeuristic perspective. This allows for viewers, especially men, to look at females in any way that they please. Muvley discusses how filmmakers have become aware of this, whether consciously or not. The result is woman being portrayed in such erotic ways that men are able to look at them with such voyeur. As Elaine says in the classic Seinfeld episode “The Movie,” “men can sit through the most pointless boring movie if there’s even the slightest possibility that a woman will take her top off.” An example of this in today’s culture could be Kill Bill. Though Tarantino is known for his crazy fetishes and it makes sense that he would over sexualize women in his movie, Kill Bill doesn’t do it extremely blatantly. It is much more subtle. The very first fight in Kill Bill is The Bride fighting Vernita Green. Though the fight isn’t very sexual at all, it is still two women having extremely close combat. They get very close to each other multiple times and if viewed out of context it can be viewed as sexual. I don’t know how relevant that is to the article but I think it has to do with what Mulvey is trying to say about films. The way in which they are viewed makes it so that women can be easily sexualized or eroticized in instances where they usually wouldn’t be.

Pleasures of Cinema

In the Laura Mulvey text, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", the nature and roll of women in cinematic history is examined. Mulvey notes how women in cinema appear almost exclusively as sexual objects, and although there have been a great variety of roles women play in cinema, a great portion all still use women in this nature.
What I found particularly interesting is how she draws much of her inspiration for this analysis on the theories of Freud. There are several aspects of his theory in particular that she draws on, such as scopophilia, which Freud himself stated is "taking people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze" (Mulvey, pg. 3). This, as Freud describes, is essentially the basic essence of all cinema. Everyone and everything on the screen, or any medium for that matter, is subjected to this scopophilia, especially in the modern first world where the amount of visual media we consume is tremendous. I also liked how Mulvey later went on to describe how modern cinema, particularly in the case of women, "continues to exist as the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another person as object" Mulvey, pg 3).

So clearly, she believes that modern cinema still sports this standard, and that modern film and television still primarily use women as sexual objects, which I personally agree with. I am struggling to think of examples (although I don't watch as many movies as I used to) where a women in the film were used as crucial, plot driving characters in the last year or so. At the moment, only Sandra Bullock in Gravity comes to mind. After checking IMDB, I failed to find a single film on the top 10 highest grossing films from this last weekend that featured a women in a dynamic, plot driving role. I'm sure I'm missing a great many films, but the fact that I struggled to think of one at least means that these kinds of films are too few and far between. With this, I completely agree with the main stance Laura Mulvey makes in her text.

Objects of Sex

This week's readings by Laura Mulvey illustrate a major issue that has existed within cinema for over seventy years. Women, more often than not are simply presented as objects of visual/sexual pleasure by means of scopophilia, which refers to the pleasure taken by viewers in this method of presentation. Often, material such as this is void of all substance and is purely there to for the viewers visual pleasure. Mulvey argues that it exists to pleasure the viewer visually by presenting the woman in a sexual way, which is true and what makes this a very controversial topic.
Unfortunately for some, we live in a world where sex sells, and the cheap amusement is often the one used in film, advertisement, and other visual media. Personally I agree with her article, but I think it would be interesting to examine the opinions of persons from outside of the United States, which to this day holds many Puritanical values that are not shared by other places. In many European countries, sex in the visual medias is not nearly as censored or taboo as it is here, so I wonder if that audience would have the same sort of reaction to Mulvey's article. Perhaps is it our very system in the United States that makes he or she who is presented in a sexual manner feel objectified? I don't have an answer, but it sure does make me wonder if there is some kind of correlation.


http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/10/playboy-pinups-on-meeting-the-male-gaze.html

Above is a link to a very recent article written by Noreen Malone and researched by Anne Lemon and Lisa Mehling for the latest issue of New York Magazine. It takes this issue and relates it to some of the other concepts we have been discussing in class. It may not be related to film exactly, but nonetheless deals with the same concept of women being presented as objects of visual/sexual pleasure in visual media. Without doubt, it is a very compelling read.