Gendered Gaze
(Videos may be somewhat NSFW. They are, after all, videos, which means noisy. The male one contains the word "fucking" and gyrating women. The female one contains bare male chests and fake blood.)
Male gaze:
Female gaze:
I don't want to talk about which is a better video, because that's not the point. I just want to direct your attention to the gender of the gaze being employed in these two semi-randomly-chosen videos. The majority of media, and nearly all of the so-called "popular" media, comes with the expectation of a male gaze. You can see it in the gender of the protagonist, the outfits, occupations, and relationships of the characters, the premise, where the camera focuses, what action the plot follows, who gets fanservice, who gets made fun of, and who holds the true power. You'll see it in the names, too. We have "women's literature" and "literature". We have "chick flicks" and "movies". We have female ____ or woman _____, but the male version of the same is just plain. Not too long ago, we had women authors and authors. It's sort of like how Womankind refers to only females, but Mankind refers to both.
The Twilight example stands out to me especially because of a very short argument I got into online with someone who said that "everyone hates Twilight". I found that statement to be such a perfect illustration of (probably unconsciously) sexist language. If everyone hated it, then it would have flopped at the box office and the speaker would have never heard of it to hate it. It is my opinion that a large part of why it is hated is due to the gender of those who like it. Certainly there have been many badly made, questionably moraled movies directed at males. I can't think of any off-hand that garnered "hate" - disdain, ridicule maybe, but mainly they were ignored if they weren't any good. Twilight though - *hate*.
I like fan-videos because they often cater to a female gaze. It's not the default, but it's out there. I remember when I was a kid I disdained soap operas and dramas because they were associated with women. I'm so glad there's more female-oriented stuff out there now and I have a broader choice. Next time you're watching something, take a moment to consider the gender the show is being marketed towards. Just think about it.
Male gaze:
Click to viewFemale gaze:
I don't want to talk about which is a better video, because that's not the point. I just want to direct your attention to the gender of the gaze being employed in these two semi-randomly-chosen videos. The majority of media, and nearly all of the so-called "popular" media, comes with the expectation of a male gaze. You can see it in the gender of the protagonist, the outfits, occupations, and relationships of the characters, the premise, where the camera focuses, what action the plot follows, who gets fanservice, who gets made fun of, and who holds the true power. You'll see it in the names, too. We have "women's literature" and "literature". We have "chick flicks" and "movies". We have female ____ or woman _____, but the male version of the same is just plain. Not too long ago, we had women authors and authors. It's sort of like how Womankind refers to only females, but Mankind refers to both.
The Twilight example stands out to me especially because of a very short argument I got into online with someone who said that "everyone hates Twilight". I found that statement to be such a perfect illustration of (probably unconsciously) sexist language. If everyone hated it, then it would have flopped at the box office and the speaker would have never heard of it to hate it. It is my opinion that a large part of why it is hated is due to the gender of those who like it. Certainly there have been many badly made, questionably moraled movies directed at males. I can't think of any off-hand that garnered "hate" - disdain, ridicule maybe, but mainly they were ignored if they weren't any good. Twilight though - *hate*.
I like fan-videos because they often cater to a female gaze. It's not the default, but it's out there. I remember when I was a kid I disdained soap operas and dramas because they were associated with women. I'm so glad there's more female-oriented stuff out there now and I have a broader choice. Next time you're watching something, take a moment to consider the gender the show is being marketed towards. Just think about it.