gazing...
I see "the male gaze" often in fandomy meta I keep reading. I am partially empathetic. Mainstream media definitely has a thing for oversexualising women and reducing them to their sexy bits. (Michael Bay, I'm looking at you and your lazy ass shots)
So there's this fandom backlash "female gaze" trope, which seems to involve long lazy shots of beautiful men. Men kissing men slips into this which is cool. Many people put women kissing women in the male gaze category too.
I am all for fandom takes on the patriarchy status quo and that people explore their desire.
I am against the assumed heterosexual leanings and terminology of this approach. Women have been exploited for their beauty, true. Exploiting men for their beauty is tempting, and yes, sometimes I'm happy to see a lazy ass shot of a guy because it's a nice change.
It's not just women who like that. Nor is it just men who likes a beautiful woman.
I keep coming back to Helen and Charlotte's Sanctuary kiss. It wasn't zoomed in, exploitive or had the camera on either of their chests. It was nice.
The Avengers was also nice. Everyone was pretty and the camera knew it. Gender wasn't important.
The gender of the gazer shouldn't be important. I know it's an old term, but I find it remarkably heteronormative. Yes, the male gaze came from men objectifying women and assuming the person behind the camera is a man when we watch the film.
If we get up close to Captain America's ass while he's boxing, is the camera now assuming we're a woman and we want to look at him? Is it neutral and just acknowledging that it is a very nice example of human form?
In fandom, the female gazers seem to be (so much on tumblr, which I wish I could like but just end up fleeing from) after the beautiful men and the men on men action.
Where's the queer gaze?
And this runs into my sadness that female desire is so often assumed to be for men, all the men, men with men. There's the feminist side of participating in slash fandom, with all the beautiful men, acknowledging their greatness and how much some women desire that.
Women want men, so of course fandom is full of pretty pretty men.
So there's het, women and men, and it's less big, but still vocal, still active, has the rocking big bang and and lots of comms and it's still women exploring their desire, but with women there and female characters represented.
So the patriarchy likes scantily clad women. The backlash gaze likes scantily clad men. Some women (and men) like men with men. Some women and (less men, from what I can tell in fandom) like women with men. Women with women gets lumped into the male gaze (because that's why most women kiss) and unimportant, because women desire men. The overwhelming privileged majority slash writer's view that women desire men, so logically women desire men with men.
Not all women.
So from the source material of men watching women be beautiful, we get a fandom of women writing men being beautiful, and there are so many more men. There's two women in The Dark Knight Rises, and yes, I adore both of them, but there's two, next to Alfred, Lucius, Commissioner Gordon, Bane, Robin and most of the Gotham city police force, which just doesn't seem to have all that many women.
At least on the flying Avenger ship, lots of the background performers are women.
Women of Star Trek fits on a t-shirt. No one's ever tried with the men. Probably because they aren't noteworthy, of course there are men!
All of J.J. Abram's new cast are men, to join his cast of men, men and one woman whom part of fandom hates just for daring to get in between the men.
So men, writing about men, financing men, starring men end up on screen to be consumed by fandom who finds men attractive. Whom in the service of their desires takes the men and enriches their lives, especially their sex lives.
It's a wonderful expression of female desire.
It dovetails far too neatly. Men produce who they want to be, whom the audience should want to be when they sit down. Women be and lust after and both are the men and have the men.
And there's so little space.
We need more women in the source material. More women making and financing and writing and steering the cameras. Women's desire for men is great, and fandom is a laudable expression of that desire. There's so little room for anything but that desire if men produce and women so readily consume.
I want epic, big budget, intellectual comic book movies that have a horde of female supporting characters and a handful of men. The men can be empowered and well-written and important to the plot, but they need to be less. I want women who want to destroy the world because of their fractured relationship with their mothers who are stopped by epic teams of women with a token guy, who is awesome, by the way.
I don't know if I'm going to get that any time soon. It feels like men in charge are making the movies they want to see and a huge portion of women in fandom want to see too.
I'm confident slash goggle wearing women can watch source material with more women in it without being upset. It might cut down on the ship wars a little if instead of four interesting main characters and villain, they only had one and some background men who were pretty cool. I'm glad they were there.
I want a starship that boldly goes with a whole bridge full of women until the one man walks out of the turbolift. Yes, he'll be important. He'll speak Romulan.
I want to see men and women acknowledged for their beauty without the camera taking away from their minds. I want source material so rich with characters of all genders that everyone is happy. Yes, a huge portion of fandom will be women's desire for men. Maybe if there were more options for women's desire for women, I wouldn't feel so isolated, wondering if I should watch a new show just because that one happens to have two women who do a bit more than talk to each other occasionally and there's a fandom for the ship.
I want to take it for granted that there will be a fandom and it will be about the characters I like.
Women who desire women will probably always be the smallest group. Statistics are not on my side. I wish the 'lesbians are written to titillate men" would slip from being because people understand that sometimes women just like to kiss each other and some women like that. Most importantly, women desiring women is in the source because it's in life.
I wish the backlash to the male gaze didn't default to 'women like to look at men' but had room for women like to look at women too.
Sometimes I feel absent from the source and erased from the fandom. I feel the fault very much lies at the source but the idea that fandom might not want the source to change frightens me. Women are empowered, they are totally comfortable exploring their desires. I completely respect this.
Women desire men, and that's what media produces. Lots and lots of men. Men made by men who occasionally do create a woman or two.
I want five.
Posted in the mirror verse at http://oparu.dreamwidth.org/315855.html with
comments.
So there's this fandom backlash "female gaze" trope, which seems to involve long lazy shots of beautiful men. Men kissing men slips into this which is cool. Many people put women kissing women in the male gaze category too.
I am all for fandom takes on the patriarchy status quo and that people explore their desire.
I am against the assumed heterosexual leanings and terminology of this approach. Women have been exploited for their beauty, true. Exploiting men for their beauty is tempting, and yes, sometimes I'm happy to see a lazy ass shot of a guy because it's a nice change.
It's not just women who like that. Nor is it just men who likes a beautiful woman.
I keep coming back to Helen and Charlotte's Sanctuary kiss. It wasn't zoomed in, exploitive or had the camera on either of their chests. It was nice.
The Avengers was also nice. Everyone was pretty and the camera knew it. Gender wasn't important.
The gender of the gazer shouldn't be important. I know it's an old term, but I find it remarkably heteronormative. Yes, the male gaze came from men objectifying women and assuming the person behind the camera is a man when we watch the film.
If we get up close to Captain America's ass while he's boxing, is the camera now assuming we're a woman and we want to look at him? Is it neutral and just acknowledging that it is a very nice example of human form?
In fandom, the female gazers seem to be (so much on tumblr, which I wish I could like but just end up fleeing from) after the beautiful men and the men on men action.
Where's the queer gaze?
And this runs into my sadness that female desire is so often assumed to be for men, all the men, men with men. There's the feminist side of participating in slash fandom, with all the beautiful men, acknowledging their greatness and how much some women desire that.
Women want men, so of course fandom is full of pretty pretty men.
So there's het, women and men, and it's less big, but still vocal, still active, has the rocking big bang and and lots of comms and it's still women exploring their desire, but with women there and female characters represented.
So the patriarchy likes scantily clad women. The backlash gaze likes scantily clad men. Some women (and men) like men with men. Some women and (less men, from what I can tell in fandom) like women with men. Women with women gets lumped into the male gaze (because that's why most women kiss) and unimportant, because women desire men. The overwhelming privileged majority slash writer's view that women desire men, so logically women desire men with men.
Not all women.
So from the source material of men watching women be beautiful, we get a fandom of women writing men being beautiful, and there are so many more men. There's two women in The Dark Knight Rises, and yes, I adore both of them, but there's two, next to Alfred, Lucius, Commissioner Gordon, Bane, Robin and most of the Gotham city police force, which just doesn't seem to have all that many women.
At least on the flying Avenger ship, lots of the background performers are women.
Women of Star Trek fits on a t-shirt. No one's ever tried with the men. Probably because they aren't noteworthy, of course there are men!
All of J.J. Abram's new cast are men, to join his cast of men, men and one woman whom part of fandom hates just for daring to get in between the men.
So men, writing about men, financing men, starring men end up on screen to be consumed by fandom who finds men attractive. Whom in the service of their desires takes the men and enriches their lives, especially their sex lives.
It's a wonderful expression of female desire.
It dovetails far too neatly. Men produce who they want to be, whom the audience should want to be when they sit down. Women be and lust after and both are the men and have the men.
And there's so little space.
We need more women in the source material. More women making and financing and writing and steering the cameras. Women's desire for men is great, and fandom is a laudable expression of that desire. There's so little room for anything but that desire if men produce and women so readily consume.
I want epic, big budget, intellectual comic book movies that have a horde of female supporting characters and a handful of men. The men can be empowered and well-written and important to the plot, but they need to be less. I want women who want to destroy the world because of their fractured relationship with their mothers who are stopped by epic teams of women with a token guy, who is awesome, by the way.
I don't know if I'm going to get that any time soon. It feels like men in charge are making the movies they want to see and a huge portion of women in fandom want to see too.
I'm confident slash goggle wearing women can watch source material with more women in it without being upset. It might cut down on the ship wars a little if instead of four interesting main characters and villain, they only had one and some background men who were pretty cool. I'm glad they were there.
I want a starship that boldly goes with a whole bridge full of women until the one man walks out of the turbolift. Yes, he'll be important. He'll speak Romulan.
I want to see men and women acknowledged for their beauty without the camera taking away from their minds. I want source material so rich with characters of all genders that everyone is happy. Yes, a huge portion of fandom will be women's desire for men. Maybe if there were more options for women's desire for women, I wouldn't feel so isolated, wondering if I should watch a new show just because that one happens to have two women who do a bit more than talk to each other occasionally and there's a fandom for the ship.
I want to take it for granted that there will be a fandom and it will be about the characters I like.
Women who desire women will probably always be the smallest group. Statistics are not on my side. I wish the 'lesbians are written to titillate men" would slip from being because people understand that sometimes women just like to kiss each other and some women like that. Most importantly, women desiring women is in the source because it's in life.
I wish the backlash to the male gaze didn't default to 'women like to look at men' but had room for women like to look at women too.
Sometimes I feel absent from the source and erased from the fandom. I feel the fault very much lies at the source but the idea that fandom might not want the source to change frightens me. Women are empowered, they are totally comfortable exploring their desires. I completely respect this.
Women desire men, and that's what media produces. Lots and lots of men. Men made by men who occasionally do create a woman or two.
I want five.
Posted in the mirror verse at http://oparu.dreamwidth.org/315855.html with
comments.