Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (robert coleman) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Female human aesthetics Message-ID: <1990Nov22.003657.14371@informix.com> Date: 22 Nov 90 02:33:40 GMT References: <8654@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <658245246@lear.cs.duke.edu> <1990Nov11.171709.25842@arris.com> Organization: Informix Software, Inc. Lines: 184 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu In article <1990Nov11.171709.25842@arris.com> rshapiro@arris.com (Richard Shapiro) writes: -Women are, in our society, objects of spectacle MUCH more than men -are: the movies make this clear even more than advertising, fashion -magazines etc. A little review of feminist film criticism is probably -in order here. The earliest articles, especially Laura Mulvey's -highly influential "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", make this -point most strongly: the position of spectator is a male one, that of -spectacle a female one. Men look, women are looked at. According to -Mulvey, this is fundamental to the pleasures of (Hollywood) cinema, -pleasures which are available to women only if they adopt a male -viewing position. - -Of course these spectator/spectacle roles are purely social -conventions -- it happens to be this way for one social reason or -other, but certainly not due to biology or hormones or any inevitable -law of nature. In other words, this is an aspect of the oppression of -women (since the position of spectator is clearly the more powerful -one), not a cause of it, except insofar as existing social facts tend -to replicate themselves from one generation to the next. - -More recent articles have taken issue with some of Mulvey's -conclusions. Or rather the simple conclusions have been made more -problematic. One very interesting article on the general topic of -spectacle and gender, but which approaches it from fashion rather than -cinema, is "Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse", by Kaja Silverman -(in STUDIES IN ENTERTAINMENT, ed by Tania Modleski). Silverman -considers the history of what she calls The Great Masculine -Renunciation (of fashion and, consequently, male spectacle). In a -concluding paragraph, she writes - - Class distinctions have "softened" and gender distinctions have - "hardened" since the end of the 18th century. In other words, sexual - difference [in dress] has become the primary marker of power, - privilege, and authority, closing the specular gap between men of - different classes, and placing men and women on opposite sides of - the great visual divide [ie, spectator and spectacle]. Unfortunately, this article teasingly hands out only some conclusions from the sources without any explanation of the arguments used to justify these conclusions. Perhaps you could expand on the reasoning used, because some of the conclusions seem as if they could only be reached by taking a very biased viewpoint. For instance, the cinema is all about being a spectacle; going to the movies is all about being a spectator. It's one of the purest forms of spectacle/spectator situations, because under no circumstances can the spectator participate; under no circumstances can the spectacle observe the audience. What a perfect test case for the theory that women primarily are spectacles and men primarily observe! If this were true, we would expect to see mostly women on the screen, and mostly men in the audience. A man, whose role is to observe and not be observed, would never want to put himself in the position of spectacle; a woman, whose role is to be observed and who isn't expected to observe would have no interest in going to the movies. Yet, this is not the case. Audiences do not appear to me to be gender-biased (more men than women); and there are actually *more* male star roles, and more *primary* roles, in the movies than there are for women. Does this mean that an impressive number of men are adopting the female role of spectacle, and an impressive number of women are adopting the male role of spectator? I submit that after a while, it becomes silly to call either role "female" or "male". Women are quite prepared to spectate; men, equally prepared to become spectacles. So, any attempt to use the cinema to justify a gender division in these terms has to ignore the fundamental experience of the cinema! If it still seems unclear, ask yourself the following two questions, based on the assumption that the male/female spectator/spectacle relationship is true: why would men make what would have to be a supreme effort to go to the movies and watch *mostly men*, when their conditioning is to watch spectacles (women)? Why would women make what would have to be supreme effort to go to the movies at all when all their conditioning fails to prepare them to be observers? In more general terms, if my fundamental role is to observe, and women's fundamental role is to be observed, why do they seem to be so much better at it than I am? This is obviously personal experience, and there will of course be exceptions, but I run into the following situation all the time: I am talking to woman one about woman two, who she met through me once in a group situation, , and woman one asks, "Oh, is that the one who was wearing the blue jumpsuit with the red sneakers?" I'm asked this question with dead seriousness, as if I might have some idea, and I haven't a clue. Who was observing woman two harder? Why does my wife remember what I wore when I proposed, and what I wore on our first date, if all she's concerned about is how she looked? The whole point of making this incorrect division seems to be to allow it to be used in conjunction with another bad assumption: that the role of spectator is "clearly the more powerful one". This statement was just tossed off in the posting as if it were universally known, but the fact is that the role of spectacle is actually the more powerful of the two. I have one precious memory of the moment in my life when I had the most power over others that I will ever have. I was in community theatre, and was playing the role of an insane murderer. At one point I said something that allowed the audience to discern my true nature, and I heard the audience, as one, gasp. I can't begin to express the incredible feeling of power that came over me at that moment. I can tell you that that is one of the major reasons an actor does what he or she does. The actor controls the audience; if he or she cannot, they will not succeed. Not exactly an actor, but still: the other day, I was watching a documentary on HBO. The subject was a Canadian stripper (female) who teaches a class for women on how to strip. One of her more memorable quotes was the "Stripping is...an empowering experience". Why do you suppose she said that? Movie actors are a good example of spectacles who gain power in an even more tangible way; people will actually pay them huge sums of money to do what they do. People tend to think that the person paying is the powerful one, but that's not necessarily the case. Power is the ability to control your environment to your satisfaction. A person becomes powerful in a barter situation ( think, for a moment, of money as a product in a barter ) when they tend to gain more in value from the barter than they lose. I walk away from the theatre with a warm memory, but that memory will not allow me to control my environment any better. The actor walks away with lots'n'lots of money, and that does allow them to control their environment better. So who's the powerful one: me, because I can cause an actor to want to do something that will give me a good memory (although I cannot force the actor), or the actor, because he or she can demand a portion of my power base? ( And with ticket prices lately, they can demand a larger portion of my power base than I would prefer, which shows some measure of their true power ). The fundamental error in the concept that the spectator position is clearly the more powerful one is that it could be true (all other things being equal, which they aren't0 *if the spectator were able to force the spectacle to behave the way the spectator desires*. However, by definition, if the spectator can do this, they are a participant, not a spectator! A true spectator is completely powerless, and in fact is completely passive, as opposed to the spectacle, who is completely active. Is this powerless role really the one you envision for men? Showmanship, the ability to make yourself an appealing spectacle, is the keystone to some types of power; that's why politicians are relying more and more on those who can tell them how to *appear* good, and *put on a good show*, rather than concentrating on political issues. The fundamental error in the first concept, that of a gender division between spectacle and spectator, is that the division is not between spectator and spectacle, but between the *nature* of observation, and the *nature* of the spectacle. Men and women both observe and are observed all the time, by both sexes, but *what* is being observed is different. For women, their appearance is what both men and women judge. For men, the appearance of wealth or power is the yardstick, again judged by both men and women. This means that women spend a lot of time on their appearance, and men spend the same time working ever harder at their jobs (becoming walking pocketbooks and dying young), both working to make themselves a better spectacle for everyone. Spectator/spectacle is not a meaningful division along gender lines. The nature of the spectacle is. ------ This is becoming long, so a quick response to the last part of the posting: strangely enough, once a man has accomplished the society-dictated spectacle goal of achieving success, he often becomes more interested in fashion. The fashion choices are more limited for men, but looking good becomes the next goal. A man in a $10,000 suit is a spectacle, and suddenly finds himself on the other side of the "visual divide". Rather than ignoring class distinctions, clothing ceases to be a divider at all with the rich. The powerful mostly all dress nice, men and women, making dress a mark of power and privilege, but not along gender lines. Robert C. -- ---------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf.