'The Gaze' Study Task 2

 

The company American Apparel are famous for their outlandish, over sexualised advertising campaigns – many of which often end up banned due to a substantial amount of complaints against the images that are used.

However, the images used provide an interesting insight into Gaze Theory within the media and advertising today. Through this analysis, I will compare the image from an American Apparel campaign pictured and it’s reaction from the theories of the gaze and ‘The Look’ by Rosalind Coward.

The male gaze appears when the camera puts the audience in a position that they are the eyes of a man looking at the subject. For example the focus may be on the figure or nude body of a woman. The image is cropped so the main focus is on her body, rather than her face or personality traits. The woman pictured in usually photographed in a way that she is seen as an erotic object or powerless to the male (the gaze).

"Womens inability to return to such a critical and aggressive look is a sign of subordination" (Coward 2000) 'subordination' 1. Belonging to a lower or inferior class or rank; secondary. 2. Subject to the authority or control of another.

In this advert pictured the girl is laid on a bed with her legs spread, the text to the right of the image reads ‘now open’. As in the male gaze this is immediately related back to the womans spread legs, this then brings on the sexual thought that she is ‘open’ for sex, teamed with the ‘home photo’ style of the shoot it demoralises the woman in that she is an erotic object. "Peeping Toms can always stay in control" (Coward 2000) the idea that the viewer (the male gaze) is seeing the woman in a place of intimacy, but has the power of the situation and being able to be there.

Her expression is innocent with a hint of fear and vulnerability it is almost as if she wants to look away but her gaze is stunted by the over rule of the male; the male gaze is in control and holds power over her in a sexual sense. 

Adverts such as this can also represent the way women see themselves, or other images. They begin to look at themselves through the ideals of the male gaze – sex and exposure sell, and it is what is ‘ideal’ therefore desirable. "Critical glance of the cultural idea" (Coward 2000)

Coward suggests in her writing that there are so many unrealistic images of women in media and advertising as it is a manly male dominated area, the images are controlled and produced by men. "Men who produce the pages will continue to build their power on the decorative excess of the women who are pictured on them" (Coward 2000)

In society today and the media, it is unwritten rule that sex sells, from cars to perfumes the over sexualised images are often used. This creates a disjointed and confused view in society on the ideals and what we should conform too. We are in a world where the explicit pornographic pictures of women in the media are the norm, this only boosts to use the idea what males need to be in control from the viewing perspective. "obsessive recording and use of women's images in a way to make men comfortable. Clearly this comfort is is connected with feeling secure or powerful" (Coward 2000)