The Gaze & The Media Task Four

 The Gaze & The Media Task

The objective was to look at how the "gaze" is enforced with a typically male viewer. This is done through the suggestion of the role of the "nymphomaniac" i.e. a woman affected with excessive sexual desire.

The advert was deliberately provocative at the time of release, with clearly sexual overtones. The advert is used to suggest it will bring similar sexual pleasure to the consumer. The advert however suggests the male gaze is allowed to consume the image as well as the body is presented for the viewer to have a partially unobstructed view of the women's body, with only the attempt of her covering herself with her hands. This is giving false hope to the audience due to the reality not living up to its representation. This is in relation to this quote from Roselind Coward,

“Hetrosexuality it seemed was hovering on the edge of extinction saved only by porn in the sock drawer, or by widespread availability of images which could be substituted in fantasy for the real things.”

The woman's body is arched at a sideways angle so we can see the s-bend in her form. The way she throws her head back emphasises her curves and the carefully placed hands draw attention to their sensuality. The hands are very softly placed with her only gently scrubbing her body, therefore making it more of a fantasy than the photographed action. This is affirming the idea of the way women are supposed to look, which is stated in this quotation,

“There’s a preoccupation with the visual image – of self & others – and a concomitant anxiety about how these images measure up to socially prescribed ideal.”

The use of a female body is rather gender bias, as its not necessarily a specific gender for an audience, which is also reinforced in the passage of The Look,

“While I don’t wish to suggest there’s an intrinsically male way of making images, there can be little doubt that entertainment as we know is crucially predicated on a masculine investigation of women, and a circulation of women’s images for men.”

This is suggesting that because men control visual culture it will be viewed & made for the masculine gender, as they don’t want to be designing naked male for the viewer of a female. Although this could be due to the woman’s bodily figure been more aesthetic naturally. This is also strengthen by the quotation of Rosalind Coward, “Some people – those concerned with maintaining the status quo – say that men’s scrutiny of women is just part of the natural order.”

However what prevents from the male viewer from fully consuming the woman's body is the obstruction of the herbal essence body wash. The obtuseness of the shampoo bottle acts as a visual barrier from being able to see the woman's intimate parts. The woman also has her hair thrown back in rapture, her face a central focus for the image. This sits differently to the traditional all consuming male gaze, where the female would not be looking at the camera so the viewer can lure at the body without any interruption or returned gaze. This can be seen in fine art in the painting by  Alexandre Cabanel's "Birth of Venus" 1863.

Rosalind Coward talks about the manipulative role of advertising. She talks about areas that weren't previously deemed sexual, for example the act of washing and showering in the a fore mentioned advert, have now shifted and become sellable as sexual to entertain the gaze. 

 “…Today’s ideal is immaturity, a modern variant of feminine passivity. Because the female body is the man object of attention." 

To conclude, Coward shows her awareness of how the gaze works in advertising and thus transfers the old ideas of stereotypes and roles of women that still are still present in modern advertising.