It’s not about you, says LabRat. The gaze of the beholder is the reason why you don’t find Twilight appealing, and aren’t supposed to.
By way of Peter through what was apparently Michael Z. Williamson’s Facebook page, a bit of visual snark:
Now, what I want to talk about is only tangentially related to the point Peter set out to make, and I have no idea what the context of Williamson’s post looked like, but I still think it makes for something interesting to write about, so.
Whether we’re talking about Pattinson in Twilight or Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic or Justin Bieber, guys: don’t worry about these dudes. Don’t worry that they’re not what you’d want to be or want your son or any other guy to be. They’re not for you, and they’re not for your son or any other man. They’re for women, and mostly for younger women and outright girls at that. The modern equivalent of Clint Eastwood in the sixties and seventies isn’t Robert Pattinson, it’s Daniel Craig or Jason Statham. The equivalent of Robert Pattinson forty to fifty years ago isn’t Clint Eastwood, it’s David Cassidy or any of the Monkees. You find them unappealing and vaguely horrifying because they’re NOT what men hopefully imagine themselves to be, or want to be. No man wants to be Cassidy or Pattinson unless the prospect of an endless sea of women in a berserk lust is so appealing they’ll do anything, no matter how degrading*. They’re not a male fantasy at all, nor were they ever designed to be by the people who made and marketed their careers: they’re a sexual female fantasy.
There’s a concept out there you’ll sometimes see referred to in those circles what wonk on about media and gender issues, which is called male gaze. The image above, and especially related issues that are more explicitly about how “gay” people like Pattinson and Beiber are, summarizes male gaze perfectly: it’s the idea that the default viewer, of anything, is a straight man. The only way you can take someone pretty who’s made their entire career off selling their image and body to women is “gay” is if you implicitly assume that whoever is taking them in and enjoying them and paying for them is, well, male, because that’s what consumers of media are.
Media is in the business of selling fantasies, and not all fantasies are for everyone. Hollywood and other entertainment media still mostly go by the default rules of male gaze, so most male characters aimed to sell a fantasy are male power fantasies- what men themselves would like to be themselves. Accordingly, most female characters are primarily constructed around male sexual fantasies—what they’d like to have from a desirable prop in their lives. The older James Bond movies are a pretty pure illustration of this; we’ve got James Bond, who is cool and smart and powerful and brilliant and has every gadget in the world- power fantasy—and any Bond girl, who have names like Pussy Galore. A woman may enjoy media like this (I often do, when it’s not blatantly misogynistic as well as simply centered around male gaze), but it’s not for her, not in the sense of being a fantasy designed for her.
Women have consumer dollars to spend too, so there is also a smaller, but very defined, market for media entirely constructed around female gaze. Twilight is pure female gaze, and all the male characters are constructed as female sexual fantasy the same way that the Bond girls are male sexual fantasy. At first just about all female-gaze products were this kind of fantasy, but as more female writers broke out of the pure dungeon of the romance novel, female power fantasies akin to the male power fantasies started to appear as well**; the “urban supernatural” genre is heavily dominated by female authors, female gaze, and female fantasies, and True Blood would be an excellent example of a piece of media that is mostly if not entirely defined by female gaze—the characters and plotlines are a mix of female sexual fantasy and female power fantasy.
The two assumed points of view and sold fantasies aren’t necessarily kept in their own separate ghettos; female action stars and characters are very often an attempt to combine female power fantasy with male sexual fantasy. (See: anything Joss Whedon has ever done, ever. The lead character in Resident Evil. Most female comic book characters that actually do anything.) The counterpart, male power fantasy and female sexual fantasy, is a bit rarer and usually much more subdued on the female sexual fantasy front, but if the lead character of an action movie always seems to find a way to lose his shirt and has seemingly gratuitous sensitive moments, it’s likely he’s at least a little of this. The lines here get pretty blurry, but if I had to pick examples again, I’d say most James Bond movies are pure male power fantasy, and the Indiana Jones movies are mostly male power with a dose of female sexual mixed in. Indy spends an awful lot of time shirtless, the camera treats Harrison Ford’s body lovingly, and he doesn’t shoot his girlfriends even when they deserve it.
This Shortpacked! cartoon is a pretty good distillation of the divide between male and female gaze and power fantasies versus sexual fantasies. Comic art, by its nature, tends to give away very quickly who it’s by and who it’s meant for. Rob Liefeld: all male power fantasy, male sexual fantasy, all the time. Shoujou***: all female power and sex fantasy, all the time. The Justice League animated series is an interesting example that, even judging by the art alone, seems to be about power fantasy for both sexes with sexual for both taking a backseat but present role; the character designs are exaggerated (the burlier male characters all seem to have shoulders that are about six feet wide), but instead of having their breasts and butts exaggerated as is standard for American superhero comic art, they’re exaggerated in the same way the men are—wide shoulders, big upper arms, smaller hips. Nobody’s bust is bigger than her shoulders are. The women (mostly) have more revealing costumes than the men, but it’s hard to tell how much is to be sexually appealing and how much is simply the legacy of their original character designs in earlier comics—and the male models have some concessions to female gaze as well.
Neither Twilight men nor Bond girls represent anything approaching realism or really even healthy fantasy, but they are what they are and they don’t exist to make the gender they’re not made for, comfortable, or to model anything for them except by collateral damage, as it were. The more explicit they get and the more they descend into the realm of pure fantasy and its rules, the more they tend to make the gender they’re stylizing deeply uncomfortable, precisely because being a pure object is an uncomfortable position to be in. When these types actually have the chance to become dangerous is when few or no alternative, aspirational fantasies are available- when a kid would be in a position to think the sexual fantasies of the opposite sex are the only available aspiration. This is why a dearth of female power fantasy characters that aren’t equally or even moreso male sexual fantasies is a problem, and while it would be if the reverse were true, I don’t think that’s the situation we have today so much as simply some prominent male characters (and I would argue people like Bieber are as much characters as anything) who are straight up female sexual fantasy. This is not to say there isn’t some deeply problematic stuff in it, or in some of the material sold to men and boys as power fantasies- just that I don’t think the risk of men and boys thinking Edward the Sparklepire is a model meant for them to emulate is one of those issues. As with most pure fantasy, the biggest risk for both sexes with the material aimed at them is in coming to believe it has anything much to do with reality.
Or, South Park can talk about it…
**This is not to say that aspirational fantasy fiction aimed squarely at women is modern; explicit power fantasies are much moreso. Much of what Jane Austen wrote is aspirational and sexual fantasy for women.
**Okay, maybe not quite entirely all, but going into the details unpacking cultural, gender, and marketing issues there would take a longer post of its own. Suffice to say shoujou anime and manga is still built primarily around female gaze and has its own art style for good reason.
—Photo orangeacid/Flickr
“they’re a sexual female fantasy”
So, IT IS female PORN?
I always thought women had porn; it just looks a bit different from our. 😉
Thank you, good analysis, and I should link this one every time I hear a woman complaining about (male) porn objectifying women. 🙄
“The male buffoon sitcom dates back to “the honeymooners”, which can hardly be called feminist. I think these stories about stupid men who have a house, wife, and their own TV show is supposed to appeal to the old “American Dream.” Where every man, even a buffoon, can have his own castle (and witty, but ultimately ornamental, wife).” YES. I don’t know how the buffoon thing came from feminists. Look at anything Judd Apatow, Kevin James (the king of the buffoons and somehow an appropriate romantic partner for Jessica Biel), cartoons (Family Guy, Simpson, the adults in South Park…all of… Read more »
The problem is not that there are male buffoons, the problem is that there are nothing but male buffoons, while there are nothing but smart, capable, suffering, solving-men-created-problems women in them. Back in those days, there were still shows with competent and smart males, often in the same show, and unlike today, the competent and smart males, weren’t complete douche bags instead. At the same time, there were also shows where there were women that were incompetent idiots. Try to find a woman in a comedy these days, from which the humor is defined that they are complete, incompetent morons.… Read more »
Here’s the problem I have with this article… The excuse “It’s for us, not you” doesn’t work the other way around. Feminists often deride the portrayal on women in video games, movies, and comics. But if we were to say “That piece of entertainment is for me, not you” we’d get an earful about sexism, unattainable figures, and unfair comparisons. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating sexist portrayals of women, I’m just saying this is a shield women shouldn’t get to use. It feels like a double standard. So yeah, the men of Twilight are awful, and we will… Read more »
Good point, Red. Two ‘wrongs’ don’t make a ‘right.’ “So yeah, the men of Twilight are awful, and we will tell women that.” I’ve actually had a problem with this being a double standard. Men can talk all they want about how the men of Twilight, Justin Bieber, Ryan Gosling, etc are gay, girly, look like lesbians, aren’t real men, etc. Yet, if a woman dares to say anything against a sex symbol intended for males, she’s a jealous, bitter feminazi with no sense of humor. I’m not into Twilight at all. I think it’s ridiculous and goes against everything… Read more »
The problem with that is, that the men of Twilight are ridiculed an criticized by men because they’re douche bags. And that’s putting it mildly. Edward, is a stalker, who likes to eat Bella, and broke into her room, at night, to look at her sleep, while he’d like to tear open her throat and brutally kill her while drinking her blood. While the women’s criticism of women’s sex symbols is… your skin, and you men dare to look at them! Incidentally, merely the body isn’t enough in beauty contests, no, men decided to test a beauty’s talents, intelligence and… Read more »
PS: Whether or not the characters themselves came from a feminist doesn’t matter, feminists created the environment, the society, in which only men are allowed to be depicted like that, and consistent campaigns in the non-fictional media to continuously depict men like that, that writers even start to think of men like ithat from the get-go, while looking at women as sweet and nice at the same time.
“The two assumed points of view and sold fantasies aren’t necessarily kept in their own separate ghettos; female action stars and characters are very often an attempt to combine female power fantasy with male sexual fantasy. (See: anything Joss Whedon has ever done, ever..” This is interesting. Buffy shaped my female teen fantasies all around. The women were strong–but feminine, approachable, and flawed in different ways. Idealized versions of myself with special powers and crazy adventures to boot! The male vampires Angel and Spike, as well as the Tara/Willow lesbian relationship felt very much geared towards a female audience–and I… Read more »
I agree with everything Labrat wrote up untill The Twilight saga which could only be explained as a massive peer presure campaign. I remember reading a Jezabel article about how marvel comics was intentionally showing their lead actors with their shirts off from Blade to Spiderman to Captin America & Thor. They called it a beefcake paraide and it completely flew under my radar. The Muscles and bodies of my favorite Male heros were a tools for social change and, I never thought of them as sexual Objects (well at least until Thor doped the pretenses) Shame on you ladies…Captin… Read more »
While I agree on almost everything here, but I do have to say one thing: I don’t like Hunger Games because it isn’t for, or about, me. But that isn’t the reason I don’t like Twilight (either the first book or the first movie). The reason I find Twilight so laughable is that, for me, plot is supposed to be the backbone of the story. It is not supposed to be something that the creator just tacks on at the end because their romance doesn’t have any real tension to it and its climax won’t make for a satisfying ending.… Read more »
You make a really good point when you compare David Cassidy and The Monkees to those ‘Twilight Twinks’ and Beiber. As cofused as us young guys were by there sex appeal, our Fathers were really at a loss (John Wayne AKA”The Duke” was there idea of a man!). So that really hasn’t changed over the years. You are most definitly wrong on who holds the ‘spending power’ however. All the way back to the 50’s it been women . Now that women are more in the full time workforce, the percentage has only increased.
I’d be surprised to find that women spend much more than men on entertainment media, though. Women’s “spending power” would be more likely to be directed toward things like groceries, household items, and clothes.
Regardless of who the money comes from, ours has long been a male-centered culture, and that hasn’t gone away overnight. Even women can internalize modes of perception and expectations that were originally developed among men in entirely androcentric ways.
> I’d be surprised to find that women spend much more than men on entertainment media, though. > Women’s “spending power” would be more likely to be directed toward things like groceries, > household items, and clothes :rolleyes: Right, because men are dumb buffoons who can’t do anything but watch television, right? Funny, thing, last I checked men had a rather big variation in activities, from playing sports, building stuff, or playing computer games. >Regardless of who the money comes from, ours has long been a male-centered culture, and >that hasn’t gone away overnight. No, we have been a female-centric,… Read more »
You are repeating a script that doesn’t fit. Just because you wish it to be so doesnt make it so. Women’s spending power IS the majority of consumer spending. The vast majority of advertising dollars are spent appealing to them. Think about just how DISSONANT (not dominant) the stupid Axe commercials are- they target teenage boys… Marketers have moved waaayyy beyond what you see on Mad Men. Field of Dreams was a movie- no one builds it so they will come. They build it and sell it according to what the consumer wants. Marketers don’t have some loyalty to a… Read more »
Media doesn’t have to be good, or present a flattering or empowering view, to be aimed at an audience. Bratz is aimed squarely at girls and it presents a horrific view of girls and femininity, with about the only point of appeal being that they are the center of attention. So do many romance novels. Many things that are aimed at men don’t put men in a nice light, though they do play squarely to gender tropes- I’m pretty sure Judd Apatow’s intended audience isn’t mainly female, but he’s one of the main constructors and sellers of the idea of… Read more »
True, and crappy media is absolutely worth taking the piss out of. Like, say, Twilight. 😉
So… just because something is “meant for women” that means it has to be poorly written dreck? I don’t care that “R-Patz” or the guy that played the werewolf are good looking (I’m bi for god’s sake) But, I’m sorry, Twilight was a horribly written book. Those weren’t vampires, they were blood drinking elves.
Similarly, I don’t care that Justin Bieber looks like a 12 year old girl, but can he at least sing songs where 50%+ of the lyrics don’t consist of the word “baby”?
And have you seen any movie starring Jason Statham?
I’m thinking Crank: High Voltage… or similar dreck.
touche…
but most there isn’t a Crank-hard phenomena…. 😉
>Media is in the business of selling fantasies, and not all fantasies are for everyone. Hollywood and >other entertainment media still mostly go by the default rules of male gaze, Seriously? Are you kidding me? You actually think this? Men are depicted is idiots, buffoons, and sexist pigs across the media, from commercials, to dramas, to comedies, while women are depicted as the ever suffering victim, the enlightened goddess who must teach the man the most basic of concepts or save the world from his idiocy. >Women have consumer dollars to spend too, so there is also a smaller, but… Read more »
I don’t understand the “male buffoon” stereotype in media, I think it sucks, and I wish it didn’t exist. But I don’t think it was created for or by women.
who it was created BY is irrelevant. WHY and WHO it was created is what is important. Women control the vast majority of consumer spending in this country. Marketers (whether they are male, female, transgender) have found through sophisticated research that women RESPOND strongly to this sort of marketing. They are moved to buy by the portrayal of men as stupid idiots. They are moved to watch TV by the same phenomena. People may not like it but women are moved to purchase If you look at the minority of markets dominated by male consumers you see similar themes. Scantily… Read more »
edit- should say WHO it was created for
it was created because when a guy is asked to go to the store to get the mac and cheese for dinner, they go to the store and get a box of mac and cheese, not the milk or butter that is required to make the mac & cheese…. it’s problem solving, it’s deductive reasoning, it’s detail oriented. or taking out the trash and not puting a bag back in the recepticle…. they hear “take trash out” It’s like men’s brains work like a computer and they can only work off the input that was given to them and don’t… Read more »
The male buffoon sitcom dates back to “the honeymooners”, which can hardly be called feminist. I think these stories about stupid men who have a house, wife, and their own TV show is supposed to appeal to the old “American Dream.” Where every man, even a buffoon, can have his own castle (and witty, but ultimately ornamental, wife).
I’m all for media aimed at women as well as men. Why the hell not? They’re a market too.
But I absolutely reserve the right to take the piss out of the ridiculous things the relevant marketing departments come up with, just as I do with male gazey media products.