Noah Berlatsky wonders, does the man have the male gaze or does the male gaze have the man?
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I ran into an acquaintance the other day who happens to be radioactively hot. I talked to her pleasantly enough for a few minutes while internally my brain, or something, kept saying, “Wow! She’s radioactively hot!” And I kept responding, “Yes, I know. Shut up, now, please.”
Having a low level crush on a marginal acquaintance is not especially stressful at this point in my life. Mostly it’s amusing — not least since the radioactively hot woman in question happens to look quite a bit like my wife (I told my wife this, actually. She rolled her eyes. She’s good at that, bless her.)
There was an extended period of my life, though, when crushes, low level or otherwise, seemed to define my existence — and not in a good way. I remember one, in particular, during one of my first jobs. I don’t even remember this woman’s name anymore; I don’t think I even really remember what she looked like. But the effect of the crush stands out among lots (and lots) of similar crushes, I think, because of the space in which it occurred. I had an office sort of off in the corner, and there was a young woman who would walk across the doorway, innocently ferrying papers, utterly unaware that every time she passed she drove a spike through my eye and into my clichéd and stupid heart. I was pinned in my seat, watching the movement of a figure who provoked desire, but with whom I (felt that I) could neither interact nor affect. It was a bit like watching a movie, perhaps.
There’s a lot written about movies, desire, an the male gaze, of course. One of the founding essays on the topic is Laura Mulvey’s 1975 article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Mulvey argues that classic Hollywood narrative cinema positions women as passive objects to be looked at, and men as controlling actors who look. The man’s role in the film, Mulvey says, is “the active one of forwarding the story, making things happen.” She adds that the man in the story, “controls the film phantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator.”
For Mulvey, then, the male position is supposed to be empowering. The one who looks, the one who fantasizes, has control over the objectified, displayed female body.
This is not, to put it mildly, how my crushes felt to me. On the contrary, looking for me — and I think not infrequently for other men — feels incapacitating, even paralyzing. You could argue, I guess, that the difference was that I was not watching a movie; there was no masterful Cary Grant or George Clooney to sweep my object of desire off her feet and down the narrative on my behalf. I think that the truth, though, is that I felt paralyzed and incapacitated precisely because all those movie stars were there. Their ghostly images flickered across my daydreams — my iconic, romantic hero self, who tripped towards the happy romantic credit fade, rather than just sitting there like some ineffectual creep.
My crushes were painful, then, not because I looked but couldn’t have, but rather because looking made narrative demands on me that I couldn’t live up to. The issue wasn’t sexual release (which even I had figured out you could manage by yourself). The issue was failure.
This is, I think, why men sometimes react with anger when they’re told they have power over women. Men historically, and still today, did and do exercise power over women in a lot of ways. But it often doesn’t feel like power. It can feel, on the contrary, like castration. Mulvey is right that Hollywood cinema, and much of the society that makes Holywood cinema is organized around and for a male gaze that turns women into desired objects — severed eroticized body parts which sell everything from alcohol to kid’s board games. And she’s right, too, that that same gaze places men as desiring subjects who act.
But what she misses is the way in which it often feels less like the guy is manipulating the look than like the look is manipulating the guy. To be the subject of the gaze is also to be the subject of the gaze. The narrative of film — and not just of film — demands that men identify with and perform male action and desire. You’re supposed to be the master, but that imperative to be the master is a command that seems to come from outside. It’s not that you don’t want to follow those commands; it’s that what you want is itself commanded. Which is why I think men so often blame their desire on the way women dress, or simply on women’s bodies. Someone put these emotions in me; someone wrote this story where I act. If it wasn’t me, it must have been you.
Often this drama, or narrative, gets put off on biology — we’ve got ape genitals, so what can you do. In that account, marriage is a civilizing force; the ball and chain men put on their eyes and hormones to discipline both to more productive purposes. Maybe some people experience it that way, but for me marriage hasn’t been like being bound, but like being freed. I hated constantly having a crush on somebody; hated being trapped in the same stupid, repetitive narrative with the same stupid hero I despised and despised myself for not being. Marriage was a different and much more congenial narrative, not least because it was built on much less linear gazes — those rolling eyes only glance off to come back again. I never did have a crush on my wife, which isn’t exactly how the story is supposed to go. But sometimes different stories are better.
Originally appeared at Splice Today
Photo: Flickr/Lourdes Nightingale
Hey Erin. You should check out the great Nicole Wray song “Eyes Better Not Wander” about men looking at other women. It’s fabulous. Re not having a crush on my wife…having a crush just seems like a specific thing, which is about longing and distance and not having. That just wasn’t the dynamic with my wife; the first real interaction I had with her was when she cornered me at a party and chatted me up for like an hour, which was great fun but not really distant or suffused with longing or pain or anything like that. Does that… Read more »
Hi Noah, can you explain what you mean when you said you didn’t have a crush on your wife. Does that mean you were not as attracted to your wife as you are to these other women? “This is not, to put it mildly, how my crushes felt to me. On the contrary, looking for me — and I think not infrequently for other men — feels incapacitating, even paralyzing.” Thanks for sharing this unique viewpoint. It can feel that way too for women I think when they know they are the object of the gaze. I would even stretch… Read more »
Wow Valter you really talk like you know me. Mein Kumpf? Really? What a terrible comparison. You are wrong. They are certain things men need to do to have a healthy thriving relationship with the opposite sex. But since this married father has been catching some pretty ridiculous flack for trying to help some guys out, maybe I’ll keep my comments to myself.
I don’t know you, but I can infer many things about you, from what you write.
Mine was not a comparison, it was an example.
And it served to disprove your assumption (“It’s written in a book, thus it must be true”).
Lastly, you’re free to comment as much as you like; but since this is a public debate, you must accept that someone may comment on your comment. 😉
Freedom of speech works both ways…! 😆
Hi Billy, I was interested in what you were saying so I hope you continue to post no matter what others say.
Broad statements about how men or women are genetically programmed to do thus and such are just not very convincing, in general. If there’s one thing men and women are genetically programmed to do, it’s to develop a huge range of cultures which have an incredibly varied range of gender roles.
You’re entitled to your opinion. 😉
Yet, it’s difficult to deny we all have (in different measures) istincts such as Surviving, Mating, Have offsprings…
Of course we can manage, overcome or deny those istincts, yet they are rooted deeply inside us.
Most people dislike the fact that we are somehow “controlled” (or at least influenced) by forces beyond our control (e.g. istincts, the unconscious), yet we all are.
Being totally free (from any influence) is a myth, and your piece confirms this.
No cliches, it’s just the way things are. Read Elliot Katz’s book Becoming The Strong Man Women Want. It talks about the quote I mentioned in the first chapter. It’s an excellent read and I highly recommend it. It’s not a long book either, short and to the point.
@Billy: “it’s just the way things are” That’s the usual rationale by people who cannot see beyond their nose. 😉 “That’s what I know and see, hence it’s the way things are”. But in doing so, you forget there can be a million different ways that you don’t know yet. It’s also called “black swan fallacy”: http://www.conservapedia.com/Black-swan_fallacy In reality, things are practically never just one way – that’s why reality drives us crazy so often! 😆 How many women did you (intimally) know? Unless you knew thousands or more, you cannot say “They are so and so”; you haven’t enough… Read more »
Your misinterpreting what I said. I’m not saying to tell women what to do. If you ask women about the best dates they’ve been on and listen closely to what they say, it’s ones where everything was taken care of, they didn’t have worry about a thing. Yes women can go to work and be the boss and make decisions but when they come home they just want to relax and a be a woman and not worry about everything.
Generalizations, generalizations, generalizations… 🙄
Don’t they feel “oh-so-comfortable” and reassuring?
What a bummer that reality, most often than not, it’s more complex than that.
If men and women were following the well known clichès, we all would be masters of relationships…
Women don’t hate making decisions any more than men do. Everybody likes to be taken care of sometimes; nobody wants to be told what to do all the time.
The narrative that says that women not only should follow, but like to follow, and that men not only lead, but like to lead, and need to lead, is the kind of narrative which leaves men feeling self-pitying and powerless even as they treat women badly.
Men have more power than they think. There is an old saying which rings true from the time you start dating and althrough your marriage until the day you die. “If You Don’t Lead, She Can’t Dance”. Women hate making decisions. Women like men who take the lead and make decisions. From asking her out to courting her or if you’re married know what’s going on at all times with your wife and kids and make informative decisions when necessary. Anyway just giving input from my experiences.
I think men *feel* like they have no power. That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t in fact have power. And it definitely doesn’t mean that it’s the women who have power. As I said, I think guys feel like it’s women who have power, sometimes; they feel like it’s women who control the crush, or provoke it, because those feelings seem like they come from outside of them. But that “outside” isn’t women, is what I’m saying. It’s particular narratives about what it means to be a man, or to act like a man. Those narratives position men as powerful,… Read more »
“I think men *feel* like they have no power. That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t in fact have power.”
I think this is quite an important distinction that a lot of people don’t understand.
I do not understand the distinction. What kind of power do men have that they don’t feel like they have? And in this context of “crushing,” how could you tell the difference (between feeling powerless and being powerless) in any practical sense?
Individual versus institutional power, is one way to look at it. There’s a really interesting piece on masculinity and how it interacts with expected control/power and a loss of that expected control/power: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/manhood-among-the-ruins/277456/
I think men *feel* like they have no power. That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t in fact have power.
Just out of curiosity.
How is that when men describe their situations where they don’t have power it gets reduced to “no you actually do have power even though it may not feel like it?”
It just seems to me that (in some cases at least) power is being assigned to men when they actually don’t have it and at the end of the day when men disagree they are just told they are denying their privilege or something.
“This is, I think, why men sometimes react with anger when they’re told they have power over women.” YES! You’re sooo right. “having power” my a$$! Especially in relationships, most of the time it’s the woman who choose. But even outside relationships, on average most men have no power over women; unless you’re the boss of something. Thank you for your article, it brings light to something that’s usually ignored. There’s this persistent “mythology” of men power but, IMHO, if you’re the “average Joe” (and most of us are), you have no idea what that power is about. 😐 Truth… Read more »
Nice article! I can identify with some of what you talked about. There was a women at the hospital I worked which I had a big crush on for a year before I finally asked her out. For me it got to the point if being sick and of being afraid if asking women out. So I just started doing it and it got easier and easier as time went on. It was an amazing feeling when I conquered that part of my dating life. After asking the woman I had a crush on out she gave me her cell… Read more »
I just want to say – awesome articles and awesome comments Heather! It’s rare to actually read well thought out comments. I think both of you far outweigh my intellectual grasp on the male gaze so thanks for enlightening me a bit more. I definitely look forward to checking out your Wonder Woman book.
Hugo has another crushing piece on men. Do we have that linked up here somewhere? Huffpos already has it.
And this issue is getting way too complicated. Don’t look. Only talk if in an emergency. And certainly don’t touch. You don’t have a right to sex or relationships. If you make this too complicated for men they’re just going to nuance the hell out of it to the detriment of women. That’s why legal enforcement is probably the best solution. We’ll have cameras everywhere soon and audio can follow right after. This is how you create safe spaces for women.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments all! Heather, I think (as you sort of say) part of the problem here is that you just can’t do everything all at once. I think discussions of how the male gaze affects women’s self-perception and how the male gaze works in terms of queer issues are both really important and interesting topics. I also think that how men interact with the male gaze is pretty important and worth considering in itself…mainly because men have a lot of power, and how they interact with that power has a lot of effect on just about everyone.… Read more »
Excellent, thanks. I definitely agree that understanding how men interact with the male gaze is important. I just felt like, while it’s useful to pick that apart and look at it….in order to then draw larger conclusions from it it’s necessary to fit it back in with the rest (queer use of male gaze and women’s use of male gaze).
I also don’t mean to fall to far into the trap of looking at women’s interaction with male gaze in terms of false consciousness. It is no more “false consciousness,” then men’s interaction with male gaze is false consciousness.
Yes. Well-said. Attraction can be a real nuisance.
perhaps you might write a piece about that 😉
just joshing man, just joshing
(I’m breaking this up into manageable chunks, cuz it’s so long. Sorries). The important bit is how the article ignores the pressure on women to embody the male gaze. The thing about the work done on the male gaze (in film and out), is that because male=subject, and the watcher always considers his/herself a subject, the watcher then ends up placing themselves in the role of the subject (which is always male). SO, you’ve got women feeling cultural pressure to be gazers as well…but often pressure to gaze at other women. So we have a culture in which often women… Read more »
So this response has taken me a hell of a long time to even start and I’m sure it’s going to take me a long time to write out. I’ve been sat here just thinking through what you’ve said and working through my own thoughts on the points you bring up, Noah. So first the good: I think it’s a very different perspective on male gaze than the one you hear talked about the most. I think it hits an unexplored truth of the male gaze, which is the weight and pressure that the gazer feels to actually gaze. I… Read more »
wow. just wow. Bravo.