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The Male Gaze Examples

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The Web Essay on the Male Gaze by the authors Thomas Streeter, Nicole Hintlian,
Samantha Chipetz, and Susanna Callender, on the University of Vermont website, discusses the exploitation of the male gaze in advertising, and provides several convincing examples to explain its impact on women. The male gaze has been a long tradition in western art, which presents women as objects to be viewed by male viewers.
This tradition continues in modern advertising and the omnipresence of this tradition has made it so that "Women watch themselves being looked at" (Berger, 1973, p.47).
Through the ages, and even in modern times, advertisements assume the man as the ideal spectator. Therefore this tradition acclimatized women to look at themselves through the …show more content…

The male gaze is even a construct in advertisements that cater to women, as illustrated by the Vogue advertisements in the essay. Women are always subliminally told that they are always on view, and to view themselves through the eyes of a man. The fundamental construct of the male gaze in seen not only in advertisements but also in films. The film, Rear Window, is a perfect example. The vantage point of the entire film sets the stage for the gaze of the movie as the male gaze of the audience, through the eyes of the main character, Jeff. Therefore, stereotypical sights for the male gaze in the movie are the images of the scantily clad, “Miss Torso”, practicing her dance moves, as well as the focus of the camera on her derriere while she is looking for something in the refrigerator. In addition, the female character in the film, Lisa, who happens to be a glamorous woman, also presents a perfect image of a sensual object, in line with the expectation of the male gaze. Even though Lisa’s character is a strong woman who is more successful than Jeff, the film subjects her to the stereotypical

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