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THE CONCEPT OF GAZE

“Pleasant it is , when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters , to gaze from shore upon another’s great tribulation ; not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive you are free of them yourself is pleasant”.

Lucretius has rightly said . Being in the constant gaze of someone makes a person extremely uncomfortable , nervous and often  harbor low self – respect. But the questions that continuously intrigue people are what is gaze, why is it so powerful , what is its politics? So let’s understand the meaning of gaze. In simple terms the word means to look steadily and intently , as with great curiosity, interest , pleasure or wonder.

HISTORY

Gaze is a psychological term brought into popular usage by Jacques Lacan to describe the anxious state that comes with the awareness that one can be viewed . The psychological effect, Lacan argues , is that the subject loses a degree of autonomy upon realizing that he or she is a visible object. Michel Foucault first used the term “ medical gaze” to explain the process of medical diagnosis, power dynamics between doctors and patients and the hegemony of medical knowledge in the society.

THE CONCEPT OF MALE GAZE AND FEMALE GAZE

The concept of male gaze emerged with the works of Laura Mulvey who stated in her theories that women are represented as commodities, as objects in the Hollywood cinema for men to take pleasure by seeing the bodies of these women. This patriarchal notion of deriving pleasure by seeing the way the body of a woman is presented has placed men in dominant position seeking complete control of the opposite gender’s body. The politics of male gaze can be interpreted by understanding the ways in which  the  camera focuses on the woman’s body parts such as her smoky eyes, her rose like pink lips, her blossoming breast, her meandering curves , her long legs and flowing hair. The sexual pleasure that men derive from looking at women or other erotic objects such as pornography , naked bodies has been termed as SCOPOPHILIA.  Mulvey’s essay states that FEMALE GAZE IS SAME AS THE MALE GAZE. This means that women look at themselves as through the eyes of the men. This process of objectifying one’s own body has been termed as  exhibitionism.  How ever many theorists from the post modern era have contradicted this philosophy by stating that women also objectify men’s bodies, they also seek pleasure from seeing a bare chest or a six pack abs of a man who is tall, dark and handsome.

The latest examples from the Indian context would include Salman khan taking off his shirt for his female audience, John Abraham wearing a tight yellow  low cut swim pant to show his half butt  and Ajay devgan showing his chest hair to reflect his masculinity.

But the instances of men being modified for visual pleasure to be gained by women are less in comparison to women being presented for the same. The misogynistic order of our society reflects in the way the movies are presented, the clothes the women are ordered to put on while shooting and the ideology of the target audience being the male members has further worsened the situation.

In this capitalist era , the advertisements are the drivers of the culture of  crass commercialism. If we ever sit and seriously interpret the ideologies behind these ads , we will notice that nothing happens by accident. There is a whole  constructed notion of various ideologies that are at play to manifest , naturalise these “ manufactured notions of gender roles”. Take for an example an ad consisting of a woman, a man and some children. The woman is doing the dishes,  then cooking and finally taching her kids but the man has been shown as watching the news of that particular day. For majority of the population , this ad very apt as it is reflecting the societal order but the ideologies at play or at power are very biased, sexist in nature . This is where the concept of GAZE comes in I.e; the way you are watching something and seeking confirmation for the same.

In our everyday life also, we can notice how men look first at the breast of a girl or a woman , then her hips and then the complete body. In this position many women are not able to revert back because they have no agency or no control over their own body or gaze, they feel helpless. Thus this is the politics of gaze , placing an individual or a particular  gender above the another.

Another example would relate to caste problem in India i.e; how an individual from so called an upper caste looks down upon a person belonging to a lower caste. In this case Dalit women have been the worst victims of this gaze politics.  They have been ill treated , raped, butchered, murdered, put on fire and also have been termed as witches just because they belonged to a lower caste and didn’t have the agency to display and wield power.

There are many other examples such as the teacher scolding a child by giving terror looks through her eyes , a father not saying much through his words but through his eyes, an enemy passing killer looks to his opponents and a lover smiling through his eyes after kissing his beloved. Thus the politics of gaze is as bad as it is good . so keep gazing , keep growing.