The Oppositional Gaze of the Media

     The male gaze is that all invading glare that we as women grow up being aware of, and we are trained to be objects that give pleasure to that gaze through media. But as the years pass, that pervasive form of vision has increased in the media, while disguising the objectification with different smoke-screens. Women are way more hyper-sexualized now than in the past years, exasperating the problem of the male gaze and it is a landscape I find myself confused and stuck in. Bell Hooks said, “Even when representations of black women were present in film, our bodies and being were there to serve — to enhance and maintain white woman hood as object of the phallocentric gaze” (The Oppositional Gaze, 119). Even though racism prevails in a society who likes to think they are colorblind, black women have become the center of hyper sexualization as well, empowering the phallocentric gaze in the process. Videos like “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj are proof of that:

"Anaconda" video by Nicki Minaj

     This is an accurate GIF from “If You Had My Love” by Jennifer Lopez of what me and girls my age were like when watching women we looked up to:

GIF from If You Had My Love music video

The video itself was about a voyeuristic site where Jennifer Lopez was watched from all kinds of rooms showering, dancing, what have you. It was a fantasy come true for men and that’s what we looked up to at that time, and that’s what we wanted to be. Media trains us and even makes us want to be seen that way. However, Jennifer Lopez has “evolved” from cute, sexy to shaking-my-booty-with-barely-any-clothes-on sexy.

Jennifer Lopez from If You Had My Love music video
(1999)

Jennifer Lopez from her most recent Booty Video ft. Iggy Azalea
(2014)

     “The women’s sexual passion needs to be minimized to that the so spectator may feel that he has the monopoly of such passion,” says Berger (Ways of Seeing, 55). It’s a misconception that just because women are able to show their bodies, their luxurious hair, and passion in videos then that means we hold power over men by mesmerization. Although it’s a misconception, it’s a powerful smoke-screen for the male-dominated gaze that the media is built on. “Let women think they are powerful and sexy, while we make money off of billions of people watching them,” is what I imagine men in the media-business saying. Much like racism, female suppression and male domination exists, it’s just not as obvious. 

     So now black women are equally as sexualized and now we can show all the passion we want. Therefore, we’re just as powerful as men. Wrong. Those two “feats” are merely mirrors that the media place in our hands, “You painted a naked women because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure” (Berger, 51). Although the media places Jennifer Lopez on the spotlight  and encourages this evolution because “sex sells,” we’re quick to criticize her first even though there’s a bigger picture. We’re quick to criticize Nicki Minaj even though this hyper-sexualization is what sells in our society because of the phallocentric gaze, and she had to mold herself into it in order to succeed. 

     “In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey states, “Unchallenged, mainstream film coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order” (835). This goes for not only film, but the whole media business. And what makes the most money is what becomes mainstream. As a result, the more erotic, the more it sells, and the more it gets exposed to little girls repeatedly today because it becomes mainstream. I would be scared for myself if I was a little girl today looking up to the current Jennifer Lopez, and I’m afraid that the male-gaze is being imposed on a new generation in a more pervasive way than the past years. The only thing I can do is divert from mainstream and choose what I love because of my taste and not because of what is popular out there. And I could only hope that it doesn’t get worse and that the next generation of women will be able to do the same and not fall for the smoke-screens which  give pleasure and empower the phallocentric gaze that dominates the media business.

Works Cited

Hooks, Bell (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation, Chapter 7 The Oppositional Gaze
Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin BooksMulvey, Laura (1975 article)  “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism


By:Vanessa Rodriguez