Week 7: The gaze, the male gaze and freud on fetishism

Freud on Fetishism

Men’s choice of object is dominated by a fetish, or whether the product is advertised by women-sexual fetishism

‘the fetish is a substitute for the women’s (the mothers) penis that the little boy once believed in-for reasons familiar to us-does not want to give up’

Little boys are confused that their mother and other women do not have a penis

   Sexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g. in psychiatric medicine, as a disorder of sexual preference or as an enhancing element to a relationship causing a better sexual bond between the partners.

   Today, psychodynamics has parted with the idea of proposing one explanation for all fetishes at the same time. Instead, it focuses on one form of fetishism at a time and the patients' individual problems. Over the past decades, various case studies have been published in which fetishism could successfully be linked to emotional problems. Some argue that a lack of parental love leads to a child projecting its affection to inanimate objects, others state in consent with Freud's model of psychosexual development that premature suppression of sexuality could lead to a child getting stuck in a transitory phase. One of Freud’s defence mechanisms, displacement, is the redirection of an impulse onto a substitute target. Someone who feels uncomfortable with their sexual desire for a real person may therefore substitute a fetish.

Fetishism- which is why so many products to do with women, also why the advertising companies-heavily influencing these fetishes

 Example: Lynx advert- 'Angels will fall from heaven' appealing to men’s ego- if you spray this on you-all women will be attracted to you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfeVEAZkJqM 

     

relevent reading

Relevant Reading:

Notes on: The Politics of Women’s Bodies

Regarding what relevant critical practice there is surrounding the media and its participation on how women should look act and their body language-I have come across a book called the politics of women’s bodies-which talks not just about theory but about media involvement and relevant photographers that explore body language- i found it both interesting but extremely relevant in helping me come up with ideas on what to actually photograph-I must admit that I found it hard it come up with originals ways of experimenting with my topic- I want people to think when they see my pictures not just say its a nice photograph.

Quote from the reading

“We are born male or female, but not masculine or feminine. Femininity is an artifice, an achievement”

But how do we know to look masculine or feminine, who imposes/ influences these ideas upon us?

Who influences such discipline on female identity and subjectivity?

Marienne Wex photographer- studied body language of men and women-ideas of how we should walk and sit.

Quote from reading

“We have examined some of the disciplinary practices a women must master in pursuit of a body of the right size and shape that also displays the proper styles of feminine motility”-This quote is the idea of self surveillance and starting to look at the gaze-Foucault and Bentham- a theory relevant to topic and one I will research further.

In the chapter femininity and the modernisation of patriarchal power, it talks about how women make themselves feminine- the application of makeup is something that all women should do (idea imposed through the media) It also talks about the norm of how women should look and through the male gaze if you don’t fit in with the social norms you are seen as odd and an outsider

Chapter- Designing Women

Cosmetic Surgery-Magazines are designed to help “women achieve hegemonic standards of feminine beauty”

The word hegemonic standards i think is really important in this context- are women not individual, are we just ranked and rated against each other?-something to maybe think about? I know there is the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ but this book definitely makes me think that in terms of the male gaze- men only judge and look at what is physically in front of them.

The chapter continues to discuss women’s choice to look good, or whether it is no longer a choice but pressurised by hegemonic cultural norms

Are women victims of media and society?

Sum up of reading:

Quote: “beauty” that many women so badly try to achieve the “standards we seek to achieve are constructed and serviced by men, men’s interests and magazines” (Morgan 1991) need to find page!

· There are so many theorists and existing literature that explore the social construction of women’s bodies and the way they should look.

· This book suggests like my personal view that media reinforce these ideas heavily.

The Male Gaze

Week 6: Ad Busters

Ad Busters:
Ad busters is a non profit based anti consumerist foundation that produce campaigns, magazines and challenge the norms of media, and what opinions they impose on us.
   Obviously i am wanting to challenging the norms of society in terms of the way women look or are told to look-so these pictures below are effetive in terms of both the pictures and the use of words.

   As a possible idea, i would like to explore doing a spoof ad campaign like the one ad busters have done.

link to the ad busters:

http://www.adbusters.org/

The foundation describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."^[

Rough ideas

above drawing: manaquin and puppet-media us to do something we do it

the beauty myth

The beauty myth-Naomi Wolf

Very much to do with my topic
quote from the book-p84

" They need, consciously or not, to promote womens hating their bodies enough to go profitably hungry, since the advertsing budget for one third of the nations food bill depends on their doing so by dieting. The advertisers who make womens mass culture possible depend on making women feel bad enough about their faces and bodies to spend more money on worthless or pain-inducing products that they would if they felt innately beautiful."

Girl Culture

Lauren Greenfield...another video about a book she has released called girl culture

http://www.laurengreenfield.com/index.php?p=VPGHSTCS

some photographs she has taken- very interesting and something i would like to photograph



In both pictures girls are aged just thirteen! already worrying about how they should look

• http://www.laurengreenfield.com/index.php?p=Y6QZZ990
  
  This is a short film or at least trailor about girls with eating dissorders, notice at the end the girl crying saying 'i want to be thin' who told her, or why does she think she is not thin? (personally just by looking at her, you can tell she is not 'fat')
  
  is this what the media does to us?
  
  i know eating dissorders are more than just not eating-its a disease, but does it start off by things like this?
  just something for people to think about...