He(re)'s Looking at you, Kid.

Since the invention of the motion picture, the vast majority of dynamic, suave, charismatic and powerful characters have been male. From the days of Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Laurence Olivier, and Gary Cooper to days of Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Will Smith, men have been, really, the protagonists and antagonists in movies. Whether they originate in Hollywood, Bollywood, Cannes, Tribeca or elsewhere, the script is often the same. Boy overcomes villainous boy/woman to save girl. It's a centuries old prototype that endures from children's literature to this very day. The female is often a peripheral, non-essential character, save for her role as a trophy or victory laurel to hang off of the male's neck. And very commonly, the woman who is rescued in these films is, by necessity, dainty and passive and weak. Why else would she need saving?

The argument is that posed by Laura Mulvey that the vision of the woman as she truly is stands as an enemy to the patriarchal standard. That she "symbolizes the castration threat by her real absence of a penis." Drawing heavily from Freudian theory, she states that "woman's desire is subjected to her image as bearer of the bleeding wound, she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it." She further goes on to state that there is an intrinsic desire to find "pleasure in looking at another person as object." So, to make the woman a non-threat, is to limit her to only the characteristics that we find pleasure in; to make her an object that we find pleasure primarily in seeing, for women must be seen and not heard, as goes the old adage. We must gaze upon her without her knowledge, or at very least with her tacit apathy, and at most, her welcoming the voyeur to see as he pleases.

John Berger, on the other hand, in Ways of Seeing takes a more historical approach to the same theme. He looks at the way that women were depicted in art around the time of the Renaissance, and compares it to how the media portrays women today. The looks on their faces.

The poses of their bodies. The dichotomy between nakedness and nudity. He draws the conclusion that these forms of imagery focus not on the subject-object, but on the spectator viewing the woman encapsulated on the canvas or page. However, he also focuses on the fact that the women in these pieces show themselves to be very welcoming to the viewer, often ignoring the men, if any, who are present with them in the actual works. Both Mulvey and Berger recognize this objectified view of women, and that it becomes self perpetuating, from mother to child, and even between other women. That yearning for the male gaze is ubiquitous as it becomes a standard for beauty and pervades all forms of media today.

Bell Hooks goes a bit further than Berger's analysis and Mulvey's derision of the current system. Bell speaks of breaking down the system and becoming a force for change; to force media to be seen beyond the viewpoint of the white male spectator. Blacks, and Black women in particular are her foci, but she urges all people, especially the classically underrepresented, to make themselves heard. For centuries, and there is still an undercurrent today, it was at one's peril that a person of color would dare gaze at a white person. Especially was it the case when a Black male would stare at a white woman. It was a taboo and often met with violence. However, with the freedom to view movies, Blacks could stare at whomever they wanted without fear of repercussions. Yet, the representations on the screen were rarely of themselves, and if they were, they were caricatures. Movies were not a mirror for such persons.

The oppositional gaze, then, is a one with a critical eye. Seeing things beyond what is perceived in the media, but from one's own perspective. To open up the collective view to one that is greater than the white male's view of others.

I recall that after I once read of Spike Lee's "failures", I began to think of him as just a token Black filmmaker. But when Bell Hooks pointed out that the majority of his films make more than their budget, and that white filmmakers such as Woody Allen whose movies are historically failures, the highest grossing of which was just over 40 million dollars (as opposed to Spike Lee's highest grossing of $88 Million dollars), are still often revered as geniuses, a clear distinction becomes evident.

The structures that hold together the entertainment industry are still primarily focuses on objectifying women and disenfranchising the minorities. A continually passive role in media making serves to continue the tight, narrow view that is present today. We need to be critical of what we watch, read and listen to, as the viewpoints expressed are often not factual, but opinions. Opinions that may influence us to be content and even enjoy the same misogynistic, racist, or simply siloed majority views that current are at work.