‘According to usage and conventions which are at last being
questioned but have by no means overcome – men act and women appear. Men look
at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’
Berger
1972
The camera in contemporary media has been used as an
extension of the male gaze. Susan Sontag states that ‘to photograph is to
appropriate the thing photographed. The act of photographing is in a way, like
sexual voyeurism, it is more than passive observing. It is a form of encouraging
and continuing the trend of a subject being photographed.
Pollock states that women are supposed to be marginalised
with the culture we currently have. This marginalisation supports the ‘hegemony
of men in cultural practice and in art’.
The video game character, Laura Croft has become somewhat of
an icon in gaming for being portrayed as an overtly sexualised object. The idea
behind the creation of her character was to create an intellectual, independent
young woman able to overcome obstacles physically and intellectually. However
the application of this design has turned her into a visual spectacle that is
meant to be consumed by a male audience.
Reality television may appear to give us the position of an
all-seeing eye. However, the implication of a television show suggests that it
is scripted and edited. There is no reality, only one that is designed to show
us what we want to see.
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