The Male Gaze

It is not new that when someone is being objectified, it is always a woman. Till this day i still wonder why is it that it seems to be always the woman who is objectified and the man is not. Just looking at magazine covers, movies and music videos, the woman is always being looked at in an erotic manner by males - also known as "the male gaze". The way that the media portray women is almost always in a sexual way where it makes men desire them.

 A simple Google search "woman magazine" show woman with revealing clothing or wearing something that accentuates their body. One thing that i find common in every image is that no matter if the pose of these women are sexually provocative or not, the subtitles all relate to sex: words like hot, sexy and sex are all the main point of these magazines!

Now i did a search for "man magazine" and this is what i found, all men are shown wearing a suit and tie, proper poses and very professional like. The magazines are usually about businesses and this one i found is about fashion. Nothing about this magazine cover is about anything sexual. 

This, i think is the problem. Men are never objectified and wherever they appear, they are always associated with hero, power, authority, and professionalism. Why is it that there is no female gaze? and are women going to be inferior to men forever? 

Production Codes

In this week's lecture, we were introduced to The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code) and i thought that this production code is brilliant in the way that from limiting the amount of indecencies on the screen, it could affect and improve the morality of people.

The many sections of the Hays Code have guidelines for what is allowed and not allowed on screen. For example, acts of murder is allowed but the way they are presented have to be in a way that it encourages people to imitate the act. Most actions have to be presented in a vague way - the less detail it shows, the better it is. Other acts includes sex, dances, costumes, locations (bedrooms), titles, scenes with vulgarity, obscenity, and profanity.

My thoughts about Hays Code is that it shows how people back in the days are more concerned with our morals and improving the behavior of mankind. Now a days, a lot of the things that were not allowed on screen in 1930 happens every single day now whether it is on screen or real life. For example, profanity (swearing) for some people, occurs in every sentence they speak. Today's people are more morally corrupted compared to the people back then and it is disappointing because children now are more likely to be exposed to these subjects at an earlier age. People should improve their behaviors as they have to role models for the younger ones and the generations to come.

Ideology and Race

After the lecture, we were assigned to watch a 1 hour long video called Reel Bad Arabs - How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Throughout the whole documentary, it was sickening and depressing seeing how a race is vilified everywhere especially in North America. The video stresses that Arabs were always portrayed as the antagonist in countless Hollywood films all the way from 60 years ago till today.

About 90% of all the Hollywood films that were analyzed showed Arabs as villains, carrying guns, shooting anyone in sight, inhumane, dumb and perverted. Not only were men portrayed with all the stereotypical "evil" villain, but Arabian woman were always shown belly dancing, seducing men and wearing sheer clothing.

Even in the infamous Disney movie Aladdin, Arabs are vilified as men that would slaughter people if they felt like it. This is extremely offensive and sickening since it was shown to millions of children and families. The media, typically the media in North America doesn't show the innocent side of Arabs, they don't show the innocent civilians that are killed for no reason, beaten, or captured by the Americans. It seems that it is justified if Arabs were punished but loathsome if Arabs kill.

We all need to learn to not believe everything we see in the media, especially stereotypes and depictions of a particular race being only 'evil'. Hollywood needs to stop vilifying a race because how would Arabs feel watching Hollywood movies? Hollywood is giving no chance for them to be entertained without being offended and insulted. We should all think about the the results of all the acts if injustice through our history and learn to not repeat our mistakes. The holocaust and many detainment of innocent people do not, and should not ever need to happen again. 

Ideologies

Ideologies are a system of ideas that can be forcefully imposed of willingly subscribed by our society. Things that we see in our daily lives, such as washroom signs, or signs in general, are all ideological because they convey authority and the idea that "that's just the way things are".

There are 3 ways in which ideologies work, and they are (1) Myth, (2) Doxa, (3) Hegemony. Myth is a sacred story that confirms and reproduces ideologies in relationship to a cultural object such as media artifact. Doxa is the "common sense" aspect of culture and hegemony is the unspoken message. After being shown a touching and inspiring video where a scarecrow is sad about how all the food is produced with poor treatment to animals, it turns out that it was just an advertisement for Chipotle's app on Apple's App Store.

The mythical element of this advertisement is a living scarecrow that scares away crows from the farmer's produce. The same for how the scarecrow dislike Crow Foods Incorporated. The doxa is that we can be a vegetarian or a vegan and therefore avoid any intake of all meat that were treated in a inhumane way. However, the most interesting part is the hegemony, the unspoken message is that WE as an individual is at fault for not avoiding the brands that produce meat that were slaughtered. They never show that it's the industry's fault when all major food brands or restaurants get their meat from the same factory! It is all just plain advertising to promote Chipotle.

The Power of Signs

There are about millions and millions of signs all over this world and without a doubt, they are certainly helpful for us as humans to communicate to each other. Whether it is street signs or safety signs, they were made for the purpose of communicating a message to its readers.

The interpretation of the signs, however, are not always universal. I remember taking the Business Communication course here at UTSC and on lesson was on business language and how it differs from around the world. A gesture or symbol could have different meanings in two different countries. My professor demonstrated this by calling up two students, one from Singapore, and the other from Canada. Both students' backs faced each other and they were told to raise and use their hand to symbolize the each number from 1-10. Surely enough, the hand signs used to symbolize these numbers were a little different.

Therefore, signs are all arbitrary - their meaning depends on its social, historical and cultural context. Also, the meanings of signs are not all naturally understood, traffic signs correlate to the action involved, but the depiction of the sign has to be taught to us in order for us to relate a sign to its meaning.

What is Culture?

What is culture? There are simply too many ways to describe culture and it is impossible to define it with just one word. The dictionary's definition of culture is "the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively" but another common definition is "the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group".

when we learned about Mathew Arnold and his theory of how to elevate oneself from the industrial revolution, i thought that it was good at first, but after realizing what he meant by how culture is going to "save" us, i didn't really agree with him. He states that "culture will save everything" but by that, he meant that culture is how people will pursuit in perfectness. No one can be flawless, and that is not the right way to live. In contrary, i feel that pursuit in perfectness is restrictive and isn't a practical way to save people from their obsession on the industrial revolution.

Also, Arnold was rather 'picky' on what was considered culture. The definition of his 'culture' is to go for "the best which has been thought and said in the world" - which includes opera because it is higher in monetary value. Other things such as a comic book is considered to be 'low' culture, and that leads to the question - if you don't go and watch an opera, does that mean you aren't perfect? and, if you have watched an opera before, are you perfect now?