Thank you for this ask @palominojacoby because I have so many thoughts! Too many to contain in one answer.
So, I’ll mull over what’s top-of-mind, related to the female gaze. In a nutshell:
- I’m digesting Joey Soloway’s wonderful Tiff Talk on the female gaze. It’s funny and poignant and a great primer on the subject. You can find it on Youtube, or there is a written transcript you can find here.
- I’m thinking about what terrifies men about the feminine gaze (my preferred term for it): one, that they won’t be the objects of it and; two, that the feminine gaze is out of their reach. It is a space or a viewpoint that they don’t have access to but feel entitled to. They want to capitalize on it, and exploit it, just like they are allowed to exploit everything else. This needs to be watched and it needs to be called out.
- The older I get, the less interested I am in consuming or experiencing art or media created by heterosexual white men. I’ve been in their head space long enough. I’ve been consuming their media and their opinions and their gaze for thirty-four years, and I think, by now, I know what they have to say, and I’m no longer interested in it. It does not inspire me.
I want to be submerged in the feminine gaze.
For the long version, read below the cut. Buckle up, it’s going to be long:
While eating lunch today, I watched Joey Soloway’s Tiff Talk on the female gaze. Early in their address, after they defined the male gaze, and after they did a funny riff about all the things that the female gaze isn’t (Magic Mike if it were written, directed and produced by a woman/placing women into male roles in your typical Dude Movies), they remind the audience that men have had control of the camera more or less for 100 years (and control of the everything else forever).
Then they say this:
So for there to be actual gender parity in the gaze – the kind that would actually make it reasonable for a reporter on the red carpet to say to me – things are getting better for women, right?
We would need the next 100 years of almost every single movie to be produced, written and directed by women. Like, let’s check in again in 2116, people.
And then after that – we could start on the 50/50 thing.
It was that very math – which is perfectly reasonable math – that made me realize that not only do women have to be inspired and funded to start making a fuck of a lot of things in record numbers, but for things to even out, well that’s why I asked that audience of cis men to please: STOP MAKING THINGS.
It did not go over well.
They then explain why this matters; why it matters that Cis men have controlled art (and everything else) and why it is so important to wrest that control away.
ART IS PROPAGANDA FOR THE SELF.
Yep, TV and film-making and fuck, all culture making, is people going, “I’m okay! And people who are similar to me are okay! Watch this ½ hour then be more on my side! In case of Armageddon! Zika! Trump! Hitler!”
We all need friends and so we make tribes with our art.
Simply put, Protagonism is Propaganda. Protagonism is Propaganda that protects and perpetuates privilege.
So if only cis men are creating art (or the only ones whose art is amplified), their point of view, their selves, their gazes are the only ones that are going to be privileged in spaces far beyond the art world. Protagonism as propaganda affects politics, personal relationships, economics, etc. etc. etc.
Joey Soloway’s definition of the female gaze:
The female gaze is a conscious effort to create empathy as a political tool. It is a wresting away! Perhaps a wrestling away of the point of view. [A wresting away] of the power, of the privilege propaganda for purposes ---of changing the way the world feels for women when they move their BODIES through the world, feeling themselves as the subject.
It’s a great speech. I highly recommend it.
During the Q&A after, the third question is from this Cis old white guy, who asks this fucking nonsense:
My body, right now, is feeling shaken and inspired by everything that you said. So, I just want to ask you, I might be misunderstanding, but I think you your definition of a cis male, is those of us who were born with a penis and identify as male. [Joey Soloway affirms this definition] I’m wondering how you would feel about differentiating those of us who get it and those of us who are perpetuating...
And I just...lost it. (Note: Joey was extremely gracious in their response. I will not be.) Like, holy shit dude. You just sat through this extremely thoughtful, extremely funny talk about the female gaze and how the male gaze and perspective has been privileged for a millennia, and maybe, just maybe, it’s about FUCKING TIME to center other perspectives and YOU IMMEDIATELY TURN THE CONVERSATION BACK ON YOURSELF. YOU INSECURE, FRAGILE LITTLE MAN. SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR 2 FUCKING SECONDS.
Holy fuck....
Again, you’d think after so long in power, men would be just a tad more secure, but they just fucking aren’t. They’re insecure little bastards (don’t come into my comments and “not all men” me on this).
I think they are afraid of two things.
1) That if feminine creators are actually given the space and the funding and the amplification to create feminine gaze works, cis men aren’t going to be the objects or even the subjects of that art.
I think this terrifies them. Not only are they not going to be behind the lens, but they might not be in the picture either. This is something I’m still mulling over, and don’t have much more to say about it at this time.
2) They really don’t like being told that a space isn’t theirs. They don’t want the feminine gaze to be out of their reach. They see feminine gaze works gaining notice and prestige and critical acclaim, and they want in.
This had me thinking about something I’ve noticed in film. Every time a feminine (or queer) gaze film gains critical acclaim, there is almost IMMEDIATELY a rush by white cis male filmmakers to capitalize on that success.
And it’s exhausting. In Joey’s speech, they say this:
Sometimes the first gasp of this re-centering of ourselves is a kind of paralysis when it occurs to us how we have been groomed to stay quiet simply by having TAKEN IN all of this work, all of our lives of consuming such an overwhelming amount of cis male artists splashing in their privilege, by telling their stories which work like propaganda that suggest how we should act, for access to their attention.
And how that stops us from gathering our own attention on ourselves. Like, I wish I could put into film the feeling of being eleven years old, to look around the classroom. Walls lined with presidents, looking around the ceiling of the whole damn room -- ALL of them men? And to think, I’m going to be the first woman president, and then on that very same day, same body, walking home listening to Rod Stewart, because he was my favorite, singing along to Tonight’s the night. Thinking I’m going to be president and then singing “Don’t say a word my virgin child / Just let your inhibitions run wild / The secret is about to unfold / Upstairs because the night’s too oldTonight’s the night? Gonna be alright / Cuz I love ya babe / Ain’t nobody gonna stop us now.”
Singing along to a pedophile grooming an underage girl to have sex with him. When I sang along, was I Rod or the virgin child? It didn’t matter: my presidential power dreams got lost throughout all of my adolescence, or had to do extreme high jumps throughout my life, dreams of power getting lost in being sister golden hair sublime, sugar magnolia, being the lady in red, your body is a wonderland, you look wonderful tonight, you do, you look so wonderful night.
I can’t even listen to the radio anymore, I mean, it’s a problem. This Female Gaze is a political platform, it means we start to call out how awful it is to be offered access in exchange for succeeding at being seen.
We are so tangled up in the male gaze, that one or two or three or four or a dozen, or fucking one hundred feminine gaze stories ISN’T GOING TO BE ENOUGH.
So when I see a feminine gaze film like Portrait of a Lady on Fire gain critical acclaim, I applaud and I’m excited and I want more.
But then...
Inevitably...
A shithead like Casey Affleck produces and stars in The World to Come, a tale about two women who fall in love on the frontier, adapted from a short story written by Jim Shepherd (if you couldn’t guess by the name, spoiler: he’s an old white guy).
and...I’M SUSPICIOUS.
I haven’t seen the film. And I’m not saying men can’t make films that center women, or women loving women. They can, and they obviously have all the resources to (so don’t come at me about cancel culture or gatekeeping), but...
I’M SUSPICIOUS
and furthermore....
I’m just not that interested. I’m not interested in what Casey Affleck or Jim Shepherd have to say about the experience of being a woman who has lost a child, or is struggling with her marriage, or with material comforts, or is falling in love with another woman.
I’m interested in what women have to say about those experiences. I’m a woman who has experienced those things. I don’t need, nor do I trust a dude to tell me what that feels like.
Which brings me to my final thought.
I want to be submerged in the feminine gaze.
I want to consume media created by feminine artists for feminine viewers. It’s what inspires me. It’s what makes me curious. It’s what I want more of.
