The Oppositional Gaze
The article Oppositional Gaze by Bell Hooks emphasizes on the psychological and sociological effects of white supremacy on framing, racism and feminism. The author has constructed the article in order to explain how the black women’s experience is not revealed or fairly represented in cinema. You can understand a cultures primary and principle ideologies by understanding the funding of the economy, the politics and art. The United States is a capitalistic country where distributions of wealth are divided by the rich and the poor (majority whites and minority blacks). Politics in the United States of America is labeled as a ‘democracy’, but it is truly a country build on slavery, mass production of labor/natural resources and white supremacy. This accounts to the ideologies constructed throughout American history that have influenced the perspective of Americans regarding success, race, and gender. From the perspective of a black American women, Bell Hooks uses her experience and film (a form of art that projects experience) to argue that the Black Women in America is repressed and not being represented in film because she is the complete opposite of a cisgender white male allegedly making the black women and her experiences inferior.
In the beginning of the article Oppositional Gaze, Hooks defines the Oppositional Gaze theory as a form of oppression, a taboo especially for southerners in America. To gaze or to look at a person’s eyes is statement of equality, power and awareness. She described the black persons experience to look at the white person on film especially before integration as a form of gazing. Film gives the black community an opportunity to see white people express their eurocentrism on screen. Through film the African American visually observes the interaction of white people as a collective. Film is also a form of inviting a large audience into the living room of white homes without being ridiculed or hung for looking at a white person “where in black men were being murdered/lynched for looking at white women hood, where the male gaze was always subject to control and/or punishment by the powerful white man” (p118) white supremacy is seen in early films to defend racism by depicting black men as a sexually driven savage as seen in the film Birth of a Nation, the white men is the hero protecting the innocent white women. Interesting enough through colonial history European men are known to have rapped enslaved women for centuries. Whether or not the men were married they kept the black women as concubines. The enslaved women would give birth to children of mixed race also known as mulatto, mestizo and creole. The white man take history and erases it to continue to oppress ethnicities of non-European decent. The film writer and director Oscar Micheaux’s emphasized on the racism and experience of a black people in his 1920thfilm Within Our Gates, Micheaux addressed the issue of white sexual abuse in a toward black women in America. Micheaux used the art of film to tell the story of African American through the lens of an African American as supposed to a white person playing black face and framing the black experience. Micheaux’s film was a representation of taking power as so did the gaze.
Hooks mentions in the article that black women have mixed feelings about cinema. A few women she spoke with mentioned being excited about race movies. Why is that? From my understanding of the article Hooks argues that black women are not being represented properly or enough. Films sharing perspectives of the minority groups is either sharing black male or white women lens. White women represented as ideal beauty of America. The framing of the white American experience in films is portrayed to be happy, healthy and wealthy. Black women spectators negate the oppression of the black women’s experience in film in order to enjoy the film because “From ‘Jump’ black female spectators have gone to films with awareness of the way in which race and racism determined the visual construction of gender” (122) black women are not being represented in sufficiently and it’s a expectation to watch a film and not have a black women play the leading role or share the experience of black women in America, not being able to relate with the white women hood or black male hood. Also considering black women are not populated in the film industry therefore not having their stories properly distributed. For example, Tyler Perry is a black male director and actor that attempts to entertain by illustrating the life of Black Americans in comedy. He throughs on suit and a wig to play the role of and angry black women. He is unable to represent for the black women because he hasn’t experienced the reality of a black women. His gestures of wearing a custom and playing the role of Medea is a term I call “women face” when a man dresses up as a woman to perform as an act of entertainment.
America is a patriarchal Eurocentric nation that for centuries has used racism and sexism to keep minorities oppressed. Racism can be manifested psychologically by internalizing the concepts formulated by the oppression of society. This affects the black community by manifesting in ideals, self-portrait, films and in mass media. There used to be a brown paper bag test to determine if a woman was worthy of being beautiful or presented on media, film, nightclubs and even musical entertainment. European features are depicted a beautiful, advertisements focus on the white image as successful, intelligent and wealthy. The way a black women perceives herself as beautiful shouldn’t be because mass media advertises or frames the ideal beautiful ‘American Girl’ but because it is taught at home that the color of her skin glisten from the rays of the sun and that every pattern and shape of her hair is as unique as her personality. This article argues that black women are not being represented enough of film. My thoughts go to a time when one of my favorite writers, a black female said “I was debating with myself if I should put a picture of myself on the cover of my book because I didn’t know if it would sell” Here is a confident intelligent women ready to share her knowledge with the world but also very aware of her image and what it represents. Not only are black women being misrepresented in films but in all fields. Considering how stigmatized they are in society, being depicted as ‘welfare queens’ and ‘single baby moms’ although there are black successful women that are bypassed and seen as counter memory.
During the black negro movement newspapers sought to inform the nationwide political and social circumstances. This is a symbolic movement as African Americans refrained from the oppressor, gazing right in their eyes and taking their power back and demanding to be equal. Women were heavily involved in producing alternative news in places like Mississippi. The increased activity of black women helped promote a more humanistic perspective in the press. The decrease of black press was led by integration because it offered black people opportunities in radio, publications and television. Ida B. Wells is a great example of a women fighting for representation for the black community and women’s rights for social and political justice. She fought for what she believed in by participating in the Black Women’s Club Movement. Unfortunately, just because she was black it didn’t mean she was fully accepted by all people of color; Black ministers had an issue with her because she was a woman despite her courage, intellect and relatable story to many other African Americans. She continued to fight for women’s rights by joining the suffrage movement in Illinois. I am thankful for the courageous black women that came before me and paved the way for women of color. Social ethics are continuously being questioned because there is always room for change and progress. Social change also comes with understanding diversity and having multiple people of different heritage, gender, race and sexual orientation, show up at the table, look in each others’ eyes and have an intellectual conversation for everyone to be represented accordingly.
Citation:
Hooks, B. (2001). The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators. Reading Images, 115–131. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-08886-4_12