Art 411 Theory and Methods

  This week in Art Theory and Methods, we read “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female  Spectators” by bell hooks, which details and explains the “oppositional gaze”, what that  means and explains how black women are represented and  treated in the media, and how  that affects how black women are able to enjoy or criticize  media. During slavery, white slaveowners would punish black people for looking, whether  back at them or in a way that they perceived was defiant and disobedient. Hooks ties  this into how as children, we are told not to look back defiantly at our parents, and not  to glare or give them a mean look, but when we are punished we are told to look at  them when they are speaking. The oppositional gaze is the defiant gaze, the gaze that  refuses to stay silent, the gaze that looks at the tormentor head on as a way of saying,  “not only will I stare, I want my look to change reality.”(1). Resistance is crucial for ch...

  This week in Art Theory and Methods, we read Laura Mulvey’s, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”  Within this article, Mulvey explains scopophilia, “the love of looking”, and explains how that has impacted  and shaped the way that people look and interpret films, the theater world, and hollywood itself.  Scopophilia translates to literally “the love of looking”, but in this context is referring to the cisgender  heteronormative white male gaze and how thats shaped the ways movies are made and produced. Within  cinema, especially towards the earlier years of film making, the women in films are always in a passive,  subordinate role, while the male characters are always in the lead role. The women are made to be objects  and made to be things to look at rather than people with their own minds, thoughts, ideas, and desires.  One point that I found rather interesting about this weeks discussion and reading was how people self  project ...