Seminar 3: The Gaze

Extra diegetic gaze - we are being addressed directly by the subject although she is in quite a provocative position so we may experience a feeling of guilt. Not me.

 

Intra-diegetic gaze - we are looking at one subject looking at another.

Suture - we are looking at the subject through the perspective of someone who's laying next to her. She appears relaxed in our company so we do not experience a feeling of guilt.

Scopophilia - the pleasure of looking at others bodies as objects. Like cheeky little bunny rabbits for example.

Looking at these different forms of the gaze was interesting in that it made tangible the connotations and feelings that are evoked each time we see an image, but are rarely conciously aware of. Such a high exposure to imagery in the media means that, after time, the emotions we feel towards each image become so ingrained that they become a natural response. This autonomy lessens our awareness of these emotions. Therefore, the lecture helped us to take a step back from the image and realise what it is that makes us feel a certain way. Especially beneficial for our understanding of art direction, which so often seems that it can't really be taught.

It's clear that from my selection of images, most types of gaze are evident in fashion and fragrence photography. 'The gaze' is not to be confused however with 'male gaze' which is shown in my choice of images. Although they link, the gaze as a concept can be related to any image. For example, the clearest example of where suture is used is in the comedy series Peep Show (below).

Peep Show - filmed entirely through suture gaze

Although there are different types of gaze, that is not to say that only one type is visible in any given image. They can overlap. I scoured through http://www.genderads.com/Gender_Ads.com.html for ages trying to find images that most coherently showed only a single type of gaze. To me, extra-diegetic and suture forms of gaze both seem pretty much the same, the only separation being a feeling of guilt which I still find a bit ambiguous. Also, if referring to the 'male gaze', I think the different names for ways of looking merely rename what we already have words for e.g.  extra-diegetic = perving, intra-diegetic = voyeurism, scopophila = fantasising.

One of the most interesting points I heard about ways of seeing is the idea that,"men look at women, whereas women look at themselves being looked at". I had never considered this outlook and discussing this with a couple of girls, after a bit of 'umm'ing and 'ahh'ing, they reluctantly agreed that there is an element of truth in it. This lecture will definately help me as an advertising creative to understand one way of portraying 'emotion' in advertising, but the idea of how women look at men is more relevant as a whole to advertising. Our industry strives to understand what people should really see when they see things. When you look at an Audi, you don't imagine yourself driving it, you imagine people looking at you driving it.