OUGD501 Design Context: Study task 4 The Gaze

OUGD501
DESIGN CONTEXT
STUDY TASK 4
THE GAZE

In this essay I will analyse gender and the way in which females are represented in the media through the gaze. I will use extracts of Roslins Corwards ‘The Look’ to support my arguments.

For this task I looked at the perfume advert for Calvin Klein promoting the fragrance 'Secret Obsession'. Firstly the name of the perfume adds to the connotations of sexual desires and fantasies. The advert depicts a nude woman sprawled on a bed, with tousled messy hair. Although the primary purpose of this advert is to sell perfume to women it is important to remember that it was created in a male dominated profession. 'Men also create visual media, the film and television industries are dominated by men, as is the advertising industry. The photographic profession is no less a bastion of the values of male professionalism' In this sense the advert was created as an investigation of the women's body, a way of men circulating images of their ideal woman. Therefore the image was created by men, for their own benefit.

In the second photo the model is looking directly in to the camera 'Women in the flesh often feel embarrassed, irritated or downright angered by men's persistent gaze but not wanting to risk male attention turning to male aggression, women avert their eyes and hurry on their way. Those women on billboards, though; they look back. Those fantasy women stare off the walls with a look of urgent availability.' The advert is a clear example of this 'urgent availability' inviting the male audience to dip in to their sexual fantasies with this ideal woman.

The advert plays with the idea of sexual fantasies being greater than reality. 'Perhaps sex-at-a-distance is the only complete secure relation which men can have with a woman. Perhaps other forms of contact are too unsettling.' The image above is overtly sexual, the arch of the woman's back eventuate her curves and her ruffled hair makes her seem wild. The fact her eyes are closed add a voyeuristic nature to the image, creating an obsessive distancing of women, allowing the male audience to take sexual pleasure from looking at, rather than being close to a particular object of desire. It allows the male voyeur to feel in control, what ever is going on in the image the male can determine his own meaning for what he sees.

The way in which this advert appeals to females is to create an inferiority between the model and the female audience. 'Advertising in this society builds precisely on the creation of an anxiety to the effect that, unless we measure up, we will not be loved.' The advert makes the female audience feel inadequate, promoting the message that if the woman doesn't buy this product, they won't live up to the sexual fantasies of men.