Masculinity in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

In the movie Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, the traditional views on gender roles are broken by almost all main characters. Let's focus first on the main character: Newt Scamander, a Hufflepuff wizard from England. There is a big difference between him and Harry Potter, the hero in the earlier books by J.K. Rowling, and subsequent films, about the wizarding world. Part of this difference can be explained by age, era or surroundings, but part of it is because of a shift in how a male hero behaves. Part of the plot is that Newt comes to New York with a case full of magical creatures, one of which he is intending to set free in its homeland. Through a series of events (part of which has to do with the fact that our hero is rather clumsy) some of them escape, and Newt and his newfound wizard and no-maj (non-wizard) friends set upon a quest to find them back. The way that Newt is portrayed is not traditionally masculine. First of all, he is a caretaker; he tears up when a young creature hatches out of its egg, he is shown to be very gentle with his creatures, and when his beasts are upset, he says 'Don't worry, Mum's here', affirming that the caretaking role is coded to be feminine. When his mind gets read, he reacts with a polite request to stop, rather than lashing out. And in the interrogation scene he looks away almost the entire time: he does not display anger, the usual reaction men are shown to have when they are put in a vulnerable situation. Secondly, while he has a (beginning of) a romance with one of the female characters, he doesn't 'conquer' her. His heroics have nothing to do with wanting to win her love, and she is not there to be his damsel in distress or sidekick; she is in distress sometimes and then he saves her, but the opposite is also true. She is a rounded character with her own motivations and reasoning. A third main character, the baker Jacob Kowalski, is also not put in a traditionally male heroic role. He is not very intelligent, he is not very suave, and his heroics mainly come from his heart. That is the overarching theme of this movie: the heroes are heroes because they care. They appeal to emotion when they try to save the creatures, not only to reason. Their friendship makes them work together and eventually save the day. Two more things are worth mentioning: the leader of the Magical Congress of the United States (MACUSA) is a black woman, who wears traditional clothing and is very much respected throughout the movie. She is depicted as a fair leader who makes rational decisions; she does not follow the myth about black women as being overemotional. The only sad thing about the movie, which was already decided in the source text, is that the villain, Grindelwald, who emotionally abuses a receptive young man in a way that could be read as seductive, is coded as queer. This perpetuates the myth of the evil homosexual, and I really wish this would not be the case.

Female Sexuality in Cinema

2016 was, according to the British newspaper The Guardian, a game-changing year for the portrayal of female sexuality. See: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/dec/20/female-sexuality-women-sex-insecure-elle-jane-the-virgin

Castration anxiety in 'Sacrilege'

As a music fanatic, so to say, I was thinking about music videos in which the ‘gaze’ was particularly remarkable. The first one that came to mind is one of my favourites, ‘Sacrilege’ by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Artistically, the video reminds me a lot of the film Memento (2000), since the video is reversed, with very small parts in chronological order. What I like about it, is that the video leaves plenty of room for interpretation, because of the way it is filmed and this has a lot to do with the ‘look’. The visual story, in chronological order, can be seen in two ways.

In short, it opens (so in the video it ends) with a wedding, where a couple is being married by a priest. This is followed by  images suggesting that the bride sleeps with basically the rest (mostly men) of the town. The last person she sleeps with is the priest that married her and her husband and they are caught by the other villagers. The villagers literally hunt them down, put a mask on the priests face and in the end of the story they burn them at the stake while the villagers watch. Optically, this can be compared with the way they look at her at the wedding. The ambiguous thing about it is though, you don’t know if the woman actually slept with all the villagers or if they only desired to sleep with her. This is somehow suggested by the way they look at her at the wedding, as if they are fantasizing. The moral of the story, of course, is about hypocrisy, because all the villagers punished them by killing them, even though they all wanted to sleep with her, a married woman (whether or not they actually did it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmRI3Ew4BvA&spfreload=5

Throughout the video everyone keeps looking at the married woman and as the spectator, you are forced to follow this gaze. The gaze which is full of objectification. Especially the way the villagers look at the wedding shows that, like Fanon said, this look is not neutral at all. It fixes the woman right away. It is clear from the video that this look is not aimed at either her husband or the priest she cheats with and it is all about the male fantasy. The voyeurism basically comes back to the three main events: the villagers looking at the woman at the wedding, the villagers looking at the woman while having sex with the priest and the villagers looking at the woman getting burnt.

Lastly, in a stream of consciousness, I wondered what masculinity could have to do with this scenario. I immediately thought of what Mulvey describes as the sadistic strategy of dealing with castration anxiety, in which she uses Rear Window as an example. Specifically:

 “Jeffries is the audience, the events in the apartment block opposite correspond to the screen. As he watches, an erotic dimension is added to his look, a central image to the drama. His girlfriend Lisa had been of little sexual interest to him, more or less a drag, so long as she remained on the spectator side. When she crosses the barrier between his room and the block opposite, their relationship is re-born erotically.”

Lisa going to ‘the other side of the screen’ and being punished could be compared to the woman in the video getting married, where there is a voyeuristic female body, but no castration anxiety. Meaning, as the woman gets married, she becomes a sexual object that is controlled or tamed/punished.   

King David and Bathsheba

The Bible story of King David and Bathsheba is a story in which two of the most common human feelings play a role: jealousy and lust. The story goes as follows. Bathsheba, a beautiful woman, is married to Uriah, an army general. One day, Bathsheba was bathing in the palace gardens. David spotted her and was overwhelmed by her beauty. He could not control himself and seduced and impregnated her. To cover up for his, he decided to put Uriah on an unprotected position in the war fields so it was certain he would die. After Uriah died, he married Bathsheba and became the father of her child. 

Of this story, many paintings have been made. They can be divided into three categories: paintings in which Batsheba is the central figure and David is nowhere to be seen, paintings in which Batsheba is the central figure but David can be seen staring at her in the background and paintings in which David is the central figure. 

Sebastiano Ricci, Batsheba and her bath, 1725 - no David to be seen

Unknown painter - David is the central figure here

In the paintings in which Bathsheba is the central figure, she is always either completely or partially naked. When David is in the painting looking at Bathsheba, Bathsheba is not aware of that. Despite the fact that she looks at us, the spectators, in some paintings, she also does not seem to be aware of us looking at her. This goes against the theory of Berger, who argues that naked women in paintings are always aware of being looked at. 

Berger also argues that paintings of naked women are there to please the spectator. It is not about the sexuality of the portrayed women, but about the needs of the male spectator. However, in most of the paintings of Bathsheba, she comes across as a women who is very confident about her own body - she is not ashamed of being naked.  Especially the painting Rembrandt created of Bathsheba gives the spectator this impression.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The toilet of Batsheba, 1643

Berger argues that there is one category in which paintings of nude women are unable to please the spectator - that is when there is a special bond between painter and object. The love between them is so strong, the spectator is completely placed outside of that. That is what happens in another painting of this story by Rembrandt, for which he very likely used his wife Hendrikje Stoffels as a model. It is an intimate painting, portraying only Bathsheba and one servant. This painting is erotical in no way - Bathsheba is beautiful, but clearly not available to please a man and his sexual desires.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Bathsheba at her Bath, 1654

South Korean advertisements

The emergence of the K-Pop industry in South-Korea has led to some drastic changes in terms of outer appearances of men. Over time, South-Korea - and other Asian countries – have redefined masculinity. Whereas in Western countries, such as the United States, the stereotypical men feel the need to come across as tough and muscular, Asian masculinity differs from the Western. Male K-Pop stars aren’t reluctant to behave in awkward or silly ways, and are less harder to understand because of their emotional state of mind. This mental attitude makes the fans feel more related to the male figures,and thus they feel stronger connected to the stars.

Another way in which Asian men try to stand out, is with their polished outer appearances. If anything, Asia has become known for it’s people who value flawless skin. Thus, the usage of skincare products is of great importance. The new form of masculinity attracts lots of female fans, and the skin-care industry has taken quite some advantages of it because they know it sells.

In this picture, which is taken in a shopping district in Seoul, known for the large amount of make-up selling stores, there are men depicted, promoting products such as skin-care products and make up, in the advertisements above the entrances. With these advertisements I would like to address the statement made by Dyer, who claimed that the male image must show activity in the way the body is posed. The male body, according to Dyer, is supposed to carry out the emphasis of masculinity, and should be prepared for action. Muscles, a symbol of power, are shown, too. However, in the picture above, all of the models struck a pose that is quite passive and not too dominant. Another statement made by Dyer is the claim in which he believes that muscles represent beauty and power. However, several Korean men have stated that they have been noticed more ever since they started to slightly change both their outer appearances as well as their inner appearances in a way that is not stereotypical masculine. Hence my opinion is that Dyers statements can be disproven.

How does the gaze affect young people? A small discussion of Little Miss Sunshine

In this blogpost I would like to talk about how the gaze affects young people, in this case  young girls. I will be doing this by discussing  one of my favourite films: Little Miss Sunshine (2006). I think this is very relevant as it gives insight in how norms about gender and beauty are imposed on young people.

In the opening scene, we see Olive (played by Abigail Breslin), a very ordinary girl, watching TV. She is watching a beauty-pageant show. Through the reflection of her glasses we see miss Louisiana winning the race. Olive rewinds the show, imagines she is the one who won the race and mimics the contestants’ reactions. The movie then tells the story of how Olive and her family are making a road-trip so she can participate in a beauty-pageant contest called Little Miss Sunshine.

I think this is a very strong opening shot which tells us a lot about Olive and the way we learn about social norms. Though the lenses of her glasses (see first picture) she can now clearly see what she wants to become. In the close up of her eyes we see that she wants to see Miss Louisiana in herself. To the viewer it is clear that Olive can never win the race because she does not look like the other girls, who are all very skinny, wear a lot of makeup and basically look like Barbie dolls. Olive however is not aware of this, she just wants to participate because the race looks like fun. She is full of dreams.

During a few different moments in the movie, Olive is confronted with the fact that she likes food a lot and is a bit chubby. She realizes that this makes her very different from the other girls. One time when she is alone in a room full of mirrors, she looks at herself from all sides and tries to suck in her belly.  I would argue that at this moment, Olive us beginning to be subjected to the male gaze. She is alone in the room, the camera is the only spectator. She slowly becomes  aware of the idea that other people should derive pleasure from looking at her, especially when being a pageant. Thus she starts to objectify herself. This puts her in a very vulnerable position. Whereas in the beginning of the movie Olive seemed okay with who she was and saw no obstacles in participating in the race, she is now becoming aware of the fact that she might not look conventionally beautiful  and starts to doubt her looks and ability to do well in the contest.

“And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.” This quote by Berger in Ways of Seeing fits well with the scene. Who Olive is as a person, now depends on how other people see her. Next to being aware of who she is, she also has to be aware of how others perceive her, as that will become part of her identity too. 

Pleasure for the Female Spectator

There's a genre of manga, Japanese comics, that is designed just for the female audience called Boys Love. Even though its designed for female audience, its main theme is love story but of two men. This genre is so famous that every bookstore in Japan has special section.

But why is it that women enjoy watching romance between two men?

According to Doane, while watching Hollywood films, women are forced to masquerade separation between the cause of desire and self. She either have to 1) forget that they are women and look through male gaze, or 2) identify with women and enjoy a masochistic pleasure of being powerless and punished. 

While watching heterosexual romance, women are never free of the gaze of their own. Women are expected to take the gaze of the female character who carries the same burden and expectation as in the real life, to be passive, loving, and beautiful to be the appropriate object of men's love. 

However, through BL, women are free from this expectation and free to take any gaze that she desires. Because there are no female protagonist in the BL manga, she is free to take any gaze, without losing her identity as a women or feeling guilty of enjoying masochistic pleasure.  The reader can be dominating, aggressive, sexually assertive, masochistic, etc, without losing her identity as women. 

There's much more to say about the complexity of BL but I recommend you to take a look first and let me know what you think. :)

Lesbian Sex in Film

Even though it is great that the LGBTQ+ community is overall more represented on television and in media than say a decade ago, I think there still is lots of room for improvement.

According to GLAAD (a non-profit media monitoring organization for the LGBTQ+ community), gay men make up 46% of the LGBTQ+ representation in the media, whereas the percentage of lesbian characters is only 30%. And if lesbian characters are included in TV shows and movies, they are often stereotypical lipstick lesbians. The character is feminine, attractive and sexualized. Additionally she often engages—though she is not bisexual—in a sexual relationship with men. I would argue, that even if lesbians are portrayed in TV and film, they are created through the male gaze. Especially lesbian sex scenes seem to me to be heavily subjected to the point of views of men.

The movie “Blue is the Warmest Color” for example, shows a more casual sex scene between main character Adèle and a boy—in which Adèle seems rather bored and uninterested.

A later sex scene between Adèle and Emma (the other primary character) however, is portrayed as mystical and as something “pure”. Lesbian sex is depicted as all-consuming, far from being casual.

A comment by Julie Maroh* on the film was: “All I could think as I watched the scenes was that there were not two people fucking because they were desperately, even harmfully, in love. It looked like two women fucking in a way that would be stimulating to a viewer with little expectation for queer intercourse.” Many have referred to the film as borderline pornographic and prioritizing the male gaze. Then again, the film’s director is a man.

The same theme is visible in movies such as “Carol” and “Black Swan”. Unlike “Blue is the Warmest Color”--where Emma is not what would generally be considered a “femme” lesbian-- in these two movies both women are more stereotypically feminine, but the sexual scenes share what I think is the portrayal of lesbianism through the eyes of a man.  

(I cannot include any clips of the films as they often are considered pornographic, and therefore deleted from platforms like YouTube)

I think that this portrayal of lesbianism in TV shows and films is damaging for lesbians as their intimacy is then claimed for men’s pleasure.

* Julie Maroh is a writer and illustrator of graphic novels, including “Blue Angel”, the graphic novel the film “Blue is the Warmest Color” was based on.

UnConfined

“To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men.” Berger, 46

I spent most of my free time into underground music, wether it be researching or going to hear it live.  

Since I can remember I have been interested in females in hip hop, more specifically I am interested in the new, up-and-coming artists. Although my respect for Lauren Hill, Queen Latifah and Salt ’n’ Pepa are undeniable, I seek and am constantly looking for the new, trying to understand and live my times the best I can. 

Lately music has seen an interesting increase in women empowerment through music, although it is not a new phenomena (Aretha Franklin etc) there is an increase in explicitly, owning of their sexualities, desires, bodies and femininity through a mix of empowering vulnerability and strength. From more famous Beyonce’s Lemonade album, to many many underground women finding their way through the music world it is a growing phenomena. 

Princess Nokia

She is an outright feminist, her song ‘Tomboy’ places her at the center of the world, of the music, she narrates the video, she flashes her breasts, camera angles depict her as the boss of the situation.

She claims she is a tomboy, because society calls tomboys girls that act particular ways (the ways she is acting, and dressing in the video). Super man symbols of their underwear, unafraid to show it, superwomen. 

Her lyrics are strong, and play a lot with sexuality, she is proud about her little titties and her fat belly, they’re damn pretty. She is uncovered, she is empowering herself, reclaiming herself. The women are active, playing sports (football and skating), belly fat moving, smiling, female friendship and girl squads, yet still feminine and although with tomboy gestures, still appeal to using sexuality, as a tool of empowerment. 

Jamalia Woods

Similarly strong and empowering there is Blk Girl Soldier by Jamalia Woods, the song is filled with strong lyrics. 

We go missing by the hundreds

Ain't nobody checkin for us

They want us in kitchen

Kill our sons with lynchings

We get loud about it

Oh now we're the bitches

Look at what they did to my sisters

Last century last week

They put her body in a jar and forget her

They love how it repeats

Also in this video the camera angles, and way she is positioned in the frame of the music video is powerful, she is center, she is the leader, the guiding force behind her song, and next to her, little girls, again like Princess Nokia she uses symbols of females together joining forces, to empower each other.  

These two artists are just two examples of women that are breaking free from their confined space, from the keeping of a man. 

EXTRA: QT

QT is a more controversial and multi-layered artist. I think she is interesting to know and understand in the context of the class we are studying.

When she met male producer Sophie, she began working with him, in fact, he produces all her songs. She originally just wanted a song to market her QT energy drink, thus the song “Hey QT” repeats QT over and over again. 

QT is a virtual character, the concept of QT drew comparisons to Japanese pop star Hatsune Miku and 2002 film Simone. Her music and the drink are supposed to be two direct manifestations of the same product, the energy drink, they have both been described as “fizzy” and “energetic” 

She personally says she wants people to be able to talk about 'Hey QT' and have DrinkQT talk about 'Hey QT' and 'Hey QT' talk about DrinkQT.

Her music video, released in March 2015, depicts QT developing the DrinkQT, laboratory measures her emotional state, distills it and makes it into a drink formula. Of course, the reactions to this was very divided, many people responded with confusion or repulsion. 

Personally, I find her concept and music absolutely fascinating and to have been groundbreaking. I went to see her live, last November in a small venue. She is on stage, does not play any music, the dj behind her, Sophie makes all the music, she simply moves and dances, bringing music away from the sonar field and into a visual reality, where the dj and conceptual artist share unclear boundaries. 

She is a living hologram, fitting into the style of hyper-technological music of the 2015s, the video is hyper technological, somehow it is unsure whether you feel sexual attraction to her, she is a little numb, and part of the screen yet distant from reality, in a hyper reality world, but yet, like the other artists she is the guiding and active force of the scene, the music video and the live performance, little is known about the man behind her making the music, and full focus is on her, although, she is no longer, herself, she is only fiction. 

Rubin Vega on StyleLikeU

While I was busy watching youtube videos, as part of my process of procrastination, I suddenly came across a new video. It was a video of the channel StyleLikeU, one of my favourite channels I’ve been subscribed to for a long time.

The intention of this youtubechannel of this mother and daughter is to challenge existing ideas of what beauty should look like. One of the most popular segments of their channel is the ‘what’s underneath project’ in which people undress in front of the camera while telling their story.

When people are undressing in popular media, it is often seen through the male gaze. I’m interested in what the gaze of StyleLikeU looks like. I’ll do this on the basis of a video that I hadn’t watched yet, but really wanted to because an actress of the musical Rent is the person in this video.

Berger (1972) said: “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”

In this video, in the literal sense, it’s two women looking at one woman. However, to what extent do these women hold the male gaze?

In the video, there’s a small variety of changes of angles of the camera and there’s not much use of close-ups. The position of Rubin Vega stays more or less the same. She sits on a chair while she tells the story of her dealing with racism and ageism. While she undresses I don't see anything that's particularly sexualizing her body.

The makers of the video do sometimes say when Rubin has to remove a piece of clothing. Rubin is familiar with the format of the video but still this kind of feels like taking away a piece of her agency. Rubin is the one that’s telling her story but she has to listen and undress herself when she’s told to do so.

It’s interesting to see that Rubin undresses herself while talking about her own body and the way she altered it to ‘fit in’ more.

Does Rubin Vega see herself through the male gaze? Maybe, probably, I don’t really know.

I do know that the comment section is mostly interested in her body, even though Rubin Vega told a story that was very interesting.

All in all, I think the youtubechannel StyleLikeU is worth watching.

Julie

Looking, not just being looked at

In one of the texts we read during this course, a text by John Berger, there’s a passage that says:

“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”

While I agree that this is the case a lot of the time, especially when we look at movies or TV shows, I do believe that there are certain exceptions to this rule. The example that I chose for this blogpost occurred in an episode of the TV show Teen Wolf. In this episode one of the main characters, Lydia, has recently become single because her boyfriend left the country. Her way to get over the breakup was quite modern, and not one that is usually shown in a lot of forms of media: she had sex with an impressive amount of men during quite a short time.

Halfway through the episode you see her standing in the hallway with her best friend when the doors into the school open and a group of young men walk in. These men are supposed to be freshmen, so boys that are about 14 to 15 years old. But, like most TV shows and movies that portray teenagers, the actors themselves are mostly older than 20 and ridiculously ripped. Lydia appears to be quite happy about the ‘fresh meat’ that enters the building, and gives them a long (objectifying) look. While this look occurs, she does make sure that she looks good herself, but she’s mostly focused on picking out the guys she’s going to pursue. 

Lydia on the left with her best friend on the right, ogling the freshmen

The fact that Lydia is a woman and that she is looking goes against Bergers idea that women don’t just look at men. This might be because this is quite a modern show and the way they portrayed a young woman in this show is vastly different from the way they portrayed young women in shows and movies around the time Berger made these statements, which is in the seventies. I am positive that this is an improvement, as it breaks women out of their passive role of only being looked at and never looking themselves. 

Applying for a job

In this blogpost I will discuss some visual content that deals with a combination of orientalism and objectifying the female body. I chose two commercials from the same company to make the most honest and valuable comparison. I will discuss them briefly and will then talk about what I find problematic about it by linking my examples to what we discussed in class.

In both commercials the man and the woman are applying for jobs. We don't see them actually applying for it, but will follow them through their day waiting for response from their future employer. Their daily routines are supposed to be matching the job they are applying for. The guy is portrayed as an average dressed young white male that does not stand out in the street view, but is also portrayed as a very helpful person. As he is cycling through the city he waves at an older lady, then he notices someone’s backpack is open and let’s that person know. Then as he is locking his bicycle, he turns someone’s (bicycle’s) light off and holds the door for a woman with a stroller. The commercial ends with the text message from his future employer who confirms he gets the job.
The female counter video shows the daily activities of a young Asian woman that also applied for a job. She is dressed in clothes that do not match the rest of the people in the streets. For example, she wears two pony tails and a lot of pink which make her seem to be a young girl. The woman is on the phone during almost the whole length of the clip as she is also giving directions to the people she comes across in the streets. As a gesture of saying goodbye and saying thank you, she bows. The last person she runs into, seems to be someone familiar who she is surprising by closing her eyes from behind. As they are hugging and talking, she gets the text message that brings her the good news. She also gets the job. In one of the last shots, we see her at her new job behind her desk, bowing towards one of her colleagues.

There are two major issues that I’d like to point out here. In the first clip, the main message is that the man is suitable for the job because it matches his personality. However in the woman's clip, it is not only her friendliness and helpfulness that get her the job. Apparently it was necessary to make the girl extra interesting for her employer by using a stereotype for Asian women, that includes bowing down and being submissive. First of all this stereotype is harmful because it tends to enhance the biased view we, the West, have on Asia and Asian people.
Second of all, the maker of the video is objectifying her, by shifting the emphasis from her personality to her appearance, by dressing her extra prominently and different from the rest of the people.

So to conlude, I argue that according to these videos, when it comes to applying for jobs, women are not only judged from what they are capable of but also from the way they look. In contrast to men who are interesting enough for their abilities only.
Further more, the mocking of the Asian woman by using an offensive stereotype empowers the defensive view the western world has on other cultures.