The Ultimate Controlling Gaze

“Sealed into that crushing object-hood  I turned beseechingly to others. Their attention was a liberation, running over my body suddenly abraded into non-being  endowing me once more with an agility that I had thought lost, and by taking me out of the world, restoring me to it. But just as I reached the other side, I stumbled, and the movements, the attitudes, the glances of the other fixed me there, in the sense in which a chemical solution is fixed by a dye. I was indignant; I demanded an explanation. Nothing happened. I burst apart. Now the fragment have been put together again by another self.’’  (Fanon , 1952, p.129)

Fanon spoke of being seen as a process in which the other person chooses or creates his own image of what he sees.Thus our image we have of ourselves is broken, replaced, and fully dependent by the look of the other. He/ she in combination with his or her morals, judgments, biases and prejudices forms the image and at the same time, the label they have given of what they “see”. In this sense the “look” has control and is capable of labeling you.

If the look has the ability to do all of this as Fanon says, it’s interesting  the feeling you get when you see images of Jesus Christ.

In my opinion his gaze seems to have the ultimate power and control. As if at this particular moment he is gazing into your soul and is making his judgement. Have a look for yourself.......