In Search of the Spiritual: 11:30

I was on a roof today in the winter wind and rain assisting in the thatching of a ridge, (that’s labouring to you and me). It was almost break-time and somewhere below over the scaffolding and through the glass roof of the kitchen the owner, her mother-in-law and a third woman carried out whatever it was they were doing. A thought occurred to me; I thought about Sturken and Cartwright’s discourse on the diet Coke ad and wondered if their reading of the objectifying gaze could be determined differently.

Was the man in the ad, the construction worker refusing to acknowledge the women’s gaze as Sturken and Cartwright posit? Maybe he’s conveying exhibitionism, highlighting the pleasure of being look at but maybe he is unaware of the women’s gaze. As Sturken and Cartwright set out a broad array of gazes can be determined but this one which seems to be a counter-balance to their reading seems to have been overlooked.

In a similar vein to Jefferies neighbours in Rear Window (1954) could it be said that the construction worker is not aware that his audience of female office workers exists? This viewpoint is held in regards to the film when the gaze is deemed male and voyeuristic but is it the case in the diet Coke ad?

Rear Window as Sturken and Cartwright highlight has been deemed an ideal example of the male gaze in relationship to the objectification of women as objects of visual pleasure and this concept has been reversed with a sense of humour in the diet Coke ad but what of the authors’ notion of the male gaze being deflected thus refusing to acknowledge the women’s looks? Could it not be possible that rather than deflecting their gaze, he is unaware of their looks? Maybe the women are conveying a voyeuristic gaze, a pleasure in looking while not being seen. Maybe the glass of their office building is reflective like many in American cities? Rather than looking into the mirror, what Berger defines as an object by which women use in treating themselves, first and foremost as a sight, the women, it could be said are looking through it, through the looking-glass.

This gaze, the male gaze even from the women’s perspective is deemed not that powerful. Power, as Sturken and Cartwright suggests is gained through looking but like Jefferies the women’s gaze is deprived strength because of their confinement behind glass, a restricted field of vision and one that is very much like the television screen of the viewer. Although the camera’s gaze frees up this limited perspective. As Sturken and Cartwright posit male looking even from a women’s perspective is limited.

The gaze has often been discussed in reference to the history of art and the diet Coke ad reflects these discussions as highlighted by Berger’s ideas but does the appropriation of the male gaze to the view point of women make this a female gaze or is it simply a male gaze from a woman’s perspective? Do women leer at men the same way as men leer at women? Does this reinforce Berger’s notion of the male gaze forming part of the female gaze, the surveyor and the surveyed and if the ad was made for the female gaze would the body not be on full display to the women, the ideal viewer? Does this imply that the man cannot be owned in a way that the female nude of painting can be because instead of the upper body facing the viewer he faces away? His position in the frame it could be said thus reinforces Sturken and Cartwright’s notion of the deflected gaze.

Anyway its 11:30 so time for a cup of tea and a banana but I wont be taking my top off, it’s far to cold for that.