Even though the term has been somewhat bastardized into “sexual objectification” in general, “the male gaze” originally specificallt describes the trope of straight male cinematographers/directors literally framing camera shots differently for women.
The whole point is that the director (traditionally always a man in mainstream movies) views the character/actress as an object of sexual desire, and the camera - and by extension the audience - sees the woman through that lens. Literally forcing the audience to gaze from a straight male POV. This is an inherently sexist and heteronormative, usually subconscious process.
Now I do enjoy seeing Henry Cavill shirtless in a bathtub, but that’s not the (fe)male gaze because the director wasn’t imposing their personal bias, they were making a conscious statement. It’s objectifying fan-service but not sexist nor heteronormative.
I suppose you could argue that the female gaze does exist in media where the authors are overwhelmingly female, such as the boylove genre. But that doesn’t apply here because Shen’s character here is literally a presumed straight man.
I think you might have meant to reply to the person who replied to me, but my first thought for what would appeal to the female gaze is binging with babish: the forearms, the cooking, and the way he talks seem like things that would work for a broad stroke of heterosexual women (though it’s not actually an example, as it’s not shot by a woman).
Things like Henry Caville in a bath are fan service, not the male gaze nor the female gaze, but things like rob liefeld comics draw men through the male gaze (the origin might have been only for the depiction of women, but just as the original description of the male gaze expanded on Sartres concept of the gaze, idea of the male gaze has been more fully developed and applied to the perception of men). Things like muscles so big there’s no chance they can reach any part of their own back fall into this.
As for the female gaze itself, yeah, I’ve read fanfiction wherein male body parts are basically directly mapped to female ones (presumably because the author is not familiar with men’s bodies). I think it would be a lot harder for me to recognize a subtler variant of it though, as I’m a woman. I wish there were a large enough body of work for the female gaze to be explored in more depth.
I get what you’re saying but what I’m trying to get across is that “sexy” and “objectifying” are distinct from “gaze”. It’s about the translation of the author’s desire into the framing of the scene. I doubt that Babish is attracted to himself in that way, he just framed it in a way that makes sense with the constraint of not wanting to show his face.
It’s semantics, if you want to use objectification and “male/female gaze” interchangeably that’s fine (though I’d prefer not to use a gendered term if we’re talking about a phenomenon that’s not inherently gendered).
But Shen used “female gaze” correctly in the original sense of the phrase here so I don’t see why people are getting mad that he didn’t objectify the guy as well, it’s obviously not a comic that’s meant to be read as “female objectification is cool”.
Straight men view other men through a lens of heterosexuality, and that is part of what is currently understood as the male gaze. I don’t see where shen used “female gaze,” but alright.
Even though the term has been somewhat bastardized into “sexual objectification” in general, “the male gaze” originally specificallt describes the trope of straight male cinematographers/directors literally framing camera shots differently for women.
The whole point is that the director (traditionally always a man in mainstream movies) views the character/actress as an object of sexual desire, and the camera - and by extension the audience - sees the woman through that lens. Literally forcing the audience to gaze from a straight male POV. This is an inherently sexist and heteronormative, usually subconscious process.
Now I do enjoy seeing Henry Cavill shirtless in a bathtub, but that’s not the (fe)male gaze because the director wasn’t imposing their personal bias, they were making a conscious statement. It’s objectifying fan-service but not sexist nor heteronormative.
I suppose you could argue that the female gaze does exist in media where the authors are overwhelmingly female, such as the boylove genre. But that doesn’t apply here because Shen’s character here is literally a presumed straight man.
I think you might have meant to reply to the person who replied to me, but my first thought for what would appeal to the female gaze is binging with babish: the forearms, the cooking, and the way he talks seem like things that would work for a broad stroke of heterosexual women (though it’s not actually an example, as it’s not shot by a woman).
Things like Henry Caville in a bath are fan service, not the male gaze nor the female gaze, but things like rob liefeld comics draw men through the male gaze (the origin might have been only for the depiction of women, but just as the original description of the male gaze expanded on Sartres concept of the gaze, idea of the male gaze has been more fully developed and applied to the perception of men). Things like muscles so big there’s no chance they can reach any part of their own back fall into this.
As for the female gaze itself, yeah, I’ve read fanfiction wherein male body parts are basically directly mapped to female ones (presumably because the author is not familiar with men’s bodies). I think it would be a lot harder for me to recognize a subtler variant of it though, as I’m a woman. I wish there were a large enough body of work for the female gaze to be explored in more depth.
I get what you’re saying but what I’m trying to get across is that “sexy” and “objectifying” are distinct from “gaze”. It’s about the translation of the author’s desire into the framing of the scene. I doubt that Babish is attracted to himself in that way, he just framed it in a way that makes sense with the constraint of not wanting to show his face.
It’s semantics, if you want to use objectification and “male/female gaze” interchangeably that’s fine (though I’d prefer not to use a gendered term if we’re talking about a phenomenon that’s not inherently gendered).
But Shen used “female gaze” correctly in the original sense of the phrase here so I don’t see why people are getting mad that he didn’t objectify the guy as well, it’s obviously not a comic that’s meant to be read as “female objectification is cool”.
Straight men view other men through a lens of heterosexuality, and that is part of what is currently understood as the male gaze. I don’t see where shen used “female gaze,” but alright.