VISUAL EROTICIZATION AND BEAUTIFICATION. YASMIN AKIM, BA PHOTOGRAPHY, UAL.
The Political Configuration of the Female. Visual Eroticization and Beautification of the female body is a result of patriarchy and a false sense of ownership of ‘the other’, the visual representations of women are commoditised within popular culture and public discourse. ‘In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active male and passive female.’ The male gaze projects its phantasy of possession.
The female form exudes pleasurable desire at a superficial level as women are presented as something to be obtained, which in due course, establishes the need to compete in the name of desire. ‘The scopophilic instinct (pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic object), and, in contradistinction, ego libido (forming identification processes) act as formations, mechanisms which the cinema has played on. The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man takes the argument a step further into the structure of representation, adding a further demanded
DISCOURSE: THE POWER OF LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION. // 49
