Visual eroticization and beatification

Visual eroticization and beatification

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 by the ideology of the patriarchal order as it worked out in its favorite cinematic form – illusionistic narrative film. The argument turns again to the psychoanalytic background in that woman as representation signifies castration, inducing voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to circumvent her threat.’ (L. Mulvey, 1975, Pg. 7)

In a lecture based on psychoanalytic criticism, at Yale U.S.A (2009) Professor Paul Fry explores the work of Jacques Lacan in consideration of ego ideals that we are all attached to - ‘This symbolic ego ideal is something that is impossible to acquire, one recognises what one lacks, and so this takes a variety of phallocentric forms’. He compares Lacainian theory to L. Murvely, and how she states that the female object of desire is the spectators gaze itself, which as a social phenomenon, represents lack and the power that is attached to that desire.

the paradox of phallocentrism in all its manifestations is that it depends on the image of the castrated woman to give order and meaning to its world. An idea of women stands as lynch pin to the system: it is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence…

(L. Mulvey, 1975, Pg.1)

We can trace the origins of phallic worship, and symbolism within the traditions, artwork and festivities of Ancient Folklore. Our attachment to phallic imagery is so vastly persistent that it is practically overlooked; one can easily interpret the constructed landscape of architecture and warfare as a modern nod to monumental and phallocentric ideals. It is thought-provoking to look at ‘Villa dei Misteri’ (The Villa of the Mysteries) as an example of the male gaze. These preserved artworks of an ancient Roman Villa (400 metres northwest of Pompeii, southern Italy) show women, who are eroticised for what they represent – which is the gift of harbouring life. Interestingly, Bice Benvenuto explains in her book about the site - ‘the analytical unveiling initiates the many, those who want to carry on living to make sense of death which life entails.’

In this era - patriarchy is reaffirmed within the spectacle, where this objectification is deployed from the ‘elevated’ position of the male gaze creating an imbalance within the power that the photographed subject inhabits in comparison to the photographer, this has an effect on the viewer, the appearance of women and their value are bound together. As photographers, ‘powerful white men’ use their lenses to focus on ‘credibility’ and ‘recognition’ within what is deemed to be desirable, through access to regulated means of production and distribution, which inevitably, has an effect on popular culture and our collective subconscious relation to gender from a young age.

Bearing this in mind, photography from a feminist perspective is limited in its immediacy, but it is undeniably crucial in the way that it broadens the possibility for empathy towards people from different walks of life. Feminists are subversive rather than complacent within their motivations, representation is expanded rather than focused on a singular aspect of femininity, which is the politically airbrushed – Comparatively, the feminist gaze is attracted to the ‘imperfections’ that make us all human, along with the aspects of life that tend to be overlooked, and genuine connections. Empowering photography is collaborative as if one looks closely - it allows the viewer to make their own mind up about a person for who they truly are, as well as the photographer. Photography executed from a feminist perspective is progressive due to the symbolic deconstruction of the male gaze; this exploration of new possibilities can be exposed within visual language successfully. When a woman is the bearer of her own image, she has the opportunity to transcend the confines of desiring to be deemed simply as ‘the object of desire’ or ‘lack’ as they can generate a deeper meaning within the capture of their aura.

Benvenuto, B. (1994). Concerning the rites of psychoanalysis or The villa of the mysteries. New York: Routledge.

Butler, J, 2007. Gender Trouble. 2nd ed. United Kingdom: Routledge

Debord, G, 1967. Society of the Spectacle. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Rebel Press

Mulvey, L. 1989, Visual and other pleasures. 5th ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Professor Paul Fry - Jacques Lacan in Theory. - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lkAXsR5WINc&t=1716s