week 7 The Oppositional gaze

The essay, “The oppositional Gaze: black Female Spectators.” By Bell Hooks is the discussion of black females and the relation to black and white representations in movies. Hooks argues in the essay that we have an oppositional gaze. This oppositional gaze according to Hooks is the idea that black women must have the desire to correct or challenge the stereotypes of black women in movies. She argues that despite a long history of oppression on screens and in real life, black people had the right to look, observe, gaze. She also explains in this article how the power of looking had set this sense of resistance for black people. How it is meant to be “confrontational, a gesture of resistance, a challenge of authority.” This essay focuses on the days of slavery when there was a hard sense of control from white males to blacks and how they would look at their masters. It is this this gaze that is used in parenting, to control how their kids act. In many ways I understand that look that this essay refers to from parents. I am sure that everyone knows that look you get from a family member where you know to just be quiet. In the essay Hooks says the gaze, “has been and is the site of resistance for colonized black people globally… one learns to look a certain way in order to resist.” Later in this essay there is a segment where Hooks explains that there is this stigma that to be desired you had to be white. To pull from the last reading about visual pleasure in cinema, I found this interesting to think about. There is a standing in the last article where the desire to look at women is only for visual pleasure. I don’t remember exactly if the author ever stated how women were viewed in all races. So, to read this essay done by Hooks has me thinking at what point does a look, or gaze become something different toward someone in cinema? There is a moment in the essay where Hooks states, “we are afraid to talk about ourselves as spectators because we have been abused by ‘the gaze.’” This was said by a black woman in her twenties, and the fact that racism still exits in our society is saddening. I understand that this essay was written in 1992, but that still is not that long ago. Racism in general is very much still a problem in our society to this day. I believe that racism is something that is taught. It takes each of us to change that moving forward.

Comments

  1. India BeachOctober 8, 2021 at 9:44 AM

    Brenden, your writing this week has some good points in it. I like how you discussed the parental gaze to children. Some things to work on are your grammar. Set up a Grammarly.com account and paste this into there to get reviewed. There are some misplaced punctuation and repeated words. Also, make sure you type a bit more. You only have 440 words. Which artwork do you plan to include in your summary?

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    Replies
    1. Bvigil7October 10, 2021 at 9:07 PM

      I know I have struggled with grammar when it comes to writing. I will use that in the future, and apologies I thought my image got included. In my preview it shows my image.

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  2. Unhanged AmbitionsOctober 8, 2021 at 8:21 PM

    You ask an intriguing question regarding how gaze affects women of all races. As a black woman, Bell Hooks is writing with regard to how the white male gaze effects black people especially women. As this lens would be the one that Bell Hooks had the most familiarity to look through. That question does have deeper implications depending on the race of the woman, and will vary as such.

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