I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, and I certainly won't be the last. Anyone with a decent education in art history (this is an assumption of course because I feel that I have a decent education in art history, despite the heroic attempts of massively overqualified mentors) has read John Berger's "Ways of Seeing," and is probably getting where I'm going with this already. If you haven't or aren't, let me encourage you to read Berger before you waste your time with my crackpot theories. The book changed my entire perception of art, gender, sexuality and the constructs in which they operate. If you aren't sold yet, it is a fairly easy read, written for the most part in very accessible language, and will add points to your IQ simply by sitting magnificaently on a bookshelf, or lying next you on your beach towel. Art geeks like myself will want to sleep with you. I promise.
The premise of the book in ten words or less is roughly this: Men look. At women (as sex objects). For an encore it goes on to cite a great many works of art as expensive pornography, notes the absence of a socially permissible two-way street version of this phenomena, and decides (quite correctly I think) that we need to clean the lens through which we view a great many "monuments" of art. The thing that hooked me was the presumption of a male viewer, because, and when you really step away and think about it, despite the fact that there has been a greater proliferation of objectified males in art in the last 200 years or so, it is still a very safe assumption that the viewer is still a man.
From this conclusion I extrapolate the following :
1. When and if the male nude is eroticized, we can assume the viewer belongs to one of two groups; Gay men or Narcissistic men. I think it's a fair assumption to assume that even pornography packaged up as if to present the appearance of being for women more likely than not finds itself in the hands of men.
2. {Preamble to an actual point} Women have fought very hard for equality in all aspects of life and society, they have become freer to express themselves, be assertive, and defy the stereotypical constructs of femininity as mothers, wives, friends, and colleagues. Think about the Donna Reed archetype of 50 years ago, cheerfully vacuuming the living room in a full face of makeup, pearls, and a sensible skirt from Bloomingdale's, all the while keeping an eye on the roast in the oven. Like it or not, compared to her grandmother, she was a bad ass liberated woman. One who was allowed to disagree with her husband, have opinions, vote, drive a car, own property, have a career etc. Ok, we all took that for granted even then, but think about how far women had come from a mere 100 years before. Just by virtue of existing, the Donna Reeds of the world kicked ass. By modern standards however they would be proud defenders of the status quo, err, the status quo of the 50's...who by virtue of existence today would be seen to set the feminist movement backward. The whole larger point of this spew is that women have come and incredibly long way in a very short time, historically speaking, and have much more liberty to decide exactly who they want to be, and how they wish to act and appear.
You've still got the marketing and entertainment industry pushing not only unrealistic but downright unattainable body image to today's women but, and here comes the {amble}..
As women have gained personal and political freedom in western culture, Men have reacted by placing such rigid constructs of masculinity upon themselves that I'm surprised we don't all walk around wearing chaps and dangling Marlboro's from the sides of our mouths.
More to come..
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