CNN: Sadly, The "Male Gaze" Is Back, and Heterosexual Men Are Attracted to Attractive Women Once More

Colin Duffy @TheRightDuff

Oct 13

Leftism, at its core, is nothing more than deeply internalized jealousy of people who are more traditionally attractive, socially competent, physically capable, or financially productive.

Get ready to hear some Home Truths you haven't heard every single day from the debut of Ally McBeal.

This summer, I got cultural whiplash.

As a child of the '90s and early 2000s, I grew up with my mother's and grandmother's generations' fight for legal and workplace equality helping shed social misogyny.

In the past decade in particular, I saw the evidence of progress in my media diet. The movies, shows, books and advertisements I consumed were increasingly giving women a seat at the table. Heroin chic fell away, and body positivity entered the fashion world.

Those are the only two options: Heroin chic (which, by the way, has not been a trend since the mid-nineties, and was barely a trend even then) or "body positivity," meaning the celebration of morbidly obese women (and never obese men or even short men).

Stories about a woman stealing your man were traded for celebration of the "girl's girl" who resisted the competition for men's attention.

Yes we know. Hollywood has avoided romance -- I mean, heterosexual romance -- for fifteen years due to the demands of feminists/political lesbians who insist that no woman should ever fall in love with a man.

And when my husband and I got married earlier this year, our vision of what our life could be included wide-ranging possibilities, influenced in part by the movies and shows we grew up with. We saw, read and listened to stories of involved fathers, successful mothers and well-matched partners who supported one another.

It seemed like women were taking a deeper breath without such heavy cultural restrictions.

I have a sneaking suspicion that her "wide-ranging possibilities" are actually an extremely narrow range of woke-approved possibilities.

From women fighting to end child marriage in Africa to women demanding equal pay, to women teaching other women to love their bodies regardless of shape, color or size, women are empowering women all over the world.

There it is: the "wide-ranging possibilities." Current Year Netflix.

Then there was a shift.

Enter the heroes -- Sydney Sweeney's calcium cannons.

Was it around the 2024 presidential election? Or since the overturn of Roe v. Wade? Maybe when men's rights activists pushed back against #MeToo? Whatever the catalyst, a change in the political environment seemed to connect with a social change that brought back narrow, and at times constrictive, ideas of womanhood depicted in media.

She claims this is a "constrictive" vision, when it fact it is simply allowing "wide-ranging possibilities" that she and her hysterical neurotic lunatic ideologues made forbidden for fifteen years.

The recent rise of weight loss medications coincided with social media influencers sharing ways to get smaller and no longer celebrating bodies of all sizes.

Advertisements followed suit, making men's desire once again a dominating factor in how stories are told, and how women are portrayed.

How had these discarded ideas made their way back into circulation? Didn't we all agree we were through with them?

LOL. No we didn't. You just #cancelled pretty women without asking the guys about it or the conventionally-attractive women that you shamed out of the public square.

The culprit, I have learned, is the male gaze.

The problem is always the male gays.

And the female gays are even worse.

It was always there, but now it has stepped back into the spotlight.

The male gaze came roaring back this summer.

American Eagle ---- whose partner brand Aerie has been known for marketing underwear to women with imagery that celebrated stretch marks, cellulite and a range of body sizes -- ran a controversial ad campaign starting in July. The ads sell jeans to women featuring actor Sydney Sweeney, who many men see as a sex symbol, insinuating the clothing would make men find them more attractive.

The horror of selling clothing with the suggestion that you might look better in a particular cut of dress!

...

"Most typically, the male gaze is about representing women in media solely to satisfy heterosexual men," said Dr. Linda Tuncay Zayer, professor of marketing and John F. Smith, Jr. Chair in Business Administration at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University Chicago.

In movies and entertainment watched primarily by men, then yes, I think such fare should "satisfy" men by pleasing them. I know that the idea that any man in the world might take pleasure in anything is toxic and horrifying to you.

You left-wing lunatic bitches and stuff your crap with all the 300 pound diabetic amputees that you like. (Sorry, female Morons, I've got to look out for the lads first and foremost.)

If you are observing women in movies, TV, fashion, social media and marketing and they don't feel as fully materialized as their male counterparts, that is the male gaze.

"The woman's value is reduced in so far as existing for pleasure or basically an object," Zayer said.

It's Bond girls. And a long, lingering shot panning up a woman's body in an advertisement for soda. It's when an action movie accessory is running through explosions in tiny shorts and flowing curled hair before collapsing helplessly in the hero's arms. And a social media star making a recipe while all dolled up and explaining her steps in a soft, sultry voice.

What is amazing about this piece is that it's so Basic Bitch. She is explaining to us the concept of "the male gaze" in the Year of Our Lord 2025. We already heard all of this absurd anti-human bullshit in 1998.

But this world-beater imagines she's breaking new ground here.

I like how they always claim that James Bond girls are just for "the male gaze" and have no agency. It's such an empty-headed cliched trope. What's the last James Bond movie these bimbos actually watched?

OUT: I Support the Current Thing

IN: I support the 1995 Thing

The male gaze has always been around -- art in the eye of the male beholder -- but the term came into modern existence as a feminist theory coined by film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975.

Yes, so why are you telling us about it fifty years later?

Her next article will be about the Miracle Fastener: Velcro.

Although it started as a lens through which to view film, Mulvey specifically calling out Marilyn Monroe's appearance in "The River of No Return" and movie director Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window," it has expanded to encompass cultural perspectives that keep men's stories, experiences and interest as the societal priority and treat women as objects rather than active participants.

In entertainment primarily consumed by men, yes, men will be the most important characters, the stories will be appealing to men, and the POV will reflect men's assumptions.

Whose assumptions should they reflect? Lunatic feminists?

You have your bullshit chick flick nonsense where the female characters are the heroes and the male lead is merely the object of desire to be won. No one bothers you about that.

But you are determined to Colonize Men's Spaces.

The male gaze includes stories told about women in relation to a male character (think wife, daughter, victim) and media in which the camera angles and visual storytelling make the audience feel like they are viewing the women from a heterosexual male's perspective, Zayer added.

In a James Bond movie?! How awful for you.

It may even be hard to recognize when media is coming from the male gaze because it is so pervasive, Zayer said. "We're kind of a goldfish in the water where this is part of our culture," she added.

As you try to identify it, Zayer stresses the male gaze is not just about the way something looks -- it's about power. And media matters.

Have you noticed that this world-beater has located and interviewed one single "expert"?

And here's her preference: All movies and TV shows and advertisements should be directed by the female gaze.

The dominance of the male gaze hasn't gone unchecked. Storytellers have been presenting alternative ways of viewing women for many years.

Often when women are shown as sexy or sexual on screen, it is a performance for men and doesn't include their own search for pleasure or complex storylines. On the other hand, there is the female gaze, with shows and movies like "Bridgerton" and "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" demonstrating how women can be sexual without being objectified.

Mothers and daughters weren't accessories to the men in their lives when Greta Gerwig joined the ranks of the few female Academy Award-nominated directors -- for the 2017 film, "Lady Bird." The film's focus on the mother-daughter relationship helped audiences explore coming of age and the experience of womanhood.

Related article

Opinion: The female gaze is taking over page and screen, and it is hot

I just wanted to include that link for a related article. It gives the game away. Equality is not sought -- domination is the goal.

...

Take the Bechdel test, coined by cartoonist and graphic novelist Alison Bechdel in a comic strip. To pass it, a book, film or show must have at least two women; they must talk to each other, and about something other than a man. Failing the test is a good sign that media is part of the male gaze ---- and you can probably think of plenty that can't check any of those boxes.

Oh wow, she's talking about the Bechdel test.

She should write about her life story. That would make for a compelling article. Imagine being the first woman on your block to have AOL and the spending three months straight reading articles on Jezebel and the Mary Sue and then getting flash-frozen in Cold Fusion mishap (just like in that Keanu Reeves science-fiction movie that's currently in theaters) and not being revived and woken up until thirty years later in 2025.

Whereupon you send an "e-Mail" (that is short for "electronic mail" ) through the "World Wide Web" to the new cable news channel CNN and ask them if they would like an explanation of your Vintage Windows 95 hot-takes on feminist media criticism.

Meanwhile, as heterosexual men are shamed to death for noticing that attractive women are attractive, left-wing femcel coomers are flicking their beans to "romantasy" rape-fantasies about being forced to... jerk off giant Minotaurs on a "Milking Farm."

This critic notices that most of the popular "women's literature" today is just straight-up bestiality porn, and when she points that out, she's accused of "internalized misogyny."

posted by Ace at 04:17 PM

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