Okay, I totally got into this flick before I realized it wasn’t from the 50s, so whatever. This is one of those really bad, but totally awesome to watch “scary” flicks about zombies. There’s a ludicrous attempt at a plot and there are more stereotypes in this film than you could shake a stick at. Watching this form our cultural moment, the most frightening thing is how the men treat the women in this film. That’s why I would like to talk about The Male Gaze.
For Lacan, the GAZE is when we become aware that we are actually an object in the world, or that one can be seen by others, thus losing some autonomy. Foucault explored the Medical Gaze and in Discipline and Punish, he talked about the Gaze used in incarceration, in surveillance. It also creates a power structure in education. How many times has a teacher quieted an entire room with just a look?!
In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Laura Mulvey suggested that the reason women were so objectified in film was because men held the cameras, thus playing into male voyeurism and scopophilia. This then leads to an asymmetry of power between the male and female. It places the audience in the camp of the male while females become objects for male pleasure.
We definitely see that in I Eat Your Skin. From the opening shot with the exotic female natives erotically dancing as the camera basks over their bodies, to a scene where the “hero” voyeuristically watches a female swimming (which is OK because they are both white), then we see a black man Zombie watching her. That’s when the white guy snaps into action as heroic savior of the female, only she swims away from him too. Wise girl.
According to Mulvey, the really messed up part is that the female gaze is exactly the same as the male gaze, in other words, females see themselves through the eyes of men! Women who accept the male gaze are simply seen as conforming to society, and if they accept the male gaze it’s tantamount to them being exhibitionists. If a female adopts the Male Gaze, it simply seen as just that, a female adopting the Male gaze, not a female exhibiting feminine power equal to that of men.
All good and interesting stuff you should check out. Click HERE to read
“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”.
“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”.
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