The Voyeuristic Gaze

Because of it’s nature of appearing as though it is a fragment of a whole, in addition to the constantly present gaze of the photographer, photography is the perfect medium in which to perpetuate the hegemonic concepts that society holds on gender and gender roles, as well as the female body. Photography serves to emphasize the “voyeuristic gaze” in that the gaze of the photographer is unavoidable and easily picked up on. When the gaze is emphasized in a picture of the female body, she is demoted to a passive object, meant only for the viewer’s pleasure. The “cut” nature of a photograph further serves to objectify a pictured female body in that she is visually reduced to the sum of her parts. The advertisement photographer often chooses to only represent a piece of the woman- her identity as a person is no longer important.

The ways in which women are represented in advertisement photography reflects constructs already dominant in society, but unfortunately, it also perpetuates them. Women are presented with these images along with the idea that this is what a properly feminine woman “should” look like. The images the media presents us with are artificially constructed, and impossible to replicate in real life. It seems to be widespread knowledge that the images of the media are fake, yet we all continue to strive for this impossible standard. The creators of these images know how to use the connotation of the image to trick the viewer into believing that to look the way these digitally altered models look is not only possible, but necessary in order to be well-liked, happy, and successful. It sickens me to think that these masterminds create ads to knowingly manipulate women with low self-confidence and even go so far as to promote eating disorders. Clearly, when put in the wrong hands, photography can be a deadly weapon.