Daniel chandler – Notes on ‘The Gaze’

‘To gaze implies more than to look at’

‘Women look into the camera more than men’

‘Where the female model typically averts her eyes, expressing modesty, patience, and a lack of interest in anything else, the male model looks either off or up.’

‘American teenagers have chosen to be portrayed differently in their high-school yearbooks – the focus of their eyes has shifted from a straightforward, open look to a sideways glance resembling glamour poses in fashion magazines.’

‘Looking at someone using a camera (or looking at images thus produced) is clearly different from looking at the same person directly.’

‘The camera turns the depicted person into an object, distancing viewer and viewed.’

‘Viewing such recorded images gives the viewers gaze a voyeuristic dimension.’

‘Those who are culturally defined by the West as weak – women, children, people of colour, the poor, the tribal rather than the modern, those without technology – are more likely to face the camera, the more powerful to be represented looking elsewhere.’

‘Male pin-ups more often than not do not look at the viewer.’

‘Stereotypical notions of masculinity are strongly orientated towards the active.’

‘The male model feels bound to avoid the ‘femininity’ of being posed as the passive object of an active gaze.’

‘The amount of gaze can be related to status or dominance.’

‘The camera can reflect a ‘controlling gaze’’