Culture Analysis Research Paper

The entrapment of ‘male gaze’ and consumerist culture in

Bangladeshi visual commercials

Course Title: Cultural Studies and Practices

Course Code: LCS 6205

Submitted to- Submitted by-

Mohammad Kasifur Rahman Afra Murtoza.

Associate Professor, ID: M190102825

Dept. Of English, 9th Batch.

Jagannath University.

Deadline of submission: 12th December, 2020.

Commercials are routinely ventilating notable shots where women are being objectified and

the camera tread the boards as the men’s eyes, centralizing over the female body parts (i.e.

butts, curves, legs) of the women and producing women seem like passive objects.

Advertisements are such ocular agency of circus of bodies and the illusion with flaunting

body is another promotion of the idea of using the human body as the gaze. In accordance

with Mulvey, camera’s look is discovered in order to create a convincing world. In addition,

advertisements are made for the projection of the repressed desire on the performer, where

women act as a signifier for the men. Therefore, women act as an image whereas men are the

bearer of the look. The result is that the advertisements focus on phallocentrism, they focus

on entertaining the male sexual appetite through objectifying women. The paper is going to

explore and explain how the entrapment of ‘male gaze’ has become inevitable in these

commercials.

Laura Mulvey used psychoanalysis to portray how the codification of the erotic into the

language of the dominant patriarchal order in main stream film goes unchallenged, which we

also witness in visualized commercials. In the commercials, it had been solely through these

codes that the alienated subject torn in his unreal memory by a way of loss, by the phobia of

potential lack in phantasy, came near to finding a glimpse of satisfaction through its formal

beauty and its play on his own formative obsessions (Mulvey 286). For Mulvey, ‘patriarchy’

and ‘phallocentrism in all its manifestations’ depends upon the image of the ‘castrated

woman’ to give order and meaning to its world: ‘Woman’s need is subjected to her image as

bearer of the harm wound, she will be able to exist solely in respect to castration and can’t

transcend it’ (287). The woman’s lack of a phallus provides aiming to the man’s possession

of such, and also the power and standing it brings. This process is both displayed and

reinforced in the commercials. In Bangladeshi commercials like ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’, the

castrated woman is being presented to the audience to satisfy the male gaze. The dominancy

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of ‘patriarchy’ is visible in this commercial along with the satisfaction of the phallus by

giving it pleasure. It was really not necessary to expose women like this in the commercial of

mustard oil.

Cinema, according to Mulvey, there are two forms of pleasure: ‘Scopophilia’, the erotic,

voyeuristic pleasure of subjecting others to a managing and bizarre gaze and that is correlated

with the ‘libido’; and the ‘narcissistic’ pleasure of spotting with the male protagonist or the

camera’s point of view which Mulvey connects with the ‘mirror phase’ of Jaques Lacan’s

‘maniac psychology’: the second when the toddler puzzles himself on his own mirroring,

thereby establishing his ‘ego’. Freud associated scopophilia with taking other people as

objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze (291). The first, scopophilic, arises

from pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight. The

second, developed through narcissism and the constitution of the ego, comes from

identification with the image seen (290-291). Mulvey’s theory takes masculinity as

‘normative’ in that the feminine as is defined in terms ‘deviation’ from the masculine (hence

‘lack’, ‘absence’ and ‘otherness’) (297); it is directly building the relation with Beauvoir and

Lacan’s theory about ‘the subject’ and ‘the other’. The female body lasts for the enjoyment of

the ‘male gaze’. The erotic basis for pleasure is looking at another person as object. However,

since the female form has no phallus, it is recognized with the ‘warning’ of castration and the

observer employs to either the sadistic, voyeuristic pleasure in the spectacle of the

punishment of women, the conveyors of guilt (who, being ‘castrated’, must have done

something to deserve it) or denial of the warning of castration through ‘fetishism’. Overall,

we can state that the whole essay of Mulvey is like a parody of joyless feminism. The object

or the castrated women in the Bangladeshi commercial ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’ is having no

pleasure rather it is satisfying the male gaze. The focus of the camera is on the female body

rather than the mustard oil. For which the commercial is becoming popular and the company

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is becoming profitable. In this commercial masculinity is given the utmost priority whereas

the femininity is suppressed because of the focus of the camera.

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active

(male body) and passive (female body). Woman holds the look, plays to and signifies male

desires (291). Again when woman performs within the narrative, the gaze of the spectator and

that of the male characters in the commercials are neatly combined without breaking

narrative verisimilitude (292). For a while, the sexual impact of the performing woman takes

the commercial into a no man’s land outside its own time and space (292). Thus a woman as

icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men, the active controllers of the look, always

threatens to evoke the anxiety it originally signified (294). The image of a woman as

(passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man takes that argument a step further into the

structure of representation, adding a further layer demanded by the ideology of the patriarchal

order as it is worked out in its favourite cinematic form- illusionistic narrative film (297).

Woman is performing something (i.e. music, dance) but man’s eyes are somewhere else

focusing over the female body parts (i.e. butts, curves, legs) of that woman (293). Moreover,

Mulvey asserts that Hollywood narrative films use women in order to provide a pleasurable

visual experience for men (293-295). In the commercial of ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’, the female

body is passive and her body parts are satisfying the active male audience who gets pleasure

by visualizing the passive female body. The focus of the camera makes the woman passive

and the male active which is highly interconnected to Mulvey’s theory.

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir illustrated men as the ‘subject’ and also as the

‘absolute’ where women are the ‘other’ (Beauvoir). She also added that the ‘Biological

need’- the sexual desire and the desire for posterity (similar as commercials) - which makes

the male body (the subject) dependent on the female one (the other), has not liberated the

woman socially (9). Generally, the woman discovers herself as the ‘inessential’ and never

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turns into the ‘essential’, it is because she does not bring this transformation of herself (8).

Commercials are made for the projection of the repressed desire on the performer, where the

other acts as a signifier for the subject. In one sense, we can illustrate the ‘other’ as the

passive and the ‘subject’ as the active in commercials. Beauvoir in her The Second Sex,

compounded with Hegel that a fundamental hostility to any other consciousness is found in

consciousness itself. Therefore, the subject posits itself only in opposition; it asserts itself as

the essential and sets up the other as inessential, as the object (7). In the commercial of

‘Suresh Mustard Oil’, the audience or the man is the absolute who enjoys the performance of

the female character which is considered as the other. The female body in that commercial is

the inessential object which serves the essential male subject. Even as the inessential, the

female doesn’t even try to be an essential in the commercial.

In accordance with Lacanian philosophy, ‘the signifier represents the subject’; where subject

is the person (Lacan for Beginners 29). Again the subject is made of absent object (the other

or woman) which is missing and lost. ‘The other’ is another word for object. An object is any

item that creates or supports subjectivity or ‘the subject’ (78). Signifier or the subject both

constitute and divide us. We can relate Lacan with Beauvoir in the term of ‘the subject’ and

‘the other’. Woman holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire (Mulvey 291). In

Feminist Theory, Rose Marie Tong focused on Lacan and stated that women are virtually

excluded from the symbolic order. Women are repressed within the symbolic order, forced

into it unwillingly (143). Besides, the patriarchal ideology exaggerates biological differences

between men and women making certain that men always have the dominant role and women

have the subordinate or feminine role (50-90). The term ‘male gaze’ expounds the theory

where the camera acts as the eye, making the men active and the women passive. The

distinction between the passive women and the active men are also manifested in the

structure of the commercials. The commercials revolved around a dominant male figure with

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which a viewer identifies himself. This identification is similar to Lacan’s mirror stage.

Jacques Lacan describes the mirror stage that takes place during childhood when an infant

explores its genitalia with curiosity thus subjecting itself as an object and its voyeuristic

activities to know the private and of the primal instinct (Mulvey 297-298). We observe its

continuation in the commercial like ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’. The focus of the camera is on the

female body which makes her signified of the signifier male audience. Patriarchy makes the

woman signified for the signifier male by making her the object of pleasure. Unwillingly they

are satisfying the male gaze by making her nothing but a mean of pleasure.

Susan Bordo in her Beauty (Re) Discovers The Male Body envisioned that a female character

is provoked into erotic consciousness whether she wish or not. Women in commercials and

films thereby need no plot excuse to indicate off their numerous body elements in ads,

proudly, shyly, or seductively; it’s the ‘business’ of all of us to be beautiful whether we are

actresses, politicians, homemakers, teachers or rock-stars (Beauty (Re) Discovers the Male

Body 322). A beautiful woman today may be depicted puffing away on a cigar, getting in

touch with her masculine side (322). However, in expression she is still a seductress, gazing

through long-lashed lids into the eyes of an imagined viewer (322). Deborah Blum reports,

citing studies of men’s responses to pictures of naked women, that testosterone is wired for

visual response (300). Beauvoir and Sartre suggest- men and women are socially sanctioned

to deal with the gaze of the ‘other’ in different ways (303). Women learn to anticipate, even

play to the sexualizing gaze, trying to become what will please, captivate, turn shame into

pride (303). John Berger discovered masculinity and femininity, crystallized in a visual ‘rule’

of both classical painting and commercial advertisements: ‘men act and women appear’: The

women, seems well aware and well pleased that her legs have caught the attention of the men

gaping at her (321). A woman’s appearance, Berger argued, has been socially determined to

be ‘of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life’ (321).

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Even walking on a city street, headed for their high powered executive jobs, woman exist to

be seen, and they know it- a notion communicated by the constant tropes of female

narcissism: women shown preening, looking at mirrors, stroking their own bodies, exhibiting

themselves for an assumed spectator, asking to be admired for their beauty (321). In the

commercial of ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’, the woman is made to express herself seductively, to be

noticed by the male audience so that they appreciate her beauty and body unknowingly

making her an object and submitting her to the male audience. Nowadays even if a woman is

trying to express her masculinity, however she can’t do it because she bound to look beautiful

and seductive.

According to Adorno and Horkheimer, in The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass

Deception, culture industry is a main phenomenon of late capitalism, one which encompasses

all products and form of light entertainment- from Hollywood films to elevator music. All

these forms of popular culture are designed to satisfy the growing needs of mass capitalistic

consumers for entertainment (Theodor W. Adorno 165-175). As usual the commercials like

‘Carl Jr.’ and ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’, according to the culture of each region are designed to

satisfy the male gaze throughout visual pleasures. Media always proves to be an omnipresent

in the nature; thus the sign they provide to the society via different channels, especially about

the image of women, engulfs much more importance (Bardwick). Myriad numbers of

research studies over the topic of women objectification have been conducted over the years

to explore the women objectification in media and the majority of them expose the stable

dominance of gender stereotype in media, with a small difference through the years (18-23).

Both the commercials of ‘Carl Jr.’ and ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’, unnecessarily over exposed

female body is visualized which is in fact inviting male gaze, therefore promoting

investigation. But difference lies in the picture quality and technology. According to Cynthia

Carter and Linda Steiner, ‘Media and advertisement agencies have not left even a single

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place. The biggest cause behind the objectification is using women as a tool for sexual

arousal and interests, which leads their business at high price’ (Cynthia Carter). Eventually,

all products (i.e. visual commercials, posters) of the culture industry are designed for profit

(Theodor W. Adorno 165-175). This means that every work of art, commercials or visual

advertisements are turned into a consumer product and is shaped by the logic of capitalist

rationality (i.e. whatever sells best). In Postmodernism and Consumer Society, Fredric

Jameson outlines a few of the major traits of postmodernism; which is a reaction against high

modernism, a form of expression which found vulgar and irreverent by the preceding

generation (Jameson). He illustrated the term ‘Pastiche’ which reflects postmodernism and

our current social atmosphere by examining ‘death of the subject’ (272). Throughout

Jameson’s theory and definition about ‘pastiche’ it is quite clear to us that the ‘death of the

subject’ is indicating the woman of our culture who is presented for visual pleasure only.

There is no existence of the female character except her body parts to visualize in the

commercials like ‘Suresh Mustard Oil’ and ‘Carl Jr.’. The initial study on gender perform

portrayals in TV shows, realize that women (compared to men) resembles more repeatedly as

home certain, as housewives, as sex objects, physically beautiful and minor to men, in media

(Goffman). The commercial of ‘Carl Jr.’ seems to be appealing whereas the commercial of

‘Suresh Mustard Oil’ seems to be vulgar and averting. Because the perspective of the middle

class educated consumer is different along with the picture quality and technology.

For the last few decades, the television and social media took control over the house. For

promoting and branding any products commercials, posters and art effect are becoming

popular simultaneously. People are unconsciously being attracted to the commercials of the

products for perfect skin without wrinkles, smooth legs without hair, foods with erotic poses,

small waist seductively for the sake of men which arouse the desires to buy the product.

When we compare an U.S. commercial and Bangladeshi commercial, though they project the

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same male gaze their reception are different which shows the cultural difference between the

audiences. Besides, advertisements are such ophthalmic agency of spectacle of bodies and the

illusion with flaunting body is another aid of the idea of using the human body as the gaze. In

addition, commercials are made for the projection of the repressed desire on the performer,

where women act as a signifier for the men. Similarly, in the commercial of ‘Suresh Mustard

Oil’, the female body is playing the role as a signifier to the male according to Mulvey’s

theory and Lacanian psychology. Therefore, women act as an image whereas men are the

conveyor of the look. In broad sense, the entrapment of ‘male gaze’ has become unavoidable

in commercials.

The End

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